FOX Sports Sunday with Hartman and Ohrnberger: 06/14/2020

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox sportsdio. Oh yeah, leaving the dream
once again on a fabulous Sunday, Hartmann and arm Burger.
We are coming alive from the Guy go Fox Sports
Radio Studios. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent more
on the car insurance physic guy got dot com for
a free raid. Quote. Well, Mike Harmon just brought in
cookies today. Okay, he brought in cookies, chocolate jip peanut

(00:23):
butter cookies. Um. And he did not know, Rich, that
you were going to be broadcasting from the Fox Studios
in San Diego, so he had brought extra cookies assuming
you were going to be here. Um. All I can
tell you, though, Rich, is you need to save yourself
because Denise is making brownies today that I'm bringing exclusively

(00:49):
to San Diego tomorrow. Now the special, Yeah this is
you know, the guys get an interesting show tomorrow. Yeah. Well,
the guys here a little upset, but I know, to
be fair to our San Diego crew, I thought, you know,
we got to spread the wealth. So the good part
of it is for you. You're the beneficiary both times.
So there's it's incredible, it really is. Um, hats off,

(01:11):
to Denise, I'll continue to sing her praises as long
as she continues feeding me. Really, I'm really impressed. I
mean and that look that that's one thing. That's one.
But the other part of this is she has in
consecutive weekends. Now, Um, up the game. Yeah, I thought
I could never have a more delicious cookie than the

(01:34):
next cookie than the next cookie that she's prepared for me.
So I'm interested in trying the brownie. Um, she's set
the bar very high, let's put it that way. I
know she has, but she's not intimidated by that. So
I know a lot of people tune in saying, what
is all this cookie and brownie talk? Again? A little levity, folks,
I mean anything right now? You know, we we were hoping,

(01:57):
hoping that by this time at the we would have
a clear picture on the return of and with all
due respect to golf and NASCAR in indiecar racing and
UFC and other sports are up and about, we're talking
about the three major team sports, and all due respect

(02:18):
to the NHL as well, we talked about the NFL,
Major League Baseball, and the NBA. These are the three
sports that move the needle in this country period exclamation point,
and until we have a clear picture of Major League Baseball,
the NBA and the NFL on when they returning, how

(02:40):
they're going to conduct their games. We're at ground zero,
and as we sit here today on this June, we
are back to ground zero because we don't have a
definitive answer on any of them. It's unfortunate. Yeah, I
I wish, I wish we could deliver um better news.

(03:05):
I wish that we you know, as far as sports goes,
there just hasn't been a tremendous amount of progress. Although
I will say this, Uh, with the NHL, with the NBA,
we've gotten we've gotten close. We haven't crossed the finish line.
Nobody's flown to any bubble cities where playoff games in
the case of the NHL are going to be hosted

(03:28):
or in the case of the n B, a regular
season play on playing followed by their playoff bracket. Uh,
it hasn't happened yet. Nobody's you know, deployed to their city.
Uh and and and started training so to speak. But um,
what we have is some progress. When you when you say,
when you say no progress, I will say the Union

(03:51):
and the the league, at least on the NBA side,
have voted and ratified an idea. Now, what's it gonna
take to get all the players to buy into this idea,
to actually show up for this idea. That's a whole
another conversation. Yeah, that is exactly where we are right now. This,
of course, in the aftermath of the huge conference call,

(04:14):
Kyrie Irving, who is He's an instigator, That's what he is.
I mean, this is a guy the questions whether or
not the world is round or flat. This is a
guy that it's just that kind of a person. He's
a big conspiracy guy. And so he stirs the drink
and apparently he monopolized the conversation to the point where
he got a lot of guys thinking about not just

(04:36):
the threat of this pandemic, but also how this reflects
during the current unrest as far as social justice is concerned.
Dwight Howard. Dwight Howard put it out yesterday saying, as
much as I would love he's now with the Lakers,
He's never won an NBA championship, He's had a Hall
of Fame career, He's played very well for the Lakers

(04:56):
this year, and he says as much as I want
to win my first NBA championship, I want to win
in social justice more than I do that. That is
what I do. And if if you take me, if
you put me in a bubble and take me away
from that, I can't get things done now can Austin
Rivers had a different opinion, say no, no, no. If

(05:18):
we get paid, we can use the money and redirected
in positive ways. But the fact that we now have
the discussion going not just about the health situation, but
the social issues that are exploding across this country right now.
And how many NBA players want to have a firsthand

(05:39):
opportunity to be involved in those things. They don't want
to be put into a bubble for six weeks, two months,
three months if you get to the NBA finals. And
how do you answer that? So this, this is now
another layer on I don't know, And I would want
to believe, I believe, I'm gonna say this. I want
to believe in the srity of players that say, look,

(06:02):
I would much rather be out in the front lines
battling the injustices in this country rather than being in
a bubble. But you know as well as I do,
there are several players that simply just don't want to
come back. The idea been in a lockdown for a
minimum of six weeks is just not something they're very
comfortable with, right. But focusing on the players that do

(06:23):
want to come back, that love playing basketball, that have
made riches playing this game, and they feel so compelled
by the inertia of the causes that that are being
promoted on a world stage now, you know, having real equality,
having people's eyes open to some of the brutality that

(06:45):
occurs uh during routine police stops, you know, and and
how people of different races in this country feel uncomfortable
when they are interacting with officers of the law. I mean,
these are real issue is that we face as a
country that haven't been, you know, set to the forefront

(07:05):
in a very long time. And they've needed to, They've
needed our attention, and finally it seems like the world
is listening and to these players. Again, I'm talking about
a guy like Kyrie Irving who has made enough money
to live a few lifetimes over and and his children
and his grandchildren and their grandchildren most likely will feel
the wealth effect from the earnings in the NBA during

(07:27):
this career that he's had. He feels so compelled by
the inertia of this movement that he can't see to
locking him down for himself down for two and a
half months or or or longer, and and saying, alright, world,
you figure it out. We're gonna go be busy bouncing
a basketball. You know. I I get that. I get that,

(07:49):
you know, I totally understand that. And to concentrate on
a player like Irving who yes he's made a name
for himself being a bit of a wild card, and
yes he has some interest thing views on you know,
the world, and and we've heard him talk about these
things and conspiracy theories and whatnot. But but I will
say this, um, he has he he has a point.

(08:13):
You know, if if your if your effort is going
to your community, like we've seen so many NBA players
either in their home their host cities where they play,
or back home wherever they lived, and getting out in
front of a protest march and being an agent of
change on the front lines of this battle. Uh, and

(08:33):
then you're going to lock yourself away. What's the world
gonna look like, you know, on the other side of
your quarantine in Orlando to play basketball, right, you know,
so I I I can see both sides of that coin. Well,
the other side of the coin is Lebron James, who
does not hesitate to bounce back, and he is now

(08:53):
leading the pushback against Kyrie Irving's NBA restarts stand. He says,
because of everything that's going on, people are finally starting
to listen as we feel like we're finally getting a
foot in the door. How long is up to us,
we don't know, but we feel like we're getting some
ears and some attention and this is a time for
us to finally make a difference. However, those are the

(09:14):
words of Lebron James, and he's certainly in line. But
he's also very much about finishing the season for obvious reasons.
I mean, his legacy goes to the stratosphere if he
can finish the job and lead the Lakers to an
NBA championship this year. Believe me, as Lebron and I'm
even hinting of any question is sincerity as far as

(09:38):
social issue is concerned, because he's been upfront about this
long before this current situation. But he's also about legacy
and he knows that he has an opportunity to raise
the bar to a level that has never been seen before.
If he were to lead three different franchises to an
NBA championship, and he'd be crowned the NBA Finals, M
v P and all three. So it's about is he

(10:00):
an act? I mean, he doesn't want to completely rain
on the parade of you know, really putting things in perspective.
Just how important is playing the NBA? Is Dwight Howard said, Look,
it's the entertainment business. How important are we? But that's
Dwight Howard. That's not Lebron James. Let's let's talk about
the You know, when you talk about Lebron James and
you talk about the point he's trying to make, it

(10:20):
isn't just about basketball either, and it never has been
for Lebron James. He's the most famous and recognizable basketball
player on planet Earth right now, and at different times
during his career he's staged visual uh social media on
court protests about different UH, different instances where black lives

(10:44):
were being disproportionately affected by police brutality. I remember him
famously wearing that I Can't breathe t shirt on the
court pregame you know. Look, so Lebron James has a stage,
Lebron James, and so does Kyrie your Rings, So it's
Dwight Howard. They have a stage. And right now that
stage is sitting somewhere in the dark. Okay, the curtains
are drawn. Nobody has been able to get on that

(11:07):
stage since the NBA had a head trainer or team
doctor run on the court in Utah waving his arms
like a wild man stopping a game because COVID nineteen
had reached the locker rooms in the National Basketball Association.
So it's been a three month, uh dark period here
in the n b A, and that stage has been taken.

(11:28):
Now do they still I'm talking about the players, especially
once with large followings, still have their social media to
get word out about the causes they want. Absolutely, But
if the NBA had a soul spotlight as the only
major team sport in the United States to get going,
to get underway, to actually have games, and if these

(11:50):
players speak with the league and say, look, every night
we're staging a protest of some sort every single night
where in Orlando. We need to get the message out
we're not playing on us. We are going to be
able to create an atmosphere where if you are watching
an NBA game, you are understanding how important this is
to the league's players. You know, you have a billionaire

(12:13):
owner like Mark Cuban who's actively speaking out, getting in
front of this cause. What is he one of the
top one thousand richest people on the planet. You know
what I mean. You're talking about billions of people live
on this planet. You have one of the top thousand
richest people living on the planet supporting your cause. He's
one of the governors of the n b A and
you don't you you don't have this stage. Trust me.

(12:36):
I understand Kyrie Irving. I understand Dwight Howard. I understand
how a lot of players feel like we need to
be on the front lines of this. We can't lock
ourselves down in Orlando for a few months while this
is all happening around us. But at the same token,
I understand Lebron James point saying no, no, no, no, no.
We have a stage. We have an opportunity, especially considering

(12:57):
the international influence of the NBA, to really get the
world's attention. Guys, we need to get this done so
we have a bigger stage for our protest and and
aside from that, they get to play a sport. And
as we know, sports help create create equality. Sports can
be for runners in that lane. So I see it

(13:18):
from both sides. All right, there is another big, big
name out of the NBA that's speaking out about social injustice.
But his target may surprise you. We'll tell you who
that is coming up next, Steve Hartman and Rich Armburger.
It's not just another day, because some big things may

(13:39):
happen today. We're gonna get to that a little bit
later on. We're coming alive from the Guy Go Fox
Sports Radio Studios. Although we're a part these days were
sharing more and get goes sharing more too with the
Geico get back a credit on car and motorcycle policies
are both current and new customers. The last year full
policy term. Visit guy Go dot com, slash giveback for
info and l jability. San Antonio Spurst coach Craig Popovich

(14:03):
has been very outspoken in his criticism of President Trump.
He has been from day one and he has really
turned it up a notch and his target is the NFL.
So Papovitch is now attacking the league, attacking Commissioner Roger
Goodell for being pushed around by the President. He also

(14:24):
called out NFL owners, and this is an NBA coach
called out NFL owners. The list of NFL owners that
gave at least one million dollars to President Trump's inauguration
committee include Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, Stan Cronkey, Jets owner

(14:44):
Woody Johnson, Daniel Snyder, Shad con of the Jaguars, the
late Bob McNair of the Texans. There's also Edward Glazer
gave money owner the Bucks, Jimmy Haslum of the Browns.
The list is long. So let me ask you this
is it? Uh? Why is her Popovitch to go on

(15:06):
a full scale attack of the NFL. And should the
NFL in any way listen to anything said by the
San Antonio Spurs coach. Well, look, should he? Everybody has
their right to do whatever they want. I mean, he's
using his First Amendment right, which is free speech, and

(15:27):
he can say whatever he wants. He's not causing anybody
harm and if anything, he's illuminating, uh, some of what
he considers to be hypocrisies that exist in the NFL
between the owners and their messaging, and so he has
his right to do so. Many people will agree with him,
many people will disagree with him, but he's fully within

(15:48):
his rights. And so this is a part of what's
been happening in sport but also in our culture right now,
as people are using whatever platform they have to seek
out on what they perceive as out in the open hip,
hypocrisies that need to be addressed in order for us
to move forward. And clearly Greg Popovitch feels like this

(16:10):
is one of them, and he is well within his
rights to do that. Here's one of the problems I
have again, and Popovitz uttered something that I would He said,
the flag is irrelevant. This this is so distorted when
we talk about the relevance of the American flag, because

(16:32):
the flag represents a lot of things to a lot
of people. For those who have lost a family member
fighting for our country whose casket is draped in the
American flag, to say that the flag is irrelevant is
way over the top, because obviously it has amazing relevance

(16:56):
to that family that has lost a loved one who
fought and gave their lives for this country and their
caskets are draped in the flag. Hang on, hang on,
hang on, because I know what you're saying, and I
actually agree with it, but I wanted to read the
full quote. A smart man is running the NFL, and
he didn't understand the difference between the flag and what

(17:18):
makes this country great, all the people, all the people
who fought to allow Colin Kaepernick to have the right
to kneel for justice. The flag is irrelevant. It's just
a symbol that people glom onto for their political reasons,
just like Cheney back in the Iraq War. And Goodell
got into intimidated when Trump jumped on the kneeling and

(17:39):
he folded no, no, no no. And this is where
I disagree with him. So because it's just a symbol
the people glom onto for political reasons, not everyone gloms
onto the flag for political reasons, not everybody. Do you
think that Cheney or Trump did, do you? But I

(18:00):
mean that's he's trying to that. Roger Goodell was intimidated.
I'm not gonna sit here for people to look at
the flag. It's something that is not something political. Let
me ask you, because in his world Popovich everything is
political because he's a political animal, which he has a

(18:21):
right to be. But when he says the flag is irrelevant,
it's just a symbol the people glamanto for political reasons.
That is not accurate for everyone. Not even so, Steve.
So politicians, in your estimation, should be allowed to use
the flag. Politicians as politicians on every side as a backdrop.

(18:44):
I'm talking about all politicians, yes, you know, so, not
just the elected leader who's in the oval offense today today,
but to the president has used it, the American flag
as a backdrop to every single one of their political
campaign posters to you to you know, to make or
that it's stage left. I wanted over my left shop.
Every candidate whereas that American flag on their lapel yea

(19:06):
every time. It's it's fair for them to do that,
but that's not what it represents to everybody. When Colin
Kappernick takes a knee a knee during the the unfurling
of the American flag in the national anthem being played
at a football game, he's not for his political absolutely
he is. But they're also the freedom in this country

(19:28):
to be against that, because the flag represents something for everybody.
Everyone that's listening to right now has a different view
on exactly what the flag means to them, and they
certainly have the right to believe whatever it is that
that flag represents to them, whether it's positive or negative,
they have the right to do so. So. For again,

(19:50):
here here's the thing about Popovich, and this is why
I get back to the second part of the question
is do you feel like a guy like Greg Popovitch
obviously is not just a high profile NBA coach, he
also happens to be the coach of our national team
and the Olympics, so he's coaching our national team as well. Um,
is this someone who if because he's calling out Roger Goodell,

(20:13):
is basically being spineless because he doesn't stand up, you know,
for the real cause here it certainly doesn't stand up
to these NFL owners. Is this a force to be
reckoned with Gregg Popovitch by going on and talking about
this in an interview with The New York Times, calling
out the NFL specifically where the NFL says, we cannot

(20:36):
afford this kind of attention, negative attention. We seriously do
have to make a change. Do you think Bob Kraft
or any of these other owners, Jerry Jones, stand Cronky
have all the money in the world, these multibillion dollar
franchises are going to change their public stance as far
as the national anthem is concerned. Based on the attacks

(20:57):
made by Greg Popovich, do you do you think do
you think that these protests are worthwhile? Then do you
think that it's worthwhile if you have a platform and
a voice in a stage to use that question? Owners
do it? Look, you're you're, you're, You're looking at this
from a defeatist attitude standpoint, and that's the reason why
you can't see what Greg Popovich is doing. Again, he

(21:19):
may have doing he may have offended some people, but again,
so do protests. And that was the point of the
Kaepernick protests. Alongside getting his social justice views out there,
he was also is selectively picking a point of the
game where it was going to demonstrate the most blowback.

