Opening Kickoff 6-24-25 Jay Busbee on the Iron Bowl, Kerry Miller on a wild week in MLB

On this show: Dave Steinwedel and guest host Kevin Pearce are back for a jam packed pod featuring:

Yahoo Sports Columinst and author of the new book " Iron in the Blood" Jay Busbee joins the guys to discuss the book, the history of Auburn and Alabama, Nascar vs F1, The current landscape of college football, and more. (1:51-39:07)

Bleacher Report baseball writer Kerry Miller stops by to try and make sense of the Devers trade, how it all happened, the Nationals struggles, the Rockies, Orioles sucking, and more from around the diamond. (39:08-END)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
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next event. Hello, Welcome to this week's very exciting edition

(01:16):
of the Opening Kickoff Podcast. I'm your host, Dave Staminel.
Most of my co hosts, in fact, all of them
are not here right now. I have a guest co
host joining me, but he's running late, so you know,
that's welcome to the podcast world. But we got a
great show for you, Carrie Miller. Bleacher Report's gonna join
us a little later in the program to dive into

(01:38):
baseball because everybody is still trying to rack their brain
over the Rafael Devers trade. We have the big NBA
news that we'll talk about a little bit later, but
we have a lot of fun stuff for you tonight.
And one of the fun things I'm getting right to
it because he is with me right now. Legendary author,
senior writer at Yahoo Sports and joining us courtesy of

(02:04):
a new Bookie's got coming out, Iron in Blood, How
the Alabama versus Auburn rivalry shaped the soul of the South.
J Busby joins us for the first time. Jay, thank
you for stopping by. I'll start with this, What was
the motivation for you to write the book onto Iron Bowl?

Speaker 2 (02:24):
I mean, what's not you know, there's it's I live
in Atlanta, but I within the blast radius of Auburn
and Alabama. I think what probably got it started, you know,
like kicking in the back of my mind was the
kick six because I was I remember watching that as
we all did, losing my mind over.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
I didn't really have a dog in a hunt either way.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
I was just mumming it and and the fact that
it swept me up and I was I was an
impartial observer, was enough to make me think, Hey, this
is this is something that could be worth you know, revisiting.
And so, you know, I just kind of put her
on ice for a while. And I cover a lot
of college foot ball for Yahoo Sports, and I was
in Jordan Ayra, I was in Tuscaloosa at Brian Denny Stadium,

(03:06):
and I just kept coming back to this bond that
these two schools have with each other. They can't escape
each other, they need each other, they hate that they
need each other.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
But it was something that just was really compelling to me.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
And there had never been a book done from a
narrative style from the beginnings, way way back when when
football started, right all the way up to today.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
So I figured I would do it.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
What was one of the things as you did the
research into the Iron Bowl, Because you look at so
many of these prominent football rivalries, and there's so many
nuggets and little things as you take away going wow,
And I don't want to ruin all of your book
for the people at home that are listening, But what
was one thing that really struck you when you went
into this deep dive on the Iron Bowl?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
It was how close these two schools came to actually
reversing one another, with Auburn being the domin at school
and Alabama being the kind of also ran school. I
mean back in this state's way way back before any
of us or any of our parents really were even born,
back in the early nineteen hundreds, and Auburn had the
upper hand for most of that time in the early

(04:14):
days of the rivalry. And at some point Auburn's president
decided that football was too much of a pernicious influence,
that he didn't want the student body to get all
riled up by football. And I mean, you know, obviously
we know that that's exactly what has happened at both schools,
and so he pulled Auburn back. He put restrictions on
the football program, and he put restrictions on the coach,

(04:36):
and it really kind of stopped Auburn in its tracks.
And at the same time, Alabama said, well, okay, there's
a vacuum.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Here, we're going to jump forward. We're going to take.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Advantage of that. And Alabama even as far back as
like nineteen thirty was recruiting out of state students to
come and play, and not just play it, but come
and learn at Alabama. So you had this this moment
back in the early twentieth century where the two schools crossed,
and I think that you're still feeling some of the
effects of that today. There's a little bit of the

(05:04):
big brother little brother mentality, there's a little bit of
the University of Alabama, and then there's also Auburn over here,
and a lot of Auburn is fine with that, with
that kind of dynamic. They don't want to be Alabama,
but they sure would like to have a little bit
of Alabama's ring count. And so it's interesting how close
we came to having these two schools be in very
different directions than they are right now.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
You know, it's kind of interesting you said that, because
when I think of the Iron Bowl, it is absolutely
that big brother little brother syndrome.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
But to an.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Extent, did it shock you a little bit that Auburn,
that the Auburn people are kind of like, no we
want to be Auburn, like we want to have the
success of Alabama, but we don't want to be Alabama.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Well, being Alabama comes with a whole lot of dread.
I mean Alabama dreads the Iron Bowl. Auburn comes to
the Iron Ball. Hey, whatever happens happened. We know that
something weird could happen. We're probably gonna lose, but if
we don't lose, it's gonna be something fun. Alabama, there's
no upside no matter what. You're either supposed to beat
Auburn or if you lose to Auburn, you are screwed.

(06:11):
And we all know examples of that over the last
half decade. When they are half century, I should say
when Alabama came into Auburn and came into the game
feeling good and then they got knocked off at an
upset that absolutely devastated Alabama in a way that Auburn
doesn't get devastated. So from Auburn Auburn's perspective, it's like
house money, and you know, they come into this like, hey,

(06:31):
you know, we'll have fun.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
We'll see what happens, and if we lose, we lose.
If we win, we're gonna celebrate for a year.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
But yeah, Alabama comes into the game with a lot
more fear.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
They would never admit that, but it's the truth.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
And I'm sure the kick six really really helps Alabama
with that nervous and that's going into the game.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yes, the kick six and then the camback. Just three
years before that, Cam Newton down twenty seven points and
he comes back and rallies back to a win, and
that just absolutely devastates Alabama the same way because it
undercut this entire self perception of Alabama as the dominant force,
not just in the state of Alabama, but in college football.

(07:13):
And then you've got here comes Auburn go on to
knocking the pins out from one of them in a
way that no other team is really able.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
To do, want to rely on the sorry reliable.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Basis, And so yeah, this kind of chaos agent that
Auburn is really is is just something that Alabama dreads playing.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
And you know, to sort of go to the bigger
picture a little bit. What I get curious about now
in the landscape of college football, Jay is with the nil.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
Yes, does it.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Feel like that gap between these two teams is just
going to get bigger? Where we know Alabama is going
to stay at the top, but the Auburns and some
of those teams that may may not consider themselves the
upper echelon teams. Does that gap, can that chasm feel
like it's going to get bigger or do you think
it's going to get tighter?

