5/28/24 - The Mo Egger Show - Mo Egger

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Guess what day it is? Guesswhat day it is? Dude day.

(00:08):
I I almost forgot good after himand on my legger. This is ESPN
fifteen thirty. Thank you for listening. Hopefully you had a really nice,
enjoyable, relaxing fun. Hopefully,at least for a while yesterday thoughtful Memorial
Day weekend and hopefully an abbreviated workweek is off to a great start.

(00:32):
Let me get this part out ofthe way really quick. Typically, on
Tuesdays, we spend an hour withour friend Paul Danner Junior on the Bengals
who started OTA's Today, OTAs areunderway for the Bengals. Paul is not
there. He's not here either.He's on vacation. Unlike many of us.
He doesn't do stuff when he's onvacation, which good for him.

(00:55):
So he's enjoying some family time.So if you're popping a song, going
well, goodie Moe is joined byPaul. On Tuesdays, we don't have
to put up with him by himself, at least till four o'clock. Sorry,
Paul's not here. Hopefully you staywith us. But no Paul today,
back next week. That doesn't meanwe don't have some fun in store

(01:18):
for you. I don't know whatthat means. If you like Dirk s.
Bentley, who's coming to River beenin about three weeks. We're gonna
give away tickets to that show today, tomorrow, and Thursday. Three pair.
We have a pair today. No, we're not gonna play guess the
foot. We might play it laterthis week. We'll find out, but
we're gonna do what we have doneoften during the season. The Reds are
playing the Cardinals this week. Theyplayed the Cardinals tonight, second of a

(01:42):
three game series, and so we'regoing to test your shared history of those
two iconic National League franchises coming upat four thirty three. We do have
some Bengals Ota stuff to get to. Zach Taylor talked a little while ago.
We'll spend some time on that.No Jamar Chase, no T Higgins,
for what it's worth, no SheldonRankins either. I'm sure there's going

(02:07):
to be a hyper focus at leastfrom folks outside of Cincinnati on Tea and
Jamar not being here. We willspend some time on that a little bit
later on. Plus, we havea big development in baseball, a big,
major development in baseball. That hasthe entire baseball world buzzing, and
I think it's a problem. We'llget to that a little bit later on,

(02:30):
and a few thoughts on the passageof Bill Walton, who passed away
yesterday at the age of seventy one, an iconic figure in college basketball,
professional basketball, and broadcasting. Ialso think just in American culture, will
spend some time on that a littlebit later on. Show preview video is

(02:50):
posting right now. The internet ismoving very very, very painfully slow today,
but as soon as the video uploads, we'll have it out for
you on X at Moeger. Thanksto our friends at Emory Federal Credit Union,
do yourself a favor start the weekby joining Emory Federal Credit Union.
We will then be members of thesame credit union. Right. That's right,

(03:15):
Go to EMORYFCU dot org. Thevideo is twelve percent eighty eight more
percent. It'll be uploaded. Ican hit send and we'll be good to
go. While we wait for thatto happen, let's start with this.
What if I would have told youthat, well, we did our show
on Friday, I would have said, by the time we reconvene on Tuesday,

(03:39):
the Reds will have not lost,The Dodgers will have come and gone,
the Cardinals will have come into townplaying very well, and the Reds
will have as many losses on Tuesdayat three oh nine in the afternoon as
they do right now. You wouldhave said what you would have said,

(04:00):
you're out of your mind. Youwould have said you are on something.
You would have said, you've startedyour Memorial Day weekend celebration a little bit
too early. And yet here weare, four games, four wins.
The vaunted LA Dodgers come to town, Red sweep them. Cincinnati will finish
with a winning record this season againstboth the Phillies and the Dodgers, the

(04:25):
best two teams in the National League, at least from a record perspective.
They will have gone four games.They've now gone four games, and they've
given up a grand total of nineruns. What if I would have told
you the Reds will spend the nextfour games against the Dodgers and Cardinals.
They'll give up six runs in thefirst game, and then one each across
each of the next three nine runs. What if I would have told you

(04:48):
on Friday afternoon, the Reds aregonna win their next four they're gonna get
a sweep of the Dodgers. They'regonna start their season their season series with
the Cardinals. They will get awin there. They will win four straight
games between now at our next showon Tuesday afternoon. And they'll do all
of this without Elie Dela Cruz makingmuch of an impact. Love Ellie Dela

(05:08):
Cruz, We all love Ellie Delacruz. The reality is number one. It's
sometimes painful watching him bad against LeftHe's number two. He's not statistically at
least had a very good May.I'm not too worried about that. It's
a good thing when you can finda way to get wins without a guy
like that doing a ton of heavylifting. Are the Rads back? Have

(05:30):
the Reds gone on a run?Were we a little bit too quick to
write this team off? We coulddiscuss those things. All I know is
this man number one. You can'tdig out of a hole until you start
winning consecutive games. I mean,it's to a degree remarkable. This team
won a month and a half withoutwinning consecutive games. Then they sweet the

(05:51):
Dodgers and add one for good measureagainst the Cardinals, and maybe more in
the offing tonight with Andrew Abbott onthe mound. My opinion of this team
hasn't changed from the beginning of theseason through some of the downs out the
last four or five weeks, andit's not changed right now. I think
this club is going to win somewherebetween seventy nine and eighty four wins.

(06:14):
But I do think there's reason foroptimism. Number One is this team's starting
pitching has been pretty good all seasonlong. Now, it's pretty remarkable that
the Reds will now have one thatthey now have one, i should say,
two bullpen games against the LA Dodgers, with Nick Martinez starring in both
of them, playing a major rolein both of them. That's pretty remarkable.

(06:39):
But what was at least to adegree frustrating about the long stretch of
losing that the Reds made us endorewas that they were getting reasonably decent starting
pitching, better than league average startingpitching pretty much across the board. Now,
there were two ways of looking atthat. One way of looking at
it was while they're wasting really goodstarts and they were. The other way

(07:02):
of looking at it was, look, this team starting pitching is getting better.
It's rounding in a form. Guysare improving, with the exception of
Nicolodolo, Guys are staying healthy.Nicolodolo came back yesterday and was not great,
but he was damn good enough.And so you've got some guys who
have excuse me, a gathered experience. You've got some guys who have learned,

(07:28):
they're staying healthy, they're applying whatthey've learned during that experience, and
the application of that experience seems tobe going quite well. They're pitching well,
and that was the case when theywere losing. If they were ever
going to start winning, that wasprobably always going to be the biggest reason
why we'll spend some time on HunterGreen here in just a second. The

(07:53):
other reason for optimism, and manysaid this, not going to say that
I beat this drum all that much, but at their the absolute depths of
the last road trip. When youlooked at some of the just the batting
averages in the red starting lineup,or you looked at the overall offensive output,

(08:13):
you were being very reasonable if youthought, you know what, this
team might not hit the way wethought that they were going to, and
they might not be capable of hittingto the extent that they're going to need
to as long as they don't haveguys like Matt McClain and Christian and Carnassi
on strand and Noelve Marte. Butsome of these guys are just going to
bounce back. Some of these guysare just going to hit better than they

(08:35):
have And to a degree, wehave seen that the season still has two
thirds of it in front of thisclub. Yesterday was game number fifty four,
And if you look at this teamacross the board statistically, even if
you throw away dudes like Nick Martini, etc. That you don't really factor
being a big part of this teammoving forward. And we could discuss their

(08:56):
roles or non roles on this teamwhen they do start to get healthier.
But if you look at this teamstatistically across the board, there's a very
very good chance that overwhelmingly so,you have a lot of guys whose numbers
are going to look dramatically better ina month or two months, or certainly
by the end of the season thanthey have for the majority of the first
two months. At some point thisteam was probably going to hit better than

(09:22):
it has for much of the season. That was just it's called regression to
the mean. And so if youbelieve that that was going to be the
case, and the starting pitching remainedbetter than league average, and it's been
better than better than league average hererecently, then at least a mini run
was always a distinct possibility. Now, this team still has a lot of

(09:43):
dig a lot of digging to do, a lot of work in front of
them, a very uphill battle.There's still six games under five hundred,
They're still in last place. There'sstill from an offensive perspective, without so
many guys that you thought were goingto be a big part of this season.
But I think a lot of uslooked at that Dodgercy as a place
where things may bottom out, andGod, they might come out of this,

(10:05):
you know, let's say, twelveunder five hundred, or they might
come out a Memorial Day even furtherfrom first place than they already have been.
And instead, it does feel like, even if they're not back,
even if you're not ready to makeplans in October, that you've got to
at least still be open to thepossibility that this team could make the summer

(10:28):
this year as fun as it didlast year. Looking for a fifth consecutive
win tonight with the Saint Louis Cardinalsin town. We got a lot of
red stuff to get to. Igot to focus on Hunter Green. Look,
we've been critical of Hunter Green whenit's been called for, and we've
defended Hunter Green in his contract whenit's been called for. I think if

(10:52):
you have been a Hunter Green skeptic, I think he is starting to make
you see things my way. Welcometo that coming up in just a few
minutes. Our phone numbers are fivepoint three, seven four nine, fifteen
thirty eight six six seven oh twothree seven seven six works as well.
You could also send me a tweetat moegar thanks to Delta Dental. Delta

(11:15):
Dental is building healthy, smart,vibrant communities for all good at Delta Dental,
oh dot com. Day one ofBengals OTAs. We'll get to a
little bit later on the Bengals.I think a very very accurate description of
their offseason written about them today atESPN dot com. We'll spend some time

(11:35):
on that, and we're giving awayDerks Bentley tickets. We have a loaded
show and we're guest free, sothere's plenty of room for you. It's
sixteen minutes after three o'clock. Let'stalk about the guy who is likely to
be the best bargain in baseball,perhaps as soon as this year next on
ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station,Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty on Moegar, thank

(11:58):
you so much for joining us.You're having a delightful Tuesday afternoon. No
Ta and Jamar at Bengals OTA's I'mtempted to not talk about it. I'm
tempted. I don't think I don'tthink I can get away with it.
I don't think I'm not supposed totalk about it, but I'm tempted.

(12:22):
We'll do that coming up in justabout ten minutes. And Angel Hernandez,
in a rare moment of unity onlineanybody who cares remotely about baseball is celebrating
the fact that Angel Hernandez, byall accounts, one of the worst umpires
in the history of the sport,one of the worst umpire slash officials in

(12:43):
the history of all of sports,is retiring. But there's a problem,
and I'll try to illustrate what theproblem is, because that's what talk show
hosts do. We take something that'sawesome, we take something that's not problematic
at all, and we turn itinto a problem. I'm kind of just
the next two segments after this onewill be me just doing my job.

