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

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
What's up? Good ad for noon? On my legger. I am you
are listening to the only person inCincinnati who is working right now. Tarry
and I are both working. You'relistening to a show that is being produced
and broadcasts by the only two peoplein Cincinnati who are working that aren't like
you know, first responders stuff.Hi hook, Your Memorial Day weekend is

(00:20):
off to an awesome start. Iam my leger. This is ESPN fifteen
thirty. Thank you so much forlistening. That was fun. Listening to
Austin and Tony tj antone is terrific. And you should go join those guys
at the ballpark tonight. I cannotbe there, regrettably, but that should
be a lot of fun. WishI could go. We have a lot
to get to today. We aregoing to announce in ninety minutes, an

(00:45):
hour and a half from right now, the winner of this year's Mow your
Long contest. So if you havesigned up, ole boy, oh boy,
you got ninety minutes. Hopefully youcan get through it. I know
the minutes are gonna crawl by,but your life might be changed at four
thirty five because one person's gonna wina brand New lawnmore from Black Slar from

(01:06):
Backsled Tractor, as well as riverbendtickets to every show on the calendar in
twenty twenty four. If you didnot sign up, you're out of luck.
You're out of luck. We're unluck because in the five o'clock hour,
Look, man, if anything reallyimportant happens in sports between now and
five o'clock, I promise you weare going to cover it and discuss it

(01:30):
in excruciating detail and will act likethe fate of the world is hinging on
that sports development. In the absenceof that, we're going to talk about
bourbon. Brandon Spinner is a guyyou here on this station all the time
because he's one of the meteorologists atChannel nine and does fine work. He
is a big baseball fan, formercollege football player, and he hosts a

(01:53):
show about bourbon. So Brandon's gonnacome up. Tarn and I are both
hopeful that he has brought some bourbonwith him and he's going to be on
our show on the five o'clock hour. So if you like booze, if
you like bourbon, and honestly,who doesn't, Brandon's going to be with
us bourbon. Brandon spinner in thefive o'clock hour. Also three twenty today,

(02:15):
Callum Williams from an Apple TVMLS seasonpass on a big tilt between FC
Cincinnati and Toronto, two teams playingreally well. He is on the call
FCC looking for its seventh consecutive victory. That conversation coming up at about fifteen
minutes, and the Bengals have aproblem. I'm here to offer a solution
that coming up as well. Fullshow preview video is available on x at

(02:37):
Mullleger thanks to Emery Federal Credit Union, your credit union with heart since nineteen
thirty nine. Get to EMORYFCU dotorg. We were on the air yesterday
as the Reds game ended, andit ended with another loss, another series
loss, another series goes by thewayside, and now the Dodgers are in

(03:00):
town. The Reds are now tenunder five hundred and twenty and thirty.
Time is starting to become of theessence and they have a really good team
that comes to the GABP this week. What stood out to me more than
anything during the game yesterday was howin the ninth inning in a tie ball
game, with opportunities to use TylerStevenson, who has been Red hot,
Tyler Stevenson was not used. Thenin the tenth inning, after San Diego

(03:23):
scored two runs, with the opportunityto use Tyler Stevenson in a multitude of
situations, including with two on andone out and the battering representing the winning
run, David Bell chose to useMike Ford instead of Tyler Stevenson. Tyler,
who has unequivocally been the Red's besthitter for weeks now, was never

(03:45):
brought off the bench. And sowe talked about this, and I complained
about it, and I griped aboutit, but I initially, I initially
sort of reserved the right to changemy mind on the David Bell criticism based
on what his explanation for not usingTyler Stevenson was. I'm an open minded

(04:05):
guy, and so could David offeran explanation that would make the decision make
sense that something happened to Tyler Stephenson. Well, we we got the explanation,
and we aired the explanation, andthen I talked about the explanation.
We have the explanation. If youhaven't heard it, this is in the

(04:26):
aftermath of yesterday's read six or fourloss to the Padres David Bell talking about
not using Tyler Stevenson go ahead andhit that yeah. I mean he was
ready to hit the whole day.You know, it's you're right. I
mean, he's been swinging in theback grade. He's one of our best
hitters. You know. To notfind the opportunity to get him in is

