4/6/26 - The Mo Egger Radio Show - Mo Egger

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports station.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
That is US. It's four minutes after three o'clock on Moleger.
This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Thank you so much for listening. Hopefully. Hey,
you had a great weekend. B you had an awesome Easter.
And see your week is off to a great start.
Our week is off to a great start because we're
a Twin Peaks in Westchester. No, it's not football season. No,

(00:28):
it's not the Tony and Mo Football Show. Tony is
not here, although I wish he was because it's always
awesome being in his company. But we're here between now
and six o'clock. If you have been with us at
any point over the last six years, this is the
home of the Tony and Mo Football Show. And can't
wait to be back later on this fall. But you know,

(00:51):
there are occasions where I need a little bit of
a Twin Peaks fix. And I think since we started
doing the Tony and Mo Football Show at Twin Peaks
in twan that I have gotten my Twin Peaks fix.
Every single year in April, on the Monday of the
College basketball National Championship Game, which is obviously this year,

(01:11):
tonight as a Michigan and Yukon get set to play
as stoked for that Red's play tonight. Coming off a
series sweep in Texas, we have a lot of that
to cover between now and six o'clock. Show previews available
on Twitter at Moeger Thanks to shareffax Credit Union. Learn
about the benefits of shareffac's credit union membership by going

(01:32):
to shareffax dot org. But if you're thinking, you know what,
I live in Westchester or the the Westchester area north
of Cincinnati, south of Dayton. I'm looking for a place
to post up and have a great meal. Okay, check
that box year at Twin Peaks, I get a nice
cold beer. Well, obviously you could check that box here
at Twin Peaks, where there's tons of TVs and I

(01:54):
could watch the Reds game in a National Championship game. Well,
you could check those boxes here at Twin Peaks. All
you got to do is get here. We are here
till six o'clock Twin Peaks in Westchester, right off I
seventy five the Union Center Boulevard exit. Obviously we can't
wait to be here later on this fall, but it's
fun to be here today. It is gorgeous outside, although

(02:15):
a little cool, a little bit on the windy side,
but a very nice spring day here in Westchester. Great
data post up here at twin Peaks. In about thirty minutes,
a guy who I think is a really cool job,
the official historian of ESPN, is going to join us.
There's a cool documentary on ESPN tonight about ESPN And
if you're a sports fan. As much as sports fans

(02:36):
love to talk about how much they hate ESPN, you
still watch it a lot, you still consume it a lot,
still go to ESPN dot com, And so we'll chat
with him. Coming up in just about thirty minutes. We've
got some NFL Draft stuff to get to a little
bit later on some college basketball as well. We'll start, though,
with what the Reds did this weekend in Arlington. They
got great pitching. The defense continues to be spectacular, the

(02:58):
bullpen work continues to be top notch. The Reds one
swept a series over the Rangers, a series in which
they scored a grand total of nine runs. Reet Louder
was terrific on Saturday. Chase Burns yesterday though, was electrifying,
showing a change up coming after hitters routinely hitting three

(03:21):
digits on the gun, not backing down. He was terrific. Now,
we've talked a lot about the red starting rotation with
the absence of Hunter Green and Nicolodolo, and those are
big absences. And your guess is as good as mine
as to win Hunter's gonna pitch. Your guess is as
good as mine as to win Nick is gonna pitch,
and how or when the blister issue is gonna be rectified,

(03:43):
And we've talked about the fallout from that being the
fact that you're giving a heavy workload to dudes who
don't have a lot of experience. But whole boy, there's
a ton of upside and maybe we'll start to see
that with Brandon Williams in Beginning tonight, but a whole
boy with Chase Burns, like, there's legitimate, legitimate staff ace

(04:04):
potential with that guy. And I don't want to diminish
Ret Louder and his big league future, but it is
so much fun to think about the high end of
some of these pitchers, and it's so much fun to
think about how good and deep the starting rotation could
be if guys like Burns and Louder realize their upside

(04:25):
this season. The most important part of this weekend though,
for me, was the fact that the Reds won three
games in which they didn't hit a ton. The three
homers on Friday, they win a game where they score
all their runs via the homer. Home runs are cool.
Last year's team couldn't do that. They won the last
two nights, winning two zip and two to one, scoring

(04:47):
a whopping four runs. Let's be honest, this may have been,
especially the last two days, a little bit of an
extreme version of what the Reds are probably at certain
points during this season going to have to be. This
is a team that I think we all believe has
the capability of hitting more than its hit so far

(05:08):
this season. It would help if they got more production
from the lead off spot. TJ. Friedel's not having a
very good year. By the way, It's worth pointing out
Reese Hines, the reigning now International League Player of the Week,
has been getting some work in center field. Let's be honest, though,
as much as we love the acquisition of a Uhaneosuarez,
as much as we're all I think so stoked for

(05:29):
what Sal Stewart's going to be able to do as
much as we're really hopeful that Ellie de la Cruz
can have a quality season, and he's already hit three homers,
his base running the other night was a major reason
why they won that second game against Texas. The reality is,
for most of us, this is probably not going to
be a high end offensive team. Could be dead wrong

(05:50):
about it now. You know, as much as they struggled
offensively last year, it's not like they were a league
worst offensive team. They weren't in the bottom third of
the league in runs score. They were fourteenth. But they're
gonna have stretches in all likelihood where they don't hit
a ton. Still got to find a way to win games.
Tarren and I were just talking about this right before
we went on the air. You gotta find a way

(06:11):
to win games where you don't have a very large
margin for air. How do you do that, Well, you
start with elite starting pitching. The Reds got that each
of the last two days. You continue with great bullpen work,
and I think what I loved most about the game
yesterday is the Reds had to manage the latter innings.
They had to get through the eighth and ninth inning,

(06:32):
the seventh eighth and ninth inning, despite not having some
of their I don't know, you might argue better bullets
available in the bullpen, they had to throw Connor Phillips
into a very high leverage situation against good hitters. In
the eighth inning, they had brock Burke. The brock Burke
revenge game played itself out yesterday in Arlington. They used
him in the ninth inning. Nick Cross spent time this offseason,

(06:56):
a lot of time this offseason trying to trying to
reshape the bullpen and trying to ensure that that there
were more options for Tito laid in games, and so
far most of those options have worked out. I think
it's completely reasonable to wonder by the middle of the
season who's going to close, because I'm not entirely sure,
and I know there's a lot of folks, maybe you,
who share this opinion, not entirely sure that on a

(07:19):
team that's winning ninety games, which is kind of what
the goal should be here, that Amelia Pagan is your
ninth inning guy. So who does emerge as that ninth
inning guy? Most of us, many of us least at
least believe the answer is going to be Connor Phillips.
But in the short term, they won these games with
terrific starting pitching, a lot of relievers pitching in high

(07:41):
leverage situations, which highlights the fact that Tito's got more
options back there than he's had. And also great defense.
Like I think a lot of us roll our eyes
when we hear about you know how the Reds are
leaning in on great defense and I have issues and
maybe you do as well with putting a guy to

(08:02):
corner infield position who's just not a good hitter and
keep Brian Hayes just statistically is not a good hitter,
but he was acquired and he's on the team because
of his glove. He's got an elite glove. This team
so far this season, not only have they not made
an error, there haven't been many plays that I can

(08:23):
think of where they gave a guy an extra base
or they did something mentally in the field that doesn't
necessarily get registered as an error. But defensively, it's a
problem and it comes back to bite him. They've made
all the routine plays. They've made a handful of really
good plays. They haven't done anything dumb in the field.
This team, in its recent history, we've often talked about

(08:45):
this with the Reds widens or shrinks its margin for air,
and at times with shaky defense, it is shrunk its
margin for air. This year's team so far has widened it.
They want a seeri this weekend where they didn't exactly
tear the cover off the ball. Yes they got great pitching.
Yes they struck out fifteen hitters yesterday. Yes they had

(09:09):
a lot of options in the back end of the bullpen.
But also they're not taking their already small margin for
error and making it even smaller because they're throwing the
ball all over the place or committing a bunch of
mental mistakes in the field that can go a long way.
That can help you rip off five, six, seven, eight
wins in a row, which this team didn't do last year.

(09:29):
That can help you get through stretches where you're not
hitting a bunch. And to me, that's one of the
big questions about this season. It's not so much are
they gonna hit more. They're gonna hit more home runs
this season in all likelihood than they did last year.
I believe most of us think this team will score
more runs per game, slightly at least more than they

(09:49):
did last year. But can they win games when guys
aren't hitting, when a handful of players are going through
a slump, when a handful of players are maybe not available,
can they Can they find ways to win games when
offensively they're not at their best? And can they find
ways to extend winning streaks because they don't shrink their

(10:10):
margin for error, because they make all the right plays
in the field, and because they could still win games
when maybe some relievers that they would love to use
in high leverage situations aren't necessarily available. This weekend they
checked a lot of boxes. It's obviously very early. They've
played nine games. We'll see how this series in Miami
unfolds starting tonight. We'll see how the rest of the

(10:32):
month unfolds. But what I took away from this weekend,
and you can tell me if you agree or disagree
at five win, three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty is
I saw a team that at the very least was
capable of winning games where the margin for error is
very small because the offense isn't very good right now.
And that's that sounds harsh, but it's not untrue. The
two games prior to the series in Texas, they scored

(10:55):
three runs apiece. It's not exactly like Dave were on
fire in that whole homestand with a split three of six,
they've scored the second fewest runs in the National League,
yet they've won six out of the nine games they've played.
That is a statement about pitching. It's a statement about defense.
It's a statement about not making your margin for error
even smaller. And it would suggest this weekend that maybe

(11:17):
this year's team is going to be slightly more capable
of winning games during longer stretches when the offense isn't
very good. We will see quarter after three ESPN fifteen thirty.
You can send a tweet to this show to me
at Mugger. Please follow thank you tweets that come your
way come your way thanks to Delta Dental. Delta Dental

(11:39):
is building healthy, smart, vibrant communities for all good at
Delta Dental, oh dot com. It seems hard to believe,
but we are closing in on being two weeks away
from the NFL Draft, which I can't wait for. Paul
Danner Junior joins us in studio tomorrow as we'll start
to dive through some Bengals draft options. Joe Goodbury liter

(12:00):
on this week. Looking forward to that as well. Bengals
are bringing in Jeremiah Love for a visit, which that's
getting a lot of chatter online, which I'm here for
got some thoughts on that this year. The National Title
Game is tonight with Yukon taking on Michigan. The transfer
portal is about to open tomorrow. We've got college hoops

(12:21):
to get to as well. Now, I said a lot
of really nice things about the Reds, and they deserved
it because they swept the Rangers. You sweep a road series,
nice things get said about you. But the fun thing
about having a team that's in the hunt, and I
think most of us expect the Reds to be in
the hunt, is to discuss what we're about to discuss
next at Twin Peaks in Westchester sixteen minutes after three

(12:43):
o'clock on Moeger Glad You're with us today on ESPN
fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Station ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the.

