NBA Draft Preview with Don Harris, MLB Storylines with Gene Watson, and Steve Spurrier's comments about Arch Manning

Get over the midweek hump with Craig Way and Cameron Parker. They preview the NBA Draft with Don Harris from WOAI, San Antonio. Gene Watson joins to talk about the latest MLB storylines, including Paul Skenes, Rafael Devers, and more. Plus, Craig and Cam address Steve Spurrier's comments about Arch Manning.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good Wednesday afternoon, So you thanks for joining us. Welcome
to the program here on sports Radio AM thirteen hundred
of the Zone.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
My name is Craig Way. Glad to have you with us.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And us, of course includes the producer of the program.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
That would be Cameron D.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Parker, the dean on the birth certificate normally stands for Dallas,
and that, of course, the home of his favorite pro
football team that he follows when the mood hits him.
Of course, it's not his favorite pro basketball team. His
favorite pro basketball team has won the NBA World Championship

(00:40):
just three days ago, the Oklahoma City Thunder. Now Cameron
was out of the office yesterday. I also happen to
know that the Thunder had their victory parade starting at
pay Comm Center and rolling downtown. So good afternoon, door.
Were you in OKC for the parade yesterday?

Speaker 3 (00:56):
I did not make it up to OKC last yesterday,
too much to do here.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Unfortunately, I had some friends that went up.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
So waiting to get back pictures in videos looks like
a real fun event. I mean, And here we are,
you know, a couple days later and it's time for
the NBA Draft. So the d stands for draft today
as we get ready for that. The Dallas Mavericks, of course,
the number one overall pick. I don't think there's any
surprise and what they're going to do. Spurs number two,
have a good fling about that, and then we're just

(01:23):
waiting to find out where does Trey Johnson, the former
Texas Longhorn end up going.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
We're excited for that. So good afternoon and.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Looking forward to what should be a pretty chaotic night.
According to all things we're hearing from Shams that we
might see a lot of other draft moves before the
draft or during the draft, a lot of teams making
moves to get out of the luxury tax in the
first and second apron and build their teams up.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, and toward that.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
In part I stress the word part part of one
of the mysteries about what a team might do in
the first round of the draft includes the San Antonio Spurs.
Now there appears to be no real mystery with what
they're going to do with the number two overall pick.
It looks like it's Dylan Harper, but they have the
number fourteen pick, and so there's a myriad of possibilities

(02:15):
and so to.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Help us kind of sort that out.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Coming up in the three o'clock hour, our good friend
Don Harris from kam Wewell and San Antonio and a
guy i've known. He's a fellow North Texas graduate and
we've been friends a long time, but he has been
on top of the Spurs and what's been going on,
and we'll ask him also with regard to the transition

(02:42):
with Mitch Johnson taking over as the head coach and
Pop becoming l hefe and moving into more of that
front office position. So we'll visit with Don Harris coming
up in the three o'clock hour. On the four o'clock hour,
we'll have another conversation with Gene Watson from the Chicago

(03:03):
White Sox front office. We'll visit and talk some baseball
with Gino. And you say, well, you guys had him
on a Friday. It's true, but there's a couple other
things that have pop up from that, so I want
to get his thoughts on a couple of things. And also,
this is the final day for me before vacation, and

(03:28):
after this afternoon show, Lynn and I'll be headed up
and east and northeast, not the northeastern part of the
United States, just kind of east northeast.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
We're going to North Carolina, the.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Home state, and we'll be on the coast for a
couple of weeks and then joining Cam and Harge at
SEC football media days, and we'll be doing that.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
And I didn't bring this up yesterday.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
It came out yesterday, but it was pretty busy with
some stuff that really matters and less about things like this.
But I was I was humored, if you will. I
found a little bit humorous and a little bit funny
the comments of Steve Spurry or the old ball coach,

(04:19):
had some comments about arch Banning. And I visited with
him when Florida came in to play Texas last November.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
He was down on.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
The field and was just kind of chatted up with
some fans and he was there as a guest of
the Florida Athletic Department and boosters as well, and seemed
pleasant enough when I visited with him, But he had
he had opined a certain opinion about just how good
arch Banning might be.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
So we'll get to that a little later on. We'll
do that.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Also, one thing we'll do we'll give away another opportunity
for you to win tickets to see Laney Wilson because
all you have to do really is remember the particular
word password and it always has to do at least

(05:16):
this week with Cameron Cameron Parker because the promotions department
at the radio station has a sense of humor, so
they were making sure that Cam was included in on
this with regard to was this because they did this
because of your recent promotion, which we're all excited about

(05:39):
with you you're now our broadcast assistant programming director.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
So I mean, was that part of.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
The why they were they just kind of giving you
the business, giving you the grief about this with all
these key words for the Laney Wilson ticket contest this week.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
No, I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
I think it's just because of my I wouldn't say clowning,
but joking because these keywords always are pretty funny to
me because always country tractor ghost, you know, just like,
what's what is this coming from? So I made a
comment to one of our one of our employees that
works in the promotions department, and he decided to have

(06:16):
a little joke, you know, be a little funny and uh,
name it, but my name in the in.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
The giveaways this week.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
But hey, whether it's Cameron or Ghost or Country or Tractor,
you still can win free tickets to Laney Wilson, who
is a fantastic country artist. So make sure you tune
in during the day's show to find out when you
can win a pair of tickets, because we we've been
given them out. I know last week we gave out
a ton of tickets at Jason al Dean and there's
been a lot of interest so far this week in

(06:43):
Laney as well.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, we'll do that.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
And by the way, if you if you have it
already made a thirteen hundred zone one of your presets,
you can certainly do that their first and foremost and
this this also goes into winning HI It's to game
or having an opportunity to be in the drawing to
win the tickets.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
That kind of stuff. You have to access us via
the iHeart Radio app. Really easy to do.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
It's it's free, it's easy if you don't already have
it downloaded on your smartphone, it's it's as simple as
just downloading the iHeartRadio app. It's free, it's easy to do,
and then once you have it downloaded, you do the search.
All you do in the little search.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
What is that? Is it a magnifying glass for the search?

Speaker 1 (07:29):
You know when we have the search windows for stuff,
and then what that is a little magnifying glass to
the icon for doing a search?

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Isn't that what that is? I think?

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Is that what it is? You just blew my mind, Craigs.
I never really even thought of the logo. I knew
what it looked like, but yeah, I guess that is
a magnifying glass.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, yeah, I just kind of wondered about that. But anyway,
people know what we're talking about. When you go to
the search, you search AM thirteen under the zone and
then it comes up, and then they're you can make
it the one of your presets. Make it real, real easy.
That's also the way that you would access it. To

(08:08):
access our talkback feature where you leave us a voice
message and give us the key word for the day
to try to be entered into the contest. We'll give
you more of that kind of information coming up, so
we'll we'll do some of that later on.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
We'll give you an opportunity.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
It's the best way, Craig, especially as we get in
the football season when you're trying to pull up a
lot of times, right you're going from place to place,
or if I'm leaving the same I want to pull
up the game quickly right right the app if you
have thirteen hundred or even kavet f M ninety eight
point one.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Is the preset.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
You load up the app and click on it and
immediately you have the game pulled up. So it's very
hand especially as we get closer and closer in the
football season, because hey, SEC Media Days a couple of
weeks away, and after that, you know, Texas football practice
starts in about two weeks from that, and then we're
you know, just like that, we're getting ready for Week
one a while State Columbus.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
So it's right around the corner.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, and uh, not only is it easy, that's going
to be the most direct way for you to earn
a copy of the brand new Dave Campbell's Texas Football
Magazine when it comes now. We had Greg Cheppard, of
the editor in chief of the magazine on yesterday and
he told everybody why it's a little later this year.

(09:25):
They wanted to have the most updated information following the
closing of the portal window for colleges, so they pushed
it back sending it to the printer by he said,
about two weeks. And so he mentioned yesterday, he said,
as we speak right now, it's rolling off there. It's

(09:46):
being printed, he said, But we don't even have a
finished copy here in the office yet, he said. We
don't win. Once those get in for those of you
who are subscribers to the magazine, they're going to mail
them out, he said, probably by the en this week,
so maybe by Friday to go out in the mail,
and maybe you get it in the first day or
two of July. Then it's going to be in your

(10:07):
favorite place to Bude always say, in the news stands.
And I asked, I asked Cole Dixon about this yesterday.
I said, you know, when the last time anybody saw
a news stand, right, unless you were in New York
or something, but or maybe somewhat in the airports, I guess.
But well, Cole spends all his time at Hayes City Store,
so that's true, and he was there the night before

(10:28):
he mentioned he was so anyway, but as it was
laid out by Greg, Jeopard will be in your places
like HB and Walmart and Martins and Noble, in all
the places where you've gotten it in the past, but
that's probably not going to happen until the second week

(10:49):
in July. Late first week and on into the second
week in July is when that'll happen. So anyway, that's
the situation there with that, and you're going to need
acce via the talkback feature to win a copy that
once we get our annual shipment of magazines to give away,
so we will do that. Coming up a reminder, coming

(11:10):
up in the three o'clock hour, we'll visit with Don
Harris from San Antonio to talk Spurs and the NBA
draft and what their direction may well be. However, I
wanted to jump into it ourselves with this and before
you can even really and I brought this up yesterday

(11:32):
before you can even get into the old thing about
before you know where you're going, you got to know
where you've been, that kind of thing, And that brings
to mind several scenarios that brought up with trades. But
before we even get to the trade cam, how about

(11:52):
Kyrie Irving yesterday declined the forty three million dollar player
option with the intent of signing a three year, one
hundred and nineteen million dollar contract to stay at Dallas Maverick.
I was I was a little surprised by that, really well,
I was surprised that he declined the option on that,
But then you know, if he if he if he

(12:15):
takes the player option the forty three million for one year,
he's basically collecting a paycheck without playing a minute for
most if not all, of the season, correct because of
the Achilles.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
So that kind of surprised me.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
But I guess there's some there's some future down and
he still does have another player option, I believe after
the second year.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
So I have your thoughts on that deal.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, this is a long term commitment for the Dallas
Mavericks and for Kyrie Irvy and kind of shows you
their faith in Kyrie's ability to rehab from that injury
and shows you that Kyrie has kind of found his
home in Dallas and wants to be able to team
up with Anthony Davis and Cooper Flag and this roster

(13:01):
to you know, compete for a championship under Nico Harrison
and Jason get I think a little bit of the
reasoning that Kyrie did decline the player option, obviously with
the unknown with his injury and who knows where the
market will be at after this season because we're you know,
with this new CBA, it makes it real tough for

(13:22):
teams to make moves, you know, being in the first
and second apron. And so this move does allow the
Mavericks to get out that second apron, which allowed them
to get this five point seven million dollar mid level exception,
which is you know what they're probably going to use
to target a point guard. So yesterday sell the names
like Dennis Schroeder or Chris Paul or D'Angelo Russell thrown around,

(13:46):
so that could be an option there to replace Kyrie
this season, pair him up with Cooper Flag and Anthony
Davis C which you got to see which maybe what
works with Cooper Flag what doesn't, and kind of gear
up for the twenty two, twenty six, twenty seventh season
when you believe you'll have Kyrie back, and you have
ad you know he'll be, you know, thirty three years old.