Speaker 2 (08:05):
You know what's interesting, I'm going to take that premise
and move it a little bit sideways. I think the
gap between Alabama and the elite schools in the country
is going to get bigger. I think that what you're
going to see is the big ten schools, the Michigan's,
the Ohio States, and then the SEC the Texas is
that have these vast sums of money that Alabama's got
a lot of money. Alabama does not have Michigan level money.

(08:28):
And so I think that Alabama and the rest of
the SEC, with some rare exceptions, are in for a
bit of a shock as to how this new monetary
arrangement goes. And obviously you and I both know that
we are still in the wild west of all this.
There could be regulations, there could be guard rails is
the word that some people like to use. But at
the moment, if it's just a pure financial arms race.

(08:51):
Alabama's in good shape, Alabama's not in great shape, and
Auburn has to be a little bit more savvy. Auburn
has a fair amount of money they have alone that
they can tap, but they have to be a little
bit more savvy with who they pick and with how
they execute with their picks.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
I don't think that I think that the.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Gap is going to be between Auburn and the lower
tier teams below them, But I think that, yeah, you're right,
there is definitely there is definitely a margin between the
two of them. But NIL, with savvy leadership inside your building,
NIL can really work for you.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
That's what Auburn is going to have to do to
keep pace.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
It's so fascinating this whole college football, this landscape that
they're in because I've contended Jay for a couple of
years that I think we are heading to a point
where these big conferences and these big teams have to
break off. Like, to me, it doesn't make sense for
them to continue to be a part of the NCAA

(09:52):
when they've proven they can sustain themselves as somebody that
travels around the country and comes to all these games.

Speaker 4 (09:59):
Is we've been waiting for you, buddy, How you doing?
I don't think you can hear me.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
That's fine, that's even better podcasting. But when you look
at this, where do you think all of this is
eventually going?

Speaker 4 (10:14):
Jay?

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Well, you know, it's interesting you say that there's a
book called The Club which came out about five years
ago and it's about the English Premier League and English soccer.
Do you think what the hell does this have to
do with college football? This was a book that Greg
Sanke had it coming through the SEC was telling everybody
to read because what it had in it was the
way that the top tier Premier League teams said, Hey,

(10:38):
why are we splitting all of the money that we
make with all these lower tier teams?

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Why are we giving all of our revenue? Why are
we having to share it?

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Why not just create our own league and separate it
out from everybody and these kind of you know, lower
level teams, they can fend for themselves. Greg Sanke was
was not only he not only read that book, he
has he's been recommending it and I think it's well
worth Anybody who's a college football fan needs to take
a look at this book and understand that this is
a very direct potential blueprint for the way that the

(11:08):
big schools in the SEC and the Big Ten can go.
And Alabama and Auburn would both be very much considered
in that. You know, you could you could look at
other smaller schools. You could look at a Vanderbilt or
a Rutgers or something like that, and they might be
on the outside looking in. Regardless of how well Vanderbilt
did last year, the powers that be might decide, ah,
you know what, we don't wan to miss them, We're
going to focus on Georgia's and Ohio states.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
And yeah, I think you're right.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
I think that there is the possibility that these schools decide,
you know what, we are we're carrying the load for
a lot of these smaller schools that aren't pulling their weight.
Why are we doing that? Why don't we keep this
money for ourselves? And you know, it would be a
shame because it would mean the end of a lot
of long standing rival reason the kind of the kind
of joy that is college football, but it would be

(11:53):
very much in keeping with the money driven focus that
the sport has.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Right now, all right, let's officially bring him and guest
hosting the week are my good friend Kevin Pierce. Kevin,
I'll let you ask a question to Jay here.

Speaker 5 (12:06):
Apologies for the late nests and Jay, first off, before
I even ask my question, I absolutely love the title
of your book.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Well thank you.

Speaker 5 (12:15):
When I first saw the title, I was like, man,
that's clever. But my question, my question to you is,
and this is a question I ask the most college
football peer, is why are we acting like the focus
on money in college football is a brand new thing
just because players are getting paid now, You, of all
people should know, especially studying this rivalry, this is always,

(12:40):
this has always been about money.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Sure, I am shocked at what you're applying. Here are
you why that there's been money in college football before? Now?

Speaker 2 (12:50):
I think that the fact that that it's what it
is is it's above board now. So rather than meeting
the guy at a gas station with a grocery bag
full of singles, you could just you know, write a
check and put the guy in the kid's name on
and picture on a billboard advertising your used car.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Lot.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
That opens up a whole lot more avenues for people
that don't necessarily want to be involved in the grutty
side of money exchanging hands. You're absolutely right. There's always
been money. But what this does is it opens it up.
It puts it above board, and it allows people who
want to be involved with their university but don't want
to necessarily get involved with the skullduggery or don't want

(13:29):
to be on the business end of a subpoena uh
to get involved with it. And that's that's what brings
a whole lot more money into the pie.

Speaker 5 (13:37):
So I don't know how much you and Dave have
dug into the actual history of the Iron Bowl yet.
So if I'm rehashing anything, I do apologize. But my
first thing I thought of when I was going through
the book was, oh my god, I have some and
I can ask my boat Jackson questions because I just
finished reading the last I just finished reading the Jeff Perlman,
The Last Folk Hero.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yes, tremendous book. I reference to myself there.

Speaker 6 (13:58):
Yeah, so when I saw it on okay, great.

Speaker 5 (14:01):
So for people my age and a little younger, can
you describe the impact that a college bo Jackson had
on this rivalry and on the national landscape as a whole.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
I mean, in terms of the rivalry, you know it
would be it was on the level of you know,
Caitlin Clark Tiger Woods sort of bang, absolutely upending everything
because Bo was a guy that came from that that
lived in Alabama. He lived forty five minutes from Tuscaloose.
He even visited Alabama and Bear Bryant said, oh, you know,

(14:35):
maybe we'll put you on defense. Maybe will you start
your your thirty or fourth year, And he's like, hell no,
I want to start immediately. And so Pat Die brings
him down to Auburn and said and puts him to
work and immediately starts structuring the.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
Entire game plan around him.