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(13:15):
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Rick Shremp with traffic.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Twin Peaks in Westchester today. This is ESPN fifteen thirty Monegger.
I did two shows last week from Indianapolis. If you
missed them, we had Jared Calhoun on the UC Coach.
We had Jake Diebler on the Ohio State Coach. I
got a lot of really friendly correspondence about that too,
by the way, that was nice. Uh, Dray Carroll join

(13:45):
the show really quick because I got a lot of
questions about those shows we did in Indie. First of all,
let me tell you that if you missed them, you
can go listen to them right now or later tonight
or tomorrow on the iHeartRadio app. I pointed out some
of the low figures that we talked with, like Trey Carroll,
who was terrific, and like Jared Calhoun, who actually like

(14:06):
broke some news on our show about scheduling. By the way,
a shout out to Scott Springer of the Inquiry for
mentioning our show and his piece about what Jared Calhoun
mentioned and including links to where you could listen to
the entire interview. That was nice. It was fun talking
with Jared. It was fun talking with Jake Diebler. Now
I had folks ask, well, why didn't you have Richard

(14:28):
Patino on or why didn't you have Darren Horn on?
Or I would have been happy to talk to either.
We have great relationships with both. We talked to who
they gave us that made sense for our audience. So
we're in a room and they they roll through Jared
Calhoun and they go, well, Jared Calhoun would would make

(14:48):
sense for the guy in Cincinnati, or Jake Diebler would
make sense for a station in Ohio. Those coaches didn't
go on the stations in Raleigh or Kansas City. To
the best of my knowledge, I don't know why they
didn't roll in some of the other coaches I have
been asked about. I also had somebody ask, why did

(15:08):
you interview Trey Carroll? Really? Really, By the way, like,
I'm as big of a Bearcat fan as you will
meet Trey Carroll. The first thing that I'll think of
when his name is mentioned decades from now is the
Xavier beating UC and Trey Carroll hanging thirty on the Bearcats.
He was still awesome to talk to, Like, those are

(15:28):
shows where you just you can't please everybody, so I
tried try as I may. If you missed him, they're
available on the iHeartRadio app or my page at ESPN
fifteen thirty dot com. But anyway, we did two shows
from Indie last week, and then I was off the
first three days of last week, and then prior to

(15:50):
that we had opening Day. We had our show at
the Morelin Lockerhouse. I think I've done one show in
studio in two weeks, which mean the down part of
that is I don't get a chance to see Tern,
don't get a chance to interact with him one on one.
But I like being out at places cool, being here
at Twin Peaks in Westchester. We will be back in
studio tomorrow and for the rest of the week. Reds

(16:13):
win three straight in Texas and that's the headline. And
at the end of the day, get wins. They have.
I don't know what you define as the start of
the season. I make it about the first twenty seven
games because I like to. I like to view it
through the lens of like six different twenty seven game stretches.
Twenty seven games has won sixth of the season. But

(16:36):
we have seen red seasons go up and smoke because
they start one in nine or three and fifteen, or hell,
four years ago, what was it three and twenty two. Well,
that doesn't seem like it's going to be a problem here.
And they have won six of their first nine. Get victories,
get like, just get victories. Play from a head to

(16:57):
the extent that you can win every series. Get victories.
Get another one tonight. And it was fun watching him
get a sweep yesterday. Nobody's really paying attention to standings.
The Brewers are off to a great start. The Pirates
are off to a good start. The Cardinals so far,
at least, haven't been as bad as advertised. The Cubs

(17:17):
so far haven't been as good as advertised, but six
and three after nine games is a pretty good place
to be. They do not score a lot of runs.
They've scored twenty six runs in nine games, and I
think I mentioned before that is the second fewest. Actually
it's tied for the fewest in the National League. San

(17:38):
Francisco has only scored twenty six they have played one
more game. The Giants, for what it's worth, are three
and seven, and Tony Vidello, the coach or the manager
who got hired from Tennessee where he was their coach,
got kicked out of the game yesterday. This is probably
not a high ceiling offensive team, and so you hate

(17:59):
to do this on April the sixth, but how do
you not wonder what they're gonna do with the deadline?
I joked about this last year with Tony and Austin
where it was brought up on opening Day, what are
they going to do with the deadline? And the reason,
at least for me, the reason I got exasperated with

(18:20):
that was we're already doing this. When you're doing that,
it's an acknowledgment that our team is going to start
the season lacking something. And by the way, once we
got to July, all we talked about was what are
they going to do with the deadline, and as it
turned out, to address the offense not that much. Rees
Hines is off to a killer start in Louisville, named

(18:40):
today the International League Player of the Week. He's getting
some run in center field, which may suggest that, you know,
perhaps they're not thrilled with the work they're getting from TJ. Friedel,
and maybe Resigns is gonna come up and play center field,
or when they call Resigns up, they won him well
versed at a couple of different outfield positions. You can't
watch his production, You can't kind of pay attention to

(19:01):
the way the season has started for Noelve Marte and
not wonder when's Reese Hine's gonna get here. You also
can't help but be a little bit skeptical that whatever
offensive issues they have, Reese Hines is going to be
the solution. This team at the start of spring training
offensively offensively felt incomplete, deep to a degree, maybe the

(19:24):
deepest they've had since I don't know, twenty thirteen, because
dudes they acquired this offseason didn't make the team, and
guys who had great spring training results didn't make the
team either, But still it felt like the entire offseason
was kind of incomplete. Yes, they acquire ayu Haani Suarez,
Yes they get some good bullpen arms, but it sort

(19:47):
of felt like corner outfield, maybe even a bench bat,
like they could use one more guy. I don't know
that Reese Hines stands a very good chance of making
us change how we feel. So what you can't help
but ask is who are they gonna get at the deadline?
How can they survive between now and the deadline offensively?

(20:08):
If what we've seen this weekend is a sign and
what we've seen so far for the first nine games
is a sign of a team not being great offensively,
the chances are we're gonna spend the next three and
a half months wondering who are they gonna get that
helps this team? And I think along with that, it's
who are they gonna be willing to give up? And
if they make a big trade, and I know this

(20:29):
is deep into the distance, if they make a big trade,
will they deal from an area of surplus? Meaning the
starting pitching Twenty nine minutes after three o'clock five point three,
seven four nine, fifteen thirty and eight sixty six seven
oh two three seven seven six. Something extraordinarily interesting is
happening in college basketball today, and it's not the national

(20:52):
title game. We'll get to that coming up in just
about fifteen minutes. But up next as a guy who
has a very cool job, So we'll talk about his
job and what he's putting on TV tonight. Next, we're
at Twin Peaks in Westchester on ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Station, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the.

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Speaker 1 (21:48):
ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Sure have twenty five for four o'clock. This is ESPN
fifteen thirty on Moweger. Thanks so much for listening today.
We're broadcasting this afternoon from Twin Peaks in west Chester tonight,
debuting on ESPN this. I had a chance to watch
a screener of this this weekend and it's terrific. It's
a documentary called Sports Heaven, The Birth of ESPN. There's

(22:12):
an accompanying audiobook that comes out tomorrow. Will throw links
up to it. This is really good. And I say
this because it's not like ESPN's story hasn't been told
many times. So you're looking for things that you weren't
that familiar with, stories you hadn't heard before, insight that
wasn't made available previously, and what you'll see tonight and

(22:35):
what you'll hear what the audio book I think is
going to check all those boxes. This is being done
by Mike Saltis, who has a great job. He's the historian.
He's the official historian of ESPN. Spent years started at
ESPN when he was a college intern in nineteen eighty,
worked in the corporate communications department for decades, was a
vice president and his show is airing tonight. He's a

(22:58):
Yukon guy, so he's sort of conflicted with the National
title game this evening, but tonight at eight thirty, it's
a great watch, and Mike kind enough to give us
a few minutes. Mike, good afternoon, How are you wonderful?

Speaker 5 (23:09):
Thank you for that intro, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
And I guess my personal sports happened to have my
documentary against my husbands, so that's why we have the
record button, so we'll be recording the documentary. And I
got to watch the live live Yukon Championship.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
I understand understand wholeheartedly. What does being ESPN's historian involve.

Speaker 5 (23:33):
Well, I try to preserve historical things that we have
from press releases, told videos, to press releases, sorry to
press clips, and then try to celebrate the history where
there's historical things that are relevant today, and then just
help out as media. And there's other films that get
done and people that do articles about things from the
ESPN and the seventies, eighties, nineties. Either I know it

(23:55):
or I know how to find it pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Before. It's not like ESPN's story hasn't been told. And
if you're a sports fan, you're you're at least I think,
for the most part, somewhat familiar with the basics of
ESPN's origin. So what did you aim to sort of
teach viewers and listeners about.

Speaker 5 (24:18):
Well, we started out with Bill Rasmuss, and our founder
kept a diary in nineteen seventy and seventy eight seventy nine.
It was really an amazing sixteen months where he went
from being fired by the Hartford Whalers to launching ESPN
and doing deals with all these major corporations and the
NCAA and cable systems and Getty Oil and on Anheuser

(24:40):
Busch and did all that as a guy who had
just been fired, and we took his diary, but then
we interviewed anybody that we thought was a key element
to what happened at that point. That, of course is
still alive because some of the people, with the passing
of time have passed, but everybody enthusiastically wanted to tell
their story and share what happened in that remarkable stretch

(25:02):
that led to the ESPN that we have known and
loved for decades.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
In your opinion, what was the most important development in
ESPN's early history.

Speaker 5 (25:17):
I think that the making the first show, the Sports Center.
We launched on September seven, nineteen seventy nine. George Grant
and Lee Leonard, two respected broadcasters to the first show,
and Sports Center then became immediately the flagship for ESPN.
It was born out of necessity that they had to
have something to fill in the gaps when sports go

(25:37):
long or go short. They also contractually with the NCAA
at that era, the NCAA would not allow a pro
sports event to happen next to a college event, so
we needed something. If we had a pro event, even
if it was professional slow pitch softball, we couldn't lead
into a college event, so we needed a program to

(25:58):
go in between. But Sports Center launches and then becomes
really the flagship for the company ever since, and led
sports Center led to ESPN News and ESPN dot Com
and all the things that we do on digital and social,
and that investment right out of the box was critical.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
From from your perspective sort of being in on the
ground floor of ESPN. What is it like watching what
the network and the company are going to have are
going to go through this year with airing a Super Bowl.

Speaker 5 (26:31):
Yeah, that that's really quite a cap for for ESPN
to have the Super Bowl. There's there's plans to you know,
really things have already started, but there's plans to to
pump it up like it's never been pumped up before,
from now through the through the kickoff, and the game
will be on both ABC and ESPN and and uh
they'll be an all cast and there'll be a lot

(26:51):
of different elements. But to think that that, uh, you
know the network that started doing the NFL Draft when
it was on a Tuesday morning and Roselle compared it
to paint drying. You know, now ESPN has has the
Super Bowl, so it really it really is a cap
for the network.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
I think of as a kid growing up in the
eighties when you would watch ESPN, especially during the day
there were monster truck pulls and professional wrestling and old
car races and so was there was there a moment
where you thought, you know what ESPN is about to
go from that to eventually what it would become.