(04:48):
a little tough. There were severalseveral times where we get one more runner
on base. He's hitting and thesituations has never came up. We played
that yeah yesterday and I was,I think the word I use was flabbergasted.
He literally we played that audio yesterdayand for a second I asked Tarn
to clip the video like I didn'thave anything to say. My reaction was

(05:12):
what my face was. And thenwe spent the next hour crushing David Bell
and criticizing, I think justifiably,David Bell. We took a couple of
phone calls from people hammering David Bell. We took the portion of the show
where we reacted to that audio youjust heard. We sent it out there
on social media. I am Iwill admit to you sometimes I can be

(05:33):
pretty insecure, not when it comesto interpersonal relationships or anything like that.
But there are times where I willdo something on the air and then question
myself. And I don't have areal concrete example for you, but there
have been on occasion shows that wehave done something and you know, it

(05:56):
sort of happened last Friday because wetried to play a game of guest the
foot that not have gone more poorly, and it was entirely my fault.
And I then went outside and wenthome and went outside and cut my grass
and for an hour just thought aboutthat. I didn't like it. I
didn't like it. I didn't needanybody to tell me it wasn't good.
So there are times we'll do thingsand it'll just it'll leave me with a
bad taste in my mouth, andI'll think about it on the drive home,

(06:17):
and I'll think about it maybe layingin bed at night, and and
sometimes it'll be the criticism aimed ata player or a coach, or an
athlete or a public figure. AndI never tried to make it personal.
That's the really the only rule wego by. Don't don't make it personal.
Make it about their performance, makeit about the decisions they make that
impact gameplay and how the teams doand there are times where we've we've put

(06:40):
our our foot on people and I'veI've gone home and I thought, yeah,
you know, maybe maybe I wasa little unfair. And sometimes I'll
even go back and listen, like, how was I Was I just maybe
a little overboard? Was I maybea little unfair? Did I did?
I really vet that opinion out?And it doesn't happen often, but it
but it does happen. And thenwhen it does, I'll wake up the

(07:01):
next day and it's like, man, I can't wait to go back on
the air and not apologize, notwalk back what I said, but maybe
take a different approach. This hashappened, And so we do the show
and we beat up on David Bell. I went to an event, the
Ball and Brew event at March Firstfor UC football. Dan Horde was unavailable,
his son Sam graduated from high school. Congratulations to Sam. And Tony

(07:25):
wasn't available, and so they wentdown the bench and got me and I
hosted it and it was fun andat the event, a lot of people
wanted to talk about David Bell andthey had heard the show and they had
heard the rant. And then onthe way home from that, I decided
Okay, I'm gonna listen to therant on David Bell, and I want
to make sure I don't believe thatI did anything wrong, or that I
was unfair, that I stepped outof bounds so that I went overboard.

(07:46):
I really do take this seriously.And then I did some stuff last night,
went out for some cold ones withfriends, and lay in bed last
night. I'm thinking about the DavidBell thing and that I that I maybe
go a little a little overboard.Was I maybe a little bit unfair?
Am I gonna reconsider when I wakeup tomorrow? And the answer to those

(08:11):
questions is absolutely not. I'm moreflabbergasted today than than I was yesterday.
Yesterday I was kind of reacting inreal time. I kind of don't love
doing postgame shows because postgame shows areshows where you're reacting to something that just
happened and you really haven't had timeto maybe think of every conceivable angle,

(08:33):
or flesh everything out, or readeverything, or hear everything, or get
everybody's explanation. I like, Ilike having time to maybe stare at the
heavens and put my hands on myhips, and God, how do I
feel about this? It's like Ilike being on the Monday after the Bengals
game, not twenty minutes after theBengals game, and so maybe I okay,
I'm reacting in real time. I'mmore angry at David Bell today than

(08:56):
I was yesterday because I actually hadI've had time to think this through and
sort through every conceivable scenario that Davidentertained while he was managing in the ninth
and tenth inning yesterday. And it'seven more perplexing today than it was yesterday,
perhaps because I've had time to Thegame was on again last night on

(09:18):
Bally Sports Ohio. I'm watching thegame thinking like, maybe there's gonna be
something that I see that makes mego, God, you know what,
it made no sense to use TylerStevenson. That did not happen. I
just listened to David Bell again,thinking Okay, maybe there's something in that
explanation that's gonna change my mind.It did not happen. I'm as flummixed.
I am as flabbergasted. I waspissed off today as I was yesterday.