(14:07):
Kyrie will be close to that same age I believe.
So it's it's going to be a weird year for
Dallas here. But I mean, I can't imagine what it's
like being a Maverick fan celebrating tonight, but also you're
still grieving the loss of Luka Doncics, and you know
you're grieving Kyrie Irving being out for a year, But

(14:30):
this does lock up Kyrie for at least two seasons
beyond twenty twenty five and possibly three with that player option.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
And as they say up there, it's flag day today
in Dallas with the NBA Draft, So you can kind
of put beside, to put some of your grief beside yourself.
If you're a if you're a Maverick fan, and I am,
you can you can kind of set that aside and
don't worry about. How about the other deals that have

(14:59):
been made over the last couple of days. Let me
start We'll start it chronologically.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Now.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
We talked on Monday about the Kevin Durant deal, and
we visit with Natt Thomas, play by play voice of
the Houston Rockets, to talk about Durant to the Rockets
for Jalen Green, Dylan Brooks, the tenth pick in the
draft tonight, and then five second round picks, and without

(15:28):
saying basically that a second round pick is similar to
the doughnuts that I brought in this morning, you know,
into the office this morning. The similar I guess there's
just there's not nearly as much value placed on the
second round pick anymore. And most of the other deals
that I'm going to get to, there's a second round

(15:51):
pick in there, included in there on that. So it's
kind of looked at as a little bit of a
bar and a little bit of throwaway, when in fact,
really what we're talking about from the Phoenix perspective is
picking up the tenth overall pick in the draft and
picking up Chalen Green and Dylan Brooks.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
Second round picks are just like commodities, Craig, It's like air.
It's it's always around us. Some team always has a
second round pick.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Is it a non fungible token?

Speaker 3 (16:16):
And most of them, most of these teams, you feel
like they have seven of them that they're just wooling
the dish out. And you know, the reason why they're
throwing around so much now is because a lot of
teams don't have the cap, don't have the roster space
to field a second round pick, and a lot of
these teams have multiple second round picks. So that's why
we see them thrown out a lot, because even most

(16:36):
teams don't even have room for their first round draft pick.
They got to be able to make make roster budgets
and roster cuts. So it's always like in second round
draft picks are just commodities. It's just you know, it's
it's air there, it's always there, it's always around us.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
The other thing that that happened, and a lot of
it was basically overlooked at the time because it happened.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
The Suns Durant deal that Houston was coming up.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
But how about the Bucks picking up that player option
for Pat Conaton.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, Milwaukee, you know, trying to fuel this roster for
what could be you know, Jannie's last season in Milwaukee's
still trying to figure out what's going to happen there.
They're in a real weird spot because of course Damian Lillard,
you know, he went down with achilles injury, just like
Tatum and Tyree's Halliburton and Kyrie, so you you know,

(17:32):
we believe that Dame's going to be out for you know,
most of next season plus his age. Milwaukee's in a
real weird spot and I'm curious to see how they
attack draft night tonight. Will they be making any moves
at all? They be trying to build around Jannis. I mean,
obviously their goal is to keep Jannie in Milwaukee, and
he seems like the type of player that does want

(17:55):
to end his career in Milwaukee. But you know, at
a certain point, rag just the moves Milwaukee has has made,
they put themselves in in role tight salary cap binds
that this past season of course, made the trade for
Chris Middleton to ship him away.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
You know, they brought in Dame Lillard.

Speaker 5 (18:14):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Then the last season, uh interesting, a team that's in
the East and a weekend Eastern Conference where having Giannis,
you already put yourself in the conversation of being in
the Eastern Conference finals, and we just saw what Indiana
was able to do a miraculous run.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
You know.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Now Indiana without Tyreus Halliburton, Uh, Cleve of Boston without
Jason Tatum. Those are those are two teams that will
not be contending for a championship is next season. So
Milwaukee all of a sudden here, uh, their chances of
you know, returning to the finals kind of jumped a
little bit with all the injuries. So how do they
attack draft Knight? How do they attack the rest of
this offseason? My eyes definitely on the Milwaukee Bucks.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
You brought up Chris Middleton, the Wizards picked up his
player option for the coming thirty three million dollar player option.
And it was Shams Charania who is reporting that you
made a reference to Shams. The other day Matt Thomas
made it. Has he become really the Adam Schefter when.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
It comes to the NBA? Yeah, okay, all right.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Now, Also on that same day I found this, and
this was on Sunday, I found this interesting or Monday,
that the Celtics traded Drew Holliday to Portland for Anthony
Simons to future wait for it, second round picks, and
the deal would project to give Boston forty million dollars

(19:43):
in tax savings for the for the coming twenty twenty
five twenty twenty six season and bring the team to
eighteen million above that second apron for those who don't know.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, so Boston has made two huge cap cunning trades
this offseason. Mention Drew hall Day and now Chris stops
persing is yesterday, and this is kind of kind of
not kind of expected. Rather after the Jason Tatum injury,
I'm you know, what would have happened if the Celtics
were able to, you know, return to the NBA Finals
and win or lose. They just run it completely back,

(20:16):
and I think the injury that Tatum kind of pushed
Boston not into a rebuild mode, but into Okay, let's
take a step back here and let's cut down our
on the roster, because with their current roster from last season,
I mean, they were projected to have a salary cap
well well over the second Apron and so the move

(20:36):
of Drew Holiday and then we'll probably get into it
here with Chris dropped, Christops has cut down their salary
cap by about two hundred million dollars. Their projected salary
and luxury tap before June fifteenth was five hundred and
forty million dollars. Now five hundred and forty million dollars
includes all the fines from being in the second apron.

(20:59):
But because they were able to make the trades shipping
out Drew Holiday and shipping outs Porzingis, who had two
large contracts on the books, they dropped down below the
second apron and therefore avoiding all the fines. They're now
projected salary and luxury tax for twenty twenty five is
two hundred and eighty million dollars, So two hundred and

(21:20):
sixty million dollars have been saved this next season just
by trading Chris Stops and Drew Holiday.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
And I don't think they're done yet.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
There's still some other moves for them to be able
to make post these two trades, the cut down on
their roster. Even so, we heard rumors yesterday about possibly
shipping out Jaalen Brown.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
You know, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
I think Boston would be smart to keep Tatum and
keep Jalen Brown, keep that nucleus and get ready for
the twenty twenty seventh season.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
But I don't think Boston's is done yet.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
For those who didn't hear about the the specifics of
the trade, the Celtics, the Hawks, and the Nets three
team trade Porzingis a second round pick to Atlanta, Terrence
Man and Atlanta's number twenty two pick. They have two
picks in the first round for tonight's draft, going to

(22:08):
the Nets, who already have a couple, and then George
Niang and a second rounder to the Celtics. Interesting interesting
moves also with regard to the Nets, who continue to
stockpile not just draft picks, they stockpile number one draft picks.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
I think Boston or sorry Boston, I think Brooklyn has
five first round draft picks tonight, five which is ridiculous,
and they're not gonna be able to use all five.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
There is no way, There's no way, right, So.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
Is Brooklyn, you know, there are a team that's you know,
always been kind of linked to Giannis. So now do
they have these five picks and now become a little
bit more open to moving off some of their first
round picks. So they go to Milwaukee and say, hey, okay,
we'll give you, you know, three of our five first
round draft picks tonight, maybe number one next year, possibly

(22:55):
Cam Thomas or another player for Giannis. Does Milwaukee now
all was sudden become a little bit more intrigued. You know,
I don't know if this draft is as deep, you know,
with the picks Brooklyn has. Maybe at Brooklyn had the
number two or number three pick, they do the number
four pick or sorry, number eight picks.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Sorry, I believe they had the number eight pick.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
Maybe if they had, you know, a higher pick, Milwaukee
would be more intrigued by it. But five first round
draft picks, it is a lot, and you know, going
back to that Chris stops straight. It kind of just
shows you his trade value. You know, Terrence Man a
fine rotational player. I don't I don't think he's gonna
boost your chances of winning a championship. I don't know

(23:35):
if he would have played in the finals, if he
was on Indiana or OKC even in the in the
final four, but kind of shows you the health injury
of Chris STAPs, who you know, he's been in and
out of the lineup ever since he got to the league.
Obviously he won an NBA championship, but remember in that
finals he was not one hundred percent healthy. You know,
he came, he missed a couple of games, came back,

(23:57):
wasn't close to being healthy in it. And then this
past season and you know, whether it was you know, COVID,
long COVID, whatever it was, he obviously mono. He was
not right throughout the entire second half of the season.
Of course, was injured throughout the entire playoffs. You know,
missed a lot of big games in the playoffs, a
big reason why Boston, you know, was unable to defend

(24:20):
their title. That and of course Jason Tatum and a
myriad of other issues but you know, at twenty nine
years old, you know, you would think he would get more.
But that just kind of tells you where he's at,
what his trade value is.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
He just can't stay on the court. He can't stay healthy.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Now on the other side of this is if he
can stay healthy, all of a sudden, Craig, Atlanta, And
this goes back to the Pacers run, giving a lot
of teams in the Eastern Conference.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
A little bit more hope. Okay, they can do it.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
And now with Boston being down Tatum, with Indiana being
down Halliburton the East, you know, someone two teams have
to play in the Eastern Conference finals next season, Craigs,
two teams have to It's it's it has to happen.
So who will those two teams be? Atlanta all of
a sudden. Who So, by the way, was in the
conference finals three four years ago with Trey Young. Maybe
you know, they see these injuries, Craig, they see Indiana's

(25:07):
run and they think, okay, maybe you know, we're one
or two pieces away from all of a sudden being
in that spot as Indiana. So they go after Chris
Stops who you know, maybe he recovers, he can stay healthy. Obviously,
Trey Young is a fantastic player. And then the rise
last season of Jalen Johnson, who was a fantastic player

(25:31):
before his injury.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Now you're looking at this team.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
You know, Resa sche the first round draft pick from
last season, Dyson Daniels, Trey Young, Christops and Jalen Johnson,
got Kiris Laffert, you know, coming off the bench, all
of a sudden.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
They're a contender in the East. They could be.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
You could talk yourself, You could easily talk yourself into
the Atlanta Hawks.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
All right, there was one other deal, and we're gonna
get to it coming up. We do have inconceivable up next.
We'll get to that and we'll continue getting you ready
for the NBA drafted more and we'll continue on the
an hour of the program here on AM thirteen hundreds.
I'm glad to have you with us here on this
Wednesday afternoon. Craig Way alongside the producer Cameron Parker. The