Speaker 5 (27:33):
Yeah, a lot of us that worked here were early believers.
So there were some that this was before direct deposit,
that everybody would get their check from the Getty Oil
company that owned us and run to the bank to
deposit it. That you know that it wouldn't it would
bounce otherwise. I always had a comfort in the idea
of television sports, and also the fact that an oil

(27:54):
company's check isn't going to bounce. But I believed all
along that there was a market for it. That it
was clear to me that being able to watch sports
whenever he wanted to watch it, and anybody that's younger
is like, a course, that's kind of a no brainer.
But at that point most people were cynical that it
would work. It was like, now we watched sports on
the weekend, what do we need this for? And boy,

(28:15):
it certainly turned out to be successful, and right out
of the box, like March Madness.

Speaker 6 (28:20):
Was not what it is today.

Speaker 5 (28:22):
You had the games on the weekends, but you know
regional semi final games that weren't on television, And there
ESPN before it's a year old, is showing Danny Ainge
going the length of the court for BYU to upset
Notre Dame in a gigantic game, and ESPN was there
for it, and it kept growing. And then eighty seven
we get the NFL in nineteen ninety major League Baseball,

(28:44):
and certainly by that point ESPN had become established. But
those those two things really flulidified everything.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
You talk about. The cynicism you know at the time
that this was going to work and take off. How
close did it ever come to not working, to becoming
a thing that ended up, you know, would end up
being what it ended up not being, which was essentially
a failed experiment.

Speaker 5 (29:08):
Yeah, it's the first few years ESPN was losing a
lot of money. We had the good fortune that Getty
Oil had a lot of money to keep us afloat,
but they weren't. They weren't looking to just to keep
losing and losing. I used to have to go down
to the mail room to fax press releases to writers.
That's how you distributed them back then. And one day
I go down there and I and I'm ready to fax,

(29:30):
but you couldn't bax and receive at the same time.
And there was a memo coming out from Getty wanting
an analysis of whether they should cancel Sports Center. And
I read this, I'm like, oh my god, are you serious?
And fortunately it didn't happen, but it You know, when
you're when you're losing the kind of money it was
very expensive to put on sports television. When you're losing

(29:52):
a lot of money, you know your parent company's going
to have patience for so long but you know, it
started to turn in the in the mid eighties and
then and then you know, has been profitable ever since.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Over these decades. As you well know, ESPN is talked
about a lot. It's talked about a lot from the
perspective of people who do what I do for a living.
Every sports fan has an opinion of ESPN, whether it
be the programming, the talent, the game coverage, the direction
that the network of the company may be going in.

(30:25):
In your time with ESPN, which basically spans nearly its entirety,
what have been some of the more unfair criticisms of
the company.

Speaker 5 (30:36):
Yeah, I mean, it's good that it's good to be
talked about by people, even though that's a lot of
criticism because it indicates the leadership position that you hold,
which which you know everybody would would shry for. So
we get the criticism. I think, I think a lot
of times and and this social media has really contributed
to this that people will talk about something they didn't

(30:56):
actually see and they're getting all mad about something that
didn't act happen, or they connect something that they see
on social to oh ESPN did this. If N also
kind of generically became this term of if somebody sees
it on sports TV, they say, oh, ESPN did it.
I always loved it. When you know, somebody's criticizing ESPN
for something that happened on CBS, and it's like, okay, again,

(31:19):
that's that's kind of the leadership place that you hold.
But for the most part, because it's gone on for
such a long period of time, all the research that
our marketing department does, the fans for the most part
like what we're doing and like ESPN, and that's how
ESPN has been able to expand into all these other
things and still be successful, but certainly not without critics.

(31:42):
But you know, I take that to be a good thing.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Sports Heaven the Birth of ESPN tonight at eight thirty,
and accompanying book is out as well. My exalty is
it's awesome to have you go Luck to your husky tonight.
We appreciate the time.

Speaker 5 (31:56):
Great, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Thanks for coming on a quarter to four ESPN fifteen
thirty that airs tonight at eight thirty. I watched it
yesterday morning. I got a screener, as we say, and uh,
it's really well done, especially if I don't remember. I'm
not old enough to remember the very very very very
early origins of ESPN, but the network that I grew

(32:19):
up watching in the eighties and early nineties like a
lot of things dramatically different than the ESPN we see today.
Sports headlines our service to Kelsey Chevrolet, home of lifetime
powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from their family to
yours for life, kelseychev dot Com, Red's and Marlins first
to four Tonight in Miami, Brandon Williamson and Righty Jansen

(32:41):
junk on the hill. Six forty excuse me, six forty
is Tonight's first pitch on seven hundred WLW. You want it,
I got it for you. Your unsponsored Red starting lineup
Friedol McClain, Dela Cruz one through three. Sal Stewart plays
first base, Geno DHS, Spencer Steers and left field. Will
Benson plays right. Stevenson behind the plate key Brian Hayes

(33:03):
playing third and batting ninth. Meanwhile, Tonight, Fox Sports thirteen
sixty has the NCAA Tournament National Championship Game. It's Yukon
taking on Michigan. Official tip off time eight point fifty. Again,
you could listen to it live on Fox Sports thirteen sixty.
There you go, sports headlines and programming notes. We're here

(33:26):
at Twin Peaks in Westchester on ESPN fifteen thirty. Also
significant development, Michael Malone, who coached the Denver Nuggets to
the twenty twenty three NBA Championship, is set to take
over as the new head coach at the University of
North Carolina, which is interesting and I am a fan

(33:49):
of interesting. I don't know how successful it's going to be.
There's certainly something that would it's fair to be skeptical
that a guy who hasn't been in college basketball for
I think a quarter of a century taking a job
where the transfer portal opens tomorrow. There's reasons to be

(34:11):
skeptical that that's going to work. But I'm a fan
of interesting, and that higher relative to some of the
other names we had read about and heard about in
connection to the Carolina gig, pretty damn interesting. We'll spend
some time on that coming up in the four o'clock hour.
Do you believe the Bengals are where? I don't think

(34:31):
they are. We'll get to that next on ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic from the.

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During Donate Life Month.

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southbound seventy five between Ronald Reagan Highway and Norwood Land

(35:08):
and between Western Avenue and Brent Spence Bridgeay stop and
go at Milltown State Route Poort Dixie Highway. At mac
it's an overturned semi x shrunk with traffic this report.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Oh, you can watch hockey games here at Twin Peaks
in Westchester as well. That's where we are today. It
is beautiful outside and uh a great day to be
out on the mount. If you're in the north part
of town swinging by Twin Peaks in Westchester, you can
watch Red's game to night Yukon and Michigan tonight as well.

(35:39):
And we'll be back here for the Tony and Moo
Football show later on this fall, splitting our time between
this location and the location in Florence, speaking of football,
where we're closing it on a little bit more than
two from the NFL Draft. Paul Dayner Junior is going
to be on our show tomor are definitely at. My

(35:59):
favorite day of the draft process is the day that
Dame Brugler's like five hundred page draft guide comes out,
which is going to be on Wednesday, and I print
it from the radio station, which drives the people that
I work for nuts. Dane's going to be on our
show next week. There's news today about the Bengals that

(36:22):
Jeremiah Love in for a visit today. This according to
Ian Rappaport of the NFL Network, Love has visited with
three teams who have also have picks in the top ten, Cardinals,
the New York Giants, and the Tennessee Titans. You probably
know how good Jeremiah Love was at Notre Dame forty

(36:43):
two touchdowns nearly thirty five hundred yards from scrimmage, obviously
a huge reason why Notre Dame played for a national
title two seasons ago. Heisman Trophy finalists unanimous all American.
He was and is awesome, and you could have a
lot of fun thinking about what a player of that

(37:05):
caliber could do in an offense like the one the
Bengals have. I think what this comes down to, though,
is how you feel about best player versus most pressing need.
And I think I'm in the majority here where it's
usually like, take the best player, and obviously, if there's

(37:28):
other needs you have to address, trust your scouting staff
and trust your front office to be able to use
the rest of the draft to address them. I just
don't know, though, and I will admit that I'm conflicted
about this because I know how good of a player
this is. We all do, like you watch college football
last year. Hell, for what it's worth, I'm lucky enough
to have a Heisman vote. Jeremiah Love got one of

(37:49):
my three Heisman votes. Are they really in a position
where with the tenth pick they could take an offensive
skill guy? And maybe the answer is it doesn't matter.
If he's the best player available on your board, you
take him, and there's a very good chance he will

(38:11):
be We'll see where he is in relation to Caleb
Downs or Ruben Bain or Sunny Styles or any of
the other guys that have been talked about before. I
just it feels like it feels like a pick of luxury.
And I will admit that this is not the maybe
not the best or most exact lens through it to

(38:34):
look at this, But could a team that wastorically bad
on defense A afford a luxury pick with the tenth
overall selection. B Have they done enough so far this
offseason on defense to kick the can down the sidewalk
a little bit more as it relates to continuing to

(38:55):
acquire players who play on the defensive side of the ball,
I just don't know that I feel great about the
proposition of taking a running back as marvelously talented as
Jeremiah Love is. It's hard to It's hard for me
at least, and you can tell me if you disagree,

(39:15):
but it's hard for me at least to get excited
about taking her running back when it still feels like
they have so much work to do on the defensive
side of the ball. That does not ignore what they
have done so far, and the players they have acquired
so far certainly feel like they have the capability of helping.
But oh boy, I just don't know. More on that

(39:39):
later on, coming up on four o'clock. This is ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Thirty, Team thirty, Cincinnati's sports station.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
All right, THAT'SUNDS four oh four. This is ESPN fifteen
thirty on bo Laggard. Thanks so much for listening. Hopefully
you've had an awesome Monday so far and a great
Easter weekend. We're here at Twin Peaks in Westchester. It's
not foot season, it's not the Tony and Mo Football Show.
We're not making this in every Monday thing all year long,

(40:07):
although who would argue with being able to do that.
But we're broadcasting today from a Twin Peaks in Westchester.
I am stoked to announce that they are back for
their seventh season hosting the Tony and Mo Football Show,
not just this location here in Westchester, but the location
in Florence as well. We love the folks at Twin Peaks.

(40:27):
The food is great, the atmosphere is awesome, the staff
is always amazing. Great place to post up and watch
the Reds tonight Yukon and Michigan tonight for the national
title as well, and the Masters this week, which is
going to be awesome. Twin Peaks is awesome and if
you're north of town out and about maybe just getting

(40:47):
off work, stop by Twin Peaks in Westchester. We would
love to see. We are here until six o'clock. Phone
calls coming up a little bit later on. You know,
one of the things we often talk about the show
is they're being room for multiple truths, and in life
there is usually in sports there is usually With the Reds,

(41:10):
there is they cannot be dead last in the league
and runs per game. Right now they have scored, along
with the Giants, the fewest number of runs per game.
If that continues, this season's not gonna take off. But
in a small window, you are gonna have batting slums.