(13:05):
Stand by for that. When HunterGreen was struggling earlier this season, I
had a basic, non controversial take, and it was, it would be
awesome if Hunter Green would pitch deeperinto games more consistently. And if you're

(13:26):
a Reds fan, I don't knowhow you ever could have had any issue
with that. Now. I wanthim to pitch deeper into games and not
pitch deep into games and give upeight runs. But logic would dictate that
most of the time, if he'spitching through the sixth and into the seventh
inning, that he's pitched well enoughto deserve to stay in the game.

(13:46):
Also, we talked about his firstfifty starts, like, let's be kind
of patient here, Let's let himget through his first fifty starts. Let's
let Nick Lodolo do that, Let'slet Graham Ashcraft do that, Let's let
Andrew Abbott do that. And like, let's face it, Andrew Abbott has
had more success early in his careerthan you might argue that Hunter Green did,

(14:07):
and nic Lodolo. That progress hasbeen interrupted by multiple stints on the
injured list. But with with HunterGreen, it was let's let's see what
happens. Because he hit his fiftiethstart about a month and a half ago.
Let's let's see what happens starts fiftyone through one hundred. Let's see
if he could take the build upof experience and now use that experience to

(14:31):
start pitching better. And if hedoes, he'll start pitching deeper into games.
Well, since his fiftieth big leaguestart, he has been terrific.
He's made seven since then. Sobig league starts fifty one through fifty seven,
his last seven starts, he's gotan ERA of two point four to

(14:54):
five. This weekend he was terrificagainst the Dodgers. I know there are
other, a newer, and franklybetter methods of illustrating how good or how
ineffective a pitcher is, but let'sjust use this one for the sake of
having an example. His ERA thoselast seven starts two point four five opposing

(15:16):
batters, and again, do whatyou won with batting average as a statistic
batting two oh three against him.You know, maybe the biggest thing about
Hunter Green for me, and thisis not insignificant given the home park that
he picks in pitches in he is. He has pitched in sixty four and
two thirds innings this year. Hehas surrendered four home runs, like one

(15:43):
every sixteen innings. He currently ranksthird in all of baseball in fewest home
runs given up per nine innings,even though he has downplayed the strikeouts a
little bit recently. He is ninthin baseball in strikeouts per nine. He
is ninth in all of baseball infewest hits given up per nine innings.

(16:07):
He is third in all of MajorLeague Baseball in war for pitchers. He's
also in the top five in Eraplus. Hunter Green is having an excellent
season. Now, not every starthas been excellent. The numbers that you
look at, if you look athis season as a whole, the good

(16:27):
ones are mostly reflective of how he'spitched over his last seven starts. And
if you watch baseball like it's nineteensixty five and only judge a pitcher by
his win lost total, then you'reprobably missing the rest of the Hunter Green
story. But there's also something aboutthis that we have to talk about,
and it's It's what gets brought upto me every time he has a bad

(16:48):
start. It's what gets brought upto me every time earlier in the season,
when he would struggle to get throughfive innings or be so pitch affishent
it was, well this guy.They paid him, what was it,
ninety six million dollars. I stilldon't understand the obsession with the kind of
money he's making. But Hunter Greenthis season is the one hundred and second

(17:08):
highest paid pitcher in baseball. Histwo thousand and twenty four salary doesn't make
him among the top one hundred highestpaid pitchers in the sport. Can you
name for me one hundred and twopitchers who are better this year? The
answer is no, you cannot.And so what is happening here? Well,

(17:33):
the light bulb is starting to comeon. He's pitching better. He's
pitching better more consistently. He's pitchingdeeper into games. It does feel like,
and we could do this, Wecould do an imaginary start point of
through thirty five starts or forty starts. I just used fifty. But he
hit that fifty start mark and suddenlythere's been a huge uptick in his performance.

(17:56):
He's pitched so much better, andwhat is happening. He's looking like
a guy who may offer a really, really good third season in the big
leagues. Now, imagine if hehas the sort of season that his last
seven starts would reflect him capable ofhaving, and then the Reds have to

(18:22):
go to the negotiating table with him, what kind of rays do you think
he would get? Probably a muchbigger one than the one he is due
to get in twenty twenty five.Hunter Green took the security of guaranteed money.
Can't really blame him. He isstill going to hit free agency before

(18:45):
he's thirty years old. So he'sgot a chance with the kind of starting
pitching coin that we've seen just explodethroughout the sport, and the Reds in
the short term get a chance toperhaps have a a staff ace quality guy
at a salary that would make himone of the biggest bargains in the sport.

(19:08):
If you look at the money heis going to make in the coming
years, he is probably if you'rejust using twenty twenty four totals, never
going to be one of the topthirty highest paid pitchers in the game.
Right now, he is one ofthe top thirty starting pitchers in the game,
and the company he is in isprobably going to be more select moving

(19:32):
forward. You can criticize the Redsfor a lot of different things, god
knows I have, But if you'regonna do that and you're fair, you've
got to talk about the smart thingsthey do. Investing in Hunter Green the
way they did, where they paidhim for one more year than he was
under team control. For that investment, Liz stands a very good chance of

(19:57):
being one of the smartest decisions theReds have ever made, and that any
team has made in recent years.His arm could fall off, he might
have issue, whatever they are.Who knows what's going to happen. None
of us can predict the future.That's what makes sports and baseball awesome.
But the way things are trending rightnow, if they continue and you care

(20:22):
so much about what the Reds balancesheet looks like and how much payroll flexibility
they have, you are going tobe elated. I'm already elated. You
are going to be elated that theReds did with Hunter Green. What they
did, it is starting to lookreally, really smart. Twenty eight minutes

(20:47):
after four o'clock, Sports Headlines Redsand Cardinals Today five win, three,
seven, four nine, fifteen thirtyis our phone number and Bengals have started
OTAs Zach Taylor talks about players whoaren't here because that's what the coaches have
to do. During OTA's next onESPN fifteen thirty, Sincy three sixty with
Tony Pike. Do we want tomove on? For doctor Keith Gorse and

(21:10):
Austin Elmore, I think you shouldcontinue. Let me keep going there,
Cincy three sixty Tomorrow Which twelve Newson ESPN fifteen thirty. Kelsey Chevrolet home
of lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed creditapproval from their family to yours for life,
kelseyshev dot Com. Red's looking tomake it five. Count them five

(21:30):
straight wins? Tonight Cardinals here forthe second of three, Andrew Avid throws
against righty Kyle Gibson. Let's takea look at Tonight's Red starting lineup.
Thanks to our friends at Madewell Restoration, Let's hope Tonight's David Bell's starting lineup
is made well. Are you ready? Of course you are. Her Debies
is in left field, leading off. Ellidetta Cruz is playing shortstop and batting

(21:53):
second Candelario at third, Steers atfirst base, Freeley's and Wright Stevenson is
catching and batting six. Nick Martiniis dhing. Jonathan India is playing second
base and hitting eighth. Will Bensonbats ninth in center field six forty.
Tonight's first pitch game is live onseven hundred WLW. Congratulations to the NKU

(22:15):
baseball program. The Norse, afterwinning the Horizon League Tournament title, will
take on top seed in the entirefield in Knoxville on Friday, Tennessee.
That game starts at seven o'clock.Florence plays on the road tonight against Lake
Erie Bengals. OTAs are underway.No t Higgins, no Jamar Chase.

(22:36):
Also, no Trent Brown, noSheldon Rankins. You'll hear Zach Taylor in
just a second. And something thatwe all suspected U se big Man Aziz
Bandego has taken his name out ofthe NBA draft and is set to return
to the University of Cincinnata. Justsaw this during the break. Wes Miller
and Dan Skillings are going to betalking tomorrow and so perhaps we'll have some

(22:57):
UC basketball audio. Maybe go tothat press availability. We will find out
anyway, as he's back at UCand the Bearcats gonna be a lot of
hyper UC basketball this coming season,gonna be a lot of hype I think
for Xavier basketball as well. Wewill see. Uh. OTAs I think
really exist for one primary reason inthe NFL, and that's for players to

(23:22):
not show up to so the NFLcontent machine can keep churning. Like if
the Bengals had unanimous attendants at OTAs, it wouldn't be news. Pro Football
Talk Adam Schefter would not be sendingout stories about how the Bengals had unanimous

(23:44):
attendants at OTAs everybody showed up.The only news that really comes out of
any team's OTA is the players whodon't show up. Jamar Chason Thiggins are
not here. I'm not sure that'sa huge surprise, and for all the
focus on T Higgins, look,Jamar Chase also doesn't have a long term

(24:07):
deal. Now the Bengals have himunder team control for the next two seasons.
Uh. They don't have a historyof signing long term deals. This
could be something you hold against him, and it could be something you not
along with, but it's a factthey don't have a very extensive history of
signing non quarterbacks to deals after theirthird seasons, and if I'm Jamar Chase,

(24:29):
I want to see what Justin Jeffersongets. But I just I have
a hard time really caring about this. I'll be honest with you. I'm
not telling you you should or should, and I'm not in the business of
telling you what to care about.My feelings about Jamar are not unlike my
feelings about Tea. I would loveif the Bengals could keep both. It
feels like the writing is on thewall with T Kelsey. Conway reported about

(24:53):
a year ago that he's not intheir future plans. People got mad at
her. Ever since then, thereis and nothing to suggest that he's in
their future plans. Maybe that's theright approach, maybe it's the wrong approach.
It does feel like Jamar Chase isgoing to be a part of their
future plans, and they do havea relatively good track record of signing the

(25:15):
players they prioritize. I can't seeany reason to think that the Bengals aren't
going to prioritize Jamar Chase. Ialso trust both these players, you know.
It's like we talked about with THiggins last week or two weeks ago
when I think it was Adam Schefterworried about well, T Higgins, is
he suddenly going to be injured?Well, he wasn't suddenly injured. Last

(25:36):
year he was in reality injured againstKansas City, and the dude put himself
back into the game against the Chiefsin a game they had to win.
Willed himself back onto the field,which tells me all I need to know
about T Higgins. I believe thesame about Jamar Chase. I believe these
players have gotten to where they've gottenbecause of their willingness to prepare, take

(25:56):
care of their bodies, and dowhat they need to do on their own
to get ready to play the season. That's not changing Zach Taylor. So
Joe Burrow is throwing, Joe Burrowis looking good. Here's a Zach Taylor
just a short while ago on hisquarterback and his road to returning back onto
the field week one after suffering aseason ending injury last year. I feel

(26:21):
really good about where he's at,you know, And so again I didn't
set the bar for expectations. He'sbeen accurate, he's been on time.
He's telling a great velocity in power. You'd have to ask him what he
thinks of his performance exactly. ButI like what I see right now.
All right, there you go.Zach Taylor says he likes what he's seeing
from his quarterback, unlike a lotof those coaches around the NFL who this

(26:42):
time you're always talking about how theyhate what they see from their quarterbacks.
A lot was made during the BengalsBooth podcast with Dan Horde. We talked
about this a little bit last week, Zach Taylor talking about taking a bit
of a step back, new offensivecoordinator and Dan Pitcher being implemented for this
year. And so here is Zachbeing asked about those particular comments back this