(26:11):
coming up in just a few minutes, we're going to
talk Spurs basketball as it relates to the NBA Draft.
Don Harris from WAI and News for San Antonio, who
covers the Spurs extensively and knows those front office folks
very well will join us, So Don will be with
us coming up in a few minutes to talk about

(26:33):
the Spurs. In the four o'clock hour, Geene Watson from
the Chicago White Sox front office on the ever changing
world of the pitcher in Major League Baseball, and we'll
get some detailed thoughts from him on the Astros and
the Rangers as we approach the All Star break and
where those two teams are in terms of what they

(26:57):
need to do going forward to be content as we
get to the second half of the Major league season.
But I wanted to begin this hour with some football,
and I was tickled when I saw this, and our
fearless leader in programming in Houston, Brian Erickson, sent us

(27:17):
a story about it as well, and it was a
story that it originally I saw it a peer, I
think with on three they had it, and then of
course it's been all over the place as well, because

(27:38):
it involves arch banning, and it involves the University of Texas,
and it involves not only that, it involves yet more
questions about just how good arch banning might be, could be,
should be, all that kind of stuff. So Steve Spurrier,

(27:59):
the the old ball coach. It does a podcast now
and he he was talking about all the different teams
in the SEC, and he got to Texas and he
was talking about Texas and he was very complimentary and
talked about how you know they're going to be contender
and all this kind of stuff, and he loves what

(28:20):
Sark has done. But then he goes on and he
asked this question. He goes people picking Texas to win
the SEC and football they've got Arch Manning already winning
the Heisman too. And my question is, if he was
this good, how come they let quinn Ewers play all
the time? Last year he pointed toward yours ended up

(28:40):
as a seventh round draft pick. If Manning is projected
to be eventual first round pick, then why would Sark
choose to start Yours for two full seasons over Manning?
And I guess the best way to describe that is
to say, I think that the modern phraseology on this

(29:01):
caemus to say that's a weak take.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Because a.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Arch's development was going at the rate that Sark wanted
and that the family wanted. I can't emphasize that enough
for people who were got frustrated when Queen got hurt
last year? And then why didn't they stick with Arch?
That the planel along for Sark, for his entire offensive staff,

(29:32):
and really in his conversations with Arch, his work with
Arch and the conversations with the family as well, this
was the plan all along.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
And what is it?

Speaker 1 (29:43):
We heard from both Cooper Manning his dad and we
heard from Arch say in the off season, do we
like sitting around? No?

Speaker 2 (29:51):
No, not.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
But we also understood the plan and so they were
ready to go. So for somebody else. And this is
not an original take from Steve's or if you follow
on social media, there's a lot of people going, uh,
you know, why didn't why didn't he put him in
a ewing? Yours was a seventh round pick. Seventh round pick.
They keep coming back to the NFL, drave. They didn't

(30:12):
have anything to do in terms of NFL evaluation about
where he would be at the collegiate level. There's there's
no way that Texas reaches the final feign college football
if Quinn Ewers isn't the starting quarterback for the vast
majority of the season.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
No, without a doubt, And I you know, I point
back to the Georgia game, and you know, maybe it
wouldn't have mattered who was that quarterback for Texas in
the first meeting against Georgia at DKR when it felt like,
uh was it. Gileen Walker and mikeel Williams were in
the backfield every single play, but you know Art came
in and you know, looked a little rattled. So that
always kind of was my answer as to when people

(30:48):
would ask me, well, you know, if Arts was there Texas, No, no, no.
And for Steve Spurrier, you mentioned a week take, which
is great. I feel like, out of everyone who should
know and understand the decision making in the process that
sar can have made with Quinn and Arch, Steve Spurrier
should know that. You know, he was a fantastic ball coach.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Here and he trophy winner himself.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
It's not so black and white as to why Quinn
Yours started and why Arch didn't.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
It was. It goes beyond who has more talent.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
And if you asked Sark about it too, obviously he
felt like Texas had the best chance to win with
Quinn Yours. And I think also people forget about the
leadership that Quinn Yours had in that locker room and
all the players that looked up to him. Obviously, I
think Arch is going to command the locker room a
little bit different, has a much different personality. But the

(31:43):
players respected and looked up to Quinn like no other,
and that was a huge part. And I think we
would have seen not a fractured locker room, but I
think a lot of players would have began questioning Sark
if all of a sudden, Quinn, who was your guy?
In everything Sarks said alluded to in the media days
dating back to two years ago into last year, all

(32:05):
of a sudden, he's talking about how Quinn is the guy,
Quinn's the guy, and all of a sudden, Quinn's not
the guy. If you're a young man, you know, you're
on social media, you're on Twitter. You see what your
head coach is saying outside the locker room. All of
a sudden, he goes from y, Quinn's our guy to
you know, taking it away from him for no reason.
I mean, Texas was a play away from the National

(32:29):
championship two years ago. In this past season again a
play away from the National championship as well, And it
wasn't all on Quinn.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
You were so I don't.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
It's definitely a very weak take I think from from
Coach Spear and just you know, unfortunate and you know,
who knows. Maybe there's a little bit of a dig
there at some point, but we all know what gets
more popularity, what draws attention, Craig, and that's click bake takes,
And there's one right there for you.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, and and and and here's something else I think
comes to mind. Uh, when someone is doing a podcast
or a show, there is the need to make sure
there is uh, what's the best way to put engagement

(33:21):
content things like that some would say clickbait or whatever,
but even beyond just that, just something to have good
conversation about. And I also understand the what's the best
way to put it, in Jerry Jones' words, sensitivity, uh,
and sensitive to the those on the eastern side of

(33:46):
the conference having the let's say, the propensity to have
their hackles raised up a little bit more whenever superlatives
are a scribe to the University of Texas and mainly
a lot of fan base, especially Georgia. They have scoreboards,

(34:06):
so you know, twice last year, so they're going to
talk to but you know, Florida or Tennessee or something.
The other ones who either didn't beat Texas or didn't
play Texas whatever, they chime in with it as well.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
And I get it.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
That's all part of the fan experience, uh, doing that,
that sort of thing. So you kinda just you factor
all that in when when you read it. Take even
a guy who's won a national championship as a head coach,
who won a Heisman Trophy as a player, who has
the pedigree that you know, there's a there's there's a story,

(34:39):
uh that that goes. And it was our good friend
Eddie Gornon who told us his story because he had
been told this is that when the Florida job came
open one of the you know, more recent times. I
guess maybe it was when Dan Mullen got it. I
can't remember. And there apparently had been some interest in

(35:04):
coach Spurrier returning to Gainesville, returning to Florida, and and
then the word was sent to his intermediaries that could
he send us his resume, and Spurrier's response was say,
go walk out in the hallway and look in that
trophy case.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
That's my resume.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
So so you know, good Spurri or he's he's he's
always been entertaining if nothing else. You know, he's the
one that used to talk about when the runner up
of the SEC went to the Citrus Bowl in all
those years, Tennessee couldn't be Florida and he said, he
can't spell Citrus without ut in there. So he's he's
always had that kind of edge to him as a coach.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
That's just that's just ow yes. So there's there's a
part of that.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
Hey, you know, you and I did not get a
chance to talk about the commitment of Richard Wesley, uh
to to the Longhorns, and uh, that's a that's a big,
big recruit. You know, five star quarterbacks, they're not a
dime a dozen, but they perhaps draw a lot of
buzz at like Archbanding did or five star running backs.

(36:14):
And by the way, there's gonna be one of those
men announcing a decision tomorrow. But a five star edge
rusher like Richard Wesley, and not only that, a guy
who's from the West Coast. When you've got guys from
different parts of the country making making that kind of commitment,
that again, that's a guy from Los Angeles who had

(36:34):
been committed to Oregon. That's that's a huge get obviously
for Sark and for the program.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
This is a kid Richard Wessey.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
You know you just mentioned five star, two four seven
composite and the rankings reclassified from from twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Six foot five, two point fifty. If you've seen any
clips of the.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Way he moves, he does not look like he's two
hundred and fifty pounds.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
So he's drawn a lot of praise for for his.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
Ability what he can do in the football field. I mean,
he's an absolute freak of nature. He was committed to Oregon,
committed back I believe in in in June or maybe
a little bit earlier than that. Then de committed, ends up,
you know, coming to visit Texas I believe last week
actually was here, and then two days later decides to

(37:23):
commit to Texas.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
So a very impressive specimen.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
He's someone obviously you've seen what Texas been able to
do the defensive line the last couple of years. But
this this is a huge addition for Steve Sarkeesian, but
also a lot of people were worried about how will
Texas recruit without you know, Bo Davis, Bo Davis left
for for l s U, and so there was a

(37:47):
little bit of, you know, maybe a little bit of
concern Sar goes out hires Kenny Baker for the Miami Dolphins,
and Kenny Baker's on a fantastic job recruiting these last
two classes and going out and getting Richard Wesley is
more proof to the putting so a big get. Now,
of course, you know, I think most people now know
in that in the age of portal and nil, until

(38:09):
a player signs, until player's on campus, until he's wearing
a practice jersey, you know, he can end up going
anywhere else. But what Sark is doing in this twenty
twenty sixth class really shaping up. It's going to be
a very busy summer, as it usually is, you know,
things kind of slow, and then June and July all
of a sudden things really pick up.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, and toward that end as well, and you mentioned
the changes within the coaching staff, Chad Scott becoming the
running backs choice running backs coach with Shark Choice leaving
to join Dan Campbell's staff with the Detroit Lions. And
he's been working really, really hard and now Texas with
a chance to go after the savior Kroll, who's from Jackson, Alabama,

(38:54):
and he's going to make his announcement tomorrow on where
he is going to go, and there's plenty of there's
several different ones in the mix, including most likely Alabama,
but he does have Texas on his finalist list and
he'll make his announcement of ours. So we'll see how
all that works out, all right. Coming up next, we

(39:16):
shift back to the NBA and we'll talk Spurs basketball
with Don Harris from WAI in San Antonio and get
his thoughts from News Fort San Antonio, to get his
thoughts on the Spurs, the change in direction, what with
the retirement from coaching for Greg Popovich and Mitch Johnson

(39:38):
taking over there, and how that has shaped the vision
of this franchise and this organization, and in specific how
it relates to tonight's NBA draft. Remember, the Spurs have
two picks, the number two pick and the number fourteen pick.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
It is expected that.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
The Spurs almost certainly will go for Dylan Harper, the
Rutgers guard at the number two spot.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
What did they do with the number fourteen pick? Did
they trade it, did they hold it?

Speaker 1 (40:06):
What are their needs well, Don harrisil join us to
talk about all of that, and we'll continue right here
on this Wednesday afternoon on thirteen under the Zone.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
We're back.