(41:31):
You are gonna have stretches where the long ball doesn't
show up. It showed up on Friday they hit three
of them. You're gonna have stretches where individual hitters are
going through valleys, so to speak. It could be really hard.
You gotta find a way to win ball games. And
I think the encouraging thing about the first nine games
of the season is they've won games. You know, you

(41:52):
go back to the second game of the season, they
win that one three to two. I'm sorry. Their second
win of the season They won that one three to two.
The first game against the Pirates, they won that one
to nothing. They won three games in Texas this weekend
where they scored a grand total of nine runs. Now,
this is maybe a small version and an extreme version

(42:13):
of a larger problem. This team's offensive ceiling still seems
very very low. They're gonna score more, They're probably not
gonna score a ton this year. It just it still
feels like a limited team offensively. So can they do
a more extreme version of what they did last year,
which is get very good starting pitching? So far, the
answer has been yes. Chase Burns yesterday, I really do

(42:36):
believe needed to be seen to really be totally understood.
He was electric, he was aggressive, He was not afraid
of throwing it in the zone. He was not afraid
of throwing his fastball. He's added a change up which
looked great yesterday. Chase Burns was awesome on the heels
of Rat Louder and the start that he had on Saturday.
I think what I like most about this team though,

(42:58):
through the first nine games, is they're not They're not
shrinking their margin for error. I think this is important.
Something we've talked about a Ton on this show. You know,
for years we've complained about bad base running. I know
Ellie got doubled off third base late in the game
yesterday when the Reds were trying to extend the league

(43:18):
on a line drive. I'm not sure there's much here
or anybody else could have done about that. But for
the most part, base running has been pretty good. For
the most part, they've made all the plays in the field.
There are ways at looking at a team defensively that
go beyond the error column. But I would ask this,
and maybe this answer is out there and I just

(43:38):
haven't seen it. How many nine game stretches in franchise
history have the Reds played without committing an error? What
is the longest the Reds have gone into the season
without committing an error? And there's a very good chance
that stat has been reported or shared, and maybe I
just haven't seen it, But it's also thrown to the
right base, not giving up extra bases, not making mental mistakes.

(44:00):
For the most part, this team defensively has been terrific.
You add that to the options that it feels like
Tito has in the bullpen, and it feels like this
team is pretty well equipped. Right now to be able
to win games when they're not hitting. And you know,
you could argue they did that to a degree last year,
and so we talked about there being multiple truths. This

(44:21):
team has to hit more, can't finish dead last and
run scored and expect to win big. But you are
going to have to find ways to win games when
you're not hitting, and they've done that so far. They
did that this weekend in Texas. Chase Burns yesterday was
just terrific. We will talk about the search for a
closer who's not Amelio Pagon, fair conversation to have, fair

(44:45):
conversation to have about when it's going to be time
to call up resigns and what his role should be.
I mentioned it last hour. I believe we're going to
spend all spring and most of the summer wondering who
can the Reds add at the deadline and what will
it cost. But at the very least, because they've played
clean baseball, because they do have more options in the bullpen,

(45:06):
and because the starting pitching has given this team a lift.
Without Hunter Green and without Nick Lodolo, they've at least
charged out to a pretty good start after nine games. Again,
nobody is ignoring the offensive problems this team has. You
can't get league worst production from the leadoff spot like
the Reds are getting with TJ. Friedel right now, you

(45:28):
would like to see them, when they're not hitting the
long ball, find ways to scratch out more runs than
they did yesterday and on Sunday, or yesterday and on
Saturday in Texas. But I do think this team so far,
and maybe this is sustainable not having zero errors, but
just playing a brand of ball where they don't shrink

(45:50):
the margin for error by doing dumb things on the field,
by committing base running blunders, by giving away extra outs,
by giving away extra base that on top of the
starting pitching they have and so far what has been
for the most part, and again there have been exceptions,
good relief work, you know, like there's a lot to like.

(46:14):
I think it's completely reasonable to be concerned about Amelia Opagon.
I think it is completely reasonable given the velocity dip
that we're seeing from Tony Santion, to be a little
bit concerned about that as well. But I did love
the fact that they navigated the back end of the
game with brock Burke and Connor Phillips which I don't

(46:35):
know that anybody back in February or January was talking
about that being a recipe for success in low scoring games.
Eleven minutes after four o'clock college basketball National Championship Game
is tonight, you heard the news in the top of
the hour where the North Carolina is hiring Mike Malone,
who was the coach of the Nuggets in twenty twenty

(46:56):
three when they won an NBA title. He has spent
this season doing broadcasting work for ESPN and ABC. He's
now going to be the head coach at Carolina. I
have no idea if that's gonna work. There's something to
be said about the skepticism for a dude entering college
basketball who hasn't worked in it and having to get

(47:19):
right to work with the portal opening up tomorrow. But
it's interesting and I think now like there's so many
different discussions out there about the things that played college
basketball and how it's going to have to be fixed
and people no longer having a connection to the players

(47:42):
who play for the schools they root for. And I
thought there was an excellent piece of television on Saturday
on ESPN's Game Day about where we are in college basketball.
Where things are going in college basketball, and some tweaks
to the sport that could be made, but the reality
is this, the line between pro and college basketball, just

(48:02):
like the line between pro and college football has has
never been more blurred. You know, Jay Billis on Saturday
made headlines for saying the college basketball is professional basketball,
and there's there's nothing wrong with that. That's that's what
it is. They're being paid to play a sport. That's
why they're there. It's professional basketball. It's a different version

(48:24):
of it. You know, there's there is an academic component. Uh,
there's no union, there's no collective bargaining, but you know,
it's it's professional basketball. The line between pro and college
basketball has never been more blurred, which maybe makes the
jump from the NBA to college basketball easier than it's

(48:44):
ever been. I could tell you this, if I had
a choice between coaching an NBA team coaching a college program,
especially a college program with resources, I take the college
program with pros. I don't necessarily have to gravel at
sixteen and seventeen year olds to get them to come well,

(49:07):
to want to come play for me. The GM works
for me instead of vice versa. In most instances, there's
no salary cap, there's no collective bargaining agreement. There are rules,
but not as many. Like I think i'd rather coach

(49:28):
in college. Players are staying longer right Like I've I
am more dependent on older kids than college coaches have
ever been. High school recruiting is always going to matter,
but like I, I could spend more time relating to
kids who are twenty twenty one, twenty two, twenty three

(49:49):
years old than sixteen seventeen year old kids who are
trying to pick which college they're going to go to.
I don't have the NBA's weird and I think so
somewhat restrictive contract rules. I think i'd rather coach in college,
And I wonder, like how many coaches with an option?
And I don't know if Michael Malone didn't have another

(50:10):
NBA job open up that he may have gotten. I
don't know. I just I think the general state of
the game and the things that a lot of people
use to complain about college basketball. I think if you're
at a program, going to a program that has resources
could play in your favor as opposed to the league itself.

(50:32):
Where can we make our team better in free agency. No,
we've got cap issues, we've got bad contracts, We've got
Apron rules. There's rules that are more restrictive for player
movement than we've ever had in this league, at least
since it bought into free agency decades ago. I've got
a GM that I've got to work for. I can't
make my schedule like I'd rather coach in college. Not

(50:57):
to say that right now, it's simply a better game
quota For ESPN fifteen thirty, phone calls are coming up.
We'll spend a few minutes on what nobody wants coming up,
plus Brennan and Jones on baseball later on this hour
on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
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with traffic.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
This report heodcasting today from Twin Peaks in Westchester. It
is gorgeous outside Red's and Marlins tonight, six forty first pitch,
seven hundred W Well W. Brandon Williamson looking to improve
upon his season debut National title game tonight. You can
listen to it on Fox Sports thirteen sixty. Brendanman and

(52:11):
Jones coming up in just about thirty minutes. Right now,
we'll take a phone caller two five, one, three, seven,
four nine, fifteen thirty Mike, go ahead, well start the
week with you. You're on ESPN fifteen thirty. Good afternoon, Mike,
How are you well?

Speaker 6 (52:27):
I'm very grateful, Thank you, Mom, very well, we can.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
I did thank you.

Speaker 6 (52:32):
First. I would first like to congratulate the UCLA Brulins
women's basketball team for nailing it against the Carolina Game cops.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Holy hell were they good yesterday? Uh. Corey Close is
somebody that I'm not that familiar with, but her team
was a wagon against South Carolina. It took me a
while to actually realize they actually played some basketball in
Phoenix this week, because I just thought that what happened

(53:05):
this week in Phoenix was about a handshake. I didn't
have actually played any basketball. I thought it was about
Don Staley versus Geno Oreama. But you're right, I didn't
watch the game from front to back, but UCLA yesterday,
I don't think it was a surprise that they won
the game. It felt to me like it was a
surprise that they won it as decisively as the Bruins did.

Speaker 6 (53:26):
And virtually all seniors, which is exceptionally wonderful in my opinion. Yeah, yeah,
very very very commendable. I don't see any way that
Yukon covers this spread tonight at six and a half.
And I'll tell you why. If Arizona, which was a

(53:47):
high scoring team all year, couldn't barely break seventy against Michigan,
Yukon ain't gonna break seventy. I'll tell you that right now.
I'm all in on Michigan.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
Yeah, I think for the most part, Mike, I am
as well. I think that the two things that I
wonder about our number one is Michigan. Doe for some
shooting regression. So this was a team, This was a
team that wasn't eight an extraordinarily high percentage three point
shooting team as the season unfolded. But they shot forty

(54:22):
seven percent against Saint Louis, They shot forty eight percent
against Alabama. They shot thirty seven percent against Tennessee. They
obviously were awesome from behind the arc against Arizona, shooting
forty four percent. For the season, it was about thirty
five percent. And so I do wonder like at some
point you do regress back to what you've been all

(54:44):
season long. So that could maybe open the door a
little bit for Yukon. And I think if Terris Reid
can put the the Huskies on his back, you know,
that's that's a problem. He has scored I think more
than eighteen and four of yukon five NCAA Tournament games.
He's played a ton, hasn't been in foul trouble. I

(55:05):
just I feel like they're gonna make him work harder
on defense than he's had to work so far in
this tournament. And I Michigan's front court has just been
a load. My guess is I'm with you. My guess
is they I don't necessarily think this game is gonna
be a blowout. But my guess is Michigan does cover
the number.