(09:41):
Now a lot of folks are gonnatake this and go see, this
is why he should be fired.And I'll be honest with you man.
If they fired David Bell, fine, whatever, it doesn't really change all
that much. Probably not. Idon't want him fired. I don't He's
a good dude. I think he'sdone some good things. I don't want
him fired. I want him touse his players better. I want him

(10:03):
to manage with more urgency. Iwant the mistakes that his team can fix,
the stuff they can control. Iwant that stuff to be better.
I want him to not shrink thealready small margin of error that this team

(10:24):
has. I'm not looking for anew manager because I don't think he's gonna
go anywhere anytime soon. Could bedead wrong about that. I want the
manager the Reds have, the onethat they extended for three years, to
do his job better. I understandthe manager can only do so much.

(10:46):
I'm the first guy to acknowledge thatplayers have to play. There are circumstances
that go beyond anybody's control. Withthis team. It's not David Bell's fault.
It's nobody's fault. It's not hisfault that players are underperforming. But
you could still use your players betterthan David did yesterday. It started in
the first inning when he tried todouble steal with jam Or Candelario, and
he got thrown out by about threefeet. It continued in the ninth and

(11:11):
tenth inning when Tyler Stevenson did notbat. He may have batted, and
he may have struck out on threepitches, but you still have to deploy
your assets in a way that's betterthan how he deployed them yesterday. You
got to use your players better.Not looking for anybody to get fired.
I don't need anyone's head on astick. That doesn't mean that if it
happened, I'd be, you know, lamenting how this was the worst thing

(11:35):
in the world. I want himto use his players better. It doesn't
mean guys can't have days off.It doesn't mean better players are always going
to come through in big situations.I wanted to do his job with more
urgency. That game yesterday felt reallyimportant with who they have come into town
this weekend. I want the mistakesto get fixed. I want the margin

(11:56):
of error to not shrink. Idon't think and you could tell me if
I'm wrong. If that's I don'tthink that that's too much to ask.
Five point three seven four nine fifteenthirty is our phone number. Eight six
six seven zero two three seven sevensix works as well. You could send
me a tweet on the Delta DentalX feed at Moegar. Delta Dental is

(12:20):
building healthy, smart, vibrant communitiesfor all good at Delta dentalh dot com.
We uh have a really good soccermatch happening this weekend. FC Cincinnati
and Toronto rematch of the season opener. Will preview it with one of the
guys on the call next on ESPNfifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station Cincinnati's esp it
feels like forever it goes back inlate February, FC Cincinnati played its first

(12:45):
MLS match of the season at homeagainst Toronto on a Sunday afternoon. That
was a scoreless draw. And theyremember that was right after FC Cincinnati had
played in Jamaica, and they looklike a team that had played in Jamaica
and then flown back home in lessthan forty eight hours. A decidedly different
looking of C Cincinnati team will beon the field tomorrow, and I think

(13:05):
a decidedly different looking Toronto team willbe on the pitch tomorrow as well.
As these two teams meet again,this time at BMO Field in Toronto.
You can watch the match on MLSSeason Pass. It'll start at seven thirty.
The Orange and Blue looking for it'sseventh consecutive victory. Callum Williams will
be on the call along with KaylanCarr on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV
and Callen nice enough to join usabout a year after he joined US a

(13:28):
year ago. That would make sense, Callum, how you doing. I'm
good? Thank you? Yeah,how are you? Yeah? My word
that has flown by having a similarpiece a year ago. But you're absolutely
right by the way in the senseof both teams have changed considerably, the
stakes extraordinarily high. And I knowthat that's maybe slightly maladramatic to say at

(13:52):
this early stage of the season.This will be Matchday sixteen for those want
to ring, But I think thiswill be one of those games where you
look back on at the end ofthe season and you circle it and go,
that was the moment. And Ithink for Cincinnati it could be the
moment where they separate themselves and reallyput themselves up against Miami as in challengers
for that supporters shield spot and separatethemselves from the rest of the chasing pat