Speaker 6 (40:23):
It's the Craig Way Show with Hall of Fame broadcaster
and voice of the Texas Longhearts Craig Way.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
If you don't recognize that fight song, it's understandable. It
may be the first time I've ever played it on
my show, You See Friends. That is the fight song
of mi alma mater, the University of North Texas. It's
the Mean Green and it's an original. As many things
from the brilliant music school. Among other things that the

(40:57):
University of North Texas is known for, it's also known
for branking out some pretty darn good sports broadcasters, and
our next guest fits right into that category. We're talking
about a guy who's an Emmy Award winning weekday sports
anchored now in his thirty fifth year. They're talking about
our good friend Don Harris from w a I and

(41:20):
News for San Antonio, who joins us now on the hotline.
Did that bring back some war memories or did it?
Was it even still recognizable to you?

Speaker 4 (41:29):
I recognized it right away, Craig and you know that.

Speaker 7 (41:35):
Let's give a cheer for North Texas State. Yeah, it
was the school when you and I were there, and.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
When they got to the middle bridge, when the fans
with Dada.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Would go in, blah blah blah, bump t bah blah blah,
bah blah blah blah. You n t s U Eagle
fight fight fight.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
They've had to change that to what you n T
eagles fight fight fight, right, even though they.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
Had to change a lot of things, but thankfully they
did not change the call letters of K.

Speaker 7 (42:05):
Into U to K something else that could have been
very not good.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Well, you remember, I know you're familiar with the story.
I was standing there when it happened. I was working
at krold at the time. And when the announcement came down,
and this is like nineteen eighty seven, I guess it was,
and I was already two years out of school. But
the announcement came down that the University of North Texas
was changing at North Texas State University was changing its
name to the University of North Texas. And the chancellor

(42:32):
was doctor Alfred Hurley, former Air Force colonel and everything
and a very distinguished man. And we all remember his
the way he was speak with this stately tone, and
he was taking questions about this and talking about the
changing and the labeling and the branding and all that
sort of stuff. And there was a young reporter there

(42:52):
from the North Texas Daily, the newspaper, and bless her heart,
I know it didn't even turn you know when he
talked about changing things from North Texas State to University
of North Texas and she just innocently wide ey'd asked
the question, does that mean you'll change the call letters
at the campus radio station? And he looked at her

(43:12):
and smiled and said, I don't think so, and that
and that's that's all that was said about that. When
you when you graduated, where was it still North Texas
State or had it flipped by then?

Speaker 7 (43:25):
No? No, I was eighty eight, so had flipped.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Yeah, yeah, okayition, yeah, okay, all right, Uh, speaking of transition,
let's talk about this team that you cover so very well.
And that's why we wanted to get done on to
talk about the Spurs and uh, you know, the the
leanings and the thoughts and stuff that they might go
through with regard to having the second and fourteenth picks

(43:49):
in the NBA Draft.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
But before we get to that, you've.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
Known Greg Popovich about as long as anybody in that town.
And uh, you've had many of the conversation with Pop
and with the staff and with the ownership. What's your
take so far on even though it's off season, what
the what the transition has been like with Mitch Johnson.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
And how.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
I guess how smooth it might be, how how seamless
it might be, because I know it's surprised some people
at first, isn't it done that Mitch, because everybody seemed
to think that Becky Hammond was next in line for this,
But Mitch has been right there for you know, for
some time there with Pop and it looks like it's
been a natural transition.

Speaker 4 (44:36):
Yeah. I think if you're outside the organization and you're
not paying attention on on a daily basis, there's a
lot of people who thought it could go to any
one of his proteges, right, Brett Brown, Mike Brown, Mike Butenholzer,
Will Hardy.

Speaker 7 (44:52):
In Utah, Email Dook and Huston. I mean the league
is littered with Greg Pavovich for were assistants, whether it
be video coordinators or assistant coaches. Steve Kerr was a
popular name being the Spurs and being Victor Womanyama, who
everybody would.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
Like to coach. I think he was the big fish
that was out there. But those of us who've covered.

Speaker 7 (45:16):
The team closely know that Mitch Johnson has been a
rising star in the organization for more than a decade,
right at a decade. He got his start in Austin
in the G League.

Speaker 4 (45:28):
They saw what he did.

Speaker 7 (45:29):
With Dejante Murray at the AAU level in Seattle when
Dejenttey was a young kid and was troubled on the
streets and it had all kinds of issues and was arrested,
and it was Mitch you got him out of jail,
and Mitch you mentored him.

Speaker 4 (45:42):
So they became aware of Mitch when they.

Speaker 7 (45:45):
Were doing their background on de Jante Murray.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
They brought him into the organization and he has.

Speaker 7 (45:50):
Been just moving up the ladder ever since. When when
Tim and Becky Tim Duncan, that is and Becky were
assistants with Pop and Mitch was on that staff during
the the COVID bubble year.

Speaker 4 (46:03):
It was Mitch, not Becky and Tim.

Speaker 7 (46:05):
It was Mitch that was Pop's right hand through that,
and he's leaned on Mitch. Mitch's bright he connects with
young players very well.

Speaker 4 (46:13):
So we kind of saw this coming.

Speaker 7 (46:15):
I think it was Pop's choice and Mitch was kind
of his hand picked successor. He's very smart, was an
All Conference a point guard in the PAC twelve for
Stanford with the Lopez brothers, and you know, anybody from
Stanford's got a brain, and Mitch certainly has both the

(46:37):
basketball acumen and the intellect and the young This is
the way the league's going now. You can see how
Phoenix has made their higher and other coaches, this is
moving towards a very younger coaching. Just like players are
now eighteen years old, coaches are getting younger too, because
they identify with these guys a lot easier.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
Yeah, and would you agree that probably one of those
examples of what you just said is the guy who's
coached now of the world champions in Daniel and Dagna
and what he's done with Oklahoma City.

Speaker 7 (47:11):
Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, These these young assistants have been rising
through the ranks. It's a new league and it's.

Speaker 4 (47:19):
A different league, and the organizations.

Speaker 7 (47:23):
That are with it and changing and hiring these young
guys are the ones that succeed. I think it's interesting
that the Knicks, you know, can't find a coach and
they run off Thibodeau without a better solution, and now
they're looking at Mike Brown and some of these other
guys have been around a while, but a lot of.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
The young guys in the league that you don't even know.

Speaker 7 (47:44):
The coach of that team is. Are these young up
and comers And mitchgif.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
That talking Spurs basketball here with Don Harris here on
AM thirteen hundred side. Okay, before we get your your
absolute takes on what you think will happen with the
two and fourteen picks night, lib, let me get your
take on the roster as it stands today and how
it could affect what happens tonight. I think everybody's expecting

(48:10):
Dylan Harper to be obviously the number two pick, but
in terms of what the Spurs have, since we're talking
backward guys, they have several of those as well, both
very young and long in the tooth as well. So
how about your thoughts about this the roster makeup as
it stands going into the draft, and what ultimately could
shake down as a result of how they select in

(48:32):
the draft tonight.

Speaker 4 (48:34):
Well, my first observation is that basketball fans in Texas
often looked at the draft through a football lives in
that you think, Okay, they have.

Speaker 7 (48:45):
That Prescott, they don't need a quarterback. That's not the
way it works in the NBA. For the most part,
you take the best player available. And that was never
more obvious than when the Portland Trailblazers and eighty three
draft to Clyde Drexler, and in eighty four.

Speaker 4 (49:02):
They passed on a guy named Michael Jordan.

Speaker 7 (49:04):
Because they always had they already had a two guard
and Clyde Drexler and they and they chose Sambuie instead,
and we all know how that turned out.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Oh yeah, and then and then also, don they're gonna
add Kevin Durant and with Greg Golden.

Speaker 4 (49:19):
That's right, So don't draft, don't draft for need, draft
the best player, And especially when it's clear and there's
there is Cooper Flag and one hundred.

Speaker 7 (49:33):
Yards between everybody else, and then there's Dylan Harper, and
then there's probably five hundred yards between a number three, four,
five and the rest of the group. So Harper is
clearly the second best player in this traft. He is
clearly who the Spurs are going to take, even though
they took Steph Cassel, who was the rookie of the
Year last year, who's another sixty five sixty six, you know,

(49:56):
combo guard.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
And even though they traded for.

Speaker 7 (49:58):
Deer and Fox, who going to be the point guard
in the future. There they can play all three of
those guys together.

Speaker 4 (50:04):
They can play them in rotations.

Speaker 7 (50:06):
They can bring the young kid off the bench and
have m be Fox's primary backup. There's a million ways
they can go. But the need is for a big guy.
They need a stretch five. They need a Brook Lopez
christapsperzingis type guy to go next to Wimby to take
some of the pressure off of Wmby on defense so

(50:28):
that he doesn't get pounded by guys like Shangun of
Houston and Nurkic and Zubots and these guys in the
West that are big, strong.

Speaker 4 (50:36):
Athletic centers.

Speaker 7 (50:38):
Women needs a break from that pounding. So they need
to add a big to go next to Wimby. And
they need shooting. This is not a great three point shooting.
I think they were near the bottom.

Speaker 4 (50:47):
Of the league again last year.

Speaker 7 (50:49):
They need a sniper or two. I don't know that
they get that in the draft. I think maybe they
get that in free agency. I think they get that
in trades.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
They now have some good trade.

Speaker 7 (51:01):
Value and guys like Devin Micell, Kelvin Johnson, Harrison Barnes
has a contract that a lot of teams would would
like to absorb because it's expiring.

Speaker 4 (51:12):
So I think they can make moves after the draft
to address the needs of shooting in a big But
there's no way they pass on Harper tonight.

Speaker 5 (51:20):
No way.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Okay, all right, So assuming that's the route they go,
what does it mean for guys like Jeremy Sohan and
obviously Chris Paul as well. You know, I mentioned long
in the tooth because as you point out, they need
snipers and yet they do have guards and obviously you're
poised to add another.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
Yeah, it's interesting. I have heard that both the sell.

Speaker 7 (51:47):
And so Hand are on the market. They're not actively,
you know, try.

Speaker 4 (51:53):
To get rid of them, but those are the pieces.

Speaker 7 (51:55):
That they're dangling in trade talks.

Speaker 4 (51:57):
They were really close in.

Speaker 7 (51:59):
The mix yes to day with the Porzingis deal until
Atlanta came up with an offer that Boston appeared to
get a better package for so so those guys, now,
when you start talking about the future of Harper Castle
Fox being your primary, you know, backcourt guys, those are

(52:24):
guys that that they can hang on to. Devin Bessell
is a very good player.

Speaker 4 (52:29):
Kelvin Johnson is a nuts and bolts guy.

Speaker 7 (52:31):
And every championship team needs the the lou Dorts and
the and the Alex Carusos of the world.

Speaker 4 (52:37):
And they may have to adjust because they've been.

Speaker 7 (52:40):
Used to to being the guys on a bad team
to being role players on what should be a good team.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
And so, I don't know, I think that I think.

Speaker 7 (52:51):
A lot of this roster could turn over. You know,
there's Andrew Marvel Kellish Billy is a guy they really
like that the four He's cheap, and he's tough, and
he gives them a lot of good minutes off the bench.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
But I think some of the guys that we're talking.