(27:08):
off season. Is that normal foryou with this off season? And is
culture you're doing more than Brian orI guess what's kind of behind you saying
that. I think you've every offseason. Again, we haven't had extensive
off seasons, so there wasn't alot to evaluate this last couple of years.
But it's my time to spend moretime with the defense and let the
offensive coordinator call the reps fur andpractice and talk to the quarterback. And

(27:30):
it's good for me again to getto know the defense players better, sit
in those meetings not devote all thetime and energy in the offense and take
more of a head coaching role.And so that's always exciting for me.
I always learn a lot being overthere with the defense. I always like
being around those guys more and thenkind of sitting back and observing the offense.
But still in all the meetings,still got my own ideas and expectations,

(27:51):
and we do all that as wemeet as coaches. But out here
on the field, get a chanceto be more of the head coach and
spend more time with the defense.Like there you go, Zach Taylor is
gonna spend more time with the defense. That's because the defense doesn't have Joe
Burrow. But on the and you'llhear Zach a little bit later on about
the guys who aren't here. He'sgonna downplay at coaches downplay it. I'll
downplay it when we see that Jamarand T or Jamar or T aren't gonna

(28:19):
show up for when it matters most, then I'll worry. Now, Jamar's
under contract, and so the stuffthat's mandatory, if he gets fined for
that, that's up to him.You know, these are OTAs mandatory mini
camp. The keyword there is mandatory. Training camp is mandatory. So the
difference between Jamar and t is ifJamar doesn't show up for stuff that's mandatory,

(28:41):
he can be fined. T Higginsis not under contract until he signs
his one year franchise tag deal,so he can miss all he wants.
He's not gonna be fined. Andso with Jamar it's a little bit different.
If he starts to not show upfor things that he would get fined
for missing, that will be interestingto me. For T. Higgins,

(29:02):
I don't expect him to show upuntil the last minute. I expect both
guys to have a great individual andcollective twenty twenty four season, fourteen minutes
away from four o'clock. We gotto get to a poll question. We'll
throw up there on Twitter in justa few minutes. Thanks to our friends
at United Heartland Insurance. Go touhins dot com for any insurance need.
You may have. The worst umpirein baseball is retiring. That's great,

(29:29):
right, well, it is,but it might also illustrate a problem.
Next on ESPN fifteen thirty. Hey, if you're listening to me right now,
I have one thing every business needsmost attention. Think about it,
We swipe and Ford's fans on socialmedia. But if there's if there's anything
that could bring fans of any sporttogether, it's the shared hatred of Angel

(29:55):
Hernandez. Long regarded as, ifnot if not the worst, certainly one
of the worst, and I thinkperhaps the most well known umpire. And
I don't think there's any real valuein being a well known umpire. Do
we ever talk about who the goodones are? No. Angel Hernandez,
on almost a daily basis, certainlywhen he's behind the plate, goes viral

(30:15):
for bad calls, bad judgment,confrontational moments with players and managers, just
a bad umpire. He is apparentlyretiring. He umped his last game nineteen
days ago. He's worked out asettlement through Major League Baseball. There was
a piece in The Athletic maybe abouta week or so ago that kind of

(30:37):
illustrated exactly how bad he's been.Some of the issues that players and coaches
and managers and fans have with AngelHernandez, why he still has a job.
Some of the legal issues that AngelHernandez has had with Major League Baseball,
where he has sued the sport forin his view anti discriminatory violations not
assigning him to premier events. Meanwhile, Baseball will point out and say,

(31:00):
look, he consistently grades out asone of the worst umpires. Meanwhile,
meanwhile, he still has a job, or at least he still had a
job up until three weeks ago,because the Umpires Union deal with Major League
Baseball essentially makes it impossible for MLBto get rid of bad umpires. And
so Baseball is getting rid of abad ump whether it's his decision, Baseball's

(31:25):
decision, a collaborative effort, regardless, a bad umpire is leaving Baseball at
face value. This is great,But you know what's interesting to me about
this. Over the weekend, RonaldAcunya suffered his second torn ACL injury of
his big league career on different legs. First was in twenty twenty one,

(31:48):
and then on Sunday in a gameagainst the Pirates. It was interesting.
I was at home watching the Redsgame. They go to a rain delay,
and so MLB network had on Piratesbraves and I hearned it on right
at the moment where Acunye was leadingoff second base fakes towards third and then
goes down like he had been shot. And I've watched enough sports in my
life to know that something really badhas happened here. Ron Raccuoni is not

(32:13):
having a great season, but isin the argument for best player in the
sport. Insanely good season last year. He's been an All Star every year,
with the exception of his rookie season, when he was the National League
Rookie of the Year and ran awaywith the award. This year, by
his standards, not a great season, but still one of the faces of

(32:34):
this sport. And yet there aremore people who have an opinion of the
worst umpire retiring than they do ofone of the best players being out for
the year. As listening to onsportsman Like This Morning on ESPN Radio,
and Evan Cohen, one of thethree hosts of that show, jokingly referred
to Angel Hernandez as the face ofMLB and a laugh, and then I

(33:00):
thought, he's kind of right.There's not a baseball fan who doesn't have
an opinion of Angel Hernandez. Thereare many hardcore baseball fans who wouldn't know
what if Ronald a'cunya walked into theirworkplace. Right now, when one of
the faces of your sport is abad umpire? Like you look at what's

(33:23):
trending. I'm sure this is abig deal in Atlanta. This is one
of the premier talents. Dude whois insanely fun to watch, like I
love watching Ronald Acunya insanely fun towatch. There are more people who claim
to love baseball and mean it,By the way, who could tell you

(33:45):
about what Angel Hernandez does poorly behindthe plate and how bad of an umpire
he is? That could tell youanything about the reigning National League MVP.
Both made headlines this weekend. Oneis being talked about more than the other.
It is a problem for the sportwhen the dude who's being talked about
more is a now retired umpire.Five minutes away from four o'clock, I'm

(34:12):
mowegar. This is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports station. This report is
four minutes after four. This isESPN fifteen thirty. Good afternoon, I'm
moheger. Appreciate you listening. Hopefullyyou're having an awesome Tuesday afternoon. Did
I hear we have a lot oftraffic reporters that you hear on this radio
station. Do we now have aone named traffic reporter. Did I hear

(34:34):
that correctly? That our traffic reporteris now just going by her her first
name, Nicole? Like you knowthat there's there's there are a lot of
celebrities out there. There are alisters, and then there are one name
celebs, think Beyonce or Drake orPrince or Bono, Madonna, Rihanna,

(34:58):
and then a lot of soccer likeright now, Lucho, Like we don't
call him Lucho Acosta. Right.Luco FC Cincinnati, by the way,
won a terrific game in Toronto onSaturday night. We've had in recent weeks,
We've had Faith Nesovich, and thenwe had that other guy, and
now we have Nicole. Nicole goesby one name. Does she have I

(35:21):
like to email with the traffic people? Is that Nicole at iHeartMedia dot com?
Tarran, Can we find out howdid we stumble into having a one
name traffic person? Nicole? Allright, thank you do that because you're
not producing this hour because we havewe have a trainee we have Are you
leaving, Tarranny? You leaving theshow? Why do we have somebody filling

(35:45):
in for you this hour? Producingthe show. I don't know, somebody
training new employee, Yes, learninghow to produce talk shows? Yes?
What's her name? Mackenzie, Mackenzie? Are you there? Yes? Is
this the first hour of radio youhave run on your own? Yes?
Uh? And is this what youare looking to do? You're you're still

(36:05):
a student, you see? Isthat correct? I am? And uh?
You're you want to jump into abroadcasting career. Yep, a radio
career yep. Sports actually sports.Okay. Do you want me to try
to talk you out of it?No? Okay, very good. Uh,
well it's good to you know.I started my career in college,
so there's nothing that says you haveto wait till you're dumb with school to
start. We will judge and seehow you do this hour producing the show.

(36:29):
If anything goes wrong, it's upto mackenzie. Do you have a
last name? Bartone? Okay forBartone? Yeah? All right. Well
our our producer is Tarren Bland andMackenzie Bartone. This show is so big,
so hard to execute. It nowhas two producers. Uh, we
have two names. Nicole the trafficfind out why we have a one name

(36:50):
traffic person. Thank you anyway,McKenzie nice to have. You don't screw
up? Uh, what do wehave? We got to get to our
poll question. I have not askedit yet because I've change my mind on
what it's gonna be. Brendan andJones on Baseball later this hour and in
about twenty five minutes, we're gonnagive away tickets to go see Dirk Spentley.
Now, you would think if anybodycould get by with one name,

(37:10):
it would be Dirks. Is thereanybody else in the United States of America
whose name is Dirks? But Dirksgoes by Dirk Spentley And he's coming to
Cincinnati here in a couple of weeks, and we're giving away tickets at four
to thirty five. If you knowa lot about the Reds and the Cardinals,
you could chime in and maybe playa little trivia game with us at

(37:31):
four thirty five. McKenzie gets tobe a part of that as well.
Wow, unbelievable. Unbelievable. Onename traffic person, Nicole. So the
Reds are good now they've won fourstraight games, and so I love watching
people react to the ups and downsof the baseball season. I have spent

(37:52):
the last few weeks, like mostReds fans have and probably a lot like
you, feeling frustrated, frustrated withwatching the offense, frustrated with the injuries
last week, in particular in onegame, a specific David Bell managing decision,
Frustrated with watching the Reds you know, kind of waste good starting pitching

(38:14):
performances. It's been a very frustratingfirst third of the season, and I
think that description fits even if youtake into account how well they played over
the weekend against the Dodgers and howwell they played yesterday, and so you
know, there's no The beauty ofsports is there's no one way to consume

(38:36):
them, and there's no one wayto react. If there was, forums
like this wouldn't exist. And soover the first third of the season,
I have found people who have thrownup their hands and said, another lost
summer. When this training camp begin, I've had people say to me,

(38:57):
why are you still wasting your breathtalking about this team. I've had folks
tweet me when I've tweeted about theReds and some of the frustrations we have
all had, Yeah, let's moveon to something else now. I'm not
going to do that, especially inMay and June. But I understand the
sentiment. And then I've over here. You'll find people who would say,

(39:19):
look, gotta be patient, it'searly. Look at last year. I
don't love the comparisons between last yearand this year. Seasons are mutually exclusive,
and last year's team wasn't great,right, It's not like last year's
team went to the postseason or wonthe division or advanced in the playoffs.
They won eighty two games. Idon't want the Reds to finish eighty two

(39:44):
to eighty. I want them tofinish with a better record. And I
don't know that anybody has been wrong. But now that the Reds are playing
better and they still have a big, big hole to dig out of,
they're still in last place. There'ssix under five hundred. The schedule may
ease up, but that to meat least, provides very little solace.