Speaker 7 (14:49):
He was.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
He was everything that you hear about in terms of
legends that you know.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
You couldn't you would hear about these ledgs.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Is about Bo jumping over cars and both breaking bats
and you know, without even breaking him over his knee,
and it was all true.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
It was all unbelievably true.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
He was.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
He was literally a folk hero.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
He's like a Paul Bunyan figure, and yet here he
was right there in front of us all and so
it was. It would be a little bit later before
the Bow Knows campaign and the Nike campaign and all
of that, but the fact that Auburn stole this guy
right out from under Alabama was a big coup for
for Auburn, and it also kind of led to it
was it was part of the reason why Alabama fans

(15:33):
started thinking, eh, maybe the bear slipping a little bit.
And he retired and sadly soon after died right in
this right in this area here, because Auburn was was
ascendant at the time.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
All Right, I'm gonna ask some question, Jed. It might
put you on the spot a little bit. Which stadium
is better to go to, Jordan Hare or Brian denny Man.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
That is a tough one because they both have so
much to recommend them. I mean, both bands are tremendous. Uh,
the the walk to and you know, honestly, it kind
of depends on which which side you're going for, because
if you're an Auburn fan, you're at home there in
Jordan Half. If you're you know, if you're an Alabama fan,
you're in the warm embrace.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
I was trying to think, you.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Know, Alabama's got it's a little bit more on the
edge of campus. I'm trying to think of every element
of it that you could focus on. You know, Alabama
has put a lot of suites in there that that
Auburn hasn't yet done. Auburn's got they're they're modernizing their
scoreboard and things like that, but Auburn's a little bit
more just a scoch more dated. But I mean, both

(16:37):
of them are just tremendous.

Speaker 7 (16:39):
You know.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
I put them both in the top ten in terms
of overall college experience. Auburn you got the tumors, lemonade.
Alabama you know, you've got the yellow hammer, the drink
at the at the nearby gallets.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
So it's you know, it's almost a wash.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
I I'm being very political here and dodging your question,
but I think both of them are to be on
your boocket list, to be honest.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
Hopefully one day it is KP.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
He's still there, steps still here.

Speaker 6 (17:10):
I didn't want to just deboil the whole interviews as
I was coming in.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
No, man, I'll take it wherever you want.

Speaker 5 (17:16):
All right, perfect, So I just keep thinking of all
the multiple iconic figures in this rivalry, which, depending on
the area of the map you're from, between this and
Ohio State and Michigan, is the best in college football
depends on depends on he has. So you brought up
Bear Bryant and Bo Jackson one of the rare misses

(17:40):
of his career of Hey, this is one of the
most transcendent athletes ever. You think you say you're gonna
make him play defense. Is there parts of Bear Bryant
that you uncover in his book that will surprise people
that haven't read that aren't as familiar.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, I mean it's the Bryant's legacy has been pretty
well mined over. But I think that in the sense
of surprise, I think they might be surprised at how
progressive he was. And I mean that kind of a
lowercase P, not a capital P. But in a sense
he was thinking. He was forward thinking about integrating Alabama's program,

(18:23):
about working towards equality on the Alabama campus in a
way that you might not expect when you look at
him as just this old country football coach. He was
a lot sharper than that. Now, he did have an
ulterior motive in mind. He knew that there was this
entire pool of players in Alabama that he didn't have
access to, and that if he could get them in uniform,

(18:44):
then he would be able to compete much more on
a national level. But he was aware of changing tides,
and that's part of what I delve into in the book.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Again.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
He and Governor George Wallace, who's famous for the stand
of the schoolouse door, or just a total race demagogue
in Alabama through the nineteen sixties, they knocked heads. And
Bryant was not just the deum old country coach that
you know that it might be easy to slag him
off as now, he absolutely had an eye on a
larger picture and he did the best that he could

(19:17):
in terms of in terms of his own his own
era and trying to get to pull Alabama, drag Alabama.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
Into the twentieth century.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Now, a lot of people will say you didn't do enough,
and you could make that argument, but he did something,
and he did take steps forward, and and that was
something that a lot of other coaches at the time
were simply not doing.

Speaker 6 (19:36):
Are you familiar with a comedian by the name of
Shane Gillis, Oh?

Speaker 3 (19:40):
Absolutely, Okay.

Speaker 5 (19:41):
So he has an incredible joke about that very subject
of Bear Bryant integrating. Yes, which is when USC went
down there, put the belt to him in Alabama and
he beat he beat integration.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
And yes, yes exactly.

Speaker 5 (19:56):
And then I thought, I thought it was a joke
until I went and googled.

Speaker 6 (19:59):
I was like, oh my god, this actually happened.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's you know, the joke is
great that, you know, the routine is great. It's not
quite true because integration was already moving behind the scenes.
They already had a black player on the roster who
couldn't play yet because he's a freshman. So and but
it is there is something to that that that having
an integrated team and a team with a player from

(20:23):
Alabama on usc come and beat Alabama in Alabama, you know,
just stick it to them that way. That that does
a whole lot to say, for a second, maybe we
need to rethink this, and and yeah, you know we can.
It's a whole different angle of topic to have to to,
you know, to say, all right, well, people only start
pulling for integration once they realize they can win on

(20:45):
a football field. But you know, to some extent, you
speak the language that the people speak, and then that's
how you get through to them. So yeah, he's he's
onto something. It's a little more complicated than that, but
he was very much onto something.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
I do want to ask you, Jay, because we talked
a little bit before we came on. I grew up
a big NASCAR fan and you wrote the book on
the Earnhardt family. Yes, to people that have never watched nascar,
how can you describe what it's like to people that
have never seen it before?

Speaker 6 (21:15):
So this is a question for me, not just you KP.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
Not just you can convince.

Speaker 6 (21:21):
Kevin to watch NASCAR. That's what's happening right now.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well, I mean, first of all, you got to have
somebody to go for. You know, just sitting and watching
NASCAR is like, you know, it's like it's like turning
on a random high school football game, like, well, why
should I care about this?

Speaker 3 (21:33):
Who's gonna who?

Speaker 2 (21:34):
So if you have a rooting interest, you know, that's
the that's the start. But I mean, we all like
to go fast, all of us like speed, all of us.
Like you know, we'll get in a car, we'll get
behind the wheel, the lights turning yellow, and you're like,
you know what, I'm gonna gun it.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
You know, we don't want to just sit back and
be called. So there's that.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
There's the element of speed, there's the element of strategy,
and and yes, it takes a little bit to get
into that element of strategy where you know, you know
that a race is unfolding over the course of fifty
or one hundred laps in the way that the pit
stops work and the way that passes work, And that's
kind of higher level stuff.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
But at its heart, the.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Best NASCAR is just badass dudes driving fast and trying
to beat the other guy to the line.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
And that's about as American as it gets.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
And so where NASCAR I think runs into trouble is
when they're drivers. When they either the drivers either muzzle
themselves or sponsors or NASCAR muzzles the drivers. Because the
reason why Dale earned Heart was so popular, and why
Richard Petty was so popular, why Jeff Gordon guys like
this were so popular, is that they were badasses. They
were outspoken, they were kind of the embodiment of what

(22:44):
a lot of people wanted to see in themselves. And
we don't quite have that as much now, So, you know,
I think that that's why NASCAR struggles it a bit
in a way that it didn't in earlier years. But yeah,
I mean, it's a great sport. I would also recommend
go to a NASCAR race. You know, wherever you are,
find a NASCAR race.