Speaker 7 (53:08):
About, the higher paid guys like Keldon Johnson and Devin Bissell,
could be on the move as the off season progressing.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Interesting Well, the one last thing I wanted to ask
you was with regard to that fourteen pick, is is
it difficult to project simply A because of who's available still,
who's still on the board at that point, and B
what they identify as a bigger need, whether it's a
big as you mentioned, or a guy who can knock
down threes that in concert with who has been taken

(53:39):
and who's available. In other words, I guess what I'm
asking is you don't see them packaging that pick and
moving somewhere else, either up or down.

Speaker 4 (53:48):
I think that pick has been packaged in the last two.

Speaker 7 (53:54):
A few weeks, I think, I gess. I know that
it was in the package and there Kevin Durant, but
I also know that they they weren't going into that wholeheartedly.
They would have taken Durant for what they offered if
they sons would have bit that they knew it wasn't
a great offer. But yeah, they put that fourteen pick

(54:15):
in that field.

Speaker 4 (54:15):
I don't know for sure if it was in the
Porzingis offer yesterday, but it's certainly a piece that they
could use with you know, I definite would sell.

Speaker 7 (54:25):
The fourteenth pick for something. Yeah, they could easily do.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
That if they keep it. I don't know that they.

Speaker 7 (54:32):
Draft for me. Again, I think they draft the best
player available. I know they're really.

Speaker 4 (54:35):
High on Cedric Coward out.

Speaker 7 (54:39):
Of Washington State. He's a really interesting story, a D
three guy who then moved to Eastern Washington and then
moved to Washington State. Only played six games.

Speaker 4 (54:49):
There because he tore his Labraham. But then he was
on his way.

Speaker 7 (54:54):
To Duke in the portal when the NBA draft scouts
got him. And he's gone from sixty to a top
twenty pick.

Speaker 4 (55:02):
He's six to six, he.

Speaker 7 (55:03):
Can shoot it from the wing. He's an absolute scoring machine.
He's not necessarily known as a sniper and a great shooter.
And again here he is another sixty six wing. But
they really like him, and he's a fascinating kid. He's
probably one of the most engaging soundbites you here at
this entire draft out of Fresno, California. And he's very mature,

(55:25):
very funny, very smart. So just stick that in your
back pocket if it happens at fourteen, If he's there
and they take him, I know they like him. It's
not a lock by any means.

Speaker 4 (55:36):
And sometimes they float guys that they say they.

Speaker 7 (55:38):
Really like as you know, decoy to keep you away
from guessing on who they really like, so I could
be sniffing up the long tree.

Speaker 5 (55:47):
There.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
He's Don Harris and from New four san Antonia. You
can follow him on x at Don Harris for he
can be one of the more than twenty two thousand
and follow Don Harris for his outstanding or great to
visit with you. As always, I appreciate you taking the
time to do this and I hope.

Speaker 4 (56:04):
You're rairy for you anytime, brother, anytime, and I miss
you man, and God bless you and the family and everybody.
I hope you're doing well.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
I have to tell this last thing because Don was
a part of this. When when my wife Linda arranged
a surprise sixtieth birthday gift for me a few years back,
just a few she rounded up a zoom because it
happened right in the smack dab in the middle of
the pandemic. So on that zoom you had Brad Sham,

(56:38):
you had George Dunoman, Craig Miller from the ticket, you
had a couple others we knew, and Don Harris on
that it was the Select group and that she reached
up with a complete surprise to me. Had I had
no idea what was happening none whatsoever. It was a
great birthday gift.

Speaker 4 (56:54):
But well, let me let me say this, man, I didn't.

Speaker 7 (56:57):
Belong on that phone call in that class, But I'll
tell you this.

Speaker 4 (57:00):
Craig and George and I came up behind you at
North Texas and the thrill of our lives were to
be able to.

Speaker 8 (57:08):
Do the phoners on.

Speaker 7 (57:10):
A Friday night from a football.

Speaker 4 (57:11):
Stadium on the Craig.

Speaker 7 (57:13):
Way Recap Show on KROLB. We followed your footsteps at
North Texas. You led the way for all of us
and we will always be forever indebted.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Well, you have cast quite your own shadow and your
own footprints in San Antonio, my friend. I appreciate you
taking the time, and good luck, and we'll visit down
the road.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
I appreciate you doing this, all.

Speaker 4 (57:35):
Right, Craig anytime, man, take care of you too.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
All right, that's Don Harris from San Antonio. We have
more coming up when we continue on thirteen hundred the zone.
I want to jump off of that for a moment.
We'll get back into basketball, clearly, but I wanted to
jump to baseball, and then well it's more football notes
and then Gene Watson's going to join us next hour
on this, but I think this is worth mentioning. The

(57:59):
Arizona Diamond beat the Chicago White Sox pretty handily the
first night and then beat them again four to one
last night. The White Sox, as we know are you
know they were historically bad last season. I should point
out to you that the Colorado Rockies are even more

(58:22):
historically bad this season. They are more than forty games
below five hundred. If the pace continues, they will pass
the White Sox for futility, the mark of the White
Sox last year for perhaps fewest wins. Now they've had
a couple of three game winning streaks this year. They

(58:44):
did lose last night to the Dodgers at home, and
they've got a lot of young players and so they're
going to take a lot of punishment, a lot of beatings,
a lot of losses this season. The White Sox are improving.
Hopefully some of their fan base can improve as well.
This was something I could have tossed into inconceivable last

(59:07):
hour and chose not to do it, and I do
salute the White Sox for what they did as a
result of this. Could tell Marte is the second basement
for the Diamondbacks outstanding ballplayer. I can tell you as
a Dodger fan for personal experience, he's a Dodger killer.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
He's just really, really good.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Last night he was visibly upset and in tears on
the field and folks were wondering what was going on.
It was something somebody was yelling at him very loudly, and.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
It was a twenty two year old young man. Of
course it was yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
And what he was yelling at Coutell Marte was not
pro fane. It wasn't even personal about Marte himself. It
was about Marte losing his mother. And what the guy

(01:00:15):
was doing was he was making disparaging comments about Marte's mother,
Alpdia Valdez, who died in a car accident in the
Dominican Republic several years ago. And why he was doing
that It makes no sense at all. Her Alder Prodomo

(01:00:39):
was really his teammate, really upsets that he felt mad
about the incident.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
He said, that can't happen.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
We can't continue to do that stuff here in Major
League Baseball. The manager Tory Lavello said he heard what
the fans said when Marte was batting on the top
of the seventh inning, and Marte put his head down
and I could tell it had an immediate impact on him,
for sure. Lavella acted as a dad would, and he

(01:01:07):
consoled Marte during a pitching change in the bottom of
the inning. I could see he was sobbing it hurt.
I told him, I love you, I'm with you. We're
all together. You're not alone no matter what happens, no
matter what was said or what you heard. That guy's
an idiot. He shouldn't have an impact on you. The
White Sox agreed, and so did Major League Baseball, and
I salute both of them because the White Sox went

(01:01:27):
and ejected the fan. Not only did they eject him,
and he was ejected at the request of Lavello and
the Betch coach Jeff Banister, but then the White Sox
went beyond that. With approval from Major League Baseball, they
have banned him indefinitely from.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Intending White Sox games.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Now, look, I understand when when folks say that, you know,
if you're a fan, you ever write to boo the
other team. You have right to boo your own team.
You have right to say stuff. But there there needs
to be a line drawn somewhere. Clearly the White Sox
threw aligned there last night and saying that's that's beyond

(01:02:15):
the boundaries of decency when you when you're doing stuff
like that, and he was, like we said, he was
twenty two. And apparently he was very apologetic afterwards and
remorseful after the fact. The team told Jesse Rogers of
ESPN that the fan admitted to being very inappropriate and

(01:02:38):
stupid with his comments, So they say, maybe the first
step is self awareness there. He certainly had no self
awareness of the deal. You know, why would you want
to say stuff like that to hurt somebody. I know
there's the old questions about when it comes to fan
ragging and hazing on an opponent and really harassing an opponent.

(01:03:03):
It is one of the more popular things to say
a person's questioning a person's heritage or their or their
or their parental units and all that other kind of
stuff that's been going on for generations.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
This cuts a little deeper, and I think it's a
little you know, I think it's a lot out of line.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
Yeah, I think it should go beyond beyond just banning
him from White Soxchemes Craig ban him from major League ballparks,
major League ballparks, and I think there should be, you know,
an uptick in this, especially online. I know it's hard
to track people online because most of them hide behind
fake accounts, but anytime you threaten a player, or anytime

(01:03:39):
you do something like this, you should be banned from
I think, from from gambling, if that's what it is
it's happening, or banned from Attendey's events. You know, there's
got to be a line drawn. I mean, what an awful,
awful thing to say to somebody. I don't care if
you remorseful or not, you still set it to begin with.
So and why is that even in your head? So
my heart goes out to Marte because the lose a

(01:04:04):
parent like that. It's something that I have not had
to go through. Fortunately I'm fortunate for that, but for him,
I cannot imagine the pain that he went through and
for that to be brought up, you know, just be better.
And I feel like with social media it has brought trolling,
you know, trolling hating to a different level, especially with

(01:04:25):
my generation. So when you said the guy's age twenty two,
I was not surprised, and I think if I had
the guess I would have leaned closer to twenty two
than I would have, say sixty two, because there's a
lack of there's a level of disrespect that that generation
seems to have, and there really isn't any quant sequence.
I can get on Twitter right now and start tweeting

(01:04:46):
at Marte and say that nothing's gonna happen because I
can be hiding behind a pseudonym a guitar, and I
think there's a hubris to some people who think, Okay,
I can do this on Twitter, Instagram, I'm gonna do
it in person. So I'm glad he's And if I
were the MLB, I would ban him and definitely, and
you know, we're really sorry for Martell that he had
to go through somebody, because that my heart goes out,

(01:05:08):
does anybody who has lost a parent, a loved one.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Yeah, and by indefinitely, I mean it's June. Yeah, maybe
you take into account he is remorseful for his actions
and admits to it and all that other kind of stuff,
But I think it's it's worthy of a suspension for
the rest of the.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Year, the rest of the season. I would give him
a longer ban.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
I would, you know, I mean, people can learn from
mistakes and things like that. But and then it also
the other thing that it comes to mind on this
camp and I'm not putting this on the White Sox.
I'm putting it on the fan. But are you that
miserable if you are indeed a White Sox fan, and
maybe I guess you are if you're gonna say the
things that you said to an opposing player, are you

(01:05:56):
really that miserable and how your team performs that you
would take that kind of step. Look exactly, I'm an
ardent fan of the Dodgers. My wife can tell you.
I can get frustrated watching some of these things. And
this is a team in first place, So I can
only imagine a team that is in last place and
is doing poorly might be upsetting the fans, especially if