(40:07):
The good news is they're playing better. The good news is the starting pitching
has been pretty good in most ofthe season. The good news is maybe
there's going to come a time wherethey are healthier, and by the time
that happens, perhaps this team isstill going to be in it. I
am wagering against Matt McClain playing thisseason, and I badly hope that I

(40:29):
am wrong. But if you areamong those who has taken the last four
games and used it to point outto people whose patience had been exhausted,
say say you gave up, yougave up, Slow down just a little
bit. Number one, it's fourgames. I want to see this team

(40:51):
do something like, let's win.Let's win fifteen out of twenty starting with
Friday night against the Dodgers. Fifteenout of twenty, Fifteen out of twenty
would that's a really good stretch.That's a really good stretch. That also
would get them back to five hundred. Simple math, right, they were

(41:12):
twenty and thirty, fifteen out oftwenty would be fifteen and five. That's
ten over. That gets them backto five hundred. And if they're back
to five hundred, my guess isthey're not really going to be that close
to first place, but they're notgoing to be in last place either,
and they're still gonna be at arm'slength from a playoff spot, and we
could still maybe talk about how theycan make the team better at the deadline,
and by the way, that willhave gotten us to fifteen out of

(41:35):
twenty, so that will have gottenus to game seventy and then you know,
noelve, Marte is pretty close andmaybe TJ. Friedel is close to
coming back, if not back already. But in the like, a real
run isn't you sweep a series.A real run isn't winning four straight.
A real run isn't winning five straight. Although I hope they do. A

(41:57):
real run is a long period time. It's like last June. I don't
expect the Reds to have a twelvegame winning streak like they did last year,
although it would be great if theydid. But if they could take
a three to four week stretch andwin an insane number of games over that
stretch, that will help them digout of the hole. But if they
do that, and your point toothers who were maybe a little bit skeptical

(42:22):
that that would ever happen, is, see, this is why you can't
jump off the bandwagon. I thinkyou have to give Reds fans. If
you're one of those who's gonna dothat, I think you have to give
your fellow Reds fan a little leewayhere. It's been really, really hard
to be a fan of this franchisefor a while. It has been.

(42:45):
I mean, in how many Septembershave the Reds simply been playing out the
stringy honey July and August trade deadlineperiods have we been talking about the Reds
being sellers or not really doing anything. How many times has spring training started
where we haven't been really even entertainingthe possibility of them being relevant, much

(43:07):
less being in contention. How manytimes have the expectations been pretty big but
they have ultimately failed to live upto them. How many times have they
been a disappointment for How long havethey been a losing franchise? And that
wears on you. Man. It'slike I've always felt this about the Bengals,
And obviously things have turned around recentlyfor the Bengals, but you know,

(43:30):
overly skeptical, overly cynical Bengals fan, of which I can be,
You've got to give that person alittle bit of a break if they're a
little bit more reluctant to jump ontothe bandwagon and be as positive as you,
because years of losing and years ofdisappointment and years of being told to

(43:51):
be patient can absolutely wear you down. And so I saw some of this
this weekend. Now by the waybeing critical, being critical of a player
or of a decision. I lostmy mind to David Bell last week.
I think, in all honesty,it's the sharpest criticism of an in game
decision I've ever laid at a baseballmanager since I've been doing this. That

(44:15):
includes managers who have been successful,It includes managers who had no chance to
ever succeed. It includes David Bell. That's not giving up on the season.
It's expressing frustration and being critical ofa decision within the context of a
full one hundred and sixty two gameseason. But if you want to,
if they start playing well, andyou want to take a victory lap on

(44:37):
the folks who had kind of thrownup their hands a few weeks ago.
Understand Number one, not everybody consumesa team the same way. Not everybody
has the same opinion. But also, when there's been almost unending losing,
people are going to be more willingto jump off quicker than in other cities

(45:00):
where there hasn't been nearly as muchlosing. And I had the same conversation
about the Bengals a couple of yearsago. Hey, look Burrows here,
this is awesome. They're getting better. Look at the young talent, but
it's the Bengals. Well, theRets have kind of taken on the same
field. That might not be thisteam's fault. I've said on a few
different occasions on this show, thisis a team that demands patience. It

(45:24):
is a franchise that has exhausted it. That's a really tough dynamic, it
really is. It's hard if you'rerunning the ball club, if you're you
know, in the front office,if you're in ownership, you get it.
Man Like, people are tired ofbeing told to be patient. And
yet it is a really young teamwith a lot of unproven guys. There

(45:45):
have been injuries, they have hadan impact on the season, and that
in itself, the team itself does, I think demand a little bit of
patience. But even when they're playingwell, and they're really playing well right
now, mainly getting really good startingpitching, and some guys who have struggled
with the bat have put together agood last couple of games. It was

(46:07):
great to see the game that JonathanIndia had. It's awesome to see Stuart
Fairchild contribute with his bat on topof what he can do with his glove.
It's great to see Spencer Steer hittingagain. But if you want to
use the very small but awesome recentstretch of solid play to point out to
somebody, Hey, this is whyyou shouldn't have been so skeptical. This

(46:30):
is why you shouldn't have given uptapped the brakes. Because anybody who took
losing this year as the latest signthat the Reds were going to frustrate and
disappoint and fall short of expectation,unfortunately has history on their side. I'm
kind of in the middle, andI'm kind of in the middle because my

(46:52):
expectations for this team weren't through theroof. At the same time, yeah,
I'm kind of tired of waiting.I'm not sure how to ask how
to ask you to react to that, but I'll throw the phone number out
anyway. We do have folks waiting. Five point three seven four nine,
fifteen thirty and eight sixty six,seven oh two three seven seven six phone

(47:14):
calls are coming up. Plus whatI think is a very accurate description of
the Bengals off season, A signaturewin of swords for FC Cincinnati, and
your chance to win Dirk's Bentley ticketscoming up in less than twenty minutes.
On ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports StationCincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the

(47:38):
US Health Traffic Center, the Universityof Sto. Our friends at United Heartland
Insurance. United Heartland Insurance can takecare of you auto, home, business,
personal life, you name it,homeowners uhi ns dot com and they've

(47:58):
got offices. An office in Cincinnati, got an office in Hamilton, get
an office in Northern Kentucky. They'vegot offices. They can help you.
Go to uhins dot com. Acunyaor Angel raining NL MVP Ronald Acunya is
out for the season. Angel Hernandeznotoriously the worst umpire in baseball. He

(48:20):
is retiring. Acunya fortunately is notretiring. Unfortunately, it's bad for baseball
when great players get hurt. Heis done for the year. Which is
the bigger MLB story. Vote nowat Molegar on X. There you go.
We're ten minutes away from giving awayDirk Spentley tickets. We have a
new producer on the board today withtarn Plan Taran. What are you doing

(48:40):
while she's producing the show? I'mlike supervisor, supervising training her, taking
notes. By the way, Ithink we just found a way to give
away the tickets if you haven't comeup with an idea. I got five
Reds Cardinals trivia questions, but wehave tickets to give away tomorrow and Thursday.
Can the idea carry over until tomorrowor do we have to do it
today? No carry over to themor So, do you want to give

(49:04):
me a hint? Do you justwant to tell me what it is?
You want to tell me after theshow? How do you want to do
it? You're a break, okay, tell me during the break. But
because I put in a lot ofhard work coming up with these Reds Cardinals
trivia questions for ten minutes from now, and I don't want my work to
be for naught. Have we figuredout our traffic reporters last name yet?

(49:25):
Not cheat? We're still working onit. Does this set a precedent where
maybe now you're just going to beTerran? I mean I thought I mean
just Terrn, right, not TarrenBland Tarran. Yeah, okay, I
might just start going but going bymo Hey, I'm MoU Is McKenzie doing

(49:47):
a good job so far? Phenomenal? I'm actually worried. You're worried for
your job? Yes, I'm worriedfor mine. Jeff is calling. Jeff.
You're on ESPN fifteen thirty. How'sit going, Happy Tuesday? Moe?
Very pleasant to hear mackenzie's voice onthe other end of the phone.
How McKenzie do screening the calls?We don't really screen calls per se.

(50:08):
How did she do answering the phone? She did? She was very polite.
She sounds very nice. And Isaid, you are not Taran,
and then Tarn sounded off in thebackground of this. But Taren is right
here. Wally, That's what we'regonna call him, Wally Pitt. That's
a good one. So I'm goingto try to proclaim the Tuesday after Memorial
Day going forward as ESPN receipt day. Do you think I just turned on

(50:34):
NFL Live and you I'll let you. What do you think the top story
on NFL Live Jamar and t notcoming to OTAs? You got it?
Brother, you got it? Imean, when are people going to realize
that? Agents say jump and Scheftersays how high? Yeah? Here here
here's the problem. Like those shows, They've got to do a show,

(50:55):
right, so what else is there? I mean, I hate to say
it, but if I was producingNFL Live. Like Jamar and t are
big names, the Bengals are expectedto be pretty good, so I would
do a segment on it. Butin the absence of that, it's a
non story. I guess they haven'tseen any of the videos Jamar has been

(51:16):
putting up of him working out inMiami or Vegas or wherever he is.
Right, you know, it lookslike he's dying of sweat, so I
know it's somewhere hot. But youknow, that's why I'm saying, we're
gonna call this receipt saving day forDecember and January and hopefully into February maybe,
But I know you're you're in thebusiness mode, you get it,

(51:36):
and you know you have to fillthree hours every day too, so we
don't begrudge you that. And maybeit's just because they should be covering at
the reds of one four in arow. Not on NFL Live obviously,
but instead of everybody jumping on where'sJamar, how about you know Hunter Greens
turning the corner and reads maybe playingbetter round. Well. The good news
is MLB Network does a great job, and like you know, is in

(52:01):
this day and age, everybody likesto point out what broadcasters do poorly and
what ESPN does poorly, But Imean legitimately, MLB Network covers nothing but
MLB and they do a terrific jobof balancing the coverage. And I've said
this with some of their talent thatwe have on our show. You if

(52:22):
you watch ESPN like they're serving amacro audience. I do know they spend
time on first take on the RonaldAcunya injury, and that's good. He's
a big name. But it's Dodgercentric, it's Yankee centric, it's big
name centric. They're not going tobreak down the National League Central. They're
not going to tell you what theMilwaukee Brewers might need at the deadline.

(52:43):
They're not going to talk about theRed's upcoming schedule. If you watch MLB
Network, they cover every team.I don't want to say equally, but
this time of year they do.Now as we get to September, they're
not going to be paying much attentionto the teams that aren't in it.
But they really do a good joba sport that, for reasons good or
bad, a lot of the othernetworks ignore. Yeah, I agree.