(21:39):
This was that, look, protests are being staged in wealthy neighborhoods. Now, Okay,
I live in San Diego. I mean a lot of
these protests are happening outside of you know, multimillion dollars
storefronts and homes. The point is, you want to make
people uncomfortable until change comes, and that's the whole point

(22:00):
of protest, and so Greg Popovitch, look, these are uncomfortable
truths that he's barking out into the general public. And
guess what you talk about, Well, is Gregg Popovitch gonna
change minds? Well, I don't know, but he has us
on Sunday morning from across the country speaking about it
to our national listening audience. So clearly it's made an impact.

(22:21):
That's the point of protest. The point of protests isn't
to break windows or to break laws. The point of
protest is to have people peacefully showing discontent with a
certain system and want to impart change. And the first
part of that is conversation. And guess what Greg Popovitch
has done. He's made us have a conversation about potential

(22:43):
hypocrisies in his purview that exists between the NFL and
their message. Right now, Roger Goodell says black lives matter,
and the there's I don't know how many you just
listed at ten or eleven UH owners who are Trump contributors,
and he feels like there's something inappropriate about the messaging

(23:06):
of the NFL. Again, these are Greg Popovich's words, not mine. Well,
he feels like he needs to get that out there,
and he feels like the general public needs to hear
it and guess what he's achieved it, Well, he's achieving it,
and at the same time, is gonna see any result
from it, at least in the result that he is
looking for from the national don't if you don't try, Steve,

(23:29):
And that's what people are doing right now. They're trying
with whether or not we're gonna see the kind of
changes that again we heard from the words of the Commissioner,
Roger Goodell, but it's been a lot of silence from
very prominent NFL owners, many of them big contributors to
the president, who simply will not come out publicly. Maybe

(23:49):
behind the scenes is a different story, but publicly not
taking a stance uh in favor of players taking a
knee during the national anthem? Right or the guy goed
Fox worts way to the studios. Let's find out what's
trending right now. Ralph Irvin has entered the building. Ralphie,
how are you today? Rolling along? Steve? Rolling along? You
know why we have Live Golf on the air, Yes, yes,

(24:14):
And by the way, Ralph has a new golf podcast
out there. Is that true, Ralph, Yes, I do. It's
called Ralph Irvin you dog. What is the name of podcast.
It's called The Range. The Range is The Range goes
with my golf Spotlight Golf product to video showing YouTube beautiful.

(24:34):
This is you know. Ralphie is very involved in the
golf world. By the way, I predicted that Justin Thomas
last week. I pretty good did Justin Thomas was gonna
win this first tournament. How's he doing well? He is
set to tea off anytime. In fact, he should have
teed off by now. No, check that, sorry, he'll tee
off at the top of the hour. One shot back

(24:55):
of Xander shot for second. Yes, right now, there are
five players currently tied one shot back of the lead
Rory McElroy right now on the second hole he is
four shots back the world number one. So that is
the Charles Schwab Challenge Round number four going on right

(25:16):
now at Colonial in Fort where that would be the
first PGA Tour champion to be crowned since March. Also
tied with Justin Thomas. There at twelve under par champion
Jordan's Speed, the reigning US Open champion Gary Woodland, and
there's gonna be fans in the stands at Homestead Miami Speedway.
That's for NASCAR's four mile race. About a thousand local

(25:38):
members of the military have been invited to take in
the Cup Series event in person. The green flag drops
in South Florida on Fox TV at three thirty Eastern time.
And I didn't know if you're aware of this, Steve,
but Major League Baseball still doesn't know what they're gonna do. Uh.
The owners coming up with a proposal that they submitted

(25:58):
on Friday to the players. The math basically added up
to the same as it's been for everything, with the
players getting paid about the same total amount of money.
The players outright rejected it on Saturday, going to the commissioner,
Rob Manfred and basically saying, all right, just tell us
one to show up and we'll be there. But we're
gonna get paid our pro rated salary. It's not deciding yet,

(26:21):
is it. Well, maybe we'll discuss it as I send
it back to Steve Hartman and Rich orn Berger. All right, Ralph,
coming up, by the way, we are coming to you
live from the guy go Fox Sports Radio Studios. Easy
to say more on your current sentrance of Getico, Go
to Got Go dot Commer call in and the Night
for seven Auto. The only hard part figuring out which
way is easier? Coming up a little bit later on
the show, John Paul Morossi is gonna be joining us

(26:42):
our Fox Sports Radio MLB insider last Sunday, Rich We
asked him by this Sunday, by today when we have
a definitive answer on what the game plan is to
start the Major League Baseball season, and he said yes.
Now the clock is still taking We're about we got
a ways to go. A couple more hours before we

(27:02):
talked to J. P. Morosi. This is what we do
know after the latest rejected rejection by the players of
the the owner's proposal UH. Major League Baseball Players Association
lead negotiator Bruce Meyer, in a letter sent to Deputy
Commissioner Dan Hallam Saturday night last night, said, we demand

(27:26):
the you inform us of your plans by the close
of business on Monday June So by tomorrow, whatever your
game plan is Major League Baseball, forty eight games, whatever
it is, you need to tell us and we're ready
to roll. I mean, and again we assume at this
point that if it is forty eight games. It will

(27:48):
be a pro rated salaries. I mean, this is something
that was mentioned weeks ago by Major League Baseball. All
these numbers back and forth have been frivolous. Nothing has
come of it. Forty eight games. That was what was
leaked out, even the commissioner, who, by the way, has
made it clear onecent. He said, we will have a

(28:09):
baseball season this year. So do you believe Rich that
if all comes down to this and the Major League
Baseball says here it is you will get full salaries
for a forty eight games season, that the players will
sign off and play the games. I think that that's
what they're marching toward. I I don't think that the

(28:29):
offer they extend to the players is gonna be much
better than that. Look again, you know we've outlined this
many times on this show in the past. The owners,
they have economists and accountants who sit down with them
and they discussed the numbers, and those are numbers that
they are never going to share with the players. But
those are numbers that are very important to them. And

(28:52):
I'll make this comparison really quick and then I'll get
back to the point. But there are times where you
walk into a restaurant and you sit down and say
you have breakfast, and the three kids in your family
order pancakes because kids love pancakes, and those pancakes are
ten bucks per plate. But you're going to pay for
those pancakes because you love sitting down at that diner

(29:14):
and ordering the steak and eggs. And what a price,
what a deal they give you on the steak and eggs.
It's only a twenty plate, and it's an actual prime
cut piece of steak. You know, you're carving it off
the bone. You're enjoying a couple of blissful moments. And meanwhile,
what's happening in the books at that restaurant is every
time somebody orders steaks and eggs, they lose. They lose

(29:37):
ten dollars on that plate every time they order it. However,
they gained seven dollars every time somebody orders pancakes. So
the reason why you will lose on steak is because
you make so much money lowering in potential customers, because
it's not gonna be every single person getting the steak
and eggs. Is gonna be one guy seat at the table,

(29:59):
and then the rest of them gonna get a pancakes,
so you will take some losses to make other gains.
And that's what the owners are doing right now. They're saying,
what do we lose here. We're gonna lose some money
this season. There's no doubt we're gonna lose some money
in revenue if we host a season at all. They've
made that clear to the general public. But if we
don't lose money this season, some money, we are going

(30:21):
to lose our patronage. We're gonna lose people who are
fringe in interest in this sport if we don't play
in so we're gonna have to serve the steak, but
we're gonna try to mitigate as many of those losses
as possible to have pancakes served later. And that's exactly
what's happening in the In baseball. They're going to try

(30:41):
to get these players to play as few games as
possible so they can say, everybody happy, we lost money,
but we still gave you a baseball And next year
they're hoping to go on and make tons of money
like they do every single year in revenues, assuming they
can come back in full swing. Alright, So when we
talk first of I wish it wasn't at fifty four

(31:03):
would be exactly at one third of a season. I mean,
I'm sitting there. If we're going to cut it down
to bare minimum, can we go to a nice tiddy
exactly one third of a season? One third of a
D sixty two games would be fifty four games. I
like that. Maybe they will. I don't know. We've heard
forty eight, we've heard fifth go to fifty four. I'm
I'm a very tidy numbers guy. But anyway, when we

(31:26):
talk about paying players for fifty games fully pro rated salaries,
it's about one point to five billion dollars. That has
been sort of the magic number that the owners have
been playing around with the entire time. Remember the players
wanted a one D and fourteen fully pro rated salaries
that would have been about two point eight seven billion dollars.

(31:48):
So this gets back to the owners not willing to
borrow money to compensate for the lost revenue of this season.
And what I what I'm trying to mean is when
when you have a franchise is all worth an excess
of one billion dollars, Borrowing money is not a problem.

(32:09):
If you go into any lender and say I want
to borrow. I want to borrow three hundred million dollars. Okay, well,
what what do you have for collateral? What do you got? Well,
I have a Major League Baseball franchise. The response will be,
are you sure you only want three d million? How
about five? Um? The borrowing money against owning a major

(32:32):
League Franchi in any sport is never a factor, and
yet they don't want to go down this path. So
the idea of screaming poverty and we've heard it from
the Ricketts of the world, the de Wits of the world,
all these owners. That's saying anyone that thinks that we
just have all this cash line around doesn't know the
economics of baseball. We don't really turn a profit here. Well,
this was a sport that had a net revenue and

(32:54):
excess of what six or seven billion dollars last year,
so we obviously they are making money. But it's it's
this idea that these owners are not willing to go
out and just exercise what would be a very simple
process to borrow money. I'm sure the terms of the
loan would be very favorable as far as paying back

(33:15):
on the loan. And by the way, if Major League Baseball.
We're just to get back on track over the next
couple of years. That loan would be paid back in
a blink of an eye. In a blink of an eye.
And and here's the thing about it's Steve like the
it seems so simple for us, because you know, when
I am renting for a long time and I've saved
up a little nest egg for a down payment, and

(33:36):
I want to finally buy my first home, what I
do is I pit the competition against each other and
I try to get the lowest interest rate possible per
the amount of money down and my credit score, and
and maybe even I if I use a broker, if
I'm savvy enough on my own, I can get that
interest rate down even further than some of these financial

(33:57):
institutions were comfortable within the first pace. And then I
feel like a winner. Well, in Major League Baseball, if
you go out and you take I don't know, two
hundred three hundred four hundred million dollars from an outside
lender and use your team as collateral, what you've essentially
done is you've welcomed in a third party, somebody who
has a stake in your team. Essentially, now it is

(34:19):
in the form of debt, but still a stake, and
if all goes wrong, potentially they could they could liquidate
their steak in the team and make a big problem
for the league. So they don't like to take outside
Monday money. They like to keep it in house. And
so what they do is they lend to each other
and they make each other pay interest on those uh

(34:40):
those moneys owed and do And so what's happened here
And the reason why you're seeing such blowback and the
reason why you're seeing owners trying to take cuts out
of players pay is because the economic circumstances have affected
everybody's pockets. You know, those owners who just own the
teams are those owner who owned the team uh that

(35:02):
they own and they also have some other businesses because
our economy has struggled overall, and again they're attacking the players.
The last time they did this was during the Great Recession. Okay,
this has happened recently, and they did it right after
nine eleven and they were able to get a luxury
tax instilled. And it was because we had this great
economic suppressing event when the housing bubble exploded, and they

(35:26):
wanted to try to stick it to the players so
they could have a larger bottom line. And the way
they did it was attacking the players in their labor
disputes on the other side of a national tragedy, and
they were able to get the luxury tax instituted. And
so now that keeps teams from spending. It acts like
a soft cap. And so the trust me when I

(35:48):
tell you the Major League Baseball is going to find
a way to make sure their bottom line is as
big as it possibly can be. And so whenever anybody
tells you that these owners are really hurting and they're
only doing what's good for them, because it's really you know,
you take a lot of losses owning a baseball team.
The fact of the matter is you make a lot
of money making baseball owning a baseball team, and you

(36:10):
can make a lot more if you get the players
to sign bad deals, especially during times of national tragedy tragedy,
And that's exactly what's happening again today. All right, are
we gonna have a baseball season? Yes, we're gonna have
a baseball season. What are the terms? We don't know
quite yet again. J. P. Morossi will be joining us
a little bit later on in the show. We will

(36:30):
have an expanded playoffs, which is always a good thing
because honestly, that's pretty much all I watch is playoff
baseball anyway, So the expanded playoffs is something appealing to me.
All Right, we're in the guy called Fox Sports Radio Studios.
We're hop scotching around right now between all the big
big sports, including let's get back to the NFL. All
systems go, right, not necessarily, some looming problems about the

(36:54):
start of the NFL season will address coming up next.
Steve Hartman, Rich Oreinberg, coming alive from the guy Go,
Fox Sports Radio Studios. So the NFL is all systems go.
We talked to someone the covers the Chiefs this week
and he said, hey, they're selling every ticket they planning

(37:15):
on have any seventy thousand people show up at Arrowhead
to root on the Super Bowl champion Chiefs. So at
least at this point, all systems go, full stadiums, everything else.
But John Harbaugh, the Ravens, the coach there, said look,
talking about the start training camp at the end of July,
he goes, I've seen all the memos and quite honest,

(37:36):
it's impossible what they're asking us to do humanly impossible.
He goes, I'm pretty sure the huddle is not going
to be six feet spaced. Okay, so let's let's get
back to all the social distancing guidelines that every one
of us have to adhere to and try to apply

(37:56):
that to the NFL. In fact, let's let's hear a
little bit from John Harbor. You can sense a little
frustration from the Ravens coach, but nobody knows, and the
experts don't know, and you know, everybody wants to see
y A at two. So I've seen I've seen all
the memos on that, and to be quite honest with you,
it's impossible what they're asking us to do, humanly impossible.

(38:17):
So we're gonna do everything we can do. We're gonna space,
we're gonna have masks. But you know, it's a communications sport,
so we want to get out there and actually have
any idea about what we're doing on the field. We've
gotta be able to communicate with each other in person.
We have to practice, and I'm pretty sure the huddle
is not gonna be six ft space. So I don't
know our guy's gonna shower one at a time, all day.
Our guys gonna lift weights one at a time all day.

(38:38):
These are things that leak in. The PA needs to
get a handle on. It needs to get agreed with
some common sense. I understand his frustration. Yeah, I mean
you played in the NFL. So the guidelines that we
are all asked to do in terms of this pandemic,
how applicable are they too? Playing in the NFL? Look,
you know, I it's funny, uh this weekend. You know

(38:59):
I'm norm only obsessed about food. You know that, Steve? Uh? Yeah,
well yeah, I mean the delicious kind. The way, isn't
today your weigh in day? I wait in? I wait in?
Do it? I I'm down to two fifty five? What? Yeah? Wow,
So you haven't eaten thing since the nine cookies you

(39:19):
ate last Oh no, that's not true. I did. I
did really gorge myself on cookies a week ago today.
As a matter of fact, that was exactly a week ago.
But I I sort of build into my diet days
where I can absolutely go hog wild. Uh. You know,
people call them cheat days. That's exactly what they are.
You sort of cheat on your diet and uh and yeah,

(39:40):
so so I I factor it in and I try
to stay the course for the rest of the time
and it's working. So I'm down thirty five. Glad you
mentioned cheating, because that's what John Harbaugh believes will happen
if you try to hear these rules, that teams will
cheat and not follow the rules well. And and the
thing about it, the reason why I bring up food
so often is because I have some family we members

(40:00):
who are in the restaurant industry. And I've actually spoken
to a couple of restaurant owners over the weekend who
operate not only UH restaurants in this state but other states,
and they say the guidelines are really confusing to open.
So it's not just John Harbaugh, it's every business is
struggling with guidelines being sent down that they have to

(40:21):
conduct business as usual in these times. I don't know
how anybody gets it right. Well again, personal spacing is
this possible? And play football doesn't seem likely? So how's
that all gonna work out? In fact, how's this all
gonna work out? For the sports? Where we'll tell you next?
All right, rolling along here on this Sunday, Harbin and
Oremburger with you. We are coming alive from the guy

(40:43):
go Fox Sports radio studios. Fifteen minutes could save you
fifteen per cent more on your car insurance. Visit guy
Go dot com for a free rate quote. We got
so many things that are affecting our sports world these days.
Obviously we've been only for the last three plus months
with the outbreak of COVID nineteen, social distancing completely flipped

(41:07):
our personal lives upside down, as well as the sports calendar. Obviously,
we have the protests going on in the aftermath of
the murderer George Floyd. So there's a lot of layers
on what's going on right now and and rich you know,
a lot of it also has to do with not
just a return of sports, but the return of fan
to sports. Did you see the video of the Australian

(41:31):
rules football the rugby? Did you see this man's in
the stands? All right? So this was in New Zealand.
I'm gonna look it up now as you're talking. Um,
they invited the fans back and they actually showed we
we carry this on TV last night and there were
like twenty thousand people. I'm looking at it. Yeah, And

(41:55):
not only were there twenty thousand people packed into the stadium,
I did not a single fan wearing a mask. One.
I'm looking at the screenshots right now. Let me let
me zoom it. No, dude, I mean we ran We
ran this last night at the end of our broadcast,
and you know, I had not actually seen it before

(42:17):
we aired it. I thought, okay, well, the fans will
be there, but they will be wearing masks, or they'll
be at least I mean we I'm looking. There's not
a single fan like you're thinking. This is something you know,
video that was taken a year ago, right, just a
normal sporting event, fans going crazy on top of each other,
rooting on their team and everything else. Now I'm just happened.