Speaker 3 (23:01):
Go to it. You will be hooked. Just watch the
cars go.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
Faster than you could possibly imagine and getting hit with
a draft when they go past. It is just it's
a rush, unlike anything else in the sports.

Speaker 6 (23:13):
Is there any how?

Speaker 5 (23:16):
Big is the middle of divent diagram between NASCAR fans
and F one fans.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
A huge because each of them kind of views the
other with suspicions.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
There's a good chunk of Russian sessions in that. You know,
it's maybe I don't know.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
That are motorsports fans that love, you know, F one fan,
they love F one, they love NASCAR, they love IndyCar,
they love you know, NHR, whatever other kind of motorsports
that you want. Don't watch it if it's got a motor,
you know, if an grocery car with a motor on.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Don't watch it and see if a guy outruns another guy.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
But there is a culture difference, you know, between NASCAR
and F one. That's you know, that's that's huge. You've
got dudes on the yachts in Monaco and then shirt
was dudes in the infield of Talladega covered a barbecue sauce,
you know, And so they're both coming pulling for the
same thing speed, but they're pulling forward in different ways,
and so there's a little bit of snottiness.

Speaker 7 (24:10):
You know.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
It's always kind of funny seeing a Formula one driver who,
you know, the Formula one looks down on NASCAR to
call them taxi cabs or bricks or whatever like that,
and then they get into one of these things, they're like,
oh my god, this is like this is so much
harder to drive that I thought.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
It's so much more difficult. And then vice versa.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
You know, NASCAR guys kind of look down on Formula
one drivers as being you know, little goofballs with.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
You know, little tiny, good looking model type.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
Goofballs that get into these these ultra fast rockets, and
the NASCAR drivers get into that and they're like, oh my god,
it's so much more complicated than I thought. So each
each side, I think the real fans have a healthy
respect for one another, but there is a good chunk
that's like I don't want to be a part of that.
I don't want to be a part of that, and
it is kind of funny when they do collide like that.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
I just don't enjoy the f one racing that's the
only reason why I can't get into it.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
It is.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
It's frustrating as hell, isn't it, You know, when you've
got the same ten cars finishing in the same way
that they started. But that's why I think that the
drive to survive has been so popular is because it's
not about the finish. It's about everything around the sport,
you know. So you see these dudes on their yachts.
You see these dudes in their estates. You know, they're

(25:23):
sipping wine, they're playing tennis, whatever it might be.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
You know, good looking dudes or they're good looking wines.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
And it's a whole lifestyle and the race is only
like one small part of it. And I think that
that's the way the Formula one has really has really
taken hold of the American consciousness, because you're right, the
racing itself can just be just awful.

Speaker 4 (25:45):
It is really bad. KP. You you got something you
want to ask them?

Speaker 5 (25:50):
Yes, I got to gotta steer back to iconic figures
in the Iron Bowl robbery. Yes so, in my opinion,
the greatest Coege football player I ever lived is a
man by the name of Cameron Jarrell Newton.

Speaker 6 (26:05):
For people, for someone who was a lot closer to it.

Speaker 5 (26:09):
Can you describe what that year was of having this
Haley's comment, like, figure come in to Auburn and kind
of just take them to as perfect of a season
you could possibly have.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
All Right, so I'm assuming that you've seen the Avengers movies.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Okay, absolutely, and you saw when Fanos has all the
Infinity gems and he just beats the hell out of
the Avengers just from every single angle.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
That's what Cam Newton was like.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
He was stronger than everybody else, he was faster than
everybody else. He had charisma, he had drive, he had willpower,
he had that smile, everything about him. You're exactly right
that one year, that twenty ten season, everything was perfect.
It was focused around Cam Newton, and yet he might
well be the most dominant college player of all time.

(27:01):
You could make a real good argument for that because
everything worked out in his favorite and he even had
scanal around him.

Speaker 7 (27:07):
You know.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
So that makes it the perfect college player because did
he get paid, did he not get paid? Who knows,
but it's he was. He was the right man for
the moment he was He was set up exactly for
that moment. He had the exact system that he needed
to play in, and everything worked out just perfectly and
perfectly for him. You know, I am the tricky thing
that I had to deal with in this writing this

(27:29):
book was in terms of sheer numbers. Obviously, Alabama just
dwarfs Auburn in terms of championships. But Auburn has got
these these just absolute face punches that they get on Alabama.
They will always be able to say, you know what,
We've got to kick six on you, We've got the
Cam back on you.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
He's got Bama punch. So you know all this stuff.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
So every every Auburn victory is like worth ten Alabama victories.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
In the Iron Bowl. And so yeah, and Cam Newton
was just absolute brilliance. So yeah, you cannot.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Overstate enough if you did not see Cam Newton play
at the time, go back and look at some clips,
go back, and you just cannot even imagine how far
above he was his peers and how far above he
was the game of football.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
Then because it was I.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Mean Auburn, Auburn called lightning in a bottle a second time,
and they made the most of it.

Speaker 6 (28:23):
Follow to that, because you bought up the kick six,
because you can't.

Speaker 5 (28:28):
You can't talk about this rivalry without talking talking about
that play and the iconic radio call. I can't remember
the gentleman's name, Rob.

Speaker 6 (28:38):
Thank you. I love how you immediately knew how I
was talking about.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (28:42):
Absolutely, the moment it lefts was like, oh my god,
he's gotta go. Oh man Ken. What was the next
day like for Alabama fans after that happened? Like what
do you do?

Speaker 1 (28:53):
What do you do?

Speaker 3 (28:55):
Just disbelief, just absolute displa how did this happen? How
this happened to us?

Speaker 2 (28:59):
You know, it's like this is this is like, you know,
no matter how big Alabama gets, and I wrote something
like this, no matter how many championships Alabama has, Auburn
failed just to be able to wear a shirt and
says kick six you know, or got a second nick
you know, or whatever it is, and it'll still have
him right there in the heart because it was you know,
it was just so perfect that Alan. This is the

(29:21):
price Alabama had to pay, you know, for for forever
giving their you know, their their hated rival a leg
up on. It doesn't matter how you know, Auburn can
say we got Alabama can say we had eighteen rings.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
It doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Al Auburn got that kick six in on it, and yeah,
it was. It was devastating. That calls amazing. Uh you know,
I talked to Stan White, who was the color guy.
Sadly Rod has passed on, but you talk to the
color man, and he was saying how he was. He
was screaming so loud that the producer had to turn
him down, to turn his mic down because he was
just bellowing. He was a former Auburn quarterback and he

(29:52):
was losing his mind. So, yeah, this is this is
it's just a singular event in college football history.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
And so yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
I mean, and you can't tell a story that's that
without that. So I literally begin the book with that.
It's in the introduction. I begin the book with that
way because it's just it's it is the the the
apocaal moment in this in this rivalry, and everything spreads out,
everything led up to that, and everything spreads out from that.