(53:07):
Unfortunately, we know what two cities. ESPN's headquarters is located directly in between,
and I do believe we're about Theyhave Yankees and Red Sox on Sunday
Night Baseball again very soon, soI'd have a good Monday. Moe.
You know, I'm sorry. DidJeff you do the same? You know
it's funny I was. I wasthinking about so over the last couple of
weeks, with the exception of theRonald o'cunya injury, I have seen two

(53:34):
viral clips from First Take. Now, let me make two admissions. I
don't watch a lot of First Take. It's not because I disliked the show.
Typically at that time of morning,there are things I like to consume
more. There are sports talk radioshows in this market and elsewhere that I

(53:58):
like more. Number Two, theyjust they cover stuff that I'm not as
interested in as their target audience is. I could talk about Lebron James for
ten minutes, i could talk aboutthe Dallas Cowboys for five minutes. I'm
not interested in two hours on thosetwo things. So they but twice over

(54:22):
the last I think three weeks,there has been a clip from that show.
And I think Steven A. Smithis a wonderful television performer. I
do has nothing to do with it, gring what he says, with what
he says, I think he's awonderful television performer. There is no one
else like him, but on thatshow and on PTI, a show that

(54:43):
I used to watch religiously that Idon't watch nearly as much anymore because I'm
no longer really in the demo.I think that show is really tilted toward
people who are older, who wantto yell at clouds, who watch sports
in ways that I'm just not thatinto. There was a time where I
felt that show was different. Twicefrom first Take and from PTI. Over

(55:07):
the last couple of weeks, theyhave attacked a baseball topic in a way
that went viral. The first onewas Steven A. Smith yelling and screaming
about Mike Trout, effectively wondering howdoes a baseball player get injured as often
as Mike Trout does? And heyelled and screamed about it, and I

(55:28):
think he did it. It wasperformative, but he yelled and screamed about
it and left a lot of peoplein the baseball community very frustrated. The
other one was last week when MichaelWilbon. Michael Wilbon has accomplished more in
sports media than most of us couldever dream of. I've read Michael Wilbon.
Actually met Michael Wilbon NCAA tournament onceand he could have been nicer,

(55:52):
but he went on a rant lastweek. Old man yelling at clouds because
he doesn't like it. When exitvelocity has talked about, and in neither
case was someone brought on to discussspecifically how and why Mike Trout is injured
as often as he is, andno one was brought on to illustrate why

(56:13):
teams use exit velocity, what purposeit could serve, maybe some of its
flaws. There's just these two minutebursts where two people who probably by their
own admission, don't watch a lotof baseball are popping off on something they
don't watch a bunch of To adegree, it would be like me doing

(56:34):
a long soliloquy on the nuances ofsoccer. I'm not equipped. I admit
that that is a gap in myabilities. I'm not equipped. I could
talk about David Bell not using TylerStevenson. I could talk about Zach Taylor's
decision making on fourth and two,I can discuss Wes Miller's rotations, I
can discuss Scott Saderfield's offensive philosophies.When it comes to Pat Noonan and his

(56:59):
tactics with FCCS Cincinnati, I'm notas equipped. I'll get people on who
can do that and do it ina way that translates to the greater audience
as a whole. Here were thesetwo topics that two people who, again
I would imagine by their own admission, aren't watching a ton of baseball,
especially this time of year, becausethey've got the NBA playoffs that they both

(57:21):
cover. Instead of attacking the topicand bringing in somebody who could provide some
context or some nuance or some backgroundor even engage in a discussion with,
they just go off. And that'swhat constitutes baseball coverage at that network.
And I think that's really frustrating fora lot of folks. My counter to

(57:44):
that would be if you watched theMLB network, they've had insanely good discussions
about things like exit velocity, mytrout consistently being injured, and over the
last day or so, the impactof Ronald Acunya's injury on the Braves on
Acunya's career and the sport as awhole. And so you know, I

(58:05):
hear people who all the time theycomplain about what ESPN does and doesn't do,
the NFL, the Chase and Higginsthing. Look, man, I'm
looking at the front page of ESPNright now. Here are the topics.
Number one Bengals begin OTAs without Higginsor Chase. Number two, NFL kicker
mcmahonus accused of sexual assault, Ravenstight end, Andrews happy Hip drop tackle

(58:28):
band Chiefs Butker no regrets for expressingbeliefs. And then this one here,
which hits kind of close to home, Billy Price retires after terrifying blood clot
Beyond is from the the standpoint oftalking about football, what leads there are
Chase and Higgins, big names,big wide receivers. Now, do I

(58:49):
think it's a nothing burger? Yes, I live and work in Cincinnati.
I do afternoon drive on the Homeof the Bengals. I really don't think
there's a topic there. Again,Jamar Chase is different than t Higgins and
the Jamar's under contract tea is not. Jamar can get fined for missing mandatory
minicamp. He can get fined formissing training camp, T Higgins can.

(59:12):
But beyond that, when Jamar Chasedecides to start getting fined, that's a
story. When t Higgins decides tonot show up for games, that's a
story. I don't think either isgoing to happen. Until it does.
I think it's a nothing burger.But I have the Reds to talk about,
and I've got our one name trafficreporter, and I've got Mackenzie to

(59:34):
make fun of here she screws upthe show, and I've got Hunter Green.
If you're producing NFL Live, I'lladmit, like if they told me
Mo, you have nothing but athree hour show on football today, all
right, Fine, I'm doing ChaseHiggins. The good news is I have
other stuff. I think the frustratingthing, though, is if you watch
SportsCenter later tonight, there is abetter chance that they spend more time on

(59:58):
that than any BA Ball topic.There might be reasons why the NFL moves
the meter more than anything else.So what Jamar Chason t Higgins are doing
is going to appeal to more peoplethan the Reds Cardinals game tonight, even
though the Red's Cardinals game is anactual game and thus an actual story instead
of this. At the same time, from an individual consumer perspective, that

(01:00:22):
can be quite frustrating, which iswhy on an increasing basis, if I
want MLB coverage, I watch QuickPitch in the morning, I watch MLB
tonight. When I want specific NFLcoverage, I'll go to the NFL network
or ESPN. When I want reallygood, nuanced NBA coverage, I watch

(01:00:42):
NBA TV twenty five away from fiveo'clock. Let's give away some Dirks Bentley
tickets. We're looking for two contestantsfive point three, seven, four nine,
fifteen thirty. We're gonna test yourworking knowledge of the shared history of
the Reds and Cardinals. They theygo back century Okay, not centuries plural,
but they go back a long time. Uh. If you know a

(01:01:04):
lot about the Reds and you thinkyou know a lot about the Cardinals and
their shared history. Five one,three, seven, four, nine,
fifteen thirty eight six six seven ohtwo, three, seven, seven six
are our phone numbers. We're lookingfor two Dirks Bentley's coming to Cincinnati.
Your chance to win his next onESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station, Cincinnati's
ESPN Cincinnati Sports Station sports station.This is ESPN fifteen thirty. We're way

(01:01:30):
late. I gotta get to thishere sports headlines or a service of Kelsey
Chevrollely home of lifetime power train protectionand guaranteed credit approval from their family to
yours Kelsey chev dot com. We'regive it away Dirk's Bentley tickets in like
ninety seconds. There, did apretty good job nailing the post before we

(01:01:50):
do that. Reds and Cardinals tonight. Alex Young activated from the sixty day
injured list and uh Brent Kennedy hasbeen DFAI starting lineup tonight again. Righty
Kyle Gibson thanks to our friends atMadwell Restoration, herdebeats and left Elliott's short
Candelario at third, Steers at firstbase. Freeley's in right field. Tyler
Stevenson is batting sixth behind the plate. Nick martiniz Dhing India is playing second

(01:02:15):
base. Will Benson in center field, batting in the ninth position. Florence
on the road tonight against Lake Erie. No Jamar Chase or t Higgins at
Bengals OTA's also for what it's worth, no Sheldon Rankins or Trent Brown and
ass Bandego is pulling out of theNBA Draft and we'll return for the twenty

(01:02:35):
twenty four twenty twenty five season two. West Miller's UC basketball program, Brendan
and Jones on Baseball is minutes away. But first it's it's time to give
away tickets. Are we excited,Taran? Are you excited? Who is
who is manning the game show?Who is do it? Is it we
have Mackenzie on her first day?Or is it tarn who is doing this?
No? I'm doing it for thefirst time. You're taking over.

(01:02:59):
You want you want MCA to seespecifically how we do things? Yes,
very good? All right? Whoare our contestants? Tarran? We have
Jeremy. We have Jeremy and whoelse do we have? And we have
Nick and we have Nick? Verygood? I Jerry, how you doing?
You know, I'm doing really well? And Nick yourself? How's everything?

(01:03:21):
Things are great? Mo? Alrightme too? All right? Now
here's why I have to tell youthat you can get tickets to go see
Dirk S. Bentley and the Graveland Gold Tour at Riverbend Music Center on
June fifteenth, Saturday night. Ticketsare on sale now ticketmaster dot Com or
you can win them. Taran,who is who is calling heads or tails
with the virtual coin? Jeremy callall right, Jeremy call heads or tails

(01:03:45):
for me? Go ahead, Talesgo tails, tails never fails. Flip,
Wow, look at that? Whoflipped? It was that you,
Tarran or Mackenzie? Mackenzie, thatwas Mackenzie flipped a good flip. What
do we have? We have heads? We have heads? All right?
Nick, you want to play,you to do nothing? I will,
I'll do nothing. They'll do nothing. Very good, That's what I'm gonna

(01:04:05):
doing. I Nick's gonna do nothing. Jeremy. We are about to test
your knowledge of the shared history ofthe Reds and Cardinals. Are your Reds
fan? I am? And theymake it hard on me sometimes, but
I am I totally. I canrelate to that. Very good. All
right. We're gonna ask you,as we do, five questions related to

(01:04:27):
the shared history between the Reds andCardinals. If you get three of them
correct, you're gonna go see DirkSpentley. If not, Nick's is gonna
go see Dirk Spentley and maybe he'lltake use the other ticket on you.
Okay, sounds good? All right, here we go, Tarren Are you
ready? I'm ready, Mackenzie,Are you ready? I'm ready. It's
become quite the quite the process here, all right, here we go.

(01:04:47):
Question number one. Jeremy, thisman played in the nineteen seventy five and
seventy six World Series with the Redsand also later played in a World Series
with the Cardinals. Was it aDoug Flynn, B. Sesar Geronimo or
C. Dan Dreeson? Danreeson,Dan Reeson? He says with confidence,

(01:05:10):
Jeremy, Yes, Dandreeson played inthe nineteen eighty seven World Series with the
Cardinals. They lost that series inseven to the Minnesota Twins. Very good.
Jeremy's won for one, He's gotto get two more, all right.
Rets and Cardinals actually have a prettylimited trade history. These two franchises
have combined to make just five tradessince nineteen eighty seven. This deal took

(01:05:32):
place in November nineteen ninety seven.It sent the Cowboy Jeff Brantley to Saint
Louis for whom Which player did theReds get back in exchange for Jeff Brantley?
Was it a Pokey Reese, B. Dimitri Young or C. John
Nunneley. One of my favorites,Dimitri Young meet hook, Dimitri Young.