(42:40):
I'm looking. And here's what's interesting about this. Two things.
One obviously, because they're in New Zealand. It's very cold
there right now. Here. You've got the crowd noise playing,
that's twenty people you have. You have colder weather in
New Zealand right now, whereas it's very warm here. Correct. Um,

(43:01):
so everybody's bundled up there, wearing coats and things like that,
and some of them have their hoods up. But yeah,
you're right, I didn't see a single person actively wearing
a mask, and I couldn't tell if they were scarves
around some of their necks again because it's cold, or
were handkerchiefs or face mask But what's happening also, what's
happening also, And this is our buddy, A rash Markazi.

(43:22):
He works with the l A. Times, right, he went
out to Vegas because they're holding and hosting fights in
in in Vegas for UFC now. And I was listening
to one of his interviews with The Times on the
other side of this trip, and he said, look, I
was there. I was obeying all the rules, and I
was trying to keep my social distance, and I was
wearing my face mask. He was like, and all the

(43:45):
employees of the Blagio where I was staying, we're wearing
their face masks. And many of the patreons um, you know,
at different places I went, we're wearing their face mask,
he goes. But I went into one casino in particular,
and he said it was a young or crowd, and
he said, not only were people not wearing face masks,
but I actually sat down for a drink and I

(44:07):
was shamed for wearing mine. So this is a part
of the cultural problem as well. If you are a
person who's trying to observe any sort of social distancing
at all, or trying to wear your face mask, you
may be actually shamed or or publicly humiliated if you're
wearing it in certain in certain spaces. I am telling you, Rich,

(44:29):
I can already see what's gonna happen here. All right. Okay,
so let's say whatever the sporting event is, well, let's
use the NFL, because since the NFL at least now
still has taken the stance, we're gonna have full stadiums
in the fall, all right. So that's where they're standing
right now. All right, So let's say you do all
the testing. I mean, just imagine how much time this
is gonna take. If you're taking a temperature or whatever

(44:50):
and you're required to enter the stadium with a mask on. Okay,
how are you gonna enforce that? Because again, when we
have the food situation, very hard. I mean, I know, Rich,
you've tested this trying to either eat or drink with
a mask on. Uh, And it's very very very trying
to eat ribs with a mask on. I ended up
eating the mask. All right, So let's says you're you're

(45:12):
your regular fan. You've been going to let's just say,
Bears games for years, right, you've been going to Bears
games for years. It's a cold day, you're enjoying your
adult beverages, eating your hot dogs and everything else, and
they keep reminding, now, look at unless you're taking a
bite out of that hot dog or taking a sip
from that beer, you gotta put that mask on. Are
you kidding me? Those masks will be off in a heartbeat.

(45:34):
And once you start cheering, you know, getting into the
game and everything, no, wait, this mask will be going
and what are you doing? Throw them out of the stadium?
Waiting to force this? I want, I want to bring
a whole different issue to discuss here to this conversation.
What's that? So I just went and because like again

(45:57):
there it seems so reckless, right to see twenty people
in the stands and nobody wearing masks unless unless it
was four months ago without COVID, right, then we're talking
about Well that that's just normal, that's that's common practice. Well,
I'm looking at the stats on New Zealand, so as

(46:17):
of let me get the as of May one correct.
They had their first day where there were zero cases
of coronavirus, and that has continued being the case except
for one day there was a quick blip on the twenty.
That has continued being the case. Yeah, all the way
through until today. So they've had zero cases for weeks

(46:41):
and weeks and three weeks is what they're saying. So
so like, I get it now, I get it. You
know what, that's not reckless behavior. I will agree with
you that you will have an issue and you already
do have an issue in certain places and businesses that
are open with restaurants and bars, you know, people keeping
their masks on by the way, they're sped and all

(47:01):
that stuff. Remember I told you about the bar, the
outside restaurant that I saw us last Saturday night in Hollywood.
So last night, same time, twelve fifteen, I'm heading down
this is in the heart of Hollywood. I take a
left turn and there's that restaurant's got an outdoor patio area,

(47:21):
and it was an absolute repeat of what I saw
a week ago. I would estimate there were at least
forty people on this outdoor patio or this is a
twelve fIF fifteen minutes after midnight on a Saturday night.
By the way, there's no other place open, right, this
is the only place open, no mask, zero mask, people

(47:44):
all packed together in a very small space. They probably
have I don't know about eight or nine tables out there,
every table full. Everyone packed out there right on plane view, uh,
publicly because they're outside, not inside, and not a single
hang on because I just looked up that restaurant and
much like New Zealand, they have eradicated COVID that half

(48:08):
a block that they've locked it down. They've forbid any
travel in or out. Had to tell you? What does
that tell you? Though? Then on a Saturday night where
everything else seemingly is shut down, how anxious people are
it's a namely young people obviously, but how anxious people
are to get back to normality as far as being

(48:30):
able to sit down with friends, family, talk, eat, drink
and do everything else is so used to. I see
that now. Apparently every Saturday night at this one place
in Hollywood that decided the heck with it, fans come
on down. You know they're raking it money of course,
so yeah, no one stopping him. There's um, I know,

(48:53):
there's this this this insane it's not insane. Yeah, I
don't because I don't want to look I'm anxious. I
don't want to act like I'm sitting on some high
platform and preach to everybody else like we've expanded our circle.
It was just myself, my wife, my two boys, and
our dogs stuck in our house and many many of

(49:13):
the trips out we found applications on our cell phones
to have groceries now delivered, you know, and and even
like you can order from like a beer distributor, like
there is. Legitimately, the only excuse I have to leave
my home at this point is to take my boys
for a walk, walk down to the beach where we're

(49:35):
trying to keep our social distance from everybody else, or
to come to work outside of that. We're we're locked in.
We're shut in because we're trying to keep ourselves and
those around us safe. But I I can't act like
I'm not anxious to get back to life as it
was and frankly, you know, and to speak honestly, because
we've been so carefully. We we've now taken trips up

(49:57):
to Los Angeles to visit within laws, and we have
an aber who we care about very deeply, who's become
like family to us, who we now welcome over. We're
trying to keep our our radius really tight and really small.
But I'm not gonna act like I don't understand it.
I completely understand it. And that's even the reason why
we've widened the number of people that we spend time with,

(50:19):
because human beings are social animals. Like that's the reason
why we all sit down together as a nation to
watch the Super Bowl, to watch the NBA Finals, to
watch the World Series, and we tweet about it. Social
media was invented because we weren't getting enough of each other.
Just when we left the house, we wanted to bring
everyone into our homes. So I get it. Human interaction

(50:43):
is essential to our lives, and right now we're being
stripped of it. So when you see that bar on
Hollywood Boulevard and you see all these people on the
patio is not wearing masks and you know, having a
nightcap and smoking a cigarette on the balconies or whatever.
While I completely understand I I do still think that,

(51:05):
you know, until we get these our caseload completely under control,
it's going to be frowned. The under control, I think
that is where I am utterly confused on what people
want no, no, no, I'll get I'll give you in it. Well,
it could be it could be a vaccine, but which

(51:25):
is two years away not two years away. Didn't Fauci
just say we're gonna have what what do you say,
testing for two or million people by the end of
the entire way. Well, he did change his now says
it's not a guarantee there's gonna be a second wave anything.
Because he's worked for six different presidents as a disease,

(51:47):
but a second way. His message has gone back and forth.
He once said you can count on a second wave
and now recently just said there's no guarantee there's going
to be a second Well, if you if you're trying
to justify what you're doing, because you're saying, I'm willing
to put my life on the line, Well it's not
just your life, it's everybody's life. So that that's okay,

(52:10):
we're up against we we're in the guy. Go Fox
Sports Radios two. We've got much more on this on
the other side, including everybody talking about taking the knee
at the national anthem, and there is a level of
hypocrisy that we must address. Coming up next, Steve Harman
and Rich Harburger. For all the ones who get it done,

(52:32):
There's Granger offering supplies and solutions for every industry, plus
seven customers, support and product specialists always ready to answer
any question. Call or visit Granger dot com. There's no
question when the NFL season begins, all eyes are gonna
be on the field for the national anthem. Uh. This

(52:53):
was a situation that was amplified a few years back
when President Trump said, hey tell the s O b
s to standard attention for the anthem, and there was
a big protest around the National Football League. We saw
several owners uh like Jerry Jones taking knee as well
as Drew Brees taking ane, but not during the national anthem.

(53:15):
It was sort of a sign of unity before the
anthem that a lot of these people took a knee.
So let's make that clear they were not taking a
knee during the actual national anthem. Well, obviously this is
going to be a hot button subject once the season begins,
so um. J J. Watt was called out on Twitter
by someone that said that he was pretty sure this

(53:38):
Twitter follower that J. J. Watt would not be taking
a knee during the anthem, and J J. Watt responded
with this, a don't speak for me and be if
you still think it's about disrespecting the flag or military,
you clearly haven't been listening. And you know, it's interesting

(53:59):
because Bill Brian of the Texans, the coach, said this, Yeah,
I'll take a knee. I'm all for it. The players
have a right to protest, a right to be heard,
and a right to be who they are. They're not
taking a knee because they're against our flag. They're taking
a knee because they haven't been treated equally in this
country for over four hundred years, al right. So in

(54:20):
that statement, Rich and this is this is where I
feel like we're getting a little bit off track, recognizing
the right of protests wrecking the right of NFL players
have taken knee during the national anthem. I'm a dent behind.
You have the right to do that. However, would that
being said, having the right to do that, you also

(54:43):
have the right to be against it. And this is
going to be the interesting part of this is how
this is all gonna play out on the field. If
you have certain players taking a knee and then all
of a sudden, we're taking account for players that aren't
taking a knee for whatever reasons they decide. I mean,
everyone again has a right to their own beliefs about

(55:04):
the national anthem, about the American flag, whatever it may be,
and how they will be treated if they don't take
a knee, because you know full well with social media
and everyone putting labels on everyone else that they're gonna
you know, hey, look at this guy, didn't take a knee, racist?
What what's the deal with this guy? So I think

(55:24):
it's it's clear that certain guidelines need to be adhered
to that while everyone has a right to take a
knee if they so choose during the national anthem, you
have the equal right not to take a knee during
the national anthem without some kind of blowback against you.
And that is my biggest concern as we head into

(55:47):
the NFL season. Let's talk about just some of the
arbitrary situations that are going on here. Um, you know,
just because I stand with my end over my heart,
with my helmet tucked under my my arm, Um that
just because I'm doing that doesn't mean that I'm necessarily

(56:08):
celebrating patriotism. Maybe what I did, and I'll be honest
with you, and I don't care if this is controversial
to anybody, during the playing of the national anthem, and
this was all the way through college, and it was
true all the way through my professional career, I wasn't
thinking about the country at all. I was taking a
quiet moment where we were all forced to be quiet

(56:28):
on the sideline, UH to thank quietly to myself all
the people who helped me get to where I was.
So I thank my wife, I thank my parents, I
thank my grandparents. I thank my coaches at different levels
of play, those people who are so important to me
to help me elevate myself to the platform I was on.
I rarely thought about America. I I rarely thought about

(56:51):
our country. I was just thinking about my life, you know.
I was call it meditation, call it whatever you will. Now,
am I disrespecting the flag because I'm not spending two
minutes plus concentrating on patriotism. No, I'm not. No, I'm not.
You know, So, I I don't understand whether you know

(57:12):
somebody is taking a knee next to me or I'm
standing next to him, Why how you could say for
certain that that person is anything and that person is anything?
Because I think we're all doing in general I mean,
there are some people in the stands who shout things
during the national anthem. There's some people in the stands
who use the national anthem as an opportunity to go

(57:33):
take a leak. There's some people in the stands who
talk to their buddy and have a conversation during the
nancial anthem. None of them are being publicly ridiculed. You know. Look,
I understand the purpose of the protest. I understand it
completely and fullheartedly support what they're protesting for. And I
completely appreciate the reason why that protest. When Colin Kaepernick

(57:56):
first sat down then took a knee, sort of coached
along by Nate Bowyer, former Green Beret, former NFL player,
on maybe how to how to meet in the middle,
so to speak. Well, but here's the whole thing again.
But there's an idea. Yeah, but I don't understand. What
I don't understand is why somebody taking a kniche should
be condemned and somebody standing, uh, shouldn't be or vice versa.

(58:20):
I don't understand how it's anybody's business to have, you know,
commentary on either. Well, and that's the whole point that
I'm making here. The idea of many people saying, well,
if you're not with us, you're against us. Well that's
not true. What do you mean if I'm not with you,
i'm against you. I'm not against you. I'm I'm giving
you the right to exercise your freedom. That's what this

(58:41):
country is all about. Just because I'm not with you
doesn't mean I'm against you. And this is what this
is because of the volatility of the situation right now,
and we just had another uprising in the city of Atlanta,
so I mean, and they're going to continue to be
these uprising means all the way up and I'm just
I'm specifically targeting the NFL because of the whole controversy

(59:06):
about the national anthem. So this is this is something
I hope and this is why it is important for
the NFL and the people that are in a seat
of power. I'm talking about, these owners to make a
clear stand on where they stand on this. If they
make it clear that they recognize the players rights to
protests during the national anthem, but it's also the rights

(59:29):
of players that choose not to protest during the national
anthem that they don't be persecuted in some way for
taking that stand unless you make that clear. You know what.
It's it's very interesting stance you have here, because I
didn't hear so many people coming out, you know, uh,
for Colin Kaepernick in that way when he was doing
what he was doing, like, you know, just because now

(59:51):
we're talking about something that that that's a different situation.
Oh it is, Oh it is. It's a much different situation.
Now people who um are standing for the national anthem
could potentially be in the minority for the first time
and potentially their lives doing anything, and all of a sudden,
we need to make rules to make them feel more comfortable.

(01:00:12):
I guess the my my, my point here is the
protest was about oppression. The protest was about a race
in our country feeling so significantly oppressed that somebody said,
you know what, I don't care if I lose my job.
I'm going to take it upon myself to make a
national protest of this. I'm going to take a knee.

(01:00:33):
I'm going to make this about the cause as best
I can. And then that that that knee that Colin
Kaepernick was taking was spun into this anti patriotism, It
was spun into this against the flag mentality it was
spun into this anti military mentality when it wasn't about that.
It just wasn't and he was made to be, you know, uh,

(01:00:56):
some sort of enemy of the of the people. Yeah,
it wasn't about he was trying to make he was
trying to bring attention to a cause. Now, if there
are players standing in attention hand over their heart during
the playing of the national anthem, and they find themselves
to be in the minority because the majority of the
people are taking a knee, what were we gotta protect?