(14:16):
like New York City FC and RedBull New York and Toronto FC. But
for Toronto themselves, I think it'sa situation where they could very well prove
a point here because at the moment, Toronto webc are creating considerable debate.
Are they for real? Are theyreally a top fourteen or are they simply
a flash in the pan who arein a good run of form at the

(14:37):
moment. Having seen Toronto FC adecent amount this year, I happen to
think it's the former, and theycould very well be the real deal.
But tomorrow against Cincinnati will be thesternest test they've had to challenge yet,
and they've had to face yet.I wonder if they do get a victory
against the Orange and Blue, willpeople start talking about them a little more
differently. You know, you talkabout moments, and for me it's a

(15:01):
dramatic difference from the team that wason the field in late February against Toronto.
You talk about one of those momentsthough, it's the acquisition of Kevin
Kelsey. I'm not sure you couldhave asked for anything more in the short
term than what he has given hisnew team. No, I completely agree.
He's been the attacking threat that they'velacked really since Brandon Vasquez left for

(15:22):
the Monterrey And look, you know, Givin Kelcey with goals against Columbus and
Atlanta, I think proved himself.I still think at the age of nineteen,
he's got a lot of work todo. He's still very raw,
but he certainly provided them something thatI think they were lacking a little bit
before. And I said that withall due respect to to Corey Baert,
who clearly proved himself last year withHouston Dynamo. But when you lose the

(15:46):
ability of somebody like a Brandon Vasquez, that takes considerable replacement. So look,
I'm not even sure that Kevin kelceis that person to replace Brandon Vasquez,
but at the moment it seems tobe going awfully well, and we'll
just have to and see how hedoes on another big occasion tomorrow. I've
asked this to some of your AppleTV colleagues in referring to Luco Acosta.

(16:07):
When you watch a great player ona regular basis, you kind of you
kind of run out of superlatives,You run out of ways to describe them.
You obviously don't have every FC Cincinnatigame but you've watched Luco Acosta.
Where do you even begin when youtalk about him in terms of superlatives maverick,
majestic, magical, marvelous, Whereelse do we go? I mean,

(16:30):
he is, in my opinion,the best number ten in Major League
soccer outside of that other Argentine numberten that plays for written to Miami.
So look, I mean, it'sit is an individual that I think is
playing above and beyond what people wouldexpect. And I saw something yesterday morning
that suggested that since the start oftwenty twenty three, he's been involved in

(16:53):
sixty two percent of all the goalsthat Cincinnati have scored since the start of
last season. I mean, thatis immeasurable. That is remarkable. Those
numbers are eyebrow raising, to saythe least. There is nobody in Major
League soccer, there's nobody in worldfootball that is as important to a single
team as Luciano a Costa is,if we're going off of those numbers.

(17:15):
So John Herdman, the Toronto FChead coach, did a piece with the
press today and he admitted that he'sobviously concerned about Luciano a Costa. There's
not so much he can do tokeep him at day. The best that
they can hope for tomorrow is thathe has an off day and that they
perhaps limit the amount of time thathe has on the ball, so a
Costa I think will be obviously apivotal part in the game tomorrow, evening

(17:37):
no doubt about it, the ballwill find its way to him in some
way, shape or form on variousoccasions. But I actually think tomorrow the
why the areas are going to bewhere the main crux of the attack from
both sides come from. If theyplay the same formations that they have been
playing throughout the season, which usuallyis for Cincinnati and Toronto, three center
halves with the high flying wing backsand no further ego burn Adesky tomorrow for

(18:03):
Toronto f C, which is amassive blow for them after coming off the
back of a hat trick against cF Montreal, which I was fortunate enough
to commentate on last weekend. ButI think that's the areas where both Toronto
and Cincinnati can get at each other. I don't know who's going to play
for Cincinnati yet. I'm not Italiaconvinced who's going to play for Toronto yet,
but let's assume at Zobbi Sharo onthe left hand side, as it

(18:23):
has been for the last couple ofgames for Cincinnati. I think he can
find a way in behind the ratheradvanced swing back for Toronto FC and find
some space in what we're calling thesoft spot nowadays, in between the overlapping
fullback and the center half. Sowe'll wait and see. But like I
said, no doubt the likes ofa Costa and indeed Lorenzo and Singe.