(01:05:53):
Yes, very good. I weretwo for two. Jeremy sounds like a
guy who knows his stuff. Hewent into this contest feeling it, and
he's two for two so far.Don't blow it, Jeremy, Okay,
all right. On June sixteenth,nineteen seventy eight, Tom sever through the
only no hitter of his illustrious Hallof Fame career while in a Red's uniform.

(01:06:15):
It came at Riverfront Stadium against theSaint Louis Cardinals. Who made the
last out? Was it a LouBrock, b George Hendrick or C Gary
Templeton. I don't think it wasGeorge Hendrick because he broke up Mario Soto's
no hitter. So my process elimination, I'm going to stay. Gary Templeton.

(01:06:41):
Uh No, it was George Hendrick, stole on. I gave you,
yeah, I see. I wentwith all three hitters who batted in
the ninth inning. Actually Jerry Mumfreywalked to lead off the inning, but
then it was lou Brock, GaryTempleton and George Hendrick two and the game.
That's okay, Hey, that's okay. You're still alive. Are you
ready? I'm ready? Question numberfour. In nineteen eighty one, the

(01:07:06):
Reds failed to make the playoffs despitehaving the best record in all of Major
League Baseball. This because of thestrike and the goofy format they have for
determining who made the playoffs, sothe Reds don't make the playoffs even though
they had the best record in thesport. In that same year, the
Cardinals also missed the playoffs despite havingthe best overall record in the National League

(01:07:29):
East. As you could tell,Booie Koon, the commissioner at the time,
was awful at his job. Thisman played for both teams, the
eighty one Reds, who had thebest record in baseball, and the eighty
one Cardinals, who had the bestrecord in the National League East, and
neither team made the postseason. Heplayed for both teams. Was it a
Doug Bear b Mike Lacosse or seeCharlie Lee Brand don't bear good, Jeremy

(01:08:00):
Doug Bear is the answer? Played? Or pitch for both the eighty one
Reds and the Pride of Defiance,Ohio. I believe pitch for both the
eighty one Reds and the nineteen eightyone Saint Louis Cardinals. Congratulations. Congratulations
to Jeremy Nick. Congratulations you didnothing, but you also won nothing.

(01:08:24):
But you can get tickets to gosee Dirk S. Bentley. It's the
Gravel and Gold Tour on June thefifteenth at Riverband Music Center. Tickets are
available right now, right now.All you gotta do is go to ticketmaster
dot com. Hi, very good, Taran. Do you want to take
your stab at the fifth question?You're mackenzie? Sure, all right.

(01:08:46):
This guy was the only man tomanage both the Reds and Cardinals to a
pennant. Was it a Fred Hutchinson, B Bill mckeckne or c Vern rapp.
Let's go, b Bill mckeckney,play this out for yourself. Play
the ding bell. There you go, Bill mckecnon. Yes, won a
pennant with the Cardinals, won aWorld Series with the Pirates, and also

(01:09:08):
won a couple of pennants with theReds, including nineteen forty when they won
the World Series. Very good,congratulations to a Jeremy And again, if
you want to go see Dirks Bentleyat Riverbend, you can buy tickets at
ticketmaster dot com or we're gonna giveaway more tickets tomorrow. I think in
the five o'clock hour tomorrow, Ithink at five thirty three instead of four
to thirty three, and we'll maybefind out what Arren and Mackenzie came up

(01:09:30):
with to giveaway tickets to go seeDirks, Brenman and Jones on Baseball's Coming
Up Next on ESPN fifteen thirty.Hey, it's Mowgger. There's only one
way to save mo most Yes youhave. What's up? Makes five oh
five? This is ESPN fifteen thirty. It's the best hour of the show
because it's the mic Ultra Happy Hour. Thanks to our friends at mick Ultra,

(01:09:55):
I enjoyed a handful of michelob Ultrasthis weekend. I'm doing or Happy
Hour on Friday. Happy Hour onFriday was a lot of fun, and
well Happy Hour today is gonna bea lot of fun. No matter especially
in the summertime. No matter whatyour activities are, big Michelo Ultra either
a part of it, or howyou wind down from it, or how

(01:10:18):
you celebrate it. So I'm gonnago to the ballpark tonight. It is
of my immense regret that I couldnot be there this weekend. Maybe maybe
I'm the problem because I wasn't ableto go this weekend and they won every
game, And then I'll go tonightand watch They'll lose, but regardless,

(01:10:38):
I'll be a winner because I'll enjoya nice cold mic Ultra and and have
one before the game across the street. Maybe see at the Grail should be
fun. We have a lot toget to. I'm gonna talk about another
regret that I have that has nothingto do with the Reds or beer or
baseball, that is coming up herein just a few minutes. We'll address
our poll question. And there issomething our buddy Jeff called about a half

(01:11:03):
hour ago and talked about ESPN coveringthe Bengals and making a bigger deal than
they probably should about Jamar Chase notbeing at OTA's and t Higgins not being
at OTAs. I'm not going tosay that's not headline worthy. I do
think is a general story. It'sa nothing burger. But I do think
ESPN did put together a pretty accuratedescription of the overarching theme to the Bengals

(01:11:29):
offseason. We're gonna get to thathere in just a bit. The last
time we did a show, theReds had a record of twenty and thirty.
Since then, they've won four straightgames. They're twenty four and thirty.
And if I would have said toyou on Friday afternoon, we'll come
back on Tuesday and do a show, and the Reds would have won four

(01:11:51):
straight, you would have said,no way. Let's be honest. Who
wouldn't have taken that action? Right? Reds are gonna win four, They're
gonna sweep the Dodgers. They're gonnabeat in the opener of a series a
Saint Louis team that's playing pretty well. You would have said, uh uh,
ain't happening. It's especially not gonnahappen if Elie de la Cruz doesn't

(01:12:13):
contribute much offensively, And yet hedidn't, and they did. This weekend
did provide maybe a little bit ofa jumpstart. Who knows, time will
tell it did maybe like it didlast year. The Reds remember a year
ago, they got to Chicago MemorialDay weekend, and this is before a
lot of key players got to Cincinnati. But they swept the Cubs, and

(01:12:38):
that series kind of felt like itkept the team from digging a hole that
it could not come out from underneath. Do you come out from underneath the
hole. They won three games lastMemorial Day and it was a big deal.
They won three games over the weekendthis Memorial Day weekend against the Dodgers,
then followed that up with a winyesterday. I think you want to

(01:13:00):
grasp onto anything, if you wantto cling to anything. There are two
things. One is maybe a biggerdeal than the other. One would be
this. When the Reds were playingat their worst, the primary culprit was
the offense. And yeah, they'reusing Nick Martini. And they were using

(01:13:21):
Connor Capel who's no longer here,and Mike Ford. And it's it's easy
to look at some of those playersand talk about their mere presence in the
starting lineup. It's it's easy totalk about some of those guys and and
and debate the merits of bringing inMike Ford, are talking about why they're

(01:13:42):
using Nick Martini and make fun ofhow non productive those players have been.
I will say this, our guy, Jacob Herdabies, I think has swung
the bat better than his numbers wouldindicate. Now he has struck out a
bunch, But okay, that dudelooks like he knows what he's doing at
the plate. That might not translateinto over the top statistical production, but

(01:14:09):
he doesn't look like he's not abig league hitter. Maybe he's not.
It's been twenty eight or so atbats. He has struck out, I
think in nine of those at bats. But he's got a nice wing.
He looks like a guy that canhit the ball to all fields. He's
done a pretty good job of slappinga couple balls to the opposite side.
He can run a little bit,which certainly helps. I don't know that

(01:14:30):
he has looked like he is inover his head. He doesn't look like
he's going to be a future AllStar by any stretch, and the numbers
aren't gonna wow you. And maybein a month he's no longer here.
But I do sort of cast himaside when we talk about some of the
guys like Mike Ford, etc.But the reality is as easy as it
has been to pick away at thoseplayers, they've needed more production from well,

(01:14:56):
Jonathan India and Spencer Steer and WillBenson and Jamer Candelario, and their
overall numbers aren't robust. This team, if you're going by batting average,
is still terrible. By the way, Ella Dela Cruz has had a bad
month with the bat. I thinkhe's done a good job in the field.
He's still a huge threat when he'son the bases. But you have

(01:15:19):
started to see some reawakenings Spencer's tire, Jonathan India, You've started to see
some of these guys swing the batbetter. I think at their lowest point,
you were being reasonable if you said, look, at some point,
some of these guys just have tohit more, and they will. The
question was when was it going tocome. Maybe now it's starting to come.

(01:15:42):
But more than anything, I thinkthe one thing that you could kind
of hang your hat on was thestarting pitching. The starting pitching over the
course of the entire year has beenbetter than it was last season. It's
been better than league average. Noneof these guys right now are going to
remind you of the mid nineties AtlantaBraves, but you are starting to see

(01:16:03):
a staff that you can count ona little bit. And then on top
of that, you know this teamhas won two bullpen games against the Dodgers,
which is kind of remarkable if youthink about it, games where they've
had to get a lot of inningsfrom Nick Martinez and they've had to have
David Bell guide through that lineup withrelief pitchers. The fact that they've won

(01:16:25):
both of those games is remarkable.And by the way, because I was
the guy yelling and screaming about DavidBell last year, I do think you
have to I do think you haveto give him, you know, a
little credit for how that's worked out. But more than anything, I think
you could cling to. The startingpitching has been okay, and that's an

(01:16:45):
area of the team that is likelyto only get better as these guys accumulate
experience, As these guys continue todevelop, and as this group of starting
pitchers gets Nick Lodolo back, Well, what has happened. They've gotten some
really good starting pitching. Hunter Greenthe other day was just terrific, and

(01:17:06):
they got the bullpen game yesterday.Nick Lodolo came back yesterday afternoon and he
wasn't awesome by any stretch, buthe was good enough. The Reds starting
pitching over the course at the lastmonth of the season, the red starting
pitching over the course of the firstthird of this season has been good enough.