Speaker 6 (30:17):
Is that is that a my age thing?

Speaker 5 (30:20):
That that's the first moment that came to my mind,
like the moment Dave told me we're interviewing someone who
wrote a book about the ironbol that's the first play
that came up.

Speaker 6 (30:27):
Or is that a no, no, no, No matter what
age you are, that's the play that everyone thinks.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
It's I think I think it's everybody. I mean, you know,
no matter what, as long as you can remember it,
that's it. You know, that's that's your moment in the
saying where you're like, I remember where I was. You know,
I was saying earlier, I was with my dad. You know,
we were we stood up. We're just either kind of
sitting there watching the game. We didn't never root any interest,
and all of a sudden, we stand up. We're just screaming.
We're screaming, and you know, we were on the phone

(30:52):
with my brother and he's like, what's happening? What's the
thund tornado was knocking down the house because he wasn't
watching the game. So yeah, it's it's I think everybody knows.
The older school fans might have a little bit of
you know that they might have their favorite iron bolts,
but this that was the point everybody knew at that
exact moment. It's I mean, it's it's right up there
with the greatest college football players of all time. Now,

(31:13):
regardless of this rivalry.

Speaker 5 (31:16):
All right, last iconic figure I need to bring up,
and it's honestly, they're the members of the Todd family
are screaming at the screen that it took us so
long to bring up arguably the other greatest college football
coach all the time. That happened to coach at Alabama
and misster Nick Saban. Yes, you want to talk about
a tide shift, he can't when he came in. How

(31:39):
much did that now hilt everything to Alabama's favor, not
only in the rivalry, but honestly in the conference, the nation,
to everything.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Literally everything that college football is now is a reflection
of Nick Saban is a reflection of, or reaction to
he completely changed the sport. And what's interesting is Bear
Bryant retires, you know, in the early nineteen eighties. He
had this one championship with Gene Stallings in nineteen ninety two,
and then and then Saban doesn't arrive until two thousand

(32:11):
and seven. That's twenty five or so years without an
Alabama championship. I was kidding, I'm sorry, with one Alabama championship.
And you know, we think of Alabama as being a Titan.
They were in some really bad shape. When Saban showed up,
they were being used as a as leverage. People didn't
want to coach there because they went through a whole
sequence of coaches that were awful, just just could not

(32:32):
get it done, losing games, embarrassing themselves, embarrassing the program.
Saleman comes in, he completely changes the entire culture of
the program.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
It took him a year or so to get moving,
but then once he got moving, as we all know,
you know, the championship started just racking up.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
And yeah, the way that he's instituted everything from roster
management to facilities management, to strategy, to the ability to
shift from a defense first mindset and a run first
mindset to an offense for mindset. Everything that he did,
everybody in college football either paid attention and imitated it

(33:07):
or they were out of a job.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
So yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
It is not too much to say that he completely
revolutionized college football, and college football would not be what
it is today without him.

Speaker 5 (33:17):
Kind of a two part question, which, sorry, professor if
you hear this, because you know, because as journalists you
know it's a big no no. But it's do you
have a favorite saving moment and a favorite saving team?

Speaker 3 (33:33):
Let's see.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
I mean, you know, there are so many little moments
I would have to think about that one.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
I just I like the way that that he he
would have the same This is not a this is
not a great moment, This is an anecdote that I love.
He would have the same meals all the time.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
He would have iceberg, let us with Cube Hammond, He'd
have his little Debbie snackcakes.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Because he was like Steve Jobs, he was so focused on.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
The moment at hand. He was focused on the you know,
on what he was going to do for practice that day.
He was focused on the weather, every single element. He
was so focused that he didn't worry about what he
was going to eat. He just had the same food
prepared for him every time, the way that Steve Jobs
had the same outfit prepared for him every time, the
same kind of turtle, black turtleneck and all of that.
So Savan was just such a creature of habit and

(34:20):
a creature of process that the more variables that you
take out, the more you can focus on what the
real issue is. And and so that kind of leads
to my favorite saving team, which was the twenty twenty
COVID team and because Saban was unable to have his
typical kind of process. And you know, we all lived

(34:40):
through COVID, but I think we've all kind of consciously,
if subconsciously, agreed to forget about all that all that happened.
But Alabama was pretty revolutionary the way they had Apple
watches for their players. They were setting up practices, remote
practices so that when they got back on to canvas,
they were ready to go. And that team was as

(35:01):
tough as any team in the history of college football,
because if you remember, they didn't play any cupcakes. It
was an all SEC season, and they burned all the
way through the SEC. They burned all the way through
the playoff and won the championship in a way that
we've kind of forgotten about because a because it was
COVID and everyone's like, you know, let's just forget all
about that. But b you had that LSU team, that

(35:23):
Joe Burrow team, right before it, and you had that
monstrous Georgia defense team right after it. And so those two,
those two kind of bookends sort of overshadowed Alabama. But
that twenty twenty team was one hell of a ball club.

Speaker 5 (35:37):
I'll never forget it. It made my other were so
good they made my team draft Mac Jones in the
first round. So you know, job, great job Savan, great
job Devonce Smith, take my Patriots.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
Thanks Jay, this has been a lot of fun. I
want to get you out of here on this before
we wrap this up. You've covered a lot of things
in your career for Yahoo Sports. Where is your absolute
favorite thing that you've ever gotten to go cover?

Speaker 6 (36:07):
Man?

Speaker 3 (36:07):
Ah, well, I mean I can't say this or not.
Just sounded really like a I don't know if I
can cuss on here, but just like a really okay, like.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
An entitled asshole. But because I've been very, very fortunate
to to cover you know, just some of the greatest events.
But you know, my annually I go and I go
to I cover the Masters, and I will sit down
there at a corner with a couple of my best
friends and sit and we'll have a beer. We'll make sure,
you know, be be grateful for what we had. The
last thing I want to be as a sports writer

(36:38):
is I'm taking this all for granted. It's all suck
with boring. I have to go back to the Masters again.
So you know, we always I always try to to
take advantage of that, and and and to have gratitude
and appreciation for that. But you know, there are so
many that I've been fortunate to cover. You know, A
real high point was last summer. I was in Paris
at the Olympics and I and and I.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
Know the word out on.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
I don't know if we're doing video or not, but
I have this on my phone where I know this,
it's my lock screen. Hang on, I go, it's the
this is the the Eiffel Tower at sunset during the
beach volleyball and just sitting there and watching this magnificent
beauty and this ups sport at beach volleyball. But it
was one of those moments where it's like, wow, you know,

(37:21):
this is this is absolute perfection.