(01:01:16):
We gotta we we have to go out of our
way to protect them from oppression. I mean three years ago,
I mean a guy was blackballed from the league. We
know that now. A former league executive has explained that
it wasn't necessarily coordinated so much as these owners didn't
want to deal with the media scrutiny or backlash, so

(01:01:37):
they wouldn't sign a talented quarterback to the NFL, you know,
I I mean, so it's it's when the shoes on
the other foot, it gets awfully uncomfortable, doesn't But again,
everyone has the right. This is the point. Everyone has
a right. You just said that you use the national
anthem for something they had nothing to do with patriots.
You have the right to do that. You didn't have

(01:01:58):
to be sitting there in the thoughts of you know,
men and women that have given their lives to our country.
But that represents the flight. That's not what you did.
You wanted to thank everybody. That's your right. So the
question is everyone has to be given their personal space,
especially in terms of the spot. You feel that way, Steve,
I mean because I I remember being on Did you
feel that way with with Colin Kaepernick? Did you feel

(01:02:21):
like he should have been able to do what he wanted.
I never had a problem with Colin Kaepernick taking a
knee during the national anthem. I did not. I never did.
In fact, as you know, this all began in San
Diego and I was that was a week that I
will never forget. When he did take a knee. It
was a military appreciation night preseason game between the forty

(01:02:42):
Niners and the Chargers. All I wanted to do was
still allow in my position, people to voice their opinions,
and it was an explosion opinions on both sides, and
ultimately where did I stand. I respected both sides on
the issue. Right we're in the Geico Fox Sports Radio studios.
On the other side, what we got so much more
to get to, including maybe or maybe not, the restarted

(01:03:03):
the baseball season. But right now, let's check in with
Ralph Irvine, who is excited about one thing. We have
golf today and this is something near and dear to
Mr golf fan himself, the great Ralph. Well, absolutely, and
what a surprise that Steve Hartman is all about somebody
being able to say whatever they want to say. Yes, well,
that's what I've been doing. That's why I'm a loose cannon,
as you know. Yeah, I'm fully aware of that. We're

(01:03:27):
more more aware than most. There is live golf today,
and boy, we've got a kerfuffle at top the leaderboard.
There are now four players tied for the lead at
the Charles Swab Challenge at Colonial in Fort Wood, Texas.
Colin Morricala, Justin Thomas, Ander Shoffley, Gary Woodland, all at
thirteen under par, all one under for the day except Shoffley,

(01:03:50):
who is even par through the first hole. Just one
stroke back will you'll find another four players. So it
is a packed leaderboard in the final round of this
Charles Schwab Challenge. P J Tour crowning their first champion
since the month of March. NNASCAR getting set to start

(01:04:10):
there four hundred mile race at Homestead Miami Speedway. It
gets started about an hour from now. It will be
on Fox TV, and there'll be a thousand local members
of the military invited to attend in person, so there
will actually be some fans in the stands. Not gonna
be any fans in the stands for NBA games, that is,

(01:04:31):
if there are NBA games right now. Players debating whether
or not they want to come back to finish out
the season. There is the debate about issues related to
the George Floyd circumstances, issues of race and change. But
there are also the debates about whether or not players
want to be sequestered for as much as two months
at Walt Disney World as they go through the process

(01:04:54):
being away from friends, family, everyday life. Major League Baseball. Well,
that's a whole other issue, and I'm sure Steve and
Rich will discuss it. Oh yeah, yeah, we have plenty
to discuss. Ralph, thanks so much. We're coming alive from
the Geico Fox Sports Radio studio. Is easy to say
more on car insurance with Geico, go to guy Got

(01:05:14):
dot com or call eight and a night for seven Otto.
The only hard part figuring out which way is easier.
I know, we get into the NFL and then we're
still months away as far as the NFL season is concerned.
We're on the clock with Major League Baseball because the
players union has made it clear they want a definitive
answer by the close of business tomorrow. All right. They've
actually handed Major League Baseball a deadline. Of course, major

(01:05:37):
League Baseball taking the stance that the players have not
uh negotiated a good faith I mean, they're really trying
to turn the table and putting the bull's eye on
the players for any kind of abbreviated season or lack
of a season. Although the players did say, rich, hey,
just give us a time and place. All right, we'll
be there. We'll be just you decide and we'll be there.

(01:05:58):
So that's what the owners are going to try to
figure out. And what we're expecting is a season of
around fifty games, I hope fifty four, making a nice
even third of a season, not forty eight, not fifty,
but fifty four with them getting their full salaries over
that period of time. They're not gonna be happy about it,
but they're gonna get back to business. So John Paul
Morossi is gonna be Johnny us In a couple of

(01:06:19):
hours he had predicted we would have a definitive could happen.
By the way, over the next couple of hours. You know,
they're not gonna wait until the end of business day tomorrow. Um.
The idea of a shortened season, uh, if you don't know,
or having her rich Ormburger before the shorter the better.
As far as the baseball seasons concerned, NBA seasons concerned,

(01:06:40):
you've never bought into the fact that a hundred sixty
two games are necessary. The hell with the record books.
You could care less. You're not the numbers got to
begin with, so that doesn't really matter to you. Um.
Could we see, let's say we have a fifty games season. Yeah,
and they're able to pull it off, okay, and then
we don't have any uprising as far as COVID nineteen

(01:07:01):
and somehow we we get through the fifty games and
then ultimately we get to the postseason and it works out.
Eyeballs are there, numbers are good, and at the end
we crown a world Series champion. Do you think that
Baseball will examine their schedule? Do you think I'm not
saying a fifty game season, but will they take stock
of the length of their season and may decide, you

(01:07:22):
know what, this could actually work for us if we
shorten to some degree our major league season. You know
the old expression, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Um.
Baseball is the perfect example of a model that isn't
going to last forever. It's not gonna last even for

(01:07:43):
very much longer, but it isn't broken, so they're not
going to fix it. And that's how I feel about
the one hundred sixty two games season. Look, yeah, right now,
it's still benefiting them. They're still raking in local advertising
and local regional uh rights deals. Uh so, they're they're

(01:08:03):
making huge revenue year over year over year. However, the
model is broken, and eventually there's the interest is gonna
dry up in this sport, and it's because they've oversaturated
their game. I feel similarly about the n b A.
I feel like the reason why they're expanding the reach
of their game globally is because the fact that you

(01:08:26):
play eighty two games during the course of a season,
it dries up interest because there's no urgency of their
regular season. There isn't enough parity in their league. You know,
you have these these teams that are great, that are
going to be great, and they're going to win it all.
You know, you'll you'll occasionally have two great teams in

(01:08:47):
a single conference. In this case, you know, on the
Western Conference side you have the Clippers and the Lakers,
and that's really really buzzy, especially in l A, which
is the second largest media market. But there are many
years where you can predict not only who the final
combatants are going to be, but also who the final
victor is going to be, and it is a march

(01:09:07):
toward inevitability. In the NBA, the same could be said
about baseball. There's maybe ten or twelve teams that even
have a chance at the start of the season the
better better than half the league is in the in
a state of ritualistic rebuild. And so yeah, I I
think that less games would be a better model, But
again they're not going to change. So no, I don't

(01:09:29):
think even if they come back and they have a
shortened season, and even if they see an increase in
interest on a national scale, because there is so much
more urgency on each one of these forty games or
fifty four games. I don't think they're gonna use it
as a bellweather of change. I think they're gonna look
at it as like, who, okay, that went better than
we thought. Let's get back to our you know, eighty

(01:09:52):
one game home schedule, where we can break in all
the gate money and the concession money we can and uh,
you know, and and not spare another dime worrying about
whether or not urgency creates interest. That's interesting to me.
How we we always glorify the past, right, things are
always better back in the day. Okay, it's true there

(01:10:16):
when we talk about let's say, during the nineteen five
I mean, I'm gonna give an example here, nineteen fifty five,
now nineteen fifty five, the NFL is a non factor,
the NBA is in its infancy. Major League Baseball rules
the sports world, along with boxing, horse racing was very
big in the nineteen fifty five all right, So you think, oh, man,

(01:10:37):
that's when baseball ruled the world. He had sixteen teams,
he had two leagues of eight. I mean, even as
some numbers here, as far as attendance is concerned, Well,
baseball rules the world, right, the New York Yankees, we're
second and major League Baseball in attendance and nine fifty

(01:11:00):
five the New York Yankees World Series perennial champions, Mickey
man Oh, Yogi Barrel, Whitey four, Casey Stengel the New
York Yankees. In nineteen fifty five, the Yankees average and
this was in a Yankee stadium that held over seventy
thousand seats, the original Yankee Stadium, they averaged nineteen thousand
fans a game, averaged nineteen thousand fans a game. Cincinnati,

(01:11:26):
Great Baseball City that year they averaged nine thousand. In fact,
there was only one team, the Milwaukee Braves, who had
just moved to Milwaukee, so there was still a little
newism to the fact that the Brazer in town. They
were the only team in baseball average more than twenty
thousand fans a game. So, and part of the problem
in those days was is that when you only had

(01:11:48):
two leagues by the middle of the season, because the
season is so long, most of the teams that were
the halves and have nots, there was no reason to
go because your team was never really in contention. Now
here's my thing by aren't ing the season, And I
know this is sacrilegious because I'm a numbers guy and
I would fully admit that this would completely wipe out

(01:12:09):
the record book. Am I starting to get you to
come around? Just saying because because baseball is at the
crossroads where they need to figure out, what can we
do not to retain our fans because baseball fans will
always be there. The question is how do we bring
new fans in? But it only makes sense if you

(01:12:30):
shorten the season, you keep more teams in contention longer,
and if there is a certain level of interest because
the team you're rooting for us in contention, you're more
apt to watch the games or even at ten games.
So it just going back to a time when you
only had two teams that made the playoffs, the winner

(01:12:51):
of the American League in the National League. You could
see by the attendance figures, nobody showed up in the
so called glory days when baseball ruled this sports world.
So there's always myth and then there's reality. That was
the reality of the situation back in those days. And
so it will be interesting if this abbreviated baseball season

(01:13:13):
is successful, they get eyeballs, they get a nice run
in the postseason, whether Major League Baseball in moving forward
says all right, we need to make some changes to
try to interest an audience that's not there with us yet.
Interesting what they could do with that. Yeah, Look, I
think that like a lot of people feel about this

(01:13:33):
pandemic and this you know, many states, the stay at
home order, which was lengthy and starting to loosen up everywhere.
Now the fact that we've had certain businesses that have
had to completely rethink the way they do business. And
this is not just in sports, but this is everywhere.
I think for certain businesses, this and certain families and

(01:13:55):
certain people, this pandemic, you know, if you hadn't been,
you know, personally affected from a health standpoint, may show
a way to doing things better in the future. And
in certain businesses it's really showed weaknesses. And I'm very curious,
especially in the world of sport, to see which side
these leagues fall on. Is it gonna fall on the

(01:14:17):
side of, wow, we just had a lot of our
weakness is exposed, or wow, we found a way to
get stronger. The NFL, even though they're amid their offseason.
They found a way to get stronger. A lot of
people like the virtual draft. A lot of people found
free agency, especially in the early days of the uncertainty
of this pandemic, to be a welcomed distraction. The NBA
may get the Bubble Sea City format going for their finals.

(01:14:41):
I mean, could we see a situation in the future
where playoff games are all hosted in one city and
that's passed around year to year. I mean, look, there
could be strengths found during times of crisis, but Major
League Baseball they're having a lot of their weakness is
exposed and it is not helping their sport. We're in
the Guy Go Fox Sports Radio Studios. You know, we

(01:15:03):
said all along the great thing about sports it's a
It's a big healer for our country. Is that still true?
You're gonna tell you coming up next. Are you tired
of staring at that dent? At Mako? Getting cool as
you're repaired is as easy as book quote fix. Come
to Mako for coolies and repair, backed by our best

(01:15:24):
price guarantee. Oh better get Mako. Steve Harbin and Rich Harburger,
We're coming alive from the Guy go Fox Sports radio
studios fifteen minutes could save you fifteen per cent more
on your car insurance. Physic Guy go dot com for
a free raid quote. We talked in the aftermath of
nine eleven how the sports world brought Americans together, and

(01:15:50):
obviously the circumstances of what's going on right now are
very drastically different than what we experience with nine eleven. However,
I got a leave now Rich that the idea that
somehow sports is a unifier is bye bye. And I

(01:16:10):
say that because what we are seeing right now is
a clear divide in the sports were all very similar
to what's going on with the rest of the country.
I've always said the sports basically mirrors the rest of
the country. There's no difference. Athletes or humans just like
everyone else, and so they have their opinions and you know,
but but because of social media, uh, we're we're hearing

(01:16:34):
more athletes speak out on on everything, and so the
divide that we experience in this country, unfortunately is very
much reflected right now in the sports world. It's not
a unified front because it is a reflection of our society. So,
you know, this is when we always get this criticism
that when you're doing a let's say, a sports show,

(01:16:55):
I don't want to hear politics. I want to hear sports. Unfortunately,
we don't have any or its to speak of, certainly
not with our three major team sports right now. So
politics enter the equation because as a direct effect on one,
we are going to see our sports again. But I
wonder if there's ever going to be that time when
we go back to the idea that sports is the

(01:17:15):
great unifier, because right now it's not. Sports is reflecting
what we're all going through right now. And I don't
know how you put the genie back in the bottle. Well,
I do think that the concept sports, uh, it shows
what a meritocracy really can look like, because I don't

(01:17:36):
think when we look at a field of athletes we
really see color or race or religion. We see the
team that they're playing for, right you know, we see
the team logo. So if you're a Yankees fan, you're
not so hung up on you know, the nationality of
these players, or you're not hung up on the ethnic

(01:17:56):
background of these players. You're interested in them as a team,
vying for something together and achieving it, you know. So
that so that fandom and that team represents more than
whatever could divide them, and so I think that will
always be the case for sport. But I do understand

(01:18:17):
that these teams are made up of people of different
ethnic backgrounds and religions, and you know that that these
people aren't just athletes. You know, they take off like
I did when I was a professional football player. I
take off my shoulder pads, I untie my cleats, and
then I'm just another guy walking the streets of my

(01:18:37):
city or in my state or in my country. And uh,
you know, I have things that I'm interested in, and
I have causes that I want to fight for. And
so what we're seeing more than ever is players whereas
they belong to a team, they understand, well, I belong
to a team that's more important to me. In the
case of Colin Kaepernick, in the case of Kenny Stills,

(01:18:58):
in the case of Eric Read, in the case of
many players who protested during the sev and twenty nineteen seasons,
uh for their causes. They felt they felt like their
team in life was was being ostracized, and so if
you're gonna support their team that they play for on Sundays,

(01:19:22):
then they want to get the word out about the
team that they play for on every single other day.
We're in the Guy Go Fox Sports Radio Studios. A
complicated equation the NBA. What's happening next? We're gonna tell
you all right, continuing on this a Sunday, Harvan and Orenburger,
we are coming to Alive and the Guy Go Fox
Sports Radio Studios. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent

(01:19:43):
of more on car insurance. Physic guy got dot com
for a free rate club. Well, we really thought we
were set for the NBA season, right, everyone was on board,
got the bubble in Orlando. It's all good. Well, we're
spring in a league right now, and multiple leaks. So
here's the latest rich about uh information that the NBA

(01:20:07):
sent out yesterday about the coronavirus testing for players and
staff taking part in the league's restart, which by the way,
will begin June. Okay, as far as testing is concern,
first of all, in the memo, the players and essential
teams staff, coaches, trainers, medical personnel. And by the way,

(01:20:28):
it's gonna be interesting to see the thirty five names
that each team is allowed to bring into the bubble.
Just get a little sidetrack. Do you think that would
include play by play people. I mean, for instance of
friends of ours to do the Lakers, like my man
Michael Thompson. Uh, he's gonna be there for three months.
Highly unlikely. I announcers are gonna be there? Would you

(01:20:53):
even want to be there? Here's the dirty little secret
on game announcers. Now. While still the majority of game
announcers that you're hearing call games are actually in the stadiums,
the arenas, the ballparks of the game being played, there
are occasions where games are called remotely where you will

(01:21:16):
have a color commentator, a play by play announcer in
a booth together, but they will be thousands of miles
away watching television monitors, whether it be the feed from
the trucks of the network they're calling the game from,
or even a national feed that they are calling the
game off of. This is becoming more and more common,

(01:21:37):
especially with you know, games that are being aired by
by national entities that aren't deemed as well important as others.
And so you don't have to spend on the travel
expenses of a broadcast crew, and uh, you don't have
to worry about the logistics there, So that being more
and more common in our world in our sports broadcasting

(01:22:01):
a landscape. And then the fact that these teams are
only allowed to bring in thirty five employees. I doubt
it sincerely that you're gonna have any announcers on site.
I agree. All right, So here's here's the if you're
if you're wondering about the calendar. Here so again, the
on June so that is what nine days away. Nine

(01:22:22):
days away, everyone that is going to be expected to
go to the Bubble will be administered both the COVID
nineteen tests and anybody tests on that date. They will
then be tested every other day up till the day
when they actually have to leave for the Walt Disney World.