(01:17:28):
Didn't we all say about a yearago, like where the future was
brightest was with the starting pitching thatdoesn't necessarily have to change because of all
the position players they have who seemto have a lot of upside. That
doesn't have to change. Because ofhow much we talk about Elie de la
Cruz and Spencer Steer, etc.That doesn't have to change. Just because

(01:17:49):
the team has been a bit ofa disappointment over the first two months,
it's still likely to be the case. Well, if I'd have said to
you about a year ago at thistime that in May and June and July
of twenty twenty four, some ofthose starting pitchers are going to really show
the benefit from all the beatings theytook as really young pitchers. They're gonna

(01:18:13):
start to show the benefit of theexperience they've accumulated. And if they could
stay healthy, they're gonna get toa point that by then they're reliable.
Maybe that's starting to happen. Andif it does, and it continues,
and I'm the first to admit,like, I watch Graham Ashcraft and I
just want to see more, ButI watch those other guys and you could

(01:18:34):
see the upside. Andrew Abbot sofar knock on wood because he pitches tonight.
Andrew Abbot so far has had areally good second season. Hunter Green
is having an excellent second season onthe shoulders of his last seven starts,
but still in the top ten ina whole bunch of different categories. Nick

(01:18:54):
Lottola, when he's been on themound, hasn't been great every outing,
no picture is, but there's beenmore good than bad. I still hold
out some hope that Frankie Montas isgonna help this team this year, but
the strength of the Reds is afranchise. Fifteen months ago, it felt
like it was this collection of young'sup and coming, promising, high upside

(01:19:16):
starting pitchers. That can still bethe case, and you're starting to see
some of these guys round in theform pitch better, show more consistency,
show more reliability. I've never beenmore bullish on Hunter Green, and I
talked about this often over the courseof his first fifty starts. Reds gave

(01:19:38):
him a big contract prior to thestart of the twenty twenty three season.
Then since then, every time hehas a bad outing, every time he
has a bad performance, it's broughtup. Can we even begin to understand
how good that contract might look?I mean, this year he's making three

(01:20:00):
point three million bucks, the one, one hundred and second highest paid pitcher
in the sport this year. Canyou name a one hundred pitchers who are
better. He's gonna get a raisenext season. That makes the annual value
of the contract next year six pointthree million dollars. He would be due

(01:20:23):
for arbitration this offseason had the Redsnot guaranteed his contract for next year.
The year after that, he's gonnaget a two million dollar raise. Think
about that. Hunter Green from twentytwenty four to twenty twenty six is gonna
get a raise five million dollars fromnow to twenty twenty six. Then he

(01:20:47):
gets a big raise in twenty twentyseven, and he's gonna make sixteen million
bucks in twenty twenty eight when he'stwenty eight years old. That contract this
season wouldn't put him among the thirtyhighest paid pitchers in twenty twenty four.
It's one of the smartest investments theReds have made, and it's starting to

(01:21:09):
pay dividends. I think it's afair question to wonder who should be next.
Look, I understand there's a lotof folks who don't follow the the
ins and outs of how contracts workand how they're structured, and how baseball
players are under team control for somany years before they could hit free agency.
The Reds extended Hunter Green's contract forone more year. Hunter was really

(01:21:33):
smart, where at the very leasthe's gonna hit free agency when he's thirty,
Reds have a club option for twentytwenty nine. They are locked into
this guy for the rest of thedecade. He's only starting to get better.
If Hunter Green this season, andthis is an extreme example, but
if Hunter Green this season were towin the Cy Young Award, and I'm

(01:21:56):
not saying he's going to He's gota very long way to go before you
get to talk about that. Butlet's just say, for the sake of
argument, that he ends up pitchingso well this year that he's considered the
best pitcher in the National League.You know what Hunter Green can do at
the negotiating table this offseason. Nothing. Nothing. This was a really strategic

(01:22:19):
and sound move by the Rats.It is easy to pick a part when
he's not pitching well, but atsome point you had to assume he was
going to start pitching well. Imade it about the fifty start mark,
right he had his fiftieth start earlierthis season, and I, along with
many said, okay, look,hopefully number one, he can stay healthy.

(01:22:42):
That's been a bit of an issue. But now let's see if the
accumulation of experience and all the lessonslearned throughout the course of his first couple
of seasons can can can start topay off and can start to I don't
know, be reflected by better performance, says now Over. His next fifty
starts well, starting with game numberfifty one, big League start number fifty

(01:23:09):
one, he has been awesome.Starts fifty one through fifty seven, an
era of two point four or fiveopposing hitters batting just two oh three in
that stretch forty four innings. Hehas given up two home runs. He
has not been great, He hasn'tbeen otherworldly. He would maybe be better.

(01:23:29):
You might argue pitching still deeper intogames. Although I have no issue
with how how many innings he hasgiven this team, you'd still like to
see him at times be a littlebit more pitch efficient. That comes down
to control and command. But you'reseeing a guy where the light bulb is
coming on. Teren, Do youhave that cut of Sam Luck here from
two weeks ago on this show,you're seeing a guy who was starting to

(01:23:50):
get it. You're seeing a guywho is starting to learn how to pitch,
and you can extend that conversation toa lot of different guys. So
there's two ways of doing one.With Hunter Green in particular, what a
great investment they're paying him over thecourse of the entire contract less than one
hundred million dollars. If the improvementcontinues, if the improvement continues from what

(01:24:14):
it was at the beginning of theseason to now, if that continues through
the rest of this year, canyou even imagine the sort of pitcher we're
gonna be talking about. But alsoHunter is leading a little bit of a
charge of the young pitchers looking better, being more reliable than they were a
year ago. Can't get more unreliablethan they were a year ago when they
were hurt and ineffective. And ifthat continues, this team's gonna have a

(01:24:39):
chance, have a chance to dowhat specifically I don't know, but relative
to two weeks ago when we werestarting to really do the math with how
bad they were and how many gamesbelow five hundred they were and wondering if
it was going to be another lastsummer, you figure they're going to hit
more. Also, the starting pitchingis beginning to do what a lot of
us thought it would do. AndI would think that most of us think

(01:25:01):
it can continue doing. The improvementshould continue, the reliability should increase.
Going give me that. I askedSam Lekuiro a week ago Friday, as
the light bulb starting to come onfor a Hunter Green, Yeah, yep,
I think that's been a talking Imean, I will be committal on
that one. I really believe thatit is just because there's been, you

(01:25:26):
know, different signs and look,I mean, if you want to talk
about lip service, Hunter's got someof the best around. Like he speaks
like you know, he talks areally really great game and he makes it
and it's eloquent and it sounds awesomeand you want to believe everything he has
to say. He's got a careerin politics after his baseball career. But
you know, it's been a lot. To me, it's been a lot

(01:25:47):
of lip service. You can talkas much to your blue in the face,
but I need to see it happened. I need to see something happening
that is making it feel real.And I hadn't. I really hadn't seen
much of it until the last monthor so, right, And I feel
like being around Frankie, you know, I don't think it was a coincidence

(01:26:09):
that he started to learn a splitwith Frankie coming over, because I mean,
I've been thinking for a long time. We were on the Reds caravan
this year together. We had greatconversations. Rhet Lauder was on that was
on the bus with us, greatconversations with him about you know, even
me just listening to Frankie talk likeI was excited. I wanted to go
back and pitch again like he,you know, invigorated me me to that

(01:26:32):
point. And I think that himbeing around guys again, the veteran leadership
on a pitching staff, with guyswho maybe have a couple of years in
the big leagues now, but it'sbeen interrupted by injury and such and such,
so they don't have a ton ofinnings. I think that Frankie's had
a big impact on Hunter and therest of the staff, just as far
as showing what it looks like whenyou're aggressive within the strike zone versus not.

(01:26:57):
All these guys have great stuff,why wouldn't you be And if you're
gonna get beat. Mo, I'drather get beat on the second pitch of
it at bat than the seventh.Hmm, you're gonna get hit. I
mean, you're gonna get hit inthe big leagues, and I don't care
who you are, You're gonna gethit. Obviously, Walks are gonna be
a part of it. Unfortunately,we all wish, you know, I
had. I thought I had reallygood control. I walk way too many

(01:27:20):
people, you know, because nowif i'd have fown one hundred, I
probably would have walked a few less. But uh, you know, that's
gonna be part of it. Ifyou're gonna you're gonna be in the big
leagues, you're gonna get hit.So if you give up a hit on
the second pitch of the bat ratherthan every hitter you face is going seven
pitch, there's a couple of inningsin there somewhere that's uh, Sam,

(01:27:41):
look here more of that conversation ifyou want it on the iHeartRadio app thanks
to a long neck sports grille.But it's it's it's happening in front of
this and it's it's not resulting inthese huge strikeout games that we were salivating
over him having early in his career, but he's pitching deeper into games.
He's giving the Reds more innings,he is giving the Reds more reliability.

(01:28:02):
He is showing why they invested inhim the way they did and proving that
it was indeed a very, verysmart investment. We are way late,
twenty four after five o'clock. UH. Something I wish we were doing today
that we're not coming up in tenminutes on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station,
Cincinnati Late. We are blaming thenew producer, the new woman today

(01:28:26):
Mackenzie now works host is late.We blamed the producer. There's lesson number
one Mackenzie. UH. Phone callsare coming up five one, three,
seven, nine, fifteen thirty.Since we're late, we have to be
brief here our poll questions on XThanks to our friends at United Heartland Insurance,
go to uhi ns dot com.They will solve every insurance problem,

(01:28:50):
question, conundrum issue you have UHINSdot com. Raining NL MVP Ronald Acuny
is out for the season. Badumpire Angel Hernandez has retiring, which is
the bigger MLB story? Fifty fivepoint eight percent of you say Ronald Acunya

(01:29:10):
I agree the Angel Hernandez story isgetting more attraction. However, that ain't
good for Major League Baseball. Uh. I wish we were doing something today
that we cannot do. I willexplain next Cincinnati's ESPN. Mine's a service.