Speaker 7 (37:23):
It was.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
It was great to be a part of that. But
I mean, to be honest, I mean, I'm grateful whatever
I get to cover, and so it doesn't matter if
it like I was covering the Savannah Bananas a couple
of nights ago, and I'm you know, I'm down to
the tiny little field in Savannah and watching these guys
jump around and dance and and and all kinds of
craziness happening and so I'm just I just try to

(37:44):
take in the moment no matter where I am. But
but yeah, I would say in terms of top moments,
the Paris Olympics were a good one, and August Nashville
every year ranked the way way up there.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
Well.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
His new book, Iron in the Blood, How the Alabama
over Sullivurne rivalry shape the soul of the South. If
you aren't sold on it yet, you can pre order it.
The book will be available August twenty sixth. Jay Busby,
this was a fun interview. I'm so glad we got
to do this. We'd love to have you on again soon.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yes, let'stal once.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
Once college football roles run or NFL we will we'll
get back on and we'll talk about some current day madness.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
I love it, Jay, thank you for taking some time
with us, and again, go pre order the book. We've
gotten to see KP and I we both have started
reading it and we both love it. We have Carrie
Miller Bleacher Report coming up right after this, KP. Do
you want to plug your stuff before we get out
of here?

Speaker 5 (38:41):
Absolutely a sportscard that is sports last name spelled just
like punked scar apostrophe D talking about your most traumatic
moment as a sports fan from a first person perspective,
Trojan Horse about how much we love sports. It is
available onto YouTube's and the Facebook's and the instagrams and

(39:01):
the TikTok's.

Speaker 6 (39:02):
Go ahead, tune in, all.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Right, Cary Miller, Bleacher Report Talking Baseball Coming up. Welcome
back to the opening Kickoff podcast. Dave Steinlinel here with you,
and a lot has happened in the baseball world, so
we figured who better to talk all things baseball with,
including that massive trade that has shocked everybody that we're
still talking about. He's a writer for bleacher Report. He

(39:27):
covers college basketball and now full on baseball season. That
would be Carry Miller, Bleacher Report back with us. Carrie,
how you doing, I'm doing good.

Speaker 7 (39:36):
What's been going on? You said it's been busy in baseball?
Huh weird.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
It has a little strange to be talking about in
June that the there's a massive MLB trade, But we're
gonna just we're gonna dive into it. I know this
trade by the time this airs is gonna be about
a week old. But just what do you make of
everything that happened with Rafael Devers and the giants.

Speaker 7 (40:01):
I mean, it was bizarre, very bizarre, like very rarely
is there a trade where you're like, I remember where
I was when I saw the notification, Like I'm gonna
remember for I was reading Harry Potter to my daughter
and I like stopped and stared at my phone for
like forty five seconds. I was like, are you serious?

(40:23):
Like this is legit, that's what they're getting for Raphael Devers.
Like you know, we all knew that things had gotten
you know, a little uh heated. We'll we'll leave it
at that between Devers and you know, the Red Sox organization.
But for that to be all they got for him,

(40:44):
aside from you know, the salary relief and not having
the headache of dealing with a guy who they apparently
think is more cantankerist than Barry Bonds ever was in
his heyday. I don't know. I don't know what was
going on behind the scenes that they were so up
in arms with Devers, but kind of felt like they

(41:05):
went out of their way to piss him off. But
by going for Nolan Aeronado and then signing Alex Braign
the whole first base controversy everything, but certainly feels like
the Giants won that trade by an absolute landslide. But
we'll see if they can actually turn a corner here
and finally have a thirty homer season for the first

(41:27):
time in over two decades.

Speaker 4 (41:29):
I was gonna say much needed power for that Giant team.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
And I've heard some people say this on the various
on the baseball talk shows, and I want to get
your take on.

Speaker 7 (41:40):
Is this the.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Giants finally essentially getting the big swing free agent that
they've been trying to They've really tried to sign guys
the last couple of years and have struck out. Is
this sort of buster posey in that front office saying, Okay,
we're gonna do it this way. We're gonna get the
guy in trade as opposed to sign him to a

(42:01):
big deal because we haven't had that success.

Speaker 7 (42:04):
Yeah, this is the the Arson judge they've been waiting for, right,
I mean, thought they were getting judged. They did sign
Correa and then you know, he back out of it,
went to the Mets, back out of that. Now he's
with the Twins and they're regretting that sign. So kind
of dodged a bullet there. They wanted o tany that
didn't happen. They wanted Soto, so yeah, I mean it's

(42:24):
about time they got you know, maybe a top ten
hitter in baseball. You know, who knows what sort of
glove he'll be bringing to the party. Eventually, Like you said,
by the time we record this, it'll be week old,
or by the time we released this, it's not Friday yet.
The Red Sox are playing the Giants this weekend. I'll

(42:46):
be curious to see if he's starting at first base
against the Red Sox, just as a middle finger across
the field. I don't know it'll be fun, but yeah,
it's it's about time they got someone because they got
a damas. But even when they signed him, it was like, wow,
they paid that much for a guy whose bat might

(43:06):
not translate from what is it the American Life Field
now Miller Park whatever, from Brewer Stadium to Oracle Park.
I mean, yeah, this is this is what they needed it.
It feels like they've got the bats now to potentially
chase down the Dodgers and win the NL West. Although
immediately after the trade they lost their first four games

(43:28):
and it fell five games behind the Dodgers. But that's
baseball for you.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
I was gonna say if it like, I want to
go to the Red Sox side before we move off
of this and talk about some other stuff. But you're
absolutely right with the Giants is that they've been so
aggressive and swinging and missing and then like last year,
you go sign Blake Snell Matt Chapman, so like Chapman's

(43:53):
kind of worked out. It took them to like August
for Snell to really be what they thought he was
gonna get. Then he left, So then they go ver
Lander and they have this really weirdly built rotation with
some young guys, older guys, and it's all anchored by
Logan Webb and they're just kind of piecing that rotation together.

Speaker 4 (44:14):
And then they're like, well, we're going to trade out
of that rotation.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
To get Devers to just sort of feel like, are
you Are you still better than the Are you better
than the Padres and Dodgers?

Speaker 4 (44:26):
And I feel like, I don't know if the answer
is yes to that.