(01:22:42):
All teams are currently scheduled arrived there between July seven
and July nine. All right, so you got all this
testing going on in the meantime night, So well, are
we talking about that nasal swab tests? Not necessarily Okay,
they're trying to figure out a less invasive way. Of course,
my attitude was, I don't care how invasive it is.
How accurate is it? You know? Right? I mean, if

(01:23:05):
I'm going to get test, that's important. Give me the
test that I know is accurate. I mean, that's really
what we're talking about here as far as testing is concerned. Oh,
by the way, international players have been asked to return
to their home markets by tomorrow, so that that's another

(01:23:29):
whole element here, right. I mean, so you have, you know,
European players wherever they're coming from, and they've basically been
told you need to be here now so that we
can start this testing on you before we even get
to Walt Disney World. So all of this is going
on here. Here's what it's going through my mind through
all of this. Okay, there are five hundred players. Just

(01:23:52):
talking about players here. There are five hundred players in
the NBA. One fourth of them, exactly one four players
this season are making a salary of ten million or more.
One fourth of the NBA just in salary. Okay, that's

(01:24:13):
a decent days pay. Yeah, So one fourth of the
players in the NBA are making a salary of at
least ten million dollars in the league. So if I'm
one of these players that's making that kind of money,
and by the way, I've collected most of it already,
the idea that I'm going to start this process and

(01:24:38):
get tested every other day and then sway, goodbye to
my family and head down to the I'm telling you,
I I look at if you're Lebron James, or if
you're one of the the Box of the Lakers, the Clippers,
one of the real contenders for an NBA championship. Hey,
I'm I'm fine with it. If I can win a championship,
I'm willing to put up with this. But for a

(01:25:00):
vast majority of these players, it's like, do I really
want to be Is this something that I want to do? Well,
let me give you a pitch. Let me give you
a pitch. So if I were the NBA, the board
of Governors, or even a coach who was dealing with
a player like how you just described has made a
fortune of money over the course of his career, that's

(01:25:22):
averaging ten million dollars, maybe at a later stage of
his career, that doesn't have any pre existing health conditions,
that doesn't have a family member who is potentially uh
at a higher risk uh if if you know, if
they contract coronavirus. He's just really concerned about jeez, do
I really want to do this? I've made so much

(01:25:43):
money and I'm a little jaded. Frankly, if I'm a
coach or if I'm I'm a owner and I'm trying
to get that player on board with this idea, what
I'm going to say is something like this, Look, you
have an opportunity here to win a champion and chip
and and even even though people will say, hey, it
doesn't count, it doesn't. It's coronavirus, you know, like this

(01:26:06):
pandemic shortened season, you know, Bubble finals, Like you're going
to be a champion. You'll have an opportunity to actually
raise the Larry O'Brien. You know, this is going to
be one of the few series where we could actually
see potentially a six seed ascend all the way to
the finals and become a champion. This is gonna be

(01:26:27):
one of those weird wonky you know, no home court
advantage for this team or that team. You know, potentially
players who are coming back, you know, may get injured.
I mean, like that is a real issue too. So
if you're just a guy who's made a lot of money,
uh playing this sport, who feels like as an eight

(01:26:50):
seed or a seven seed or a sixth seed doesn't
really have a chance to win it all anyways, I
would just I would. I would say, look, before you
hang up your basketball shoes for this season and you
take whatever payment the NBA is willing to dole out
to you, whatever the teams are owed to you, um,
I would suggest you you really reconsider because there is

(01:27:11):
an excellent chance for a lower seed actually to win
it all this year as opposed to years past. Well
the favor to win the NBA Championship or the Los
Angeles course, and one of their players, Dwight Howard. Now,
Dwight is not Lebron, right, He's not Anthony Davis, but
he has been a contributor. And you know, Lebron will

(01:27:31):
be the first to tell you, I can't do this
by myself. I need everyone on board. So Dwight Howard,
who has made an excess of two hundred and forty
million dollars over the course of his NBA career, so
he's not really worried about his next paycheck. This is
what he had to say yesterday. He said, I would
love nothing more than to win my very first NBA championship,

(01:27:53):
but the unity of my people would be an even
bigger championship. That's just too beautiful to pass us up.
What better time than now for us to be focusing
on our families. No basketball until we get things resolved.
So certainly he has the right to do this, But
if he's my teammate, if I'm Lebron James and I'm

(01:28:17):
hell ben on one an NBA championship, And by the way,
Avery Bradley, another Laker player, has basically been in tune
with what Dwight Howard is saying, Hey, no basketball until
we get these things resolved. How do you how do
you deal with that if you're Lebron James, where you
go to a teammate and say, look, okay, Dwight, I
respect where you're standing here, but we have a chance

(01:28:39):
to win a championship. You've had a Hall of Fame career,
You've never won a ring I have. Believe me, it
is a difference maker. It really means something to win
an NBA championship. We can do all the things you're
talking about and still play basketball. I wouldn't. I wouldn't
approach it from that way. I really wouldn't. I would
approach it because again, you know the player who I
was trying to change of mine with my my last

(01:29:01):
statements was the guy who really isn't is it really
banging the drum for any cause so much as look,
I've made a lot of money. I don't want to
spend two months in a bubble. Uh you know that
That's not Dwight Howard. Dwight Howard. That to me, this
is a completely different angle. This is a completely different issue,
and the issue is what we are all facing as

(01:29:24):
a national community, as a global community. Since these protests began.
There's so much inertia behind a cause that's so important
to Dwight. I don't think talking about the championship is
going to have any resonance or impact what I think
works with a guy like Dwight Howard or a Kyrie
Irving or in Avery Bradley, or a Lou Williams or
anybody recently who's spoken up and said, I really don't

(01:29:47):
think that basketball is an appropriate medium to promote these causes.
I think us getting out in the streets and protesting
alongside our black brothers and sisters and standing up a
against oppression is the way for us to go forward.
If I'm Lebron James and I feel like using the
the n b A and the stage we're gonna have

(01:30:07):
in Orlando as potentially a a wider net to catch
more people up and sweep more people up in this protest.
If that's what I truly believe, well then I'm going
to preach that message. I'm not gonna be talking about
the Larry O'Brian Trophy. I'm gonna be talking to Dwight
Howard and Kyrie Irving about how we can use the
platform of the n b A to further our cause,

(01:30:30):
and they could. You know, look, I mean, there's no
questioning that basketball has humongous cultural relevance in the United States,
and not just in the United States, but across the globe.
We see it in Asia, we see it in in Europe.
Obviously a lot of the players come from Europe, you know.
So there is there is this opportunity to use the

(01:30:51):
restarting of the regular season and tournament fashion and the
playoffs throughout uh this this bubble city time in Orlando
as an opportunity need to further the cause. And so
if you're trying to change the hearts and minds of
people who are so vehemently against playing basketball in a
bubble taking them away from their cause, you need to
highlight to them the efficacy of bringing the cause to

(01:31:14):
Orlando and if so facto, bringing it to the rest
of the world. Give me interesting to see where the
NBA goes from here, because again, this was a conference
call that included many many players. A lot of them
had concerns can they get past this? And this is
you know, the Adam Silver, the commissioner of the league,
has been given a lot of credit that he's been
able to sort of bridge the gap between ownership and

(01:31:36):
the players. This is really not about ownership. This is
just where the players stand right now on the social issues,
the freedom to be able to get outside of the bubble.
I think I think the term bubble scares a lot
of people. I don't want to be inside a bubble.
I mean, what this idea that I'm inside a bubble?
Are you kidding me? And I can understand their frustration.

(01:31:57):
Where in the Guy Go Fox Sports Radio Studios. The
way of all the sports out there, there's one sport
that may have found a new comfort zone. We'll tell
you which sport that is coming up next. Steve Harbin,
Rich Ornberger Coming Alive and the Guy Go Fox Sports
Radio Studios. Although we're apart. These days, we're sharing more

(01:32:20):
and guy goes sharing more too, with the guy Go
get Back a fift credit and car motorcycle policies for
both current and new customers that last year full policy
turn visit guy go dot com slash get back for
info and eligibility. When the light of no fans in
the stands, at least temporarily, we've been hearing all these

(01:32:46):
ideas of how to sort of gimmick up the broadcast,
right We've heard the idea that they may pipe in
crowd noise or he actually superimposed fans where there are
no fans. Well, golf is not doing that right now.
By the way, that Charles schrob challenge is if you're

(01:33:07):
a golf fan, been wildly entertaining. Uh Xander shaff Lee
still has a one shot lead right now. Four others
are right behind him. So I mean, this is a
very competitive tournament on a Sunday, and the idea that
there are no fans there has been a non factor.
I want to bring Ralph Irvin in for a second here,
Rich because um I was talking about before we even

(01:33:29):
got on the air today, and Ralph is a big
golf fan and very involved in the industry, Ralph, you
were getting upset, and of all people, Jim Nance. I mean,
we're thinking about Jim Nance. He's anonymously golf. You think,
you know, hello, friends and everything else. You know, he's
there for the Masters in every year. What was it

(01:33:50):
about what Jim Nance was suggesting that irked you as
a golf fan. Well, it was the fact that he
came out and said on the broadcast on the air,
we offered for every player in the field to be
miked up for this tournament, but only Ricky Fowler agreed
to it. It was it was basically saying he threw
every player under the bus for actually looking out for

(01:34:13):
their game instead of his broadcast. Ricky Fowler agreed to it.
He did it for one round. He played like garbage,
He missed the cut. And there's that, okay. Also that
is the fact that it turned out Adam Hadwin, who
is a lesser known golfer but accomplished pro says I volunteered.
They said no. So it's just a disingenuousness about the situation.

(01:34:38):
I mean, Rich, Rich you're you've been in the NFL
where players are miked up. They put the mic in
the in your shoulder pads. You don't know you're even
wearing it hardly, you don't feel the different. My point
is too rich. Is that okay, if you're watching, is
that necessary? Is that a gimmick that is going to
draw you when it not would normally draw you to

(01:35:00):
watch golf if somebody was miked up. Well, to answer
Rouse's question, you know, yes, you're right. You know they
they and they don't even really give you a choice
in it, right, you know, like the center during certain broadcasts,
if you're the starting center of the you know, the
next one in, they will mike you up because they

(01:35:20):
want crowd noise from that, you know, they want to
hear the quarterbacks, uh cadence, you know, so they'll turn
those mics on. And that's just the way it works
in the NFL. And I will say this, like the
pads in certain cases can feel different, but you get
used to it immediately, and so the same could be
said about the golfers. Look, I get it. You know,

(01:35:43):
you travel pretty light as a golfer. You're wearing a polo,
you're wearing slacks. You know, you probably don't typically have
any sort of microphone pack on. But the technologies are
getting pretty small, and so I think it's uh, I
think it would you know, now answer Steve's question, it
would lend to the broadcast. And I'm not saying at

(01:36:05):
every single moment have these guys on air talking about
their game, but I mean imagine an opportunity to, especially
if you're a golf fan, which I am, to listen
in and not have to have some of the sound
obscured like that. You would you wouldn't really be able
to hear with a boom mic or parabolic mic, but

(01:36:25):
actually have clear audio of a discussion before hitting a
really crucial shot as a part of one of these
these major or or even minor golf events. I think
I think it would be interesting. Rich. They don't do
that live in the NFL. They don't put you out
there live. They cut it up so that here, here's

(01:36:46):
an interesting thing that you might have heard from earlier.
Here they're trying to put it live with the players.
Let's see what Ricky, That's what I'm saying, Like live
in game. They turned my mic on while I'm making
calls at the line of scrimmage. They turned the microphone
on mike on when you're in the huddle and like
the quarterbacks calling the play, that would be entertaining, right,

(01:37:09):
Why don't they have a mic on when you go
off the field complex Mike down there and see what
the Patriots are gonna have for their next call. I think,
I think, wait, wait, wait a second, wait a second.
So you guys are talking about specific strategy, like here's
my thought process? What if you turn? What if? Like
you know, because this happens in golf all the time,

(01:37:30):
where they go, okay, let's go back to the fairway
shot because you have many different cameras on the course, right,
you know, so they can't play all of the shots
live as they have occurred. But if you have clean
audio of the last ten to fifteen seconds of a
player's discussion he was having with his caddie, and there
was nothing, you know, he didn't say anything derogatory, he

(01:37:53):
didn't say anything wrong. He was just talking about the
shot that he was about to take. And then you say, yeah,
so back on you know number five fairway shop for
you know, uh, Xander Shafley. Here's the discussion between him
and his caddy. And I think that would be interesting.
We already hear that. I mean we how many times.

(01:38:13):
For instance, Tiger Woods, who is you know, pretty vocal
during his rounds. We we've over the years heard dozens
of times or you know, you could hear them because
they have like not a mic on him, but near
enough where you can hear him. And he drops an
f bob. You know, it's just like ah, you know,
blah blah blah. We do get that already. We get
that from ambient microphones that are set up around when

(01:38:36):
a guy hits one out of bounds. I mean, for
me as a golf fan, no more is better than less.
But what are you expecting to hear? Here's what Here's
where I'm going with this because I'm watching the golf
right now. By and large, we've been seeing some really
good golf. I mean we see the leaders here at
fourteen under, they're playing well. Uh, Golf is about concentration, right,

(01:38:57):
I mean, you don't have fans screaming football. Yeah, but
you're again, the sudden noise is always the the enemy.
And microphones don't make noise well, I but the ones
talking on the course, that's the whole point. When you're
sitting there, why, like this is my point. Yes, between

(01:39:19):
a caddy and a player. There's constant personally watching golf,
and I see guys not talking between between between the Okay,
well what are they even saying? Well, wouldn't wouldn't it
be nice that from the abbiance? Again, more is better

(01:39:41):
and you're never going to have You're never going to
raise a single argument that's going to convince me otherwise.
I look, I understand why don't we do that? How
much more interesting with the NFL B if the quarterback
was miked up and we could actually hear the plays
that are being called and then watching to whether or
not they actually get execute it, how fascinating would that be?

(01:40:02):
They again, they may end up getting into that look. Again,
something that's very different about golf and especially the players
in golf that from other sports leagues. When a sports
league presents an opportunity for players to make more money,
typically they are adhering to the policies. You know, there

(01:40:22):
there's an eye. There's a reason why people like NFL films,
they like having players miked up. It's because you get
an inside look. Now again, some of that is then
taken to a studio, to an editing bay, and they
put it together and they rebroadcast it on a Monday
morning or a Monday evening show. You know, not all
the time are you hearing live feeds, But more and

(01:40:44):
more and more they are trying to incorporate more microphones
closer to the game in action. Teams not just not
just the league, but teams themselves are taking onto themselves
to mic up players so that they can promote uh
and inside look of of you know, hey this week,
you know where the San Francisco for tonight? Or is

(01:41:06):
we miked up Jimmy Garoppolo give it a listen. And
you have fans who have more access to the players
than they ever had before, therefore promoting the game better.
But golfers, golfers, for whatever reason in mass are against
different and avenues to promote the game better. I'm telling you,
as a golf fan, I would be more interested rich.

(01:41:27):
Keep this in mind, though, when you're talking about the NFL,
or you're talking about a team, they're invested in the
player coming off looking right. If you're talking about CBS
making up a golfer, they're invested in the best audio
for their TV show, and that does not have the
player's best interest in mind. They would love to get
a player saying something really colorful that ends up hurting

(01:41:49):
the player. That would not happen in the NFL. You know,
that would not happen in the NFL. In fact, people
are talking about the the audio with Aaron Boone with
the Yankees from a number of years ago that was
buried because it didn't come off the way that Major
League Baseball wanted it to come off. And it just
suddenly came out. And you're talking about the savages in
the box thing. Yeah, they didn't want that out there.