(01:29:35):
Oh boy, we have Mackenzie producingthe show today. She has just
made but perhaps the biggest mistake youcan make producing this show. She has

(01:29:58):
played a Pitbull song. Mackenzie,be honest with me. Did Arran tell
you to do that? No?We don't have many rules here. Okay,
we on this show. Mackenzie isbeing broken in. You're starting your
long, fruitful, hopefully very lucrativebroadcasting career by learning how to produce shows

(01:30:20):
by working with Tarran and Arren putMackenzie in the producer's chair. But one
thing. We don't have many ruleson this show. But one of them
is no pitbull. You can literallyplay any artist, any genre. I
do not care. No one islistening to a sports talk radio show for

(01:30:42):
the bumper music, which is whatwe call it. But you can't play
pitbull. Okay, understand, youdidn't know. So this is not a
you don't get it to merit.This doesn't go in your personnel file.
But I blame Tarran for not tellingyou. But at least this is a
profound moment that you'll never forget whenyou run this show. If a Pitbull

(01:31:03):
song is coming up, replace itwith anything sing if you have to.
Okay, no, not to befair mode. Yeah that says MO bumper.
I know it says MO bumper becausewhoever put that in there labeled it
MO bumper because they ran this show. I don't know who put that in
there. I don't know, Butno Pitbull All right, Sports Headlines or

(01:31:28):
a service of Kelsey Chevrolet Home oflifetime power train protection and guaranteed credit approval
from their family to Yours for life, Kelsey, Chef dot Comrades and Cardinals
again tonight, Cincinnati looking for awin which would clinch the series. It
would be a second consecutive series winand would extend their current winning streak to
five. They give the ball toAndrew Abbott. Righty, Kyle Gibson will

(01:31:49):
throw for Saint Louis. Six fortyis Tonight's first pitch. It is live
on seven hundred WLW. Your startinglineup for the Reds tonight Thanks to Madewell
duration Herdabies Dela Cruz and Candelario leftshort third, steers at first, Freeley's
and rights Stevenson behind the plate.Nick Martini is dhing and batting seventh,

(01:32:12):
India, second Benson and center.By the way, Reds today did reinstate
from or activate from the sixty dayinjured list lefty Alex Young and they have
dfaed righty Brett Kennedy. Congratulations againto the NKU baseball team. The Norris
will play in the NCAA Tournament onFriday against Tennessee after winning the Horizon League
Tournament. Florence y'all's play at LakeErie tonight. No Jamar Chase, no

(01:32:38):
t Higgins at Bengals OTAs. Alsono Sheldon Rankins or Trent Brown, and
a ziz Bandeigo is coming back tothe University of Cincinnati, much to no
one's surprise, after pulling his nameout of the NBA draft for some reason.
Now I'm winded, I'm out ofbreath. That's what pitt pol does

(01:33:00):
to me. Can I spend justa second here on something I tried really
hard to do today but could not. So. Bill Walton passed away at
the age of seventy one, andwhat I think is remarkable about Bill Walton
is I've read dozens of tributes,remembrances. I've watched a lot of social

(01:33:24):
media eclips, and he stood outso much as a broadcaster and just as
a guy who who had a Hewas eclectic, He lived life and felt
to me like the fullest. Hewas an interesting guy, a guy of
many interests, and yet there's nextto nothing out there about how great of

(01:33:45):
a college basketball player he was andhow impactful of an NBA player he was.
He was a two time World champion, he was an MVP, he
was a sixth Man of the Year. Obviously, he had a professional career
that was just interrupted so often byinjuries that as a pro you never really
got a complete grasp of what hecan do. And yet he still had

(01:34:09):
a successful and memorable and Hall ofFame NBA career on top of If you're
talking about the greatest college basketball playersof all time, you can't you can't
forget to mention Bill Walton. Youmight start the conversation with Bill Walton,
but it's like I've said this allthe time about Anthony Munhos. I could

(01:34:30):
talk for fifteen minutes about Anthony munhosand not mention the fact that he might
be the greatest offensive lineman who everlived. I think that's how important and
noteworthy and notable and interesting and bizarreand fun and funny Bill Walton was and
what I loved about him. Youknow, he did NBA games for years
and then over the last number ofyears did pack twelve games. And I

(01:34:55):
watch I watch a lot of latenight sports on the West Coast because I'm
a night out and sometimes that's whenI stay up and work on the show
and do stuff. And I'll admitto there being times where it was like,
all right, it's a close game, there's two minutes to go,
Bill, can you just talk aboutbasketball? But more often than not,
I loved his commentary because here wasa guy having fun doing something that is

(01:35:23):
supposed to be fun, and Iwish there were more of that in sports,
and someone that you could tell,whoever he was working with, you
could tell they were just having ablast working with Bill Walton because you had
to be on the edge of yourseat because you never knew what he was
gonna say. You had to bewilling to take a barb, you had

(01:35:43):
to be willing to give it backto him, and as a viewer it
was always so much fun to watch. I had a chance to interview Bill
Walton, and I remember when itwas. It was March of twenty eleven.
No why. I remember that hewas appearing at the University of Dayton,

(01:36:05):
And to be completely honest with you, I do not remember why,
and I don't remember specifically how wegot a chance to talk to him.
It was someone at UD reached outand said, and he was not appearing
in any sports capacity, like hewasn't there for the basketball program. He

(01:36:25):
was there for another reason. AndI don't know if it's because that's where
I went to college, but ifI remember correctly, someone at UD reached
out to us and said, uh, he's doing something here. Would you
like to have him on? AndI could not have answered yes quickly enough,
And so we got him on.It was live, and it was

(01:36:50):
twenty to twenty five minutes of justhaving no idea what was going to come
out of his mouth next me askinga question, him taking six minutes to
answer it, and in the courseof answering it, bringing up like six
or seven different topics during the answer. And what I remember most about it

(01:37:11):
was. You know, we thankedhim for coming on the show. At
the time, he was doing SacramentoKings games and this was DeMarcus Cousins rookie
year playing for the Kings, andI thought, okay, well there's the
tri state basketball connection. I'll askabout DeMarcus Cousins. And he proceeded to
talk about how wonderful and lovely andawesome to Marcus Cousins was. But we
ended the interview and I just said, like, this has been really cool

(01:37:33):
somebody that I've always enjoyed watching andlistening to, and thanks for coming on.
And I remember, and I'm notgoing to try to do a Bill
Walton impersonation because everybody does one.It's like Elvis, but I remember his
answer included thank you MO for givingme the gift of life, which I

(01:37:57):
guess, as it's turned out,a variation of how he has said goodbye
to everybody who he's ever had aconversation with. And so I got like
a lot of feedback. And thisis kind of early days of Twitter,
and so I remember getting a lotof tweets about it. It kills me
though that at that stage of mycareer, I didn't prioritize keeping stuff,

(01:38:21):
And so I spent about forty fiveminutes today going through our system and doing
everything I can to see if westill had that interview, I would not
have been able to play the entirething. But it was hilarious and it
was funny, and it was atwenty to twenty five minute encapsulation of Bill

(01:38:41):
Walton, and I got a firsthand taste of that for one day in
my career. And it's it's alwaysbeen whenever I'm asked, like, your
favorite guess you've had on? That'sone of the names that I always spit
out and now like and Terren's reallygood at this. We save everything because
we podcas We asked everything back then. I'm sure we were podcasting stuff,

(01:39:03):
but we weren't prioritizing it. Weweren't cutting the show into segments, we
weren't taking interviews, And so itkills me that it doesn't exist. It
kills me that it doesn't exist becauseI can't go back and listen to it.
But I would love nothing more thanon this show today to spend just
three to four minutes talking about BillWalton and being able to play the one

(01:39:25):
time he appeared on our show,and how cool that was and how interesting
it was and how different it was, and how how much it meant to
have him on. And so Isaw that he passed away yesterday and a
voice of my youth in early twenties, somebody who in recent years I spent
a lot of time just listening to. And his thirty for thirty, which

(01:39:45):
is a four part thirty for thirtyon ESPN, I think is a must.
First of all, it's just suchan interesting journey through college and pro
basketball history in this country, withBill Walton at the center of it,
like just somebody that always just seemedlike he'd be a fun guy to hang
out with, and somebody who justseemed like he was having a blast doing

(01:40:05):
something that is supposed to be fun. Calling a basketball game isn't supposed to
be isn't supposed to sound like you'restudying for a final exam, and he
always sounded like he was doing theexact opposite. And so I'm I'm I'm
gonna miss like watching games broadcast byBill Walton. And always one of the

(01:40:26):
highlights of this show is when wehad him on. And it kills me
that we we don't have it.It's lost. It kills me. All
right. How much time do wehave there? Mackenzie? Five minutes?
All right? Very good? Didyou have to do quick? Matt?
There? When do you? Whendo you graduate from UC in the spring?

(01:40:53):
Are you? Are you gonna balanceworking in radio here and going to
school at U? See? Yes, you are a woman after my own
heart, because that's exactly what Idid. I was at a different college,
of course, but I like it. Very good? Thank you?
Are you going to come back andtrain more tomorrow? Yeah? How many
more shows do you have to trainon before you can figure out how to

(01:41:13):
do this a couple? Are youenjoying yourself? Yeah? Now, you're
not gonna be one of those peoplethat like, yeah, I'm gonna work
in radio and then you're here fortwo weeks and then it's like now I'm
done. No, No, okay? Are you from here? No?
I'm not, You're not. Whereare you from? I grew up in
Virginia Beach? Oh? Okay?But you like it here? Yeah?
All right? You want to stayhere after college? You root for the

(01:41:33):
Bearcats? Yeah? Okay, goodMike, go ahead. You're on ESPN
fifteen thirty. What's up? Finda scoundrel that stole the sketch. Mike
explained to the audience, what you'retalking about, ladies and gentlemen, No,
did a broadcast, a remote broadcastfrom the beach in Santa Monica,

(01:41:58):
basically when the Bengals went to theSuper Bowl a few years ago. He
I'm sure it was a memorable experiencebecause he had a cooler and a little
bit of equipment and some Barney's beanerypoo deat, and he's often talked about
how unusual and kind of difficult thewhole thing was. So and he said

(01:42:21):
that I enlisted my best friend fromCincinnati that I went to high school with.
He's a tremendous artist, and Itold him I wanted you wanted him
a piece together, a drawing ofmo broadcasting under a canopy, so to

(01:42:41):
speak. Anyway it lose headphones onand sitting on an ice cooler. And
so my buddy spent about a monthon it because he didn't have anything to
work with other than your pictures offthe website. And I tried to explain
to him, you know, howyou were attired that day and this thing

(01:43:02):
you had told me about that memorableoccasion and so he said, sure,
I'll do it for you. Sohe's going through cancer now too. But
anyway, it took him about amonth. He got it done. I
paid him, brought him down,came down to the station today with the
one of a kind stats drawing anddropped off at the front doors of iHeart

(01:43:30):
Studios, six floors Sweet six pointfifty with Moe's name and a sweet number
in the Hawais address and everything onthe front of it, and a padded
envelope, sealed white envelope. Andthe gentleman was coming out at the time
and said, yeah, I know, Mom'll give that to me before you.
Don't worry about it, he asked. And I should have got his

(01:43:54):
name, but I didn't. AndI described the gentleman to He came from
inside the studio and he wasn't ahe didn't have a tie on, he
had a beard. He had abeard, six foot tall, slight fuilt,
and terms that he might know whoit was, and he seemed like

(01:44:14):
totally Legitimo. Now he was inyour workplace. I give it to him.
We are going to solve this mystery. Mike, thank you very much.
We have to go. We aregoing to solve this mystery and hold
the person who stole the sketch accountable, and then we will share it on
social media and give your buddy fullcredit. Tarry, do you have any
idea who stole the sketch? They'renot here today, but he dropped it

(01:44:43):
off today. Yeah, but Iguess whatever he gave it to him must
have left. All right, well, we have to go. Show is
over. We're back tomorrow at threeoh five. Have an awesome duight.
Thanks to Taran and Mackenzie for producing. Thanks to you for listening. We'll
talk to you tomorrow on ESPN fifteenthirty Cincinnati Sports Station. Hey Sarah,

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