Speaker 6 (55:23):
Yeah, that front line. Karen Reid is gonna get a
dose of some men underneath the basket, and that's what's
gonna happen to him, Like I believe, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
And and look, they they got to get a better
game from Caraban, especially from outside. I don't know though
that like you know, Solo Ball and Braylon Mullins. I
think what they had seven combined, you're gonna need that
plus what Caraban didn't get them against Illinois. And then

(55:56):
I think Reid's gonna defend Mara, who's got like three
or four inches on him. Because of just Michigan size,
He's gonna have to guard somebody bigger, and I think
that's gonna limit his offensive productivity. Again, I think the
wild card in the game and you have to account
for it. I think in a football stadium where shooting
can be weird. Although they were awesome against Arizona, again,
they've been a thirty four to thirty five three point

(56:18):
shooting team for much of the season. They've been well
above that here in these five games in the NCAA tournament.
If it regresses a little bit, Yukon's good enough to
take advantage. I don't think they're gonna be good enough
to win the game, but maybe then there's a world
where they cover. But my wagers on Michigan covering the number.
I got it at six and a half and I'm

(56:39):
comfortable with it.

Speaker 6 (56:40):
Yeah, and I and I got Yukon. I got Yukon
under sixty eight and a half. I got him under
sixty eight and a half. They're not gonna play. They're
not gonna bust seventy. There's no way. And Solo Bo
evidently has singed.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Up with that been in a boot.

Speaker 6 (56:58):
Yeah, that's not good.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Yeah, I think I think also I think I think
also with with I think also with Yukon is like
they want to play slow. UCLA play slow, beat Michigan
State play slow, Yukon beat them Duke in Illinois. Like
we're talking about four teams here who are right around

(57:23):
three hundredth and adjusted tempo in some cases above three hundred.
Michigan is twenty second. So maybe they don't play at
a racetrack pace, but they play fast, and I just
I think it's personnel. It's a tough matchup. Tempo, it's
a tough matchup. Size, it's a tough matchup. I don't
really see getting to the free throw line. It's a
tough matchup. I like Dan Hurley too. Yukon's on the

(57:48):
verge of being a modern day college basketball at Dynasty.
I just don't know in this game what plays in
Yukon's favor.

Speaker 6 (57:57):
Yeah, I only either I own Danny's gonna need to
have some of his magic, but I don't. I don't
think it's gonna work tonight. Hey, I wanted to ask
you this. I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
I'm bad.

Speaker 6 (58:12):
I'm sorry. I didn't see any big video of this
Connor Griffin with the Pirates until the other day. Man,
this guy looks like a linebacker. You see the size
of his guns and his four arm. I mean, this
guy is huge.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Mo six foot three, two hundred and twenty two pounds.
Is that all you had to say about that? Mike? No,
I love Mike, Mike, Mike hung out. Oh there he is,
go ahead. Sorry, No, I lost it for a second.

Speaker 6 (58:48):
Yeah, his arms were I saw him in the interview.
I was like, damn, is this a football player or what?
He looks Jack, Hey, I think you're what are we.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Going to do.

Speaker 6 (58:59):
About this?

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Well with the Reds, Well, I think number one, they've
they've got to get they've got to get more production
from the top of the order, right, I mean, I
think that kind of goes without saying that the bottom
of the order. And I haven't done this, I know.
I we talked about it on Friday. The first six games,
the bottom of the order was nine for eighty one.

(59:23):
I don't have in front of me what they've been since,
or what they've been for the entire season, or what
they've been in relation to the rest of the league.
I think this is an extreme example. Like if you're
I believe, for the most part, if you're a low ceiling.
If you have a low ceiling in any one area,
then you have a pretty low floor. So chances are

(59:47):
this is not going to be an elite offense. So
then when you go through hitting struggles, it gets exacerbated.
You know, Like right now, the only guy that you
would say is having a h ends it's very early, obviously,
is Sal Stewart. Ellie has hit the ball out of
the ballpark, which is refreshing, but there's not been a

(01:00:07):
lot of meat on the bone. Beyond that, he still
strikes out a ton. Matt McLean's overall production hasn't been there. TJ.
Friedel has been frankly abysmal. Noelve Marte has been abysmal.
Spencer Steer the home run on Friday not with Standing
has been abysmal. Tyler Stevenson the home run on Friday

(01:00:27):
not with Standing has been poor. Like it's a low
ceiling offensive team. It's like years ago when the Reds
had a really good lineup. I remember somebody calling the
show to complain about Zach Cozart's production in the eighth spot,
and I remember saying, like, if Zach Cozart goes through

(01:00:49):
a slump, you know, let's say, over the course of
a month, he has a bad month, he hits one fifty.
If Joey Vado has a bad month, he hits two
fifty because Joey Evado's better hitter. And I think the
same principal lies to teams. If the Dodgers, with their lineup,
goes through an offensive slump, they're scoring more than twenty
six runs in nine games. If the Reds go through

(01:01:12):
a collective offensive slump, they scored nine runs or they
score twenty six runs in nine games. The good news
is they've won six of the nine, but the rate
at which they're scoring less than three runs per game
is not sustainable. What you're hoping for is lle catches fire,
McClain catches fire, Friedo gets on base a little bit more,

(01:01:33):
and somebody in the back half of the batting order
ends up going through a run of productivity. In the
absence of all that, the offense is probably gonna look
like it's looked over the first nine games.

Speaker 6 (01:01:45):
Can you believe I've heard this over the years. I
know you got to go. Do you believe in this
conjecture that sometimes as the season goes on, if the
pitching is really good and the hitting is really bad.
It developed some consternation in the dugout amongst the team.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Human nature, how would it not right? Like we did
this with the Bengals this year. We did this with
the Bengals this year. Great offense, terrible defense, Like at
some point, you know, at some point human nature dictates
the guys on offense look at the dudes on defense,
and with an amount of resentment or something and so

(01:02:28):
and again it's nine games Like, if this is a
nine game stretch in June, you go, Okay, they're not hitting,
but they won six out of the nine. They've got
to hit a little bit more. I view this a
little bit more glass full or glass half full. They've
survived the first nine games of the season without two
guys who are supposed to be at the top of
the rotation. It looks like they're capable of playing cleaner baseball,

(01:02:50):
and they have found ways to win close games, found
a way to win an extra inning game, found way
to win you know, games where they're not hitting all
that much, that's good. But yeah, man, offensively, they're gonna
have to hit more. And sure, human nature would dictate
if you go through a full season where you're asking
the pitchers to do too much because the guys with

(01:03:13):
the bat, I mean, the thing is like, they're not
two separate units. So if you're a pitcher pissed off
at your lack of production, well, those guys are still
making place for you in the field. But sure, if
you're on a team that has great pitching and they're
not hitting and there's a limit to what your team
overall can do. At some point, if you're a pitcher.
You can't help, but look at the guys who are
supposed to be providing run support with a side eye,

(01:03:36):
so to speak.

Speaker 6 (01:03:37):
Yeah, and my buddy called me from Tampa today and
they got that new roof on there. You know, they
made that roof in Germany that got blown off in
the hurricanes. They skipped it to China for the finishing touches,
then brought it back to Tampa. And they did this
all within a year. Mom, It's incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
The hurricane knocked it off. The hurricane knocked it off
with that was October of twenty four. Yeah, and they
got it completed. It was completed like in November and December.

Speaker 6 (01:04:08):
Yeah, and they're ready to go and they redid the
whole stadium. My buddy sent me pictures. It looks fabulous.
So anyway, if you're down in Tampa, go to the game.
Calcu later.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Thanks well, all right, like thanks? Twenty eight away from
five o'clock sports headlines are next where twin peaks in
Westchester on ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
Cincinnati Sports Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Traffic from the.

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Tonight first of four in Miami for Cincinnati Brandon Williamson
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(01:05:36):
the game live on seven hundred w wel W your
unsponsored red starting line of for tonight Are you ready
to get out your scorecards and your pencils. Fredo's and center,
McLean's at second, Ellie's at short, Stewart's at first, Suarez
is dhing, Spencer Steers and left field, Will Benson's in center,

(01:05:57):
Tyler Stevenson is catching, and Key Bryant and Hayes is
playing third base again six forty tonight on seven hundred WLWD,
Bengals bringing in Notre Dame running back Jeremiah Love for
a pre draft visit today. According to NFL Networks Ian Rappaport,
college basketball Michael Malone is being hired as the new
head coach at North Carolina. Malone won an NBA title

(01:06:19):
with the Nuggets in twenty twenty three. Meanwhile, either Dan
Hurley or Dusty Mabel win a college basketball title tonight
as U contakes on Michigan tip off at ten till
nine tonight on Fox Sports thirteen sixty. I would imagine
that soon after the NCAA Tournament title game ends, we

(01:06:41):
will get confirmation of something that was reported last week,
which is, and I know this is a sports talk
radio go to to the point of cliche, expansion of
the NCAA Tournament. According to Ross Dellinger late last week

(01:07:03):
Yahoo Sports. The men's and women's tournaments are expected to
grow from sixty eight to seventy six teams in the
near future, perhaps as soon as next year. According or
under the proposed format expansion, gonna add eight additional teams
to the current first four structure, so instead of there

(01:07:24):
being four play in matchups, there'll be twenty four teams
that will compete in a new opening round with twelve
games played before the traditional first round begins. Dayton will
remain a site, and apparently the latter another site to it, which,
logistically speaking, you would have to Here's my question. With

(01:07:46):
the exception of college football and college football playoff expansion,
I think has been okay. It's not perfect. I don't
think it needs to be expanded to sixteen, twenty four
or thirty two, though it feels like that will happen
at some point, expansion to the from the current field

(01:08:06):
to something at some point. But I think it's been
a net plus. And there's conference title games don't mean
as much, and there are some regular season games that
maybe don't have as much meaning, but the regular season
is still meaningful. There is still a level of exclusivity

(01:08:27):
with the twelve team field, you have to have an
excellent season. The regular season still matters a lot. Those
games still feel big, and I feel like every fan
of at least a power for school feels like their
team has access, legitimate access to the championship. So I'll say,
with the exception of college football, has there been a

(01:08:50):
sport that has expanded its postseason where it's worked, or
where it's made you feel like the postseason product is better,
or where it hasn't watered down the regular season. The
NFL expanded the postseason field a few years ago to
seven teams per conference. Now, I'm not talking about this
from the perspective of, well, your team got in as

(01:09:12):
a seven and wouldn't have gotten in as a six,
and so it worked for you. As a general rule,
Has that given us more good playoff games? Has it
given us more good playoff teams? Has it not watered
down a little bit the regular season? It has watered
down the regular season. It hasn't given us a ton

(01:09:33):
more great playoff games. It's fun that first weekend when
there are six wildcard games. I'm the first to admit
that I kind of like the Saturday through Monday structure
because you get three days of NFL playoff games. But
I feel like, for the most part, most NFL fans,
myself included, have reacted to there being one more playoff
game per conference with a shoulder shrug. With baseball, we've

(01:09:59):
added a playoff now, I know, because they added a
playoff team. The Reds got to make it last year,
so now we have more playoff teams, we have more
playoff series. Baseball playoff games used to feel special. Now
those early round games feel like an extension of the
regular season. The Reds played in the first round last
year against the Dodgers. Do those really feel like playoff games?