(01:42:13):
It got out. And the point is is that they
were looking to protect everyone involved with baseball. That's no
guarantee if it's the network making up an individual contractor,
which is what a golfer is. Remember, these guys are
only making money on what they perform, what they do.
I understand money. However, Ralph, Ralph, I and I and
I actually think that's the best point that either one

(01:42:35):
of you have raised yet. I really do, and I
agree with you, And thanks for bringing it up, because
that is the catch. Twenty two. Ricky Fowler, he acquiesced
to this, you know, request from CBS to be miked up,
but God forbid, he said something that that I mean
was controversial, especially in these times with cancel culture being

(01:42:55):
what it is. I mean, that could have really affected
his brand. However, you have to also make the argument,
if you're gonna wear the mic, and you're gonna be
aware that you have a mic on your lapel or
wherever they place it on the player, you also stand
a chance to give more fans, more golf fans, more
sports fans, more access to you. Therefore, you know, sort

(01:43:17):
of highlighting. You imagine he was in first place going
into Sunday now and they had plenty of you know,
miked up Ricky Fowler reaction to different shots he took
throughout the throughout the tournament. I mean, it would boost
his brand. Again, so it's signal amplification. You're against it,

(01:43:37):
you know, it doesn't boost your brand. Missing the cut,
that's something that happened to Ricky Fowler. Um, I I
look at again, what didn't you find it interesting if
the leader going into Sunday, we had a collection of
sound to to rehash of what of him talking to
his career reaction to a bad four or five. The

(01:43:58):
only time I ever heard of real interesting to golf.
I'll tell you what was interteresting. I'll tell you what's interesting,
the conversation. I'll never get this. You remember this, Bubba
Watson got into an argument with his caddy and when
the caddy told him to use a club and it
didn't work, he turned on his own caddy. Now that
was interesting. That was interesting. He was here, Bubba Watson

(01:44:21):
calling out his caddy for basically giving him bad advice.
We're in the guy, go Fox Sports Radio Studios. Let's
go back to find out what's trending right now with
Ralph Irvin. L If you remember that confrontation between Bubba
Watson his caddy. Yeah, and it's a it's a funny
thing and players would like to let it go and
sometimes the media won't. And that's just it's a consideration

(01:44:43):
that makes golf. It's just a different sport than everything
else because of how players are paid. Well, a couple
of players looking to get paid. They've moved to the
top of the leaderboard. Two leaders right now at the
Charles Schwab Challenge, Daniel Berger and Colin Morikawa, both fourteen
under par, both through eight holes today. Burger three under
for the day, Morikawa to under one shot back. Well

(01:45:05):
then you'll find a trio of players Bryson de Shambo,
Xander Shaffley, Gary Woodland minus thirteen to Shambo through ten holes.
Shoffly in Woodland are through six and then two shots
back another three players, Jason Cokrack, Justin Rose, and Justin
Thomas again all within two shots of the lead. NASCAR

(01:45:27):
about to get started at Homestead Miami Speedway. They've got
a four hundred mile race scheduled and about a thousand
members of the local members of the military invited to
take part, so there will be some actual fans in
the stands again. The green flag about to drop in
South Florida, NA. Geico has introduced the Geico give Back
credit on car and motorcycle policies for current and new

(01:45:49):
customers that last year full policy term visit geico dot
com slash give back for info and eligibility, and the
NBA has informed players that they need to be ready
to be tested. Testing will start for the coronavirus on
June that is just over a week from today. Send

(01:46:10):
it back to Stephen Rich All right, Ralph, he thank
you very much for coming to Alive from the GUTIC
Fox Sports Radio Studios. Easy to say more in carent
Transfer Geico. Go to guy goot dot com or call
eight on a nine on seven auto. The only hard
part figuring out which way is easier? What other quick
note about the Charles Schwab challenge that's going on right now.
Bryson to shambo open a lot of eyes. He noticeably

(01:46:34):
put on a lot of weight. Um. People were yelling
at him like, what are you like three fifty now? Um?
He said he needed to get stronger, and he says
he's waning at about two forty. I mean he's noticeably bigger.
You're going the opposite. Wait, you're about sixty pounds or

(01:46:57):
fifty pounds plus less than you were at your playing weight.
Do you get weaker? I mean the idea of putting
on weight to be stronger? Is that myth? A reality? No,
it's reality. I mean it's Um. Look, different sports, are
you know, and present different challenges. I think in golf, uh,

(01:47:18):
the challenges creating as much torque as you possibly can.
And for certain players, um, you know, I mean, putting
on weight may make them selves, they may make themselves
too cumbersome and so that lack of flexibility could affect
their swing. But there's an old saying, especially in football,
mass moves mass. You know, if I'm a three hundred

(01:47:41):
pound offensive guard and I'm going against a three hundred
fifty pound nose tackle, okay, he has a fifty pound
uh weight advantage on me, and so not only do
I have to overcome his strength, but I also have
to overcome that disparity and weight, and so I have

(01:48:03):
to be stronger. I have to have better technique. I
have to generate more power at the point of contact
with him, otherwise he's going to win the line of scrimmage.
Uh So in golf, if you have forward momentum, that
that you are carrying through your swing with two pounds
on your frame or you know, some of these guys
are really slight, say two hundred pounds on your frame

(01:48:25):
versus a two pounds or two hundred thirty pounds, as
long as you're not losing torque, as long as you're
not slowing your swing. If you are throwing more weight
forward during your down swing at two d thirty pounds
versus two hundred pounds, well then yeah, mass moves mass.
It does make sense, all right. I want to get
back a little bit too. How important is to do

(01:48:48):
the right thing as opposed to doing what is perceived
as the right thing. So when you're an athlete. Uh,
and this gets bad to what Michael Jordan's said back
in the day when he reportedly said Republicans wear sneakers,
to remember this and he wanted to remain neutral, and
Tiger Woods at the height of his career was very

(01:49:10):
much the same. Uh in stay neutral that I don't
want to divide my audience. I want everybody to be
with me. I don't want to divide that. Um. I
found it interesting. Baker Mayfield, who's always been outspaked, spoken right,
and he's got fans, he's got critics out there, Baker Mayfield.

(01:49:31):
So he said that he was going to take a knee. Okay,
that's fine, He's gonna take a knee. And then apparently
he got a lot of flak from fans saying, well,
if you take a knee, I'm no longer you're fan.
In other words, and and this this is this is
the other idea when we talk about allegiance to teams,

(01:49:51):
right the great Unier, you know, like, well, I'm a
I'm a RAM fan and you go to the game
and we see people of all color, all everything right,
We're all we have one thing in common, and that's
that we love the Rams. But all of a sudden,
a few of the players are doing things that you
disagree with. Are you no longer a RAM fan? Well,
here's what Mayfield said on Instagram. He goes, everyone's so

(01:50:14):
upset about my comma doesn't understand the reason behind kneeling
in the first place. Nate Boyer, former NFL player in
green beret and Cap, came to an agreement that kneeling
was the most respectful way to support a military, also
standing for equality, the utmost respect for our military cops
and people that serve our country. It's about equality and
everybody be treated the same because we're all human. It's

(01:50:36):
been ignored for too long. And that is my fault
as well, for not becoming more educated and staying silent.
If I lose fans, that's okay. I've always spoken my
mind and that's from the heart. Well, you know, when
we talk about dividing an audience, and we're always by
the way warned and what we do, although we're never

(01:50:58):
given any restrictions, that understand that words are powerful. You
say something, you make a point of it, then you
have to stand by those words, and there may be blowback.
We get it all the time here on social media.
We understand that. But from a player's standpoint, especially when
you're marketing yourself and you have a small window as
an an athlete to sort of make the most out

(01:51:21):
of your brand, so to speak, because once you're out
of the leag very few can carry that on. How
cautious should they be? Is it something to be boldened
the waere you stand? Can you really risk taking a
stand that may turn off not people just to you personally,
but to your team as well, especially if you're quarterback. Well,
I look at um. We were just talking about golf

(01:51:44):
and Ricky Fowler and how he decided to be miked
up for this tournament. He took a risk, right, you know,
you can say maybe he missed the cut for the
Charles Schwab because he had a microphone then and he's
not typically used to playing with that. I'm sure if
you asked him he probably would tell you. Well, I
didn't notice it after we teed off. I was just
concentrating on my game. I had a bad day. But

(01:52:05):
again with with when you take certain risks, there could
potentially be negativity on the other side of those risks.
And so while yeah, like in this situation, which is
much more serious than wearing a microphone at a golf tournament,
you are taking a risk. You're taking a risk to
come forward and maybe be a more authentic version of

(01:52:29):
yourself because I'm sure, like many of us, what Baker
Mayfield is alluding to, it's for a long time being
really really upset by some of the stories that his
teammates of color were telling him and feeling like, boy,
I wish there was something I could do. I wish uh,
I wish I could be more active in this space.

(01:52:50):
How could I support these guys? And you know, you
almost feel like a bystander or a pedestrian watching some
awful auto accident and saying, you know, I'm just not
I'm not qualified to help this situation. But now, what
we're hearing from the black community, now what we're hearing

(01:53:11):
from people of color, not just in this country but
across the world, is no, no, no, you can do something,
and we're showing you what you can do. You can
protest with us, you know, you can listen, you can
you can you can be a champion of our cause too.
Just because your skin is white doesn't mean that you
can't get behind our cause with us. So when we

(01:53:32):
take a knee, you can take a knee. You know,
when we walk the streets, you know, in a fight
for equality, you can walk alongside of us. This isn't
an exclusive situation. This is an all inclusive situation. I
want to go back though, on Mayfield's initial response. Okay,
this this was an answer to something he said earlier.

(01:53:52):
Here was the initial exchange. So there was a fan
that reached out to him that said, please tell all
Browns fans you're not gonna be kneeling this season. Mayfield's
initial response was, pull your head out. I absolutely am.
He's the face of that franchise. You own that franchise.

(01:54:15):
Is that the right response to someone that says, police,
tell Brown's fans you're not gonna be kneeling this season,
pull your hat out? I absolutely am. If you're the
owner of that team and this is the face of
your team, are you comfortable with that? Me personally, yes,
but that's just my personal beliefs. Look again, you're basically
telling this fan, if you don't like it, go elsewhere. Well, Um,

(01:54:38):
what I'm what I'm saying is I'm gonna support my
quarterback because he's supporting a noble and worthy cause. But
what about the fan. I'm gonna say, you can make
your own determination. Look again, this is my personal belief.
I don't know what what what is it. Jimmy Haslum,
the owner of the brown I don't know what the
Haslms are going to think about this, Jimmy and his
wife and his family, how they're going to feel about it.

(01:54:59):
But I know me personally, if I owned the Browns
and I hurt Baker Mayfield speaking this way and be
proud of him, and I would say, you know what
if we do lose some fans as a result of
his actions, well, okay, that is the trade I will
be willing to make for him supporting what I view
as a noble cause. But but there is going to

(01:55:21):
be a situation here where you're going to have some
people staunchly in support of players standing with their hand
over their heart, towing the line for the national anthem.
And you are the owner of a business, so you
have to make that decision for yourself. And again, it's
very easy for me to spend some billionaires money in

(01:55:42):
the NFL and say, yeah, Baker Mayfield was my quarterback.
I'd be proud of him. But I'm very curious what
Jimmy has M feels about that he's actually find out.
Let me tell you, Haslem has spoken out. By the way,
has M has been a financial supporter of the president,
but he's supporting the players protesting and rebuked the president
condemning him. So he has taken a stance. I want

(01:56:03):
to give him that just due. Jimmy has some owner
of the Cleveland Browns. All right, when the Guy go,
Fox Sports Radio Studios. All right, so we got a
little NFL, we got n B. A clock's ticking, Major
League Baseball clock is taking got the latest update coming
up next, Steve Harvan and Rich Hornburger coming to live
from the Guy Go Fox Sports Radio Studios on one

(01:56:26):
of our multiple TVs. Here in the Fox Sports Radio Studios,
we're watching the home run derby from this was baseball
coming off the big ninety eight season with Sosa McGuire.
Baseball was back on top, I mean as far as popularity.
All Star Game was in Fenway, remember which they were
celebrating the Century, the All Century Team back in and

(01:56:49):
you were a kid back in the day, and and
I'm watching now because McGuire's at the plate. I mean,
everyone's excited. Look at this giant of a man. How
far can he hit up baseball? I mean, there was
an excitement to it. And they showed Sosa and he's
sitting there rooting on his buddy. They're going side by
side forever together. Well, of course, as we know now
twenty years later, these two are now considered prious in

(01:57:12):
the game of baseball. I don't want to get so
much into that, because you know, the bottom line is,
it is what it is. You either are for the
stereo use against the stereous. But I want to get
back to the home run. You know, a lot of
people talked about how that home run Chase really saved
baseball in the aftermath of the cancelation of the World
Series back in and really got baseball going again. But

(01:57:37):
the home run is no longer the answer. Rich this
past year, it was an all time record setting here
for home runs in Major League Baseball. In fact, they're
almost seven hundred more home runs hit in baseball last
year than any season in the history of the game.
To me, when we talk about what are the problems
with baseball? Obviously this back and forth about and he

(01:58:00):
doesn't do anybody any favors for baseball, but the product
they're putting out on the field, to me, as someone
that has followed baseball for more than fifty years, it's
just an inferior product. I mean, the idea for home runs,
what is gonna save this game? It's not gonna be
home runs because nobody cares about home runs anymore. That's

(01:58:23):
not going to be a savior. So what exactly is
gonna say this game? Well, I mean for getting new
people to get the game younger, you have to find
a way to ensnare what a younger people want, the
younger audience. What do younger people faster paced gank you? Okay,
so how do you do that? You have to I mean, look,

(01:58:45):
the they instituted this at the minor league level, and
I think it would work at the major league level.
You have to institute a pitch clock. You have to
take this is the only sport there and and there
are baseball purists who are so against this, but this
is only sport where you just allow the game to
go as long as it will take. In regulation, nine

(01:59:05):
innings should have an approximate or an ultimate time limit. Wow,
a clock in baseball, but they just wiped out the
entire fiber of the game. They do it at the
minor league level and it still works and they still
produce the farm systems everywhere. And you have to be
strict about it. You have to mandate some sort of
penalty if a picture should go over the time allotted.

(01:59:28):
You know, give a base away, you know you do that.
Enough pictures are going to acquiesce to the rule. They're
going to eventually find a way to get their their
pitch to the catcher's mint or to the bat of
the hitter in time. And one of the things off
you have to do it. Okay, one of the things
we are going to see once the beat season begins

(01:59:48):
is these three pitch minimum, three batter minimum pictures that
are brought in during the middle of an I can't
wait to see how this explodes. You can you imagine this?
I mean really so. In other words, if you don't
know the new rule, it's gonna go into enforcement this
year if you bring a picture. I mean, those are
the rules the instituted in whether they're working on the
other side because J. P. Morossi is gonna join us

(02:00:09):
on the other side. What are we gonna do to
save the game? A baseball We're gonna tell you coming
up next, all right, continuing, it's a big Sunday. Hopefully
we're gonna get some definitive baseball news soon. We're coming
alive from the guy Go Fox Sports Radio Studios. Fifte
minutes could save you fifteen cent or more on your
car insurance. Visit guy got dot com for a free

(02:00:33):
rate quote. It's funny. Uh. The Dodgers were to host
this year's Baseball's All Star Game. That's right. It was
scheduled for Dodgers Stadium for the first time in forty years. Um,
let me ask you this, rich. So back in which

(02:00:56):
was the year the baseball shut down for two months
in the middle of the season, so they had played
a couple of months, they shut down for a couple
of months, and then they resumed the season. The first
game back was the All Star Game, so they hadn't
played in two months, and they decided the best way
to kick things off was the All Star Game, which

(02:01:19):
was in Cleveland that year, and that was the first
game back, and then they resumed the season. How about
starting the baseball season with an All Star Game? And
he said, well, who makes the All Star Game? You
haven't played any games. One of my contentions about the
All Star Game over the years, it always rewards a
great first half of the season. You know who doesn't

(02:01:41):
get rewarded is the guy that had a great second
half of the previous season, which really is more important
than the first half of the season. How about an
All Star Game get so, you know, you get the
exciting your biggest stars out there, fans vote. You know,
who do you want to see in the All Star Game?
How that is your kickoff game? And then let's get
into ever link of the season we have for the

(02:02:01):
rest of her What do you think of that? Yeah,
I mean, look, I'm I'm in favor of as many
games and as we could possibly see at this point.
I mean, that's why I don't care how you kick
off the season. I don't care how you finished the
season with zero team sports. I I I think it's

(02:02:23):
almost less important than just getting teams to agree to
terms and showing up and playing and playing any meaningful
team sports at a professional level. And so whatever way
they get this sorted out. I'm I'm I'd be completely
as a sports fan, as a baseball fan, basketball fan,
as a football fan, I'd be completely appreciative if if

(02:02:46):
any of these leagues can find a safe way to
exhibit their games. You know, we stepped off and we'll
be uh speaking to JP Morossi pretty soon here a
bottom of the hour. But before we left our last segment,
I had asked you a question about how you fix
baseball so ratings don't continue to plumb it on the
national scale. What my solution is to make this game faster.