(18:45):
If he plays, we'll have plentyof the ball. The ball will make
its way through them in the centerof midfield. But I get the feeling
both sides will try and get theball into the wide areas as quickly as
possible. Tomorrow two hot teams FCCincinnati and Toronto Tomorrow night at seven thirty
Callan Williams and Kayle and Carr withthe call, by the Way, a
duo that had my best, myfavorite MLS call the season a week and

(19:08):
a half ago, when you caughtthe capture of a raccoon during a game
between New York and Philadelphia. There'snothing that's going to happen tomorrow night.
It's going to be as fun asthat. No, and that was quite
the week as well, by theway, because we had Messi in Montrey
all on Saturday, the raccoon onWednesday, and enter Onto Montrey all the
big derby on the Saturday, sothat was quite the week. But the

(19:29):
raccoon absolutely was something I can honestlysay I never thought I would ever see
in my life. And we've allbeen in stadiums. Talking from personal experience,
I've been in football stadiums in Englandand I've seen cats and dogs come
onto the field from time to time, but I'd never been on air when
something like that happened. And youknow, after the amount of time the
raccoon was on the field and wasevading all of its captors, I just

(19:53):
started commentating on him myself and Kaylencar I just thought, well, let's
have some fun with this, shallwe. And it was by far the
most bizarre moments I think I've hadon air in Major League Soccer. But
it was a lot of fun,and you know, the likes of the
trading card and T shirts and whatnothave been made from it, so it
was all a lot of fun,and you know, I don't think we'll

(20:14):
be short of talking about it fora while. The great announcers rise to
the occasion. Your rose to theoccasion that night, and I'm sure you
will. Tomorrow should be a reallyfun match. MLS Season Pass Apple TV.
FC Cincinnati on the road at Torontostarting at seven thirty. Have a
great call count, thanks so much, Thank you very much. Vik soon
you got a FC Cincinnati and TorontoFC. These two teams played the first

(20:36):
game of the season, first gamein the mL season against each other,
was a scoreless draw. Toronto haslost just one match this season, seven
to one and six. FC Cincinnaticoming in having won six consecutive games.
Of course, the game is alsoon ESPN fifteen thirty with pregame coverage starting
at seven pm, twenty nine awayfrom four o'clock. We are just about

(20:59):
one hour away. Boy, thetension is rising. You could feel it
gripping the city. This city wantsto start a long Memorial Day weekend,
but it can't until the tension getsreleased. And that will only happen when
we announced the winner of this year'sMow Your Long Contest four thirty three.
It's going to be unbelievable. Uh, We're gonna get to a poll question

(21:19):
that'll ask here in just a second. It's about a problem the Bengals have.
Speaking of problems, MLB has one. We'll address it next. Minds
are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet,home of lighttime, power train protection and
guarantee credit approval from their family toyours for life at kelseychef dot com.

(21:41):
Reds and Dodgers Tonight seven and ten. Tonight's first pitch, first of a
three game weekend series, Graham Ashcraftis going to get the ball against Big
Maple James Paxton. The game's liveon seven hundred w wel W. Let's
hope that Tonight's Reds lineup is madewell. It is a service of Madewell
Restoration, Cincinnati's Greater Cincinnati's roofing andrestoration experts. Go to Madewell Restoration dot

(22:07):
com. Make sure it's ready forany summer storms we get this year.
All right, you're your starting lineuptonight's and by the way, Tyler Stevenson's
in it, so we can't getmad if David Bell doesn't use him as
a pinch hitter. Tonight, Fairchild'sin center, Ellie's at short, jam
Or Candelario's batting third at first base. Spencer steer and left. Stevenson's catching,

(22:29):
Santiago Espinal is playing third base andbatting six. Now, Martini is
a dhing, Jonathan India is atsecond base, and our buddy Jacob Herdubes
is in right field and he isbatting ninth. What else do we have?
Oh, the Biggies Baseball Tournament.Xavier lost to Saint John's last night,

(22:52):
so they're playing Georgetown today and Ihave checking this right now. That
game was getting underway right around threeo'clock. It is one to one Georgetown
and Xavier. The stream of thisgame is not great, but that's okay.
One to one Georgetown and Xavier atPrasco Park, Musketeers trying to get