(01:10:23):
The water seasons more water, the regular seasons more water down.
We have eighty three win teams making the playoffs. There's
not a lot of special to that has expansion of
the baseball playoffs made things better. The NBA hasn't technically
expanded the postseason or the playoffs, but they have expanded
the postseason because of the play in tournament. Now there's

(01:10:44):
a part of me that does like the fact that
we advance automatically to what are close to elimination games.
In the first game of the play in tournament, but
are there many great play in tournament games that you
can remember? Hasn't made the regular season feel more special.
Regular season in the NBA, everybody agrees, is too long.
The league has a huge tanking problem. Adding postseason teams

(01:11:07):
hasn't solved that by any stretch. We're not adding more
good teams to the postseason. Is there a sport? And
I think with the exception of college football, you could
say this, is there a sport? We're expanding the postseason
has made things better. I don't think the answer is yes.
Baseball fans don't seem to love six teams per league.

(01:11:29):
Regular season does feel watered down. I don't know what
the ratings are for those added postseason games, but it
doesn't feel like they really capture the country's attention. NFL
playoff expansion seems to be met with a shoulder shrug.
NBA postseason expansion hasn't extinguished that league's issues. I feel
like the same is gonna happen in college basketball. We're

(01:11:50):
gonna make the regular season less meaningful. We're gonna have teams,
and I hate to say this, We're gonna have teams
that have the profile of this past season's UC team
making the NCAA Tournament. I love the Bearcats more than anybody,
but come on, come on, there's no doubt in anybody's
mind that these added playoff or added postseason, added tournament

(01:12:13):
spots are going to go to relatively underachieving high major teams.
I just like we've expanded the postseason nearly everywhere. I guess,
with the exception of the NHL, we've expanded the postseason
nearly everywhere. And again, I think college football so far
it's worked. It does not need to be expanded more.
I feel like, in no case beyond that, and no

(01:12:34):
instance has it made the league, or the sport or
the fan experience dramatically better. A quarter to five ESPN
fifteen thirty, You're welcome the chime in at five, one, three, seven, four, nine,
fifteen thirty. I will use the analogy I brought up
earlier when it comes to the Reds and their offensive struggles,
which they are winning through. Coming up at five oh
five on ESPN fifteen thirty. Cincinnati Sports Station CINCINNATI'SES fifteen thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center considered becoming a
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Slash transplant good news seventy one north after two seventy
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(01:13:23):
Smith Edwards and nor Wood lad All that crash now
cleared as well. We do have two seventy five after
Montgomery on the westbound side accident. Here is off on
the right shoulder by Rick Shremp with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
Austin Reeves got hurt. Luka Danci is just going to
Europe to figure out what's wrong with his hamstring. Mike
Trout got hurt again. Nicolodolo's got a blister, Solo Ball's
got a walking boot. There you go. Where's your answers?
Anything on this show that you may have missed, Anything

(01:13:55):
on this show that you heard and were like, damn,
that was good, that was amazing. I want to hear
it again. Well, the good news is we record everything.
Sometimes the bad news is we record everything. So you know,
it used to be in this business when you made
a mistake or you did something that maybe you regretted,
it just it went away now now we just we
put it all up forever for posterity on the iHeartRadio app.

(01:14:18):
Could also go to my page at ESPN fifteen thirty
dot com. I enjoyed immensely chatting in Indianapolis last week
with Jared Calhoun as we talked about the schedule, the portal,
some of the things that you know he's walked away
from with impressions of the program with the job is
first week or so. Excuse me. We talked last Wednesday.

(01:14:38):
If you missed that conversation, it is available belt free
on the iHeartRadio app. Also chatted with Trey Carroll, the
Xavier and four now former Xavier musketeer. He was in
Indianapolis last week. Jake Diebler, the head basketball coach at
Ohio State, also in Indie. We talked with him and
so much more any of that you may have missed.

(01:14:58):
We had Steve Cangelosi from Apple TV to talk about
FC Cincinnati, which I don't think did anything on Saturday
in New York against Red Bull New York to make
anybody feel any better about the way the season has
started so far, losing foward to in Harrison, New Jersey,

(01:15:23):
to New York. Steve's interview was a terrific As always,
That and so much more available on the iHeartRadio app.
Podcasts of this show are a service of Long Neck's
Sports Grilled. The Reds had a great weekend in Arlington,
right by Jerry World. Three very well pitched games, three
games where the Rats got good starting pitching and good

(01:15:44):
relief work. A start yesterday from Chase Burns, which was terrific.
Are they playing with fire by not scoring a ton
of runs? We'll spend some time on that a little
bit later on. And when you watch college basketball, there's
something that you may have noticed that I have. We'll
get to that coming up in the five o'clock hour.

(01:16:04):
And Bengals are gonna have an interesting question when it
comes to the tenth overall pick in the draft. We'll
get to what the answer should be coming up as well.
But right now here at Twin Peaks in Westchester, it's
time for Breniman and Jones on baseball golf. Weather is
ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati's sports station. And there you go.

(01:16:25):
It's three minutes after five o'clock. This is ESPN fifteen
thirty out O Edgar, thanks so much, for listening today. Hopefully, Hey,
you had a great weekend, be you had an awesome Easter,
and see your week is off to a terrific start.
We are broadcasting today from Twin Peaks in Westchester at
the home for one of the two homes of the
Tony Moo Football Show, back again this fall for year

(01:16:47):
number seven. It's obviously not fall, it's not the Tony
and Mo Football Show, but we love coming out here
occasionally during the course of the calendar, and we're here
at the Westchester location till six o'clock. If you're looking
for a place for tonight Reds game, National Championship game.
Maybe this weekend the Masters, great food, awesome beer selection,

(01:17:09):
great bourbon selection, terrific staff. It's a gorgeous day outside,
so you want to be out and about you're in
the north part of Cincinnati, stop by Twin Peaks in Westchester.
If not today, maybe tonight. If not tonight, maybe some
point this week or this coming weekend. This past weekend
a great one for the Reds. They sweep the Texas Rangers.

(01:17:29):
They win close games, they win low scoring games. They
win games, three of them in Arlington, where they scored
a grand total of nine runs. They're dead last. The
Reds are in runs scored, yet they have a six
and three record, headed to Miami for the first of
four against the Marlins tonight. This is really good, and

(01:17:52):
it's really good from a handful of different perspectives. Start
with Chase Burns yesterday, Well, it's easy to do what
a lot of us have done. And I'm raising my hand,
which is to dwell on his relative lack of experience.
But so far, the first two starts he has made,
God doesn't look like a dude lacking an experience. He

(01:18:12):
attacks hitters, he obviously has great velocity. He's tossed in
a change up. He was terrific. He's been awesome in
his first two starts. Ret Louder terrific on Saturday. What
I loved about both outings is both guys pitched without
a ton of run support. It's the starting pitching, it's

(01:18:34):
the relief pitching. It's the depth of relief pitching. Yesterday,
they don't have a meli opagun available. They don't have
Tony Santina available, they don't have Graham Ashcraft available. I
don't know if you really want to make the argument
right now, that those are the Reds best three relievers.
But how many times in recent history would you feel
comfortable with the Reds winning a game, a close game,

(01:18:57):
a low scoring game, when they didn't have arguably their
best three relief pitchers available. They did it yesterday. Chase
Burns obviously set the tone. Connor Phillips had a lot
to do with it. Obviously using a brock Berk in
the ninth inning had a lot to do with it.
It feels like they have more bullpen options. They are
not widening, or I should say, shrinking their margin for error.

(01:19:23):
I talk about this all the time, perhaps to the
point of annoyance the Reds in recent years. How often
have we talked about them shrinking their own margin for
error because of defense, or because of mental miscues, or
because of base running mistakes. This weekend it felt like
they widen their margin for error. They haven't made an error,

(01:19:46):
an actual physical miscue in nine games. But it's not
just that. Like the play that Sal Stewart makes where
he gets Animo out at at second base on a
ball that was kind of hitt in no man's land,
that the Wyatt Langford bloop where he can't get it

(01:20:07):
mclan can't get it, and Stuart very alertly picks up
the ball, throws it to second. They get the force
or base running where this weekend, you know, it's not
just stolen bases, but it's Ellie having the ability to
out tag up on a fly ball in the fourth inning,
putting himself in scoring position, right. Stuff like that. It's

(01:20:27):
Matt McClain stealing second after walking to lead off the
eighth inning, setting him up to score like there's little
ball or doing the little things however you want to
put it. This team this weekend did it. This team
this weekend won three games where offensively they were obviously
not at their best. Is it's not a great prescription

(01:20:50):
for success scoring nine games in a weekend series. You're
not gonna sweep many of those. You're not gonna win
many of those. But they have a lead. Least widen
their margin for air a little bit by having more
relief options, by playing clean baseball, by not making mistakes
in the field, by not making huge blunders on the

(01:21:11):
base paths, by being opportunistic on the base pass. Those
things can be sustainable. We could talk about how sustainable
it is to win six out of nine and only
score twenty six runs. We could talk about the sustainability
of Chase Burns looking as good as he's looked in
his first two starts. We could talk about the sustainability

(01:21:32):
of a rotation where right now you have three guys
who are very short on experience, But what can be sustainable?
And look, they're gonna make errors. You can tolerate physical errors.
But if you watch this team over the first nine games,
it's felt like mentally, it's felt like they've been in
every play, had their collective heads in the game and
every play. As little eagy as that might sound, they

(01:21:53):
haven't done anything. They've been no big brain farts in
the field or on the base pass. Sometimes great defense
isn't measured solely by the error comm Sometimes it's making
a play like the one that Sal Stewart made forcing
the guy at second yesterday. Sometimes great base running isn't
necessarily measured by the stolen base column. But it's taking
an extra bag when you can get it, and it's
not giving up more outs on the base paths than

(01:22:14):
you need to. It's not crossing the line that exists
between aggressiveness and stupidity. Those things can carry over. Those
things are sustainable. Those things are what allow you to
win when offensively you're not at your best. This team
is not at its best offensively. This is gonna sound harsh.
This is a low ceiling offensive team. Let's be honest.