(02:03:08):
And they've already instituted this at the minor league level,
and I think a pitch clock would move things on.
It would It would make the game more pacy, it
would make it more available for people to really sit
down and watch and grow attached to the game. What's
your solution? All right, Well, here's the feedback I've been
getting a lot over the years as far as the
pace of the game, and this is coming from what

(02:03:31):
I call the die hard baseball fan, where you're identified
as a sports fan. Are you a sports fan? Yes,
I'm a sports fan. What is your favorite sport? My
favorite sport is baseball? And one of the reasons that
people are near and dear to baseball is the one
thing that separates it from all the other sports. There

(02:03:52):
is no clock, Dieard. Baseball fans will tell you this.
The only people that are complaining about the pace of
the game are not baseball fans. In other words, if
I'm a baseball fan and I've invested my dime into
a baseball game, I want more, not less. Now that
holds true for baseball fans. Your question, which is very

(02:04:16):
valid question, is I'm not worried about baseball fans. I'm
trying to get new fans. In other words, I understand
that the baseball fan is built on tradition. There's a
lot of history to the game of baseball. There's a
lot of differences between the game of baseball and other sports,
and it's those differences that certain people want to see

(02:04:37):
more than others. But how do you get the new
fan involved? How do you get to you know, Generation
Z involved? How can you change the game in a
way that can fans? I mean, frankly, Steve, the way
you're talking about business, how baseball fans are. But it starts.
It starts you're not a real fan but what will

(02:04:59):
do to appease you not real fan is you've already
lost me. Look that's the reason. Well, then you're not
a real fan. You're not a real fan. Reason why
you're not. But you're a foot you're not you're not
hearing me. Okay, you're not here, not excluding anybody. I'm not.
I'm not questioning the fact that football is your number

(02:05:20):
one sport. I'm talking about the people listening right now.
They don't give a crap about football. They don't give
a crap about the NBA between baseball. No, it's not opinion,
it's fact. Well, one thing, you don't want numbers that
it's proven the NFL is more popular. Fine, I'm sorry,
but do guess what you're kissing the argument because they're

(02:05:44):
losing the radio. No, no, I'm not losing the argument
from the baseball fans standpoint. Look, you if you baseball
has got whatever base it has, right, If you thing
base do you want to wipe it out completely? It's
a small Do you want to wipe it out completely?
It is dwindling by the day. I mean, I'm getting

(02:06:05):
feet on people. Go you guys want to s all
over baseball all the time. So, but again, you're not
a baseball fan. Don't say you are. You're a football
fan that you say, well, I watch baseball if there's
nothing else saw on, because I'm a sports fan. If
you can, you can, if you want to wipe out
all of baseball, and you can easily fans baseball fans

(02:06:35):
that say they don't give a crap about the NBA.
When you talk to a really die hard baseball fan
about football, you know what the feedback they get. I
can't think of anything more boring than football. You know,
much actual game time there is in an NFL game
eleven minutes, Steve, that's what baseball fans look at the radio.
That's fine. I'm not even talking. I'm speak fan. I'm

(02:06:58):
talking from what's best from baseball of a baseball fan.
Because I am a baseball fan. Games a year I
go to a baseball I watch, probably because I live
in San Diego, probably a hundred baseball Yeah, no, I

(02:07:21):
absolutely am. The problem is, like you and the rest
of people who are sixty years old in this country,
for whatever reason, we do remember one baseball clear then
they yeah, right, and it's not anymore. I'm sorry, and
fix the game. How do you make it when you
make it hipper, you make it worried about that it
doesn't turn into boxing, just racing, which is you know,

(02:07:42):
buried in the sports section these days where it used
to be king in this same direction. Well, I mean,
that's falls a terrible gambler sport. So what do you
got if you're baseball, all right, show me what you got.
You're going to stay with what baseball is. You can't
gimmick it up. I have been against every single move

(02:08:02):
in baseball for inter league play, it wiped out the
differences in the two leagues. Hated it, expanding the playoffs,
hated it, and all these different things that they added.
Hate when stand on your lawn too long? Yeah, yeah,
you know, we'll see those kids with their hula hoops
and their hopscotch. Well, if you're a baseball fan out there,

(02:08:24):
and of course you can always get through us through
social media, cant haartment at Arnburger, you can always tell
us what it is about if you're a baseball fan.
Because baseball fans that I talked, I'm talking about what
I said that that that is their p one. Baseball
rules my sports world. You know what they keep telling

(02:08:44):
me is stop messing with my game. Stop messing with it,
all right, and it's gonna be a lonely hill to
die all I mean. But that's that's where they're at.
So if you want to say baseball, stop messing with it.
If you continue to change it, none of these changes
the benefit if these baseball fans, and if that's what

(02:09:07):
you want to call them baseball fans, right, because I
watch a hundred twenty games year, I'm not a fan
because I want to see this game become more exciting. Look,
the NFL changes rules all the time, that the NBA
changes rules all the time to X. But I play
to make the game more exciting, and sometimes they fail.
Sometimes they screw it up, and then they go back

(02:09:29):
to the drawing board and take away those rules. I mean,
how many times have we seen different rulings on what
exactly it catches in the NFL, different rulings on how
help the game? Use, different rules on how often and
how much you can celebrate after catching a touch that
help the game? Yes, it does, because what you do
through trial and in the error, you find out what

(02:09:50):
your fan base enjoys baseball, this stodgy unchanging. Most people
and at sphere where people go to ball games now
and they walk around the ballpark. You know, Yeah, they
go to ball games now and they buy expensive food
and they enjoyed the amenities, but the game itself lacks

(02:10:12):
so much pace and excitement that is possible sitting in
your seat again. But here's this is where I get
to the analytics of the game. Now, this is something
that really has nothing to do with a fan base.
This was the whole idea of analytics being introduced to
the game of baseball, you know, how to be more efficient.
Suddenly they came up with launch angles, swing for the fences.
What used to be deemed a negative the strike that

(02:10:33):
has no longer looked at that way. And what we
have now reduced the game too, is these pictures coming
in for a few pitches. No, no more complete games.
That's gone by the We literally had what five teams
last had zero complete games. So the idea of a
starting pitcher battling through nine inies that's been phased out
of the game. You bring in pictures this row as

(02:10:54):
hard as they can and then swinging and swinging as
hard as you can strike. I know the how, I
know how the game is played, and I know exactly
how boring it is because I watch it all the time.
The analytics, well again, I I want again. I would
like to social media, Steve, how do you fix baseball?
Let's bring back the stolen base Let's bring back to

(02:11:16):
the idea. Do it. Let's bring it back. That's not
a do the analytics out of the game. Go back
to what I am watching the Star game. We're not talking.
Let's go back to what was it about the game.
Juicy was a good card part of it back then. Um,
let's go back to what it was and made the

(02:11:38):
game appealing. Maybe it's not savable. How about that. There's
a lot of things that have come and gone over
the course of time. Right, it really happen. So you're
more in favor, this is what you're saying. You're more
the idea of the game is not saving the game
of of this game dying a slow, unneeded death as

(02:11:59):
opposed to staying alive and enjoying cultural relevance again just
by making some tweaks in the rule. Do you question
when we talk about the uh net revenue of baseball?
Do I question what? Well? In other words, last year
baseball claimed to have made net revenue last year in
excess of six billion dollars right now, Actually, let's see here,

(02:12:24):
over ten million billion dollars actually last year. So attendance
is falling. You seem to believe that there's zero buzz
for baseball, and yet the revenue continues to skyrocket. Do
you question those numbers? I don't question those numbers. NFL
quadruples those numbers. Actually they didn't because baseball had a

(02:12:45):
net revenue of over eleven billion dollars in the NFL
had sixteen billion dollars. Okay, so they did a hundred
fifty percent then what baseball did. So would you call
would you call baseball right now if they did more? Yeah? Yes, right,
So they did a hundred fifty percent of what baseball
did in But that's not that's circular. That's not circling.

(02:13:09):
This This sport, Baseball is a sport that, inarguably, when
you look at ratings for their postseason year after year
after year, have hit a cliff. So how this revenue
is what I wanted? Because they have a hundred sixties
two games and it's actually oddly a hundred sixty two
game season. Is part of the reason why they're struggling

(02:13:30):
so much because there is nothing relevant about the regular season.
It's their net revenue is what it is in ratings.
In ratings, but apparently, are you more interested in baseball
being interesting or billionaire owners making revenue? Like because when
I as a sports fan, I as a baseball fan,
I want an entertaining game. Well, I don't care how

(02:13:50):
rich the owners games. But again I agree with I mean,
we talked about, like, let's say social media. Okay, so
the biggest name in baseball is Mike Trout, and again,
followers isn't the end all of end all, but he
has two point five million followers on Twitter. Lebron James
has forty six million. I'm curious when we get John

(02:14:11):
Paul Morosy. What I'm saying is everything would seem to
indicate what you're saying right now. There's no buds for baseball.
The ratings are down every single year, Attendance is down
every year, and somehow their net revenue goes skyright doubled
from How's that possible? If there's no bus for baseball,

(02:14:31):
if there's a lack of interest in baseball, where is
all this money coming from? Right, we're in the guy
called Fox Sports rating students. Maybe we can answer that
somebody played. How is it that the perception that baseball
is a dying sport and yet it's revenue double revenue
a year ago from the previous year. Where is this
money coming front? Try to answer it coming up next,

(02:14:53):
Steve Harvey, Rich Harmburger. So we're talking a little baseball
right now as we continue to wait because well, the
the Union has said you got until the end of
work day tomorrow to give us a definitive answer, major
League Baseball on what your game plan is to start
the season, And the players have said, at least through
the union, that just give us a time and place

(02:15:15):
and we'll play the games. All right, enough of this
back and forth. We had to get our butts back
out on the field. Um, we aren't talking about of course,
the big argument here has been the finances of the game.
And I'm still not figuring this out. Okay, So listening
to a lot of what you have to say, and
you can talk about making change to make it more
appealing everything else, but baseball will tell you we've never

(02:15:36):
been in a better situation, at least financially. According to
Forbes last year, and I the exact numbers. UM. In ten,
major League Baseball revenue hit a record ten points seven
billion dollars. All right, that's an all time record. Now
what's interesting about this is is that ratings down. The

(02:15:59):
World Series rights were a disaster. UM attendance has been down.
I think it's fifteen straight years. Overall attendance of Major
League Baseball is down. UM. We all seem to think
that the game itself, the way they play the game
of the analytics, has made it less appealing. There's no
question that a younger generation I used my own sons

(02:16:21):
as examples of that, have very little interest in the
game of baseball. So all of that, taking into account
all valid points on why this game is in serious jeopardy,
do we have record revenue every single year and it's
all the way up to ten point seven billion dollars?
So how is that possible? That was so little buzz

(02:16:45):
about baseball, all the negatives that seem to be thrown
at at the game indicators that would seem that this
game really needs to make some drastic changes to be
relevant at all, has record revenue. How how's that possible?
I really want to know, I do not have an
answer to account for this ten point seven billion other

(02:17:05):
than the fact that it's TV revenue. I mean, really
rich if you were a network and by the way,
we just heard by the way Turner, did you see
this a billion dollar deal, billion dollar deal to carry
the World Series? Whatever? Is this a sport that you
would invest in right now? Well, me, personally, no, because

(02:17:29):
in my mind, looking at the numbers, this isn't This
isn't a growth league. This is a league that is
relying very heavily on the amount of games they play.
And they understand the the impact of local broadcasting and
how important it is to sort of ensnare their regional

(02:17:53):
outlets and to you know, create as much revenue as
they possibly can from that standpoint. But I mean they
they constantly gouged their season ticket holders, uh for for prices.
I mean, even as as these games like become more
and more unwatchable, uh, and their attendance plummets year after year. Uh,

(02:18:18):
they they charge even higher ticket prices. I mean, look
the the again, this to me is it is a
model that is going to run out of steam at
some point. I don't know if it's a near future,
you know, So, how does it run out of steam.
Went again. Turner comes up with this record again. The
World Series last year, the ratings were disaster. I mean,

(02:18:40):
and even remember two years ago you have the Red
Sox and the Dodgers. I don't get much better than that, right,
disastrous ratings, and yet Turner comes up with this huge deal.
I'm trying to figure out what's going on in these boardrooms?
All right, all right, where do we put our money?
Where baseball? Let's whatever it takes, let's get baseball. We

(02:19:00):
I'm trying to figure out how they're pulling this off
right now, about getting these record television deals, which obviously
is infusing all this money. You've got players making in
excess of thirty million dollars a year, some players right now.
The money has got to be coming from somewhere. Where
is it coming from? In twelve of the twenty nine
United States based Major League teams were the most popular

(02:19:24):
prime time broadcast in their market. Okay, So that goes
to show you that just a season ago, twelve of
these twenty nine teams, who have the ability unlike the NFL,
unlike the NBA, to sell their own exclusive rights to
local broadcasters, are making money hand over fist because they're
winning the prime time slot. UH. In additional, an additional

(02:19:48):
seven teams outside of that twelve I just mentioned UH
in the top three are in the top three of
their prime time ratings on cable. The twenty four major
league teams ranked first in their market in prime time.
So again, the reason why national outlets are willing to
build or buy huge network patrick packages is because in regions,

(02:20:13):
the teams within their you know, for example, the Yankees
or the Braves in Atlanta, or the Padres in San Diego,
or the Dodgers in Los Angeles, they are able to
win the prime time slot because there's enough people watching
over the course of a hundred sixty two games. Here's

(02:20:33):
the problem. They've been always playing a hundred sixty two
games the late since nineteen sixty one, so they haven't
increased the number of games, but they are increasing the
revenue on the other side. I want to get to
Ralph here because we don't John Paul Morossi, and we'll
get an update on where we stand with baseball and
the clicking talk clock right now to see whether or
not we can get a deal done. Again, we're in

(02:20:54):
the gey Go Fox Sports radio studios. Let's find out
what's trending. Ralph is back with us once again. Ralphie.
But he got two words, guys, beefcake. Bryson de Shambo
in the lead at the Charles Schwab Challenge. Big Man's
the way is he put on? I believe he said
that he's having six protein shakes a day to maintain

(02:21:16):
his weight. He is huge and he's bombing the ball
this week and now he is in the lead fifteen
under par through fifteen holes, one stroke ahead of Jason
co Crack, who's at minus fourteen through seventeen calling Morakala
minus fourteen through twelve. Xander Shofley is at fourteen under
through ten holes. Another three players are two shots back,

(02:21:40):
including Bubba Watson at under. In the clubhouse, he is
your clubhouse leader. NASCAR still suffering from a little bit
of a rain to lay down in South Florida waiting
to drop the green flag on the four mile race.
There there are fans in the stands, just no race
to watch right now. Be informed its teams that coronavirus

(02:22:02):
testing for players and staff will be participating in the
restart will begin in June. It will take place every
other day, Patrick Beverley tweeting this afternoon, hoopers, say what
you want. If Lebron says he's hooping, we're all hooping,
not personal. It's only business. Speaking of only business. That's
kind of the situation a major league baseball right now.