(01:06:17):
they're paying money to go to games and things like that.
But it doesn't give you the license for that kind
of behavior. That's the deal. There's been this misunderstanding for sometimes.
I had this conversation with Brad Sham back several years ago,
and I've seen him make similar comments on social media
about how just because you buy a ticket to a game,

(01:06:40):
maybe you're a season ticket holder. Maybe you buy a
lot of the merchandise. That's all great, but it doesn't
give you the right to be absolutely disgraceful as a fan.
And that goes for college sports fans. If you see
what's happening in social media a lot that's really nasty,

(01:07:01):
you know, it doesn't give you that kind of license
to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
You want to boo boo.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Okay, fine, and some people do some razzing and things
like heckling and things like that. That, however, was certainly
a step too far, and I'm glad the White Sox
and Major League Baseball took action there. All right, we'll
be back to wrap up hour number two of the program,
coming up here on thirteen under the Zone. Third and
final hour of the program here on thirteen hundred of
the Zone, Craigway joined by the producer Cameron Parker. Hope

(01:07:29):
you are tuned in to us wherever you may be,
obviously here in the greater Roston area listening to our
terrestrial signal at thirteen hundred on near AM dial and
then outside the area if maybe you're listing online at
AM thirteen hundred Zone dot com. But many, many, many
many of you have found this via the app, the

(01:07:50):
more happy that you've done that. The iHeartRadio app, where
we urge you to you know, pop us in as
one of your presets. There you can do that and
listen to your favorite sporting events live sporting events, simply
by making it a preset. So it's a couple of
button pushes and that's it. It's as easy as doing that.
Also again, and I mentioned this early in the program,

(01:08:14):
but I'll mention it again. We are not far away
from and that's how I'll put it. We're not far
away from having copies of Dave Campbells Texas Football Magazine
to give to you. But the magazine itself is not
yet on the shelf, still being printed, because they wanted
to give it a couple more weeks to get to

(01:08:34):
the end of the portal window to make sure that
they had as up to date information as possible. We
had Greg Tepper, the editor in chief of the magazine,
on yesterday to talk about that. But he did say,
for those of you who are subscribers, and I count
myself as one of those, I'm an actual paid subscriber

(01:08:54):
to the publication, you'll get your copy in the mail.
I would say within the in the next six to
seven days probably. He said they should be starting to
be shipped out by the end of this week, which
may mean early to mid next week when you get
your copy, So hopefully that'll be the case. And then
for those of you who prefer to wait until it's

(01:09:16):
actually on the shelves, be it at Barnes and Noble
or HGB or Walmart or any of the retail locations,
that'll probably be in the next week to ten days
of followers. So and again for those of you who
want to wait until we have our stash and have
your opportunity to win, that's fine, and we'll give those

(01:09:37):
away when we get them, and we'll.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
Give you plenty of notice about that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Speaking of notice on things with regard to football, we've
been seeing that you know, what was listed is Power
five in college football was basically reduced to Power four
last year with the dissolution of the PAC twelve. I
should point out that it is the temporary dissolution of

(01:10:04):
the PAC twelve. Now will the PAC twelve be as
viable in its reincarnation coming up as it has been, No,
at least not initially. I mean, let's be honest, if
you're taking Oregon, Washington, USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado,

(01:10:31):
and Utah out of the PAC twelve and you're replacing
them basically with Mountain West schools, Fresno State, Colorado State,
Boise State, San Jose State, Utah State, those Gonzaga for
basketball will be a big lift, but they're a non

(01:10:51):
football playing school. San Diego State will be in there,
and then, of course they have to add another football
playing institution, and we been told that it's pretty much imminent.
They have until basically Monday if they want to add
Texas State, or if they wait beyond Monday, Texas State

(01:11:17):
is probably going to ask for some financial help on
that deal, because, if I understand it correctly, if Texas
State announces by June thirtieth or whatever, by the end
of the close of business on June thirtieth, whatever that is,
that they're leaving for another conference, there's a five million
dollar exit fee. That's small change to power conferences. To

(01:11:43):
a G five conference, it means a little more. And
if you go beyond June thirtieth, then it doubles the
X feed of ten million. So I would imagine if
the PAC twelve is definite. And by the way, the
other two football playing institution where the holdovers Oregon State
and Washington State, in addition to those those replacements that

(01:12:05):
I just laid out there that it will be coming
in from the Mountain West and then good zag As
a basketball playing and baseball institution. But if they're going
to add Texas State, it would behoove them to make
sure they get it done by next Monday.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
And when some of these schools, you know that you
move conferences, you are forfeiting a share of revenue like
SMU by joining the ACC, I believe lost out on
money from the TV contract seven.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
Years of it seven And they were perfectly fine with that,
they said, because they all accuse us. They are well
healed enough to where they've got enough and downin and
they've got enough boosters that said, you know what, we'll
cover what it takes to make our football program viable
without the.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
They were that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
Hungry and had it in their sites to join a
Power four soon to be Power five conference again in
joining the ACC. Now again we'll see how power the
PAC twelve is one thing that will help the PAC twelve.
This happened on Monday afternoon they finalize their agreement with
CBS Sports to extend their media partnership through twenty thirty

(01:13:16):
twenty thirty one, he said, what does that mean?

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
Well, here's what it means.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
As part of the deal, CBS Big CBS, the main
CBS over the air Free CBS, will broadcast the conferences
football and men's basketball championship game. They will also be
streamed on Paramount Plus, along with at least three regular
season football games on CBS and three men's basketball games

(01:13:44):
each season all the way through twenty thirty slash thirty one.
There will be additional regular season games and both sports
shown on CBS Sports Network, which is pretty much on
most cable and satellite platforms as well. Additional media partnerships
will be announced when they're finalized. In April, it was
the Pack twelve that announced that the CBS the CW

(01:14:07):
ESPN would share rights to the thirteen home football games
involving the only two current members, Oregon State and Washington
State in twenty twenty five, with nine of those games
are on the CW. If you were watching was it
KNVA Channel fifty four year in town the CW, you
were seeing you Pack twelve games, so the membership will
grow to at least eight schools in twenty twenty six.

(01:14:27):
The aforementioned schools that I mentioned earlier Boise State, Colorado State,
Fresno State, San Diego State, Utahs State to join the conference,
Conzaga will join for sports other than football, and Texas
State is the favorite to become the eighth football playing
school to join the PAC twelve, but no deal has
been finalized and the financial terms not.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Yet disclosed either.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
The issue is this for those of you who are asking,
does this deal really help Texas State from the current
footprint in the a great baseball conference as evidenced by
Coastal Carolina and Southern Miss and Troy. But that's it's
a completely different animal. It's a lower tier Division one
FBS conference in football. So are they helped in football?

(01:15:14):
Yes they are. And you know, for folks who say, hey,
Oregon State will come in here in the San Marcus
and play a game, Washington State will come into San
Marcus and play a game, There'll be some other team.
Gonzaga will go into Strand Arena to play basketball in
a conference game. Those are all pluses there for Texas State, obviously,

(01:15:35):
One of the big losses behind it is going to
be the travel expense because the cost of taking a
team to Pullman, Washington is not going to be cheap,
and Boise and corvallis not to mention San Jose or
Spokane to play Gonzaga or whatever. There are going to
be some a cru travel costs. But I think it

(01:15:57):
is the belief of Texas State Athletics that the benefits,
both financial and also the branding benefits will far outweigh
the cost of travel.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
And those kinds of things. So we'll see how that
goes all right.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
Coming up next, we'll shift to baseball and we'll talk
Major League Baseball with Geene Watson from the Chicago White
Sox front office. When we continue on Wednesday afternoon on
thirteen under the zone, get ready talks on baseball. We've
been talking a lot of NBA draft and the draft
to be going on tonight, but we're just around the
corner from the Major League Draft as well, and you
of course know what that means. It means we check

(01:16:36):
him with a good friend, Jean Watson of Temple, Texas, USA,
God's Country and a super syn tech guy just like
our man Mike hardball. Hart's good to get you back
in the US. Nothing wrong with the Dominican Republic. I've
been there before. But it's always good to get back home,
isn't it.

Speaker 8 (01:16:57):
It feels good.

Speaker 4 (01:16:58):
The Jodesburger last night in downtown.

Speaker 5 (01:17:00):
On Temple was really good.

Speaker 6 (01:17:01):
So yeah, it's it's good. It's a long day of travel.
I'm not a big fan of customs. I learned some
rules the hard way. I took my bag tags off
right when I landed, which customers didn't really appreciate that,
but but I made it and looking forward.

Speaker 5 (01:17:14):
To the week back home.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
Is that part of learning lessons? The hard way you
leave your bag tags on? Is that how that works?

Speaker 4 (01:17:21):
Well?

Speaker 6 (01:17:22):
My wife has a lot of fun because the minute
we land and I pulled the bags off, I take
the tags off, which is.

Speaker 5 (01:17:27):
Good and the domestic.

Speaker 6 (01:17:28):
But when you're going through customers and they want proof
of your bags and what's yours and what's not yours?
It it didn't really go over good with the customs
agent yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:17:38):
So let's say there was a delay.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
So so you're saying Port of Plata is not is
not your is not your ideal community to try any Shenanigans.

Speaker 5 (01:17:48):
That's exactly right, Yeah, exactly right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
Okay, all right, I wanted to get your thoughts on
a variety of topics. Let me start with that there
was there was an article on ESPN about the possibility
of a new formulas they say to bring picture wins
back to life and for twenty twenty five. Because the

(01:18:14):
days of seeing Ron Guidry win twenty five ball games,
or Sandy Kofax win twenty seven. Obviously Danny McLain going
thirty one and six in nineteen sixty eight, those days
are long gone. And the Bradford Doolittle from ESPN said,
and he pointed out that there have been two thousand,
six hundred and sixty four pitchers who have made at

(01:18:37):
least thirty career starts since nineteen oh one. Three of
those pitchers, one out of every eight hundred and eighty eight,
own a career era below two. Two of them are
in the Hall of Fame, but they were dead ball
era guys Ed Walsh at won eighty two and Addie
Josh was one eighty nine. The third is Paul Schemes.

(01:18:58):
Right now now, they say that the chances of him
keeping in that way or probably pretty slim because of
the math and the reality of how it is. He's
had a one eighty five e r A, And they
go on to talk about good Win statistics and things
like that. My point, what I was going to ask
you is, uh, we we've talked about Paul Skins. I

(01:19:18):
obviously saw him firsthand when he pitched for Air Force
against Texas in the regional before moving on to win
a national championship at LSU. Uh, what we know about
his speed? That what impresses you most about a guy
like Skiings and the type of if he stays healthy obviously,
that he could have the kind of staying power to

(01:19:39):
be that kind of hall of fame guy and uh
and and having the ra of two or blow.

Speaker 6 (01:19:46):
Well, I think it's just it's his approach first of all,
which is which is my biggest issue with everything involved
in pitching right now across the board. You know, Paul
Skins obviously was not highly recruited out of high He
ended up going to the Air Force Academy and just
kept getting bigger and stronger and better with his stuff LSU.