(01:22:37):
When the season started, which was just a week and
a half ago, none of us talked about this team
leading the league in runs scored, leading the division in
runs scored, being overwhelmingly better than it was last season.
There were things that we've hoped for. Better production for
Matt McClain, a healthy and more productive season from Elie

(01:22:58):
de la Cruz, a Rookie of the Year caliber season
which right now we can check that box. From Sal Stewart,
Gino Suarez hitting thirty five to forty home runs. But
I think most of us looked at the overall roster construction.
Most of us looked at the overall line of construction
and said they should be better offensively. They're probably not
going to be great. When you're not great, your slumps

(01:23:22):
are worse than the slumps of a team that is great.
I talked about this a little bit last hour. Take
take an eighth place hitter and compare his slumps to
a third place hitter. I used the example before that.
Years ago, I got a phone call from somebody who
was upset at the time at Zach Cozard's lack of
productivity because for like a month stretch he was batting

(01:23:43):
like a buck twenty five. And I'm like, look, that's
an example of a not great hitter. Nothing against Zach,
not great hitter going through a slump. It looks different
than when a great hitter like Joey Vado goes through
a slump. It just does. Joey has a bad month,
he bats two forty. A guy hitting eighth has a
bad month bats one twenty. That's an extreme example, but
it's but it's an example. It's an example I think

(01:24:05):
that we can apply to this team. When the LA
Dodgers have a bad month, it's gonna look different than
when the Reds offensively have a bad month. Maybe we
could say the same about the Chicago Cups. Maybe we
could say the same about the Milwaukee Brewers. The question
coming into the season was and it still is there.
It's only been nine games. When they go through those
stretches where they don't hit, when they go through those

(01:24:27):
periods where maybe the long ball dries Up, which it
was cool to see him hit three on Friday when
they've got guys who simply are not hitting. And if
you look at this team right now, with the exception
of Sal Stewart, pretty much nobody is hitting. Can you
figure out ways to still win games? Can you figure
out ways to still win games because you have high
end starting pitching? This weekend, the answer was yes. Can

(01:24:49):
you figure out ways to win games because you're not
giving up extra outs, you're not making bone headed plays
in the field, You're not shrinking your own margin for
era on defense this week? This week, the answers were yes.
Can they win games by nifty base running, taking an
extra base when it presents itself, putting a little bit
more pressure on the defense, doing things that you might

(01:25:10):
not be as willing to do when everybody is hitting.
They did those things this weekend. The question is when
will things get better offensively? What will it look like
when it does, And are there some early season performances
that raise a red flag? I think to a degree
there's a handful of them. Noelve Marte struggles would be one. TJ.

(01:25:34):
Friedel's struggles would be one. Matt McClain struggles would be one.
Now we are exceptionally early in the season. Tonight is
game number ten, but you see the start that resigns
is off to a Louisville. You heard the relatively lukewarm

(01:25:58):
endorsement of Noel Marte this spring from Terry Francona. You
watched Matt McClain last season. You understand that the Reds
need better production from the leadoff spot. You do wonder
what the team is currently constructed. How much longer is
this team offensively going to be allowed to struggle the
way they are before somebody says, okay, like we got

(01:26:21):
to do something different. You also, and I joked about
this at this time last year, You also can't help
but wonder which names will we be talking about? Maybe
the Reds going and getting at the trade deadline this
year again, man, Like, they're not a less than three
runs a game team. They've scored twenty six runs in

(01:26:42):
nine games. They've won games to nothing, they've been shut out,
to be fair, early in the season, you get Paul
Skeins and you get Garrett Crochet Like that's not gonna help,
but still it is a relatively low ceiling offensive team.
And what has happened with this team offensively over the
first nine games, I think is an extreme example of

(01:27:03):
what this team can be when it's not at its best.
Number one, how long will that continue? Forward? Number two?
Are they gonna be okay until guys' bats wake up?
And if the answer is yes, chances are it's gonna
be yes because the starting pitching continues to be as
good as it's been, because the bullpen work continues to be,
for the most part, as good as it's been, and

(01:27:25):
because they continue to make the plays they need to
make in the field. On defense Number three, like, what
are they gonna do to make this offense better? And
in the short term, I guess those answers are more
likely to come from within, But long term, for a
team that I think most of us agreed months ago
needed more than just a Juhanio Suarez and Jay J.

(01:27:45):
Bleday who obviously hasn't played in a big league game
yet and Dane Myers, what move? What move do they
need to make? What move will they make? And by
the way, will those two antswer be the same because
at the trade deadline last year they weren't. But at
the very least, I'd rather talk about how a team

(01:28:07):
has overcome some of its own deficiencies than why a
team is being sunk by some of its own deficiencies.
And this weekend this team overcame its deficiency. They scored
nine runs in three games they won each of them.
Great defense, great bullpen work, pretty smart managing, some excellent

(01:28:27):
starting pitching. Very good start to the season, despite the
fact that the start of the season offensively hasn't been
what we were hoping for. A quarter after five on
ESPN fifteen thirty, We've got the Reds in Marlins tonight,
first of a four game series with a Brandon Williamson
whose first start of the season against Pittsburgh last week
did not go well. Can that change tonight? And can

(01:28:49):
one of these hitters have their bats wake up? In Miami?
We have the college basketball National Championship game this evening
Yukon and Michigan to discuss. I don't know that we
have to spend any more time on handshake gate. I'm
always amused. I'm always amused when a seemingly stupid story
dominates the conversation. That happened in women's college basketball this weekend.

(01:29:13):
And we've got the Bengals bringing in Jeremiah Love for
a visit today, the outstanding running back from a Notre Dame.
And in a world we talk all the time about
the world of multiple truths, and like there's multiple truths
that we could use, and talking about Jeremiah Love and
the Bengals as well. We'll get to that a little
bit later. On sixteen minutes after five o'clock, you can
send a tweet to the show at Moeger thanks to

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Is ZESPN fifteen thirty moegg or at Twin Peaks in Westchester.
We are here until six o'clock. By the way, We're
back here one more time this spring, the Friday of
the NFL Draft, which will be the twenty fourth of April.
Three weeks from this two weeks from this Friday. Two
weeks from this Friday here at to Twin Peaks in Westchester,

(01:30:49):
looking forward to that. Then back for the Tony and
Mo Football Show later on this September, splitting our time,
of course between the Westchester location and Florence location. Five
point three seven four nine, fifteen thirty and eight six
six seven oh two three seven seven six are our
phone numbers. More on the Reds coming up in just

(01:31:12):
a bit. The college basketball national title game is tonight.
Uh this after a dud of a second game between
Michigan and Arizona that so many of us were looking
forward to. There's obviously and we've engaged in some of them.
Some very good discussions to be had about the state

(01:31:34):
of college sports. And I know there was an executive
order from the President of the United States last week
aimed at, you know, putting a limit on transfers and
reigning in nil collectives, and there's a lot of things
that could be said about some of the things that
he pushed for in in his executive order. Every time

(01:31:55):
I watch one of these discussions though, about why the
sport is broken, like and I know this is not
the first time I've talked about this, but I think
of the TV ratings. TV ratings for the tournament have
been awesome. Last year was the most watched Final Four
in decades. The selection show this year was the most

(01:32:16):
watched in fourteen years. One might argue that, well, gambling
has a lot to do with that, and there's merit
to that suggestion. But every time I hear that college
basketball is broken, I go, well, fans do seem to
like this version of it, because viewership ratings tell the
viewership numbers tell the story. Ratings and revenue is key.

(01:32:39):
It's interesting, though you watch like college basketball, and I
was thinking about this in the Final Four on Saturday.
If you watch these teams during a timeout or you
watch them when they take the floor, college basketball staffs
have never been bigger, like so there's more than there

(01:33:01):
used to be, where it was a coach, couple of assistants,
maybe a trainer, maybe a video person. Now it's like
you watch some of these staffs and you can't help
but wonder, like, what do all of them do? I
went to a game this season at Udi Arena where
Dayton played Saint Bonaventure, not exactly a blue blood, not

(01:33:21):
exactly like they were playing North Carolina or Kentucky, and
there wasn't enough seating in the bench area for all
the people that Saint Bonaventure had on staff. And I'm
sure some of them were students, but not all of them.
So you have, like in college basketball itself, coach's salaries
are through the roof, which awesome. I'm here for it.

(01:33:42):
Get what you can get. More jobs are being created,
there's more money funneling through these programs than ever before.
Nobody has seen their earnings get cut. Everybody's making money.
TV ratings are through the roof. Individual conferences are getting
massive television contracts. Oh and the labor is getting paid

(01:34:04):
as well, and fans are watching at record numbers. So
who is this broken for, Like something's broken if like
jobs are drying up or there's no money out there,
people are getting laid off into sport like baseball's got
a lockout problem, and lockout's coming in December. The thing
that I hate most about it, aside from just not

(01:34:24):
being able to watch baseball next year maybe is the
owners are gonna be fine. Players for the most part,
are gonna be fine folks working at for baseball teams
and sales and marketing and social media and scouting and
areas that are sort of not front facing, they're gonna pay.
They're gonna pay the freight. They're gonna pay the freight

(01:34:44):
with their jobs, maybe by getting furloughed that sort of
thing that's not happening in college basketball. So, like I
read and hear all the yelling and screaming about how
this has got to be fixed. And this is not
a political statement at all, because again, like what was
in the president executive order, a lot of it is
I think pretty basic common sense stuff that would be
great if they were a part of college sports, and

(01:35:06):
hopefully down the road will be But every time I
hear that it's broken, I bring up the TV ratings
and the attendance, and a lot of folks don't like that,
so I'll add to it, like everybody in the sport
seems to be making money. Jobs are being created, the
labor is being paid, owned by the way. Fans seem

(01:35:26):
to like this version of college hoops college football. So again,
who's it broken for? It may require a little bit
more work for you and I as fans to follow
which players are on our favorite team, and it's a
little bit more difficult to establish a connection with players
who aren't there for three, four or five years at
a time, Like I understand that, I actually kind of

(01:35:46):
agree with that. But if it's so busted and so broken,
like usually when a league is broken, teams aren't making
money in college basketball, who's not making money? Because it
feels like everybody is. And as the people in the
sport make money, fans of it are tuning in at
a record pace. Twenty eight after five o'clock, five, one, three, seven, four, nine,

(01:36:10):
fifteen thirty is our phone number. Threads do not yet
have a surplus, but they may that coming up. After
sports headlines, We're here at Twin Peaks in Westchester on
ESPN fifteen thirty. Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 1 (01:36:26):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic from.

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The UC Health Traffic Center. Considered becoming a living kidney
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(01:36:52):
east after read Hartman. The left shoulder bicked with a
crash and DeLay's the boss teller and on State Route
four Dixie Highway at Maullhauser that overturns semi still being
cleaned up. And we have the sow downside Harrison between
Hamilton Cleaves and Miami River Road because of structure fire.
My brick shrimp with traffic.

Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 2 (01:37:16):
Sports Headlines are a service of Kelsey sherver Lay, Home
of lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from their
family to yours for life. Kelseyshev dot com Redsendmarlins tonight
in Miami. First of four six forty is Tonight's first
pitch on seven hundred WLW Cincinnati coming off a three

(01:37:39):
game weekend sweep of the Texas Rangers. Brandon Williamson and
Jansen Junk on the hill this evening night game tonight Tomorrow,
and Wednesday day game on Thursday, before the Reds come
home to play the Angels on Friday night. Your starting
lineup for this evening Are you ready? Are you excited?
Do you have out your scorecard? Do you have out

(01:38:00):
your pencil? Here it is stand by Fredol's in center
field leading off, Matt McLean's in second base. Elie de
la Cruz is playing shortstop and batting third, Sal Stewart
at first you Hediosuarez is dhing. Spencer Steers and left
field batting sixth. Will Benson and Wright, Tyler Stevenson and
key Brian Hayes round out the Reds batting order. College

(01:38:23):
basketball News according to twenty four to seven Sports, and
there will be others. Seannabayev is hitting the transfer portal
and now likely to leave the University of Cincinnati after
one season. I was thinking about this this morning, not
so much because of Sean, but Michigan plays for a
national title that they are favored to win tonight. Cincinnati

(01:38:45):
beat Michigan in an exhibition game back in mid October,
and they won that game. The Bearcats did one hundred
to ninety eight, and that game was streamed. I'm not
sure if it was on television, but i remember streaming
it because U S football was in Oklahoma City in
that Friday night, sitting in my hotel room watching the
Bearcats play against Michigan. It was awesome that they won

(01:39:07):
that game. It was encouraging that they won that game.
But the guy who stood out more than anybody else
was Shawnabayev, who scored fifteen points. He made three threes,
and he looked as good as advertised, and he looked
to a degree, exactly like the kind of scorer, the
kind of offensive player of the Bearcats have been lacking

(01:39:28):
for quite a while. Unfortunately, his performance in a game
that did not count may have been the high point
of Shawn Abiah's freshman season of college basketball because as
the season unfolded and there were injury issues on availability issues,
but as the season unfolded, he ended up having more

(01:39:48):
turnovers than three point field goals made and by the
end of the year. In fact, I remember they played
a game he missed about a month, and he was
active for UC's last home game against Oklahoma State, and
I remember when he got into the game thinking to myself,

(01:40:11):
Oh yeah him. A disappointment. Was a disappointing season for
UC basketball, top to bottom. And that goes without saying.
If not Wes Miller wouldn't have got let go. But
I don't know if there's a player on the team,
and I certainly hope for the best for him that
I hate to say. This was more underwhelming than Seanabayev. A.

(01:40:31):
Shot selection was an issue, Obviously, shot making was an issue,
and for the most part, a relative inability to impact
the game on the offensive on the offensive end in
any other way seemed to litter his would soon to
be his one season as a UC Bearcat. Anyway, he's
mid to hit the portal. There will be others it

(01:40:53):
opens tomorrow. When I say there will be others, I
mean more Bearcat players. The player who seems to be
being talked about most frequently in terms of likelihood of
staying is Keishawn Tillery. Who it was it was notable
that he was at Jared Calhoun's introductory press conference. We

(01:41:16):
will see mentioned the title game tonight, Michigan taking on
yukon radio coverage on Fox Sports thirteen sixty. The game
is going to tip off at eight fifty. A couple
of years ago, the NCAA moved the tip off of
the title game from nine to twenty, which it's been
nine to twenty. It was nine to twenty when I
was a kid. And I can tell you this because
I remember being eight years old spring break of nineteen

(01:41:43):
eighty six, visiting my grandparents and watching the Duke Louisville
National title game, which Louisville won with Purvis Ellison and
my grandfather rooting for Duke because he couldn't stand Louisville.
I was a UK fan, and I remember it being
a big deal that I was being allowed to stay

(01:42:05):
up past eleven o'clock to see the conclusion of a
game that started after nine o'clock. So, and then you
get a little bit older, and admittedly like I'm at
night owl, but a nine to twenty tip off time
when the overwhelming majority of people in this country live
in either the Eastern or Central time zones, It's be honest,

(01:42:27):
didn't make a lot of sense. And I know it's
a college basketball game, so it's supposed to be two hours,
but nine to twenty tip offs relative to when World
Series games begin or NBA Final games begin, that never
made a lot of sense. So two years ago, I think,
is when they moved it to eight fifty. And again
I say this as an admitted night owl. Eight fifty
seems late, So when will they move it to eight twenty?

(01:42:49):
That's the question. Nonetheless, eight to fifty tonight, Michigan and
Yukon on Fox Sports thirteen sixty. You don't have to
ignore the Reds offensive issues, and you don't have to
dwell on them. I think, like it is so early,
and you know that, and I know that, and it's
so redundant to say it's nine games. If the Reds

(01:43:12):
go through a nine game stretch in July where they
score twenty six runs and win six of them, like
I think we're doing cartwheels. I do think, however, it
is fair to wonder what is this team going to
be offensively, because we still don't know. They could have
scored eighty six runs in nine games, and I think
we would say that's an outlier as well. I think

(01:43:33):
it is fair to wonder what are these guys going
to be offensively? I think most of us assume they're
gonna hit more home runs. It was cool on Friday
to see them win a game where they needed a
long ball hit three of them. Stevenson with the big
blow in the ninth inning helped them get that series
in Texas. Off to a good start. But like, we
don't know, we don't know what they're going to be.

(01:43:54):
We don't know who's gonna have a great year, who's
gonna have a down season, who's gonna have a surprising season.
But if you were hoping, the answers would be they're
going to be better than expected. The first nine games
is not very encouraging in that regard. What I think
has been encouraging is, like, I think the way they've played,

(01:44:15):
the way they've played in the field, the way they've
run the bases, the way they've deployed the relief pitchers,
the starting pitching they're getting, Like Chase Parks is not
going to be as good as he's been in his
first two games, But I think these first two starts
have been an extreme example of what he can be,
and I think the fact that this team looks so
much more buttoned up defensively. They will make errors, they'll

(01:44:36):
make physical errors, there may be some mental errors. But
for the first nine games, I think what has come
to define this team for nine games, this team this
year has been playing clean baseball, not giving up outs
in the field, not giving up extra bases, being a
little bit more aggressive on the bays pass, being smart
on the bass pass that and having more options in

(01:44:57):
the bullpen. You go into a game where you're not
gonna have Pegan I'm on Santia or Ashcraft and figure
out a way to win a close, low scoring game.
That is a really good sign. Now you're waiting for
the offense to come, and you're wondering when is the
offense gonna come, And you're wondering, like if it doesn't come,
who's not going to come? At the expense of Euhaneus

(01:45:18):
Wuarez is going nowhere, and Sal Stewart was the one
guy who is hitting is obviously not going anywhere, and
Elie de mccruz is not going anywhere. How long is
the leash for Noelve Marte? A question we asked two
weeks ago, how long is the leash as the leadoff
hitter for TJ. Friedel, How long is the leash for
Matt McClain, And what level of defense do you have

(01:45:43):
to get from Key Brian Hayes before you go like, dude,
I need somebody who's not an offensive zero at third base.
We don't know what this team is going to be offensively.
We could have said that two weeks ago, we could
say it now, but the early returns offensively aren't great,
even if the record so far is pretty damn good.

(01:46:05):
Sixteen away from six o'clock at Mulager On Twitter, this
is ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

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Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

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Considered becoming a living kidney donor during Donate Life Monthly
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two seventy five east after read Hartman the left shoulder

(01:46:40):
box with a crash and DeLay's the Boss Teller and
on State Round four Dixie Highway at Mallhouser that overturns
semi still being cleaned up. And we have the sotowns
at Harrison between Hamilton Cleaves and Miami River Road because
of a structure fire.

Speaker 4 (01:46:54):
My bricks shrimp with traffic the support Hawks tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:46:57):
New York is probably not going to get the two seed.
They have a one game, one game lead over Cleveland
for the four seed. I am terrified to play in
the seventy six ers in the postseason. Want nothing to
do with that. Nothing to do with that. You ask
what's going on in the NBA, and I told you
what I'll tell you is happening on our show tomorrow
Paul Danner Junior. Now, our schedule the last couple of

(01:47:20):
weeks has been a little janky. I think that's the
word we're going with where Paul and I. We've moved
him to a Monday one week, and then I was
off on Tuesday off last week, and it'll be nice
to settle back into a routine where Paul joins us
every Tuesday, and God knows, there's a lot to discuss
with some of the things that have happened so far

(01:47:43):
in free agency, Katie Blackburn electing to not speak at
the NFL's owners meetings, Which what would the harm have
been in talking to the Bengals reporters who went all
the way out there, what would the harm have been?
They still could have done an availability back in June
to obviously the draft and some of the possibilities Paul

(01:48:04):
and I for an hour tomorrow. He's in studio three
to four. We are looking forward to that as we
fully start to dive into the draft. Joe Goodberry is
going to be on our show later on this week
as well. We're looking forward to that too, obviously. Jeremiah
Love in for a workout, in for a meeting today
with the Bengals, I should say, and like, of course,

(01:48:24):
like to talk to every prospect. I just I can't
get over the fact, like awesome prospect looks like he's
going to have a hell of an NFL career. It's
fun to imagine the possibilities with a guy like that
in this offense. I just don't know that a team
that has missed the postseason each of the last three years,

(01:48:45):
in large part because of its defense, can use the
tenth overall pick on a running back, and that is
maybe a very sort of limited, short sighted, closed minded,
maybe even antiquated way of looking at it. But they've
had it feels like a mostly productive offseason, even if

(01:49:05):
you can't help but wonder, like, dude, we're really doing
this at linebacker. I don't know that they've had a
productive enough offseason for us to look at Jeremiah Love
instead of a defensive player. Now, I'm talking about this
in very simplistic terms, not acknowledging that they have six

(01:49:26):
or seven other picks they can make, and there's other
areas where you can go find guys on defense later on.
It feels like a luxury pick, and it's just doesn't
mean that he's not going to be a terrific pro.
Doesn't mean that if the Bengals drafted him, he wouldn't
be a terrific rookie be a huge asset to this offense.
It just for all in and for the purposes of

(01:49:47):
repairing and rebuilding a defense that was had times last
year historically awful. Tenth overall pick on the back just
feels like something of a luxury will run this past
Paul tomorrow, But they brought him in and that is
not insignificant by any stretch of the imagination. I was
watching earlier the reaction of a James Orpene on his

(01:50:10):
YouTube channel. That is worth checking out as well, and
we'll spend some time on that tomorrow too. Red's and
Marlins are tonight. Brandon Williamson was not great in his
twenty twenty six debut. Will see if that changes this evening.
Red's looking for a fourth consecutive win. Red's looking to
clinch a winning road trip and the college basketball national

(01:50:32):
title game tonight. I've got Michigan by ten. I think
the Wolverines win this game by ten points. We will
see anything you might have misgo find on the iHeartRadio app.
We want to thank the folks here are Twin Peaks
in Westchester for having me today. We're back here two
weeks from Friday, of course this fall for the Tony
and Mo Football Show. Thanks to Mike Mills for producing

(01:50:52):
on site. Thanks to Tarren Bland for producing back in Kenwood.
Thanks to you for listening. Have a great night. We'll
talk to you tomorrow. A three zero five from the
studio on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station with iHeart

(01:51:14):
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