(02:22:24):
Where the players want to play. It's that simple. A
lot of them tweeting in fact, simple words quote when
and where end quote as we sent it back to
Steve Hartman charger, when and where. That's a good question.
If you want to see a little major league baseball,
we certainly do. Once again, we're coming alive from the guy.
Go Fox Sports Radio Studios. Easy to say fifteen per

(02:22:45):
cent a more on the car insurance with Geico. Go
to guy got dot com or call eight hundred nine
for seven otto. The only hard part figuring out which
way is easier. JP's gonna be. Johnny is here momentarily,
rich Um Again. We talked to him last week exactly
one week ago at this time and asked him, will
we have a definitive answer on the start of the

(02:23:07):
season by the next time we talked to you. One
of the reasons he might be slightly delayed is that
he's waiting for something to happen between because he did
tell us, tell us that we would absolutely have a
definitive answer. Well, and I said, I said, you know
to him, and I've been saying it all along that
I don't think we're gonna see necessarily a definitive answer

(02:23:29):
until the clock has ticked a little bit longer. And
these players that were really these owners have an opportunity
to say, hey, look, it's gonna be fifty four games
or nothing. It's gonna be forty eight games or nothing.
We have run out of time to negotiate this any further.
I'm looking at his Twitter account right now, and just
four hours ago he said the nineteen seventy one World

(02:23:52):
Series was one of the best ever. All right, so
there you go. There is the latest update from our
buddy John Bump. You know, I I again, I I'm
trying to figure out the economics here. I mean, we
laugh when the owners literally two days ago, are screaming
poverty and then they strike a billion dollars to a turner.

(02:24:12):
I mean again, it's just it's one thing after another.
But then again, you say, how's this happening? And then
you you would say, we need to make changes we
gotta make we gotta make this game more appealing and UH, well,
joining us right now once again is our Fox First
Radio MLB insider John Paul Morossi, who has sided the

(02:24:32):
nineteen seventy one World Series as one of the best
ever JP. I was thirteen. I remember every out. I
even kept my own score sheet for Game seven of
that series when Steve Blasts won that game. JP. But
let's get to the present on where we stand with
Major League Baseball. A week ago, at this time we
asked you what we have a definitive answer on the
start of the Major League Baseball season. You confidently said, yes,

(02:24:57):
are we missing something or do we have a defice
in the devancer right now on the start of the
League Baseball season. Well, my friends, I'm grateful to be
back on the air with you today. I appreciate your patients,
and I would ask for one more day because what
I think is happening here is UH. We saw the
the opposing statements yesterday from MLB in the Union. UH,

(02:25:19):
basically both remaining at their their key positions on this issue. UH.
MLB not comfortable paying out the full pro rated portion
over eighty games or seventy games and the union not
willing to move off of their insistence on full pro
rated salary, so UH therefore we have this this stalemate.
But included in that agreement, or in the statement rather

(02:25:41):
from the MLBP A last night, was the the insistence
that they believe that we're going to play uh that
they say, just basically tell us when and where the
report and will will be there, obviously with the pre
supposition that that they're going to get their full UH
pro rated portion of salary. And reportedly there was a
an insistence by the Chief Council of the the Union,

(02:26:02):
Bruce Meyer, to MLB saying that they want to know
uh the start date by tomorrow and and candidly, there's
really not much more MLB can do here. If they're
not willing to um pay the full prorated salaries, which
so far they have not been, and if the players
are not willing to give up any percentage of their salaries,
which so far they have not been, there is nothing

(02:26:23):
really left to do here except for to set a
date and say we're going to begin the regular season
on August one. Spring training starts July the tenth. We'll
see you then, I mean, that's basically the next step here,
and that could happens as soon as the next several days. Well,
I hope. So I remain optimistic, cautiously that that they
can agree or arrive at some sort of solution. And

(02:26:45):
so assuming that's the case, I look forward to tomorrow,
I look forward to early this week to see if, if,
if that can be done. JP. We're just having a
discussion about the health of baseball overall, with diminishing national ratings,
still a very strong regional sport, but we know the
demographics of the fans. Uh, fifty and older are very

(02:27:06):
interested in this sport, are a very least somewhat interested
in this sport, and then there's a precipitous drop off
when you get to younger demographics. We're talking about potential solutions.
I focus on the pace of play. I think that
even though strikeouts has emerged as a recent issue, the
pace of play has been something that has even bothered me.
And I'm thirty five, so I'm kind of in the

(02:27:28):
the wheelhouse as a demo they target, But for my sons,
for for kids growing up these days, this game is
too long. Uh, And so that's my personal solution. Could
you look at baseball and say, well, it's perfect just
the way it is, or do you think they need
to maybe modify things to make it more appealing to
a younger generation. It's certainly not perfect. The Commissioner has

(02:27:51):
has looked at a lot of these issues in recent years,
and I think it's important that you do that, because
you're right, there are ways to improve it. And also,
let's be let's be honest here, we don't know what
the next month's hold, the next year as it relates
to COVID nineteen. But the demographic that you referenced over
fifty is the one that's at the greatest risk of

(02:28:13):
this disease. And so how many of those fans. I
think about my parents who love baseball, but I'm not
sure when they're going to kill comfortable going to the
ball game again. Uh, And I'm sure a lot of
people who are in that demographic will be thinking about
those questions and when when it's safe to go back out,
And so baseball as a matter of viability here will

(02:28:34):
need to find some ways to bring fans in the
ballpark who are younger and and and engage with them. Um.
I think that to your point one way to do this,
and I would not I would not in any way
be opposed to. This is the most dramatic way to
do it is start everybody with a one on one count.
You're one and one when you get to the plate,
and if three balls or two strikes, that's that's what

(02:28:57):
is required to end the at bat with a walker
ust right out. I would rather do that than the
three batter minimum. In some different aspects of that, I
the automatic strikes zone may help when you have the
sort of the tones indicating if it was in the
strikes one or not. That's fine. But I really think
if you're gonna have meaningful change, everybody stow us one one.

(02:29:17):
You're gonna have pictures were able to go deeper into games,
Fewer pitching changes, uh, quicker at bats. I think one
of the one of the things that has really slowed
the game down is we have so much information. Uh
you've got guys now switching sides of the field to
overload defensively one way or the other. I think that
should be considered illegal. We should that that should be

(02:29:39):
called illegal defense, like you would see in the NBA
for so many years. I mean this the best team
that I saw play in all my years of covering
the game, and I've been fortunate to do us for
a long time was the Royals from and. They played fast,
They put the ball in play, they ran the basis,
they hit triples, they defended very well. They were an

(02:30:00):
exciting team. I would much rather watch of all the
teams I've covered, You give me the playoff series involving
that team. I am there tomorrow, I would I would
just sign me up. I love the way that team
played and and I think a lot of people who
really love the game believe that to be true as well.
I don't need to see a ton of home runs
or a ton of strikeouts. I want the ball and play.
I want action, I want fluidity, I want athleticism, I

(02:30:23):
want base running. I want exciting defensive catches. And that
team gave that to me. And and a big reason
why was they didn't slow down the game with a
ton of walks. Uh And they didn't. Every at bat
wasn't twenty five pitches. It was a nice crisp pace.
And oh, by the way, the year they made the
World Series in fourteen fewest home runs in the American League.

(02:30:44):
Great team still, you know, JP, I'm looking at numbers
from last year's World Series. You had a seven game series,
and I'm looking at it in perspective of audiences for
World Series games since nineteen seventy three. The fewest viewers
for a game to a game four, a game five,
and yes, a game seven since nineteen seventy three. In

(02:31:05):
the World Series, we're all in, and yet Turners handing
a billion dollars to Baseball for the postseason. This is
what I do not understand. Attendance figures continue to fall,
general buzz of baseball continues to fall. Even baseball fans
say the product we see on the field isn't as
appealing as it once was. We know the younger generation

(02:31:27):
is completely tune out of this game, and yet they
had a ten point seven billion dollar net revenue windfall,
an all time record. How does this happen? How does
there seem to be every indicator, ratings, interest, attendants in
a negative flow, and yet baseball has record revenue. Explain

(02:31:48):
the economics how this game makes more from less? How
does that? And and Steve, do your point about TV ratings.
We have seen. Uh, First of all, there's more competition
for ratings now than there was in the seventies. We
all realize that there's there's video games, there's cable, there's
there's a lot of reasons why ratings are not what
they used to be in And in fact, there are

(02:32:10):
still many days during the postseason when a baseball game
will be the most widely viewed program in our country
on that particular day. Now, maybe not on a Saturday
or Sunday was going up against the l s U
Alabama or a big NFL day, But in many days
baseball will still win the day, at least on cable
and in different circumstances when the games are NFS one
or or TVs. So it's still it's still a great

(02:32:32):
television property no matter what. But to your point, it's
it is a it's a great TV property, especially for
older viewers, Okay, and also regionally. And and I I
am of the mind that we in baseball, I include
myself in this, that we have to be better storytellers
about about connecting the players of today with with the

(02:32:56):
fans of today nationally. And and I gotta tell you
that the players, a lot of them get it. They're
great on social media. Andrew McCutcheon is very Cannidy has
been very outspoken throughout his career and especially in the
last month or so on social issues that are important
to our country. And and he has he has been authentic,
he has been fun. He has won the m v P.

(02:33:16):
He should he should be someone that is is recognizable
as the greatest stars that we've got in the NFL
and the NBA. He's he's won a gold medal for
Team USA the World Baseball Classic. And it's in my
point is it is not his fault. Okay, he has
done the right things. Mookie Betts has done the right things.
Mookie Betts brought food to homeless people after a World
Series game that he won for the Boston Red Sox.

(02:33:38):
He has done everything right, okay, And he's now playing
for the Los Angeles Dodgers. They should both have greater
Twitter followers and they do right now. And I think
part of it has to be storytellers and people like
me must do a better job. But the other part
is the time commitment of the game. There's there's one
of the things that makes baseball special is that we
play it every day. That also I think makes it

(02:34:01):
hard for baseball to be the dominant storyline that we
talk about it work every day around the water cooler,
on our friends group chat around the country because it
takes a lot of time. You can watch Tom Brady
play one game a week and it takes you three hours.
If I'm gonna ask a Yankee fan to watch the
Yankees and then Mike Trout every day, that's six hours

(02:34:22):
of your day. No one has that kind of time,
not even me. And so I think that that's that's
an important point to make that we've got to be
realistic about the construct of the game is local and regional.
That's just the way it is. And and so you
have to make it the best local, regional sport that
you can while also hopefully and this is the key
part now and it's gonna be maybe challenging to do
it now in the next couple of months, but you've

(02:34:44):
got to help make your big stars be more nationally
relevant through the way they're marketing. I'm talking about yell
Atch and Bets and Nolan Arnado. There's so many great
players right now that that we as a sport. I
say week because I'm I'm I'm part of the national
media group. I suppose for baseball, we've got to find
ways to connect fans better with the stars of today.

(02:35:05):
You know, JP, Uh, we got about sixty seconds here,
But I want your thoughts on this. Um. I I
eat cake. I think it's delicious. I'm a big fan
of cake. I love baseball. I think it's fun to watch.
I'm a baseball fan. But I don't want to eat
cake every single day, and I don't want to watch
baseball every single day, And so what you said is

(02:35:27):
really relevant to my life. I'm a champion of a
shorter baseball season. Do you think one sixty two is
an appropriate number of games? Or perhaps shortening the season
would add to relevancy and urgency. I think this, and
it's a great point that you make rich and I wouldn't.
I would advocate shortening it and then adding more significant

(02:35:49):
jewel events during the course of the season stage a
mini a mini tournament, a mini World copa mini World
Baseball Classic. At some point in time in July, we
shut the scene it down for a couple of weeks
and say, Okay, we're gonna play a hundred forty games
this year, and this year we're gonna have like a
Champions format, USA, Japan, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico. Have

(02:36:10):
a great international tournament smack in the middle of the
summer when guess what, the NFL is not being played.
Have it happened in July when there's no NBA playoffs
going on? Those are the ways that I think you
can find a way to really make the sport especially relevant.
And you do that when you think about your point
the schedule in ways that are non traditional and right
now are very important. Alright, final word here, what are

(02:36:30):
we going to find out tomorrow? How long is this
season going to be? My best estimate is around fifty games. Unfortunately,
I wish I could say it's gonna be longer, but
I think we're probably looking at mid fifties, uh eight,
somewhere in that range. It's it's probably gonna begin around
the beginning part of August. All right, j P, We'll
see what happens. As always, thanks so much, have a
great week. You bet you guys as well. Thanks with

(02:36:52):
the great questions and we're in the keep mist conversation going,
my friends, until and even during the season here as
it begins. I can only hope John Paulmerossi joined us
there a Fox Sports Radio MLB insider. Once again, we
tried to look into our crystal ball. Where will we
be a week from now in the sports world. We're
gonna tell you coming up next. Are you tired of

(02:37:13):
staring at that dent? At Mako? Getting cool as you're
repaired is as easy as book quote fix. Come to
Mako for coolies and repair, backed by our best price guarantee.
Oh better get Mako? All right? Once again here and
the guy go, Fox Sports Radio Studios, Steve Hartman, Rich Armburger.
I want to thank you very disappointed crew this weekend

(02:37:35):
because there were no cookies. Um, although Mike Harmon brought
cookies in a little bit earlier here, they do not compare.
Why I again, Mike making some good cookies. What if
Mike's listening? But they were great. But even Mike, Mike
listens a lot. He um he does, and uh, you
know he had some peanut butter cookies, some chocolate chip Again,

(02:37:57):
Denise has raised the barn. That's all a question though,
I mean, is it really fair to compare like? In essence? Yeah,
you know, cookies are so good in general that comparing
a good cookie to maybe an inferior cookie. You're still
eating cookies, so aren't we all winners after Yeah. Also,
I don't work with my Carmen. I work with you.

(02:38:18):
And well again, I want to thank I was Sam today.
I want to thank Ralph Irvin today to see ralphie
today out here. And yes, Gavin as well. Um, yeah,
I will be bringing brownies, uh to San Diego tomorrow. Rich,
So you and uh, John and Ernie and Brent are

(02:38:42):
our crew and San Diego are going to be treated. Steve.
We have to reset our sugar calibration, you know, I
know that. Uh. And by the way, I'm will find
exactly if too much of something is not it kills
the idea. Um. By the way, I'm trying to wrap
my brain around a fifty game baseball. Whatever it is

(02:39:02):
is what I would prefer. But whatever it is, I'm
trying to wrap my brain around this because whenever the
season does start, you're already in the stretch drive. You
know what I mean. I mean, there's no like April, May, June, July.
I mean, we we were kicking it right into augusta
I'm telling you, and we'll see. And by the way,

(02:39:25):
playoffs instead of ten teams sixteen Because look, I'm not
saying that I want fifty four games every year. I
think that is too few. I think that is too abrupt.
But I'm telling you there's going to be something stunning
and urgent about this baseball season, assuming it can begin,

(02:39:45):
because you are going to have every game matter like
it has never mattered before in the history of the game.
I mean, you're gonna it's gonna be It's gonna be unique.
It is gonna be unique. I'm not saying it's going
to be necessarily be better, but what an what a
tremendous opportunity to use this shortened season as a trial
to see if interest is increased when you decrease the supply,

(02:40:10):
is there a higher demand? I'm curious, all right, I
have another question quickly for you, the two most powerful
owners in the NFL, Jerry Jones and Bob Craft. Can
you see either one or both coming out during the
course of this week and endorsing for players that so
choose taking a knee during the national anthem? Oh I
I don't. I don't have the foggiest idea when we're

(02:40:32):
gonna hear from Jerry Jones and I, I really have
no idea if we're gonna I know that the Craft
family has released the station statement in support of the
social injustice protests, but I have no idea what they're
gonna do this week. Alright, and hopefully the NBA will
get back on track to the restart of their season
coming up next week

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Fox Sports Radio News

Host

Jonas Knox

Popular Podcasts

True Crime Tonight

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}FOX Sports Sunday with Hartman and Ohrnberger: 06/14/2020