(01:20:07):
You know you have to transfer out of the academies, you.

Speaker 5 (01:20:10):
Know, before your junior year.

Speaker 6 (01:20:11):
If you want to not have to serve the military commitment,
he transfers to LSU and just continue.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
To be a development dream.

Speaker 6 (01:20:20):
Our first round pick that year, our compit. Grant Taylor
was actually the number one of that rotation. And you're
seeing what Grant Taylor is doing in the major leagues
right now.

Speaker 5 (01:20:30):
But it just just.

Speaker 6 (01:20:31):
The physicality of him, the ability to keep continuing to
approve and adjust on his stuff, his side and strength,
his durability. But more than anything, and this is my
issue with pitching right now, is it's a mindset and
we we've just reached the generation as an industry where
it's processed over competition and it's about you know, pitch shape,

(01:20:55):
pitch design, pitch count, not being able to go three
times through an order, and in my opinion onion, if
you have three pitches and you can locate pitches and
you can sequence, you should be able to go four
times through in order because every time the hitter comes up,
the sequences are different.

Speaker 5 (01:21:11):
If you could throw strikes and you've got good stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:21:14):
But we've just minimized starting pitching so badly as an industry.
And you look at the Los Angeles Angels, minor leagues
last year and what they did and the most innings pitched,
the fewest injuries, and they don't. It's not about pitch shape,
pitch design. It's about competition and going out using your stuff, competing,

(01:21:35):
controlling the running game. And I just think that I
as an industry, we could get back to that type
of mindset. We have more production than we do out
of our pitchers. We've got more information, more money is
being spent, we got more sports science, we got more analytics,
and we're getting less production.

Speaker 5 (01:21:51):
And it just doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
Yeah, let me get the end of the yang on this.
And I'm glad you brought this up about what the
Angels are because the team I root for makes me
want to pull my hair out sometimes. And I know
what the Dodgers did last year because of the power
they have in the lineup and everything. Somehow, some way,

(01:22:14):
and I said this during the course of the year,
I don't know if it's sustainable to win a World
Series when you're starting two bullpen games a week. Somehow,
someway they got through that. Their bullpen was something else. Well,
we're seeing the back end of that now because so
many guys have gotten hurt because of that. They may
get Luis Garcia back this week, but they've had fourteen guys,

(01:22:35):
fourteen pitchers on the injured list this season. They had
a rehab outing from Tyler Glass now the other day.
They feel pretty good that he might be back within
a couple of weeks or so on and so forth.
But I've always believed that I don't think it's sustainable
to winning a championship if you have to have more

(01:22:55):
than one bullpen game a week. They're going with three
right now now, and and it worked last night because
even though they're playing the Rockies and they're playing in
a launching pad of a ballpark, dryer starts. But then
Justin Robleski has had two really good outings coming out
of the pin for them. But I just wonder, in
not asking you to pick on the Dodgers, but just

(01:23:16):
as an example, when when teams are forced into that
because of injury or availability or whatever it is, can
you describe what it's like on the entirety of a
staff when you have more than one bullpen game a week.

Speaker 6 (01:23:31):
I think there comes a point where when you've got.

Speaker 8 (01:23:34):
As much talents as they.

Speaker 5 (01:23:35):
Have and you had as many injuries that they had.

Speaker 6 (01:23:39):
You know, it's what I've said before. You're you're wishing
the season away to October, and the only thing you
want to be is healthy the last week of September
into October. And I'm sure that with every decision they make,
that's part of the process is Look.

Speaker 2 (01:23:54):
There's no sense in rushing.

Speaker 6 (01:23:55):
This because you know our team is good enough, we're
going to be in the playoffs. Let's get everything right
for about September twentieth, where we can start bringing it
all together.

Speaker 5 (01:24:04):
And then preparing for October.

Speaker 6 (01:24:07):
I just think that the opener is stuff is really
confusing to me. I know it flips the lineup. I
get all that, but I from a mind side. For instance,
when when the Dodgers beat Milwaukee a few years ago
and they went Miley opener, Miley opener, the next day
Shassin opener and you had Corbyn Burns, Like, to me,

(01:24:29):
that would be like two thousand and three not starting
Josh Beckett in the World Series, or in fourteen and
fifteen not starting your Donald Nturro, truly one of your
most talented pitching prospects. That that to me would be
the same type thing so I don't really agree with
it at all in October, I do understand that they've
had a number of injuries.

Speaker 8 (01:24:47):
And you know, Craig, it's really like your car.

Speaker 5 (01:24:50):
You know, if your car.

Speaker 6 (01:24:52):
Is unaligned and you put four tires on it, the
tires are going to blow, and you can put four
new tires on it, but if it's unaligned, they're going
to blow again. I think that that in an industry
where we're now changing arm slots and and doing different
things with arms and deliveries and the way bodies work
down the mound, I think that that's leading to a

(01:25:13):
lot of injuries that we're seeing in the game.

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
Sounds like you're describing my son's car. Every time I
turn around, I've got to run it down the lambs
or something and get an alignment or something and go
on that. Talking about baseball with Teen Watson here, the
Astros won a one to nothing ballgame last night of
the Phillies, and it was it was pretty impressive for
them since we've been talking about pitching for them to

(01:25:37):
do it, and it's Cooper Humble and some people go,
who Cooper Hummel who had the home run in the
eighth inning, that that made the difference in the in
the ballgame for that. But when you're getting the kind
of pitching that that the matchup last night put out there,
you're you know, as as a baseball fan.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
I like that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:25:59):
I know a lot of folks, like you know, like
high scoring games, and I don't. I don't mind that
as either. But I love a good one nothing or
two one pitchers.

Speaker 8 (01:26:07):
Duel Craig, I've said.

Speaker 6 (01:26:10):
It a thousand times, you know, And I interviewed for
that job in twenty and then again in twenty twenty two,
and just what the Houston Astros do from a process standpoint,
I want you to think about, you know, aj Hinch
being your manager. Say what you want about seventeen. It
was a super talented team. I know they beat your Dodgers.
I know that's a hole in your heart right now,
but super talented, and most of those players move on.

Speaker 5 (01:26:34):
AJ Hinch certainly moves on. You bring in.

Speaker 6 (01:26:37):
Dusty Baker, You've got Cole, You've got Verlander, you've got Tucker,
you've got Bregman, and you win another World championship. You
lose Tucker, you lose Verlander, you lose Cole, you lose
Bregman and here you are still in first place.

Speaker 8 (01:26:53):
And to me, I think it begins with Jim Crane,
who loves the game.

Speaker 6 (01:26:57):
Of baseball and the expectation to drive the results, and
I wish there were more like him. But two, they
just have great processes. And I can't imagine that they
have better game planning. There's better game planning in baseball
than what they do, because no matter what you think
about that twenty six man roster year and in year out,

(01:27:18):
they just find a way to win. And it's just
super impressive. It's got mainly around the pitching. They put
their complimentary players in situations to be successful. But they're
on their third manager during this run. You know they've
reshaped that whole twenty six man roster. Tell me a
team that could lose Garrett Cole and Justin Berlander and

(01:27:38):
the players that they've lost and continue to perform and
they just keep rocking and rolling. And it is a
real testimony to the way they do things in Houston.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
As much baseball as you've seen and as many Big
League parks and you've seen, and you know you're going
to fly in and scout something, do you still get
kind of jazzed up when you hear, oh wait, the
pitching matchup tonight is going to be from Das against
Rangers Suarez.

Speaker 4 (01:28:02):
One hundred percent, one hundred percent.

Speaker 6 (01:28:04):
That's that's what you know, our game is about, especially
you know, from the Latin American scene, and which I
just spent you know, ten days down the Dominican and
and that's the other.

Speaker 5 (01:28:13):
Great thing they do.

Speaker 6 (01:28:14):
They're not afraid to get that eighteen year old for
ten thousand dollars and turn them into something.

Speaker 5 (01:28:21):
And that's certainly what brambur is.

Speaker 6 (01:28:23):
But no, those matchups, especially you know, the schemes from
the Rosity matchup. Anytime you get those, they're good for
the game.

Speaker 5 (01:28:29):
But right now, what our.

Speaker 8 (01:28:30):
Industry is seeing is that nobody can hit.

Speaker 5 (01:28:32):
And the pitching is just dominating right now.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
Which brings me to the Texas Rangers. The Rangers beat
the Orioles last night six to five and ten, despite
three straight Baltimore home runs in the seventh inning of
that but the Rangers got to win on that six runs.
Seems to be an embarrassment of riches and a ball
game for the Rangers. This season, they've gotten some really
fine pitching at times. Obviously they're dealing with some injuries

(01:28:58):
as well. But what from your thirty thousand foot view,
what do you see as the big challenges for the
Rangers offensively these days?

Speaker 6 (01:29:06):
You know, I know, I know they have it like
cliffed on all cylinders much especially early.

Speaker 8 (01:29:13):
But I still think it's very much in there.

Speaker 5 (01:29:15):
For this team. I think they're gonna be fine.

Speaker 6 (01:29:17):
I think certainly Bruce Bochi's gonna have them ready to go.
There's no panic in his approach. The twenty six man
has great respect.

Speaker 5 (01:29:24):
For the way he goes about it. The talent is there.

Speaker 6 (01:29:27):
I think you've got to get whyat Langfort going on
a more consistent basis, they need Evan Carter to step
up big.

Speaker 5 (01:29:34):
You know, they've just.

Speaker 8 (01:29:35):
Got to get the offense. The big question is going
to be, you.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
Know, do they hang on to.

Speaker 6 (01:29:39):
Old Dolas Garcia through the trade deadline? If this if
they kind of just hover around and the division gets
away from them a little bit in the wild card,
some of these teams are going to have to make
a decision like, Okay, even if we get in, do
we really have a chance to make the run and
do some damage? And when you've got an askset like
a Doolas Garcia, which every team in baseball is leaking
for offense, be able to multiply off of that. And

(01:30:01):
now you're sitting there in twenty six, twenty seven to
twenty eight with an even more talented team. So I
don't count them out at all. Bruce Bochi is too good,
Chris Young is too good at what they do. But
I do think they've got some decisions to make, and
I think most of it's going to be centered around
how well they play the next three weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Let me jump to the National League.

Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
And I'm curious to get your thoughts about this, because
you have said from the start, don't give up on
the Atlanta Braves.

Speaker 2 (01:30:29):
They had the dreadful start. They'll get it flipped, they'll
get it turned.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
The Mets had this racehorse start, and at the time
you were complementary of them. But at the same time
he said, let's keep an eye on them and see
how sustainable it is over the time. Here's the funny comparison.
The Mets right now, right now in the standings, are
eight games ahead of the Atlanta Braves. However, the Braves

(01:30:54):
won seven of the last ten, including back to back
wins in New York of the Mets, and the Mets
are one and thirteen in their last fourteen ball games.
What's your take on both of these ball clubs right now?