Speaker 7 (44:29):
With them, I think they're I would I would feel
more confident them edging out the Padres. At this point,
I feel like the Padres were already starting to fade.
It was feeling like the Dodgers, even though when the
trade happened, I think the Dodgers were only one game
ahead of the Giants when that was a noun and that,
but it was feeling like the Dodgers, just the way

(44:51):
that their offense has taken over, eventually their pitching was
gonna come around. They were gonna run away with the West.
But I don't know that it really feels that way anymore.
Although the Dodgers have since gotten show Hey, with Tommy
back on the mound, they've got that that little element
going for them, at least for morale purposes. But yeah,
I think the Giants. Prior to this, I would have

(45:13):
still said the Padres would finish ahead of the Giants.
I think this probably pushed them over the edge for me,
because I just didn't think they had the offense. I
think eventually you gotta assume their bullpen is going to
come back to earth a little bit. But you could
say the same thing about the Padres. Right, those are
probably the two best bullpens in all of baseball.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Right Yeah, As an Oriol fan, I would contend Tampa
Bay's pretty good, But I don't wouldn't know why I
would say that, But I do want to talk about
the Red Sox because it felt like and I can't
shake that ego got in the way of this. But
now the egos are well, we might be able to
win without without Rafael Devers. I don't know if I

(45:53):
buy that. Do you buy that logic from Craig Breslo
in that front office?

Speaker 7 (45:58):
No, all all, all of the talk coming from their
front office that we like, you know, publicly, what we've
heard sounds a lot like when Lebron left Cleveland the
first time and then what's the Cavaliers owner? His name
so Dan Gilbert, when he had his like letter in

(46:18):
comics sans ms to the Cavaliers fans, like, we're gonna
come out of this better than Evers. What are you
even talking about? You gave up like a generation. Well,
obviously it's different. That was a free agency, not a trade.
But you lost like a generational talent, got nothing in return,
I mean, no offense to Kyle Harrison and Jordan Hicks. Honestly,

(46:38):
the best part of the trade was the one prospect
they got. There's like a single a outfielder's he was
the Giants like top four prospect. But you know, Jordan
Hicks's contract is not good. And Kyle Harrison, I don't
think having a fly ball pitcher go from Oracle Park
to Fenway Park is going to work out very often.

(47:00):
They assigned him straight to a and I don't know
when he'll be coming up, but it just doesn't feel
like they got anywhere near enough for Like, how can
you not find somebody who would have given up more
than that? That's just insane.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Yeah, it's talking trying to explain this to like non
baseball people, is this is the closest MLBS had to
like the Luka Dancik trade, Yeah, where it like nobody
knew this was happening. There was no rumblings of this happening,
and then all of a sudden, hey Devers is getting
traded and you're looking at what they got back and

(47:38):
you're like, wow, okay, like you signed off on this,
this is what you you think is a good haul
for that player. No, No, I'm sorry, that's not it.
You're gonna pay a price down down the road. And
I just can't help but feel like the Red Sox

(47:58):
are trying to do a lot of teams are doing,
which is we want to win the Tampa Bay rays
method of we're just gonna load the farm system. We're
gonna have these waves of prospects come up, and we're
never really gonna keep these guys long term, which Boston
should not ever do that because they've got the money
to pay guys top dollar. But it feels like that's

(48:22):
sort of a trend that we're seeing with a lot
of these teams here of late.

Speaker 7 (48:27):
Yeah, that's the That's the crazy thing about it is.
You know, when I think it's the score when they
put out like every October November comparing teams what their
revenue was the previous year to what their payroll is
that coming season, the Redsucks are always near the bottom
of that lit Like their revenue is like five hundred
and fifty million and their payroll is like two hundred,

(48:49):
Like percentage wise, they are putting almost the least amount
back into what they're you know, getting back, and it's
it's maddening. You know. They obviously, now seeing what Bogarts
is doing in San Diego, maybe they kind of dodged
a bullet there by not giving him two hundred and
eighty million dollars or whatever. But you know, penny pinching

(49:12):
to lose Devers is just crazy. But we've already seen them,
right they signed Christian Campbell to a big extension before
the season or very early in the season. Now they today,
I don't know if you saw that news they sent
him back down to trip Away because he's been such
a disappointment for that.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
That's worked out really well from Bolston so far.

Speaker 7 (49:32):
But they're kind of trying to go the Atlanta route now,
right where they extended Akunya his ten year deal, which
has worked out beautifully for them. They did Ozzie Albi,
Spencer Streider, Michael Harris like, that's kind of the model
I think they're going with. But like you said, they
they don't need to. They could go the Dodgers route

(49:52):
if they wanted to, Like they're making enough money on
an annual basis. This just has to be mad made
to the Red Sox fans to like see them act
like they don't have money.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
Yeah, I now transitioning because brought up Tampa. The rumblings
are that the Ray's ownership is getting ready to sell
this team, and it's been a tumultuous couple of years
to say the least with Tampa Bay, the city of
Tampa and the Rays. If you're had to guess, and
this team gets sold, do you think Tampa Bay the

(50:27):
Rays stay in Tampa long term.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (50:32):
I hadn't really thought about that. I just saw the
reports today that they might be stelling for whatever, like
one point seven billion dollars, which I think was also
what they said that the new drop was going to
cost like amount. Apparently that's a special number to Tampa Bay.
I don't know, but we're we're overdue for national rumblings,

(50:53):
right I feel like we were. We were nowhere near
this deep into last season before that started coming up.
So I'm sure they're be talk of relocating. But it
has always been a struggle to get fans there, and
even when they were talking about the new stadium, it
was just like, okay, but it's still in the same area,

(51:13):
like the it's not the stadium that people hate, it's
just getting to the trap that drives that local fan
base crazy. So I don't know. I don't know what
long term is. But I was actually looking at I'm
doing something right now on like comparing teams to what
their preseason projections were, and I looked back since two

(51:34):
thousand and eight. Tampa Bay has hit the over on
their win total twelve out of the last seventeen years.
It's on pace to be thirteen out of eighteen. Like
we always undersetll what Tampa Bay is going to be.
I don't know at what point the books are just
gonna start factoring in an extra five wins because they're
Tampa Bay and we can't evaluate the front.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
I think when like being an Oriel fan, you get
to see him so many times, Like Tampa Bay just
has this model of how they do it. They have
great pitching, they develop some of the best young pitching
you'll ever see. And when they make trades and they
get guys like Ryan Pepio from the Dodgers and the
glass Now trade, they just know how to identify the

(52:18):
right guy when it comes time to get rid of
who they're getting rid of. And they're not a team
that you look at and you go, there's a star
on that team. They're carried by one guy, I mean,
no perfect example. Then you're down eight nothing to the
Orioles who have a bunch of young stars, and you
chip away and it was everybody in the lineup. It

(52:39):
was doing the little things, putting the ball in play
with two strikes, hitting the ball like bunting in situations,
and move runners up like they do the fundamentally small
things so well that it doesn't really matter who is
on that roster. They're always just gonna be that. What's
gonna kill Tampa Bay is the day Kevin Cash leaves.