(23:15):
to tomorrow's championship. What else dowe have? FC Cincinnati on the road
against Toronto tomorrow night. That gamewill start at seven thirty on ESPN fifteen
thirty. We're talken two days ago, maybe yesterdays. Two days ago.
Somebody on Twitter throughout one of thosequestions that everybody just responds to, what
would you do if you are Bigleague Major League Baseball commissioner? What would

(23:37):
be your first order of business?And I replied with a bunch of stuff
like to me, and every sportdrafts would be best. Leagues would be
best if whoever wins the championship gotthe first pick in the draft, and
whoever finished with the worst record wouldthen get the last pick in the first
round of the draft. I thinksports would be better that way. I
would do that if I was baseballand I get rid of the magic Runner

(24:02):
rule and extra innings, because Ithink it's better when you're actually playing baseball
in the tenth inning and with themagic Runner rule that is not happening.
But the biggest issue that I thinkthe commissioner faces right now is the issue
of umpiring. Now. I alwaysroll my eyes when people complain about officiating

(24:25):
in a certain sport. Oh,NBA officials are awful, but the NFL,
which league has fans who are like, hey, you know what,
the officiating is really good. Collegebasketball fans love to pretend like the league
that their team plays in has theworst officials, But by the way,
I just watched the season a BigTwelve officiating, and from a UC perspective,

(24:49):
it's pretty damn happy with it.I love how they let guys play,
but for the most part, yourarely hear anybody go, you know
what, the officiating is really goodright now, So I always take it
with a grain of salt. ButI think baseball's a lit a bit different
because we have umpires in this sportwho are notorious for being bad at their
jobs. So there was another umpiringcontroversy last night at the end of the

(25:12):
game between the White Sox and theBaltimore Orioles where the White Sox lose on
an infield fly combination interference call,so Andrew Benattendee up at the plate representing
the tying run obviously Madeira is Andrewben Attende for the White Sox, who've
had a miserable season. With twoguys on base, it's a pop up

(25:34):
in the infield, and as youprobably know, because there were two runners
on base and two For's house inplay, the infield fly rule is called
right, the infield fly rule prohibitsthe battery is automatically out because they don't
want the the infielder letting the balldrop and getting a cheap double play.
Fine. I kind of think itwould be okay if the infield fly rule
would go away, but that's neitherhere nor there. But what happened next

(25:56):
is where it kind of got weird. Andrew Vaughn of the White Sox the
runner at second base, and you'veprobably seen this by now. He was
rolled to have interfered with Baltimore shortstopGunner Henderson, who caught the pop up,
had no issue navigating the area thathe had to get to to catch
the pop up. Vaughn was calledout on interference that made it a game

(26:18):
ending double play. It is oneof the weakest interference calls I've ever seen,
by the letter of the book.By the letter of the rule book,
it was the right call, butyou do have to apply some discretion
here, and I've seen that happenthat did not happen here. It amplifies
the continued discontent that a lot offans have with umpiring, that a lot

(26:40):
of people in the sport have withumpiring. Now, I don't think these
umpires are bad because they maybe wereoverly officious in applying the rule here.
That's not how you want to seea game end, right, That's not
how you want to see a gameend. And so I think in a
case like that, the fielder hadno issue getting to the ball and catch.
I've seen all the guy at secondbase was doing was ambling back to

(27:03):
second base. I've seen this happenbefore and it doesn't get called. But
what it does is it creates awhole new round of criticism being aimed at
umpires, and we've had a lotof that this year. Whenever an Angel
Hernandez game is happening, regardless ofwhere it is, I know about it
because hours before first pitch, that'sall anybody could tweet about. Hey,

(27:29):
it's Philly's Brewers tonight and Angel Hernandezis behind the plate, and invariably you're
going to see something that he didthat was bad. We've had issues this
year and two different occasions where managershave gotten thrown out of games when they
didn't yell anything. From the dugoutwe had yesterday at the Reds game,
Marvin Hudson behind the plate, whowas involved in two very strange plays.