Speaker 8 (01:31:08):
I think health for the mess pitching.

Speaker 5 (01:31:11):
Has just been very, very problematic.

Speaker 6 (01:31:13):
I think that they will address that situation. They obviously
sent Francisco Alvarez, their top.

Speaker 8 (01:31:20):
Catching prospect, down to try to.

Speaker 6 (01:31:22):
Get his offensive going. You know, Ronald Louis lou Angelkuna,
Ronald's brother, has been sent down. There's been conversations about
Brett Baty Lake Travis's very own possibly going back down.

Speaker 8 (01:31:36):
I think they've just got to try to.

Speaker 6 (01:31:37):
Get the offense going. When you're struggling with your pitching
and you're not healthy with your pitching, and you only
have so many vehicles to improve that, you've got to
try as hard as you can to get your offense clicking.
So I think that's what they're focusing on right now.
I do think they'll be active at the deadline. We've
had conversations and we certainly fit with them.

Speaker 8 (01:31:56):
Their system is outstanding, so.

Speaker 6 (01:31:59):
They can really really improve that team. But I think
they've just got to get healthy on the mound first
and foremost and try to get those young offensive players,
you know, more consistent.

Speaker 8 (01:32:08):
I've been really really surprised.

Speaker 6 (01:32:10):
With Atlanta when you you know, Brian Snicker such a
great leader of that team, and Alex Centopolis is so
creative with that twenty six man roster. I've been surprised,
wondering maybe if they might be a little bit out
of gas over the run that they've had in the
last three four years. But the Phillies are certainly the
class of that division, and they've got a very good
system to improve that team as well. Dave Dombrowski's not

(01:32:32):
afraid to trade prospects.

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):
We all know that.

Speaker 6 (01:32:34):
So while I think the Phillies will probably be the
class of that division, I think the Mets also have
a chance to you know, get healthy on the mound,
get going offensively, and improve the club with the system
that they have.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
One more thing I want to ask you this, and
you and I will talk more about the All Star
Game at a later time, but you're going to be
in Atlanta for the futures when the whole All Star
weekend gets going. The reason why I bring this up
is our good friend Mike Hardball Harge had another guy

(01:33:09):
who's a friend of yours, the Hall of Famer Chipper Jones,
on his show this morning, and they got to talk
about that future game. I did not know until I
heard them talking about it. The Chipper is going to
manage one team and Marquis grissom Is is going to
manage the other team.

Speaker 2 (01:33:25):
Is that correct?

Speaker 5 (01:33:26):
That is correct?

Speaker 6 (01:33:27):
And I was with the Braves the last time they
hosted an All Star Game in two thousand. That's the
famous Sami Shosia home run derby where Tino Kotahia became
a legend in the game who threw him the home
run derby.

Speaker 5 (01:33:40):
That was the last time they hosted the game.

Speaker 2 (01:33:43):
And anybody that's ever been.

Speaker 6 (01:33:45):
To the Battery, what an amazing therea no better set
up in baseball than what the Atlanta Braves have going on.
A great, a generational fan base from our time when
we were there in the nineties and two thousands to
you know what the organism has been and Alix and
Boblis has done a tremendous job of just continuing the
legacy that John Churholtz and Bobby Cox built. And Brian

(01:34:09):
Snicker is certainly an extension of that.

Speaker 8 (01:34:11):
The fan base is second to none.

Speaker 5 (01:34:13):
In the game, and that's just going to read.

Speaker 6 (01:34:15):
They celebrate their past, they celebrate their players, their alumni
like none other, and that's going to be a wonderful.

Speaker 5 (01:34:21):
Oneful we get in Atlanta.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
You know, Chipper was musing on the fact, you know
that the first time Atlanta hosted the All Star Game
nineteen seventy two, and I remember watching that and Hank
Aaron hits a home run there, and then in two
thousand in the All Star Game, Chipper hits a home
run in the game.

Speaker 2 (01:34:40):
And then and he brought up, you know who.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
Could be the one that might do it this time around,
And he brought the possibility, now that the Cone is
back and healthy, maybe he winds up on an All
Star roster. That'd be incredible when he, at three different times,
three different ballparks in the same city, host an All
Star Game and have a home run by a hometown
guy on all three occasions.

Speaker 5 (01:34:59):
Yeah, that would be really, really something.

Speaker 6 (01:35:01):
And I know that that that that they're super excited
about hosting.

Speaker 5 (01:35:05):
The game and and just the just the the.

Speaker 6 (01:35:08):
Alumni that will be in attendance. I'm sure Smoltz will
be there.

Speaker 5 (01:35:11):
Glad It'll be there. Maddix will be there.

Speaker 6 (01:35:14):
You know, you think about all the great Positionshipper obviously
will be there, Terry Pendleton will be there, Brian McCann,
Mark Duros. I mean, they're the alumni there, second to none.
They they love the game, they celebrated.

Speaker 5 (01:35:26):
It's going to be quite the event.

Speaker 1 (01:35:27):
Okay, I'm gonna be one in Greensboro on Friday night, uh,
and gonna watch the Greensboro Grasshoppers play your minor league affiliate,
the Winston Salem Dash in a South Atlantic leagueame. And
by the way, for folks who want to know, my
wife is on.

Speaker 2 (01:35:42):
Board with this. She likes baseball, so with you, I'm
not just.

Speaker 1 (01:35:44):
I'm I'm dragging her into this deal. Who should I
watch from your White Sox organization on Friday night.

Speaker 6 (01:35:51):
Well, Caleb Bonnemer is going to be an exciting young player.
It's this kid can really really hit a wing infielder
that uh, you know has some similarity offensively to Mike Trout.
Don't know if we'll have that type of offensive career,
but just a terminus young offensive player. And obviously you
got Braidon Montgomery, a young man from that our fans
know well from Texas A and M University in Stanford,

(01:36:11):
and Braidon is off to a blazing start and it's
going to be a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (01:36:16):
He's Geen Watson from the Chicago White Sox front office
and always great to catch up and get caught up
on a lot of baseball.

Speaker 2 (01:36:22):
Gino, I appreciate the time.

Speaker 1 (01:36:24):
Look forward to crossing pass with you here in the
very near future. We'll get ready for the All Star
Game as well when we're in Atlanta for SEC media Days.
Thanks for taking the time today.

Speaker 8 (01:36:33):
Okay, guys, take care all right.

Speaker 1 (01:36:35):
That is Gene Watson from the Chicago White Sox front office.

Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
Coming up.

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
We have more we'll continue on this Wednesday afternoon here
on AM thirteen hundred Zone. I wanted to mention from
college baseball, LSU winning the national championship was an expected occurrence.
It expected that LSU was going to win the national

(01:37:00):
championship by many even when the season began, that they
were going to be a team to beat, and then
of course that they came into Austin right number two
in the country.

Speaker 2 (01:37:11):
Texas ended up taking two out of three.

Speaker 1 (01:37:13):
Kate Anderson had his moment, however, in that Friday night
game against the Long Horns. And then we saw him
have his moment in Game one of the championship series,
a one to nothing, complete game shutout, where he did
a tremendous job and limited them to three hits in
the ball game and threw one hundred and thirty pitches
on him. All right, So then they completed the sweep

(01:37:33):
with the five to three win on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (01:37:36):
And while there was a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:37:37):
Of you know, talk about Kevin Schnall, they had coach
of coach of Carolina being ejected and all this other
kind of stuff, it doesn't cover up the fact that
they are. They're still at LSU won the national championship. Now,
this is gonna this will depend on your interpretation. Ryan McGee,

(01:38:02):
who I very much respect with his coverage of college
sports and NASCAR and lots of things in the South,
has proclaimed that LSU is the greatest ever college baseball program.

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
Now I'll defer to you on this argument. Well, let
me just say this.

Speaker 1 (01:38:26):
Right now, right now, on June twenty fifth, of twenty
twenty five, LSU is the premier, pre eminent college baseball program.
They are in it in the hunt just about it,
and it goes back to when skip Bertman was the

(01:38:46):
coach back in the eighties and first got him going,
and then they won the titles in the nineties, and
they continue to add up the titles and now they
stand at eight.

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
They have the second most national.

Speaker 1 (01:38:58):
Championships, and they still trailed USC in all time national titles.
So there would be those who would say, well, they're
still four shy of USC. How can you say they're
the greatest college baseball program of all time? The argument
for this for LSU is going to be that if

(01:39:21):
you look at USC's national championships, they started in the forties.
The first College World Series was in nineteen forty seven,
and if you go from there, their titles were in
the forties, the fifties, the sixties, the seventies, the eighties,
and yes, the nineties, but the last one that USC

(01:39:44):
won was in nineteen ninety eight. They have won a
national championship since then. Rod Gillespie was the coach there
and they have had the main run of their championships
came under, of course, the immortal Rod Dato, but he's
been long gone in USC. Is that they did get

(01:40:06):
into a regional this year, but they haven't been a
pre eminent baseball program, so they've been sitting on twelve
national championships for the past twenty seven years. And then
you look at LSU, which has been coming all along.
In between all of that is a program like Texas,
which has more NCAA regional appearances than any program in history.

Speaker 2 (01:40:29):
From the forties, they were in the first everone.

Speaker 1 (01:40:33):
They won the last national championship that wasn't contestant in
Omaha nineteen forty nine, and they won the first that
was contestant in Omaha nineteen fifty.

Speaker 2 (01:40:43):
They've won six total national titles.

Speaker 1 (01:40:46):
They're two behind LSU, and that includes losing head to
add LSU in two thousand and nine. They have more
NCAA tournament appearances in regionals. They have more College World
Series appearances than any other program, So that would be
the argument made there by longer events. But if you're
counting national championships, LSU has two more usc is four

(01:41:08):
beyond that. So the question is what is carrying more value?
What is carrying more weight for you? Is it national titles.
A lot of folks in the SEC will proudly proclaim
national championships as what we're after. That's what we count, Okay,
but that would mean eight out of what seventy five

(01:41:30):
College World Series or something like that. So does it
make you the greatest program of all time? No, it's
going to be sustained excellence. And ls who certainly has
that sustained excellence starting, but it didn't really start until
the eighties, whereas Texas has had the consistency of reaching
regionals and super Regionals and getting to Omaha going all

(01:41:54):
the way back to the first year of the College
World Series nineteen forty seven. So it just depends on
which side that you're looking at in terms of whether
it's the most national championships or the most appearances or
the most regular postseason appearances. Are you valuing head to

(01:42:16):
head all of those things? I think factor in LSU
is without question the pre eminent college baseball program in
the country right now. The number stack up. They've won
two titles in the last three years. They are Are
they the greatest ever? That's going to be subject to
your argument and your interpretation. All right, we'll be back

(01:42:37):
to wrap up today's edition of the program.

Speaker 2 (01:42:39):
Coming up. I'm thirteen under the Zone