Speaker 7 (53:01):
What's funny is, for a while there, right Tampa Bay,
they popularized the opener, and now they've gone completely away
from I think they've only used five starters all season,
with the exception of like Joe Boyle made a spot
start in April, that was it. Otherwise, I think they
have more innings pitched by starting pitchers than any other
team in the majors this season. So maybe maybe Tampa

(53:25):
Bay rays a kind of like that Canary and the
coal mine when you see what they're doing, like that's
the direction things are treading trending, because certainly, you know,
contract wise, right, the Tampa Bay way is you sign
a guy to like a five year escalating deal and
then you get rid of them after three years and
watch some other team, you know, pay the ballooned part

(53:48):
of that contract, and they always outsmart everybody whatever they've
had to do they for as hamstrung as they are financially,
they've found a way to remain relevant. Get seventeen eighteen
years at this point more or less.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
All Right, I'm gonna ask where I'm gonna save your
nationals here for a second. Carry Oh God, who's been
a bigger shock to you in terms of their underperformance?
The Orioles are the Braves because they're the two most
fault about teams.

Speaker 7 (54:19):
Yeah, no, those are definitely the two. I would say
I'm more shocked by the Orioles, honestly, Like, I thought
the Braves could get out to a brutal start to
this season because right, they didn't have Strider, they didn't
have a Kunya, and their schedule was insanely frontload, like

(54:39):
they had to play the Padres. I mean, the Diamondbacks
ended up not being that good. You can put them
in that disappoint in conversation with Baltimore in Atlanta, but
like they had to deal with just an absolute gauntlet
of a schedule while they were short handed, and they
haven't quite been able to recover from that. But yeah,
Baltimore for them to be Oh, they were sixteen and

(55:00):
thirty four through fifty games, like, I don't think anybody
had that on their radar, even knowing like the approach
that took the off season, right, I mean, you know
as well as anyone. They lost Corbyn Burns, they lost
Anthony Sounds on there and replaced them with Tyler O'Neill
and Charlie Morton. I don't know. I don't know what

(55:20):
we were smoking in February and March that we thought
that was okay, but we also did realize it could
possibly go as poorly as.

Speaker 4 (55:33):
Kerry is still there.

Speaker 7 (55:35):
Yeah, I'm here.

Speaker 4 (55:36):
I'm sorry I lost there for a second.

Speaker 7 (55:39):
Oh hey.

Speaker 4 (55:41):
Yeah, no, absolutely. And the other thing with dew Oriols
too is.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
You can hate the Michael Eya's plan in terms of
the pitching, but I think it works if you don't
have all the injuries to your depth immediately, you don't
grace Rodriguez, he gets hurt, and then the lineup. The
lineup has been different with Jordan Westburg and Colton kowserback,
but I fully agree they have been the biggest disappointment

(56:09):
in baseball, but yet somehow feel like they're gonna be
in contention here in another two weeks. That's the crazy
part about this because the AL nobody's run away with
that wild card spot.

Speaker 4 (56:20):
Yeah, everybody's just kind of in his log jam.

Speaker 7 (56:23):
Yeah, they were. I was looking today over their last
twenty three game. I think they're fifteen and eight right,
so over the past almost months, they're on like one
hundred and six win pace extrapolated over one hundred and
SIXTYWO games. It's just they dug themselves such a hole
that it did feel like they couldn't come back from it.

(56:44):
But then you look at the AL stated like they're saying,
and they're not that far gone, Like I'm no longer
convinced that, you know, Ryan O'Hearn and Cedric Mullins and
Zach Efflin are all going to get traded at I
think they could still definitely be in the running. I
don't know what their schedule is between now and the
trade deadline, whether they've got a bunch of games against

(57:05):
the White Sox or they got a bunch of games
against the Dodgers and Tigers. I don't know if they're
going to start to fall out or not. But they've
definitely turned things around in the last few weeks, Like
right as everybody was writing their obituary, is when they
started to turn a corner.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Yeah, Well, for my sake, I don't want to see
anybody get traded because I think that's a tough spot.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
The Nationals.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
Everybody's talked about and I know that's your team, and
they have just as many, if not more young stars
than really anybody in baseball. But they hit a really
bad rough patch here and there have been a lot
of questions. So as a Nats fan, I'm gonna ask
you this before we let you go, Kerry, do you
feel like everybody's just panicking right now?

Speaker 7 (57:50):
No? Uh, I think Davy has run his course. He
got his grace period for winning the World Series. I'm
surprised he's still the manager. They've got a serious like
stars and scrubs problem going on, because, like you said,
they do have talent, right James would hit two home
runs today, including that walk, and that was awesome. Uh C.

(58:13):
J Abrams is great at short stuff. Mackenzie Gore phenomenal pitcher,
has been underrated nationally for the last two years, I think.
But beyond that, it just doesn't feel like they're building
toward anything, Like they don't have enough of a middle
of town like it just feels like they have to
do so much in free agency to matter. You know,

(58:34):
they just called up Brady House recently, and at this
point with with Dylan Cruz and House called up, they
might have the worst farm system left in terms of
like talent waiting in the wings. So don't I don't
know where it's going from here. I just hope they
sign James Wood to a fourteen year deal before they

(58:54):
have to watch him leave like Bryce Harper and Trey
Turner and Juan Soto and all the other All these
guys end up in other NL East teams is what
drives me insteade.

Speaker 4 (59:05):
So you have to see you.

Speaker 7 (59:07):
Yeah, they just keep coming back, and we're like half
of the fans in the NAT stadium are still wearing
their like Turner and Sodo and Harper jerseys just out
of sadness.

Speaker 4 (59:18):
Oh that's awful, Carrie. Thank you so much for taking
some time.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
We appreciate having you on, and we'll probably have you
on a little closer to the trade deadline to actually
talk about who might get traded, if anybody gets traded,
because everybody except for like four teams are still in contention.

Speaker 7 (59:36):
Yeah, there's I would say there are six definite stellars
right now, but like, who do you want from the
Rocky or the White Sox or aside from Sandy Alcon Tower,
who does anybody want from the Marlins. So yeah, it's
gonna be a very strange trade deadline, but hopefully, hopefully
someone will fall out of contention and we'll have some
fun stuff to talk about next time.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Absolutely, all right, thank you to Carrie Miller Bleach Report.
We have more Opening ca All podcasts after this