(27:49):
One was the Candelario slide at homeplate where I hate to say it,
he was out by a mile.Marvin Hudson had a very clear view of
it and ruled them safe and trustme, I wish you would have been
safe, but ruled him safe andit wasn't close. They got to replay,
they overturned it. Later on inthe game, there was a swing

(28:11):
and a miss where the ball goesoff the catcher's glove. It was ruled
a foul tip that the batter didn'tcome within six inches of the ball.
And so you have these repeated cases. And look, there's more scrutiny on
umpires than ever before. And bythe way, gambling has something to do
with it. The technology we haveto check them has something to do with
it. But it feels like thissport it doesn't have an umpiring problem,

(28:37):
because that would suggest all the umpiresare bad. It does have a bad
umpiring problem, and it does havea problem with lack of accountability for umpires
who do the wrong thing. Thoseguys last night I wouldn't have called interference,
but they applied the rule as theysaw it. It's a weird ending.
I didn't like it, but thoseguys didn't do anything wrong. You

(29:00):
had a dude last night or atthe Reds game who was asleep at the
wheel. We've had umpires throw managersout who didn't say anything. We have
a guy in Angel Hernandez and otherCB Buckner who when they're behind the plate,
you know it's going to be ayou know, it's going to be
an adventure, and so of allthe different things that get kicked around while
we talk about the future of thesport and the role of the commissioner and

(29:22):
the relationship between the players and anduh and and ownership and where the game's
going to go next, and let'sget rid of blackouts and have expansion,
and what they're doing with the a'sand Oakland, which I think is criminal.
I think its biggest issue is Ithink there's a confidence a crisis,
a confidence crisis when it comes toa lot of fans and umpiring because of

(29:42):
how prolific, how well known,and how uh how bad certain umpires are,
how prolific the the bad umpires are, Like, you shouldn't have an
umpire who is just no gboriously regardedwith the science to prove it bad at

(30:04):
his job, like Angel Hernandez badat his job. And it's not that
every umpire should lose their job ifthey make the incorrect call like that.
That shouldn't happen, But it doesfeel like there's no repercussion for guys who
are consistently bad at their jobs,who are consistently confrontational. The umpire that
threw out Aaron Boone about a monthago, nothing happened to him. Marvin

(30:26):
Hudson looked like he was daydreaming behindthe plate yesterday. Everybody's allowed a bad
day at work, but there's noaccountability for it. The umpire union is
very, very strong. So ifyou're going to answer one of those questions
that gets thrown out there on socialmedia, what would you do if you
were a commissioner? One of thosethings to me has to be have a
relationship with the umpire's union that allowsyou to hold bad umps accountable and allows

(30:51):
you to weed out the notoriously badones, because we've got a few in
this sport. And if those goaway, then incidents like last night,
which were weird and strange and unfortunatebut not wrong. Those I'm umpires last
night get lumped into all the oneswho are not doing their jobs again yesterday.
I don't believe Marvin Hudson himself shouldbe fired because he had a bad

(31:12):
day at GABP yesterday, but youknow, there should be some level of
accountability, whatever that looks like,especially if that's not an isolated day,
and with Marvin Hudson. There area lot of people who believe it.
It wasn't just a thought. We'regonna get tell a Paul question here in
a bit. I think Bengals.I love the Bengals Ring of Honor.

(31:33):
I love talking about the Bengals Ringof honor. Bengals have a Ring of
honor problem. I am going tohelp solve it. And you know,
just another thought on David Bell Plus. In just over one hour, our
buddy, Brandon's spinner from Channel nineis gonna come up here and talk about
bourbon with us. I've even putChannel nine on for him here in studio
right now watching the Kelly Clarkson Show. I don't know that I find a

(31:57):
need to have this on in studioever again, but Brandon's going to be
here. We wanted to make himcomfortable, so hopefully he brings bourbon.
I would need bourbon every afternoon ifI got stuck watching the Kelly Clarkson Show.
This doesn't look doesn't look good.It is ten minutes away from four
o'clock on Mowegger. This is ESPNfifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station. Visit us

(32:17):
at Hollywood Casino, Lawrenceburg this springfor all the playoff hoops, hockey action
and reading here Jesse Rodgers, Iwas talking about that play in that White
Sox Orioles game last night. Accordingto a Jesse Rodgers of ESPN, the
league did reach out to the WhiteSox and say that interference call should not
have been made, should not havebeen made. So there you go.

(32:37):
That's according to Major League Baseball.There are umpires who should not be working,
and maybe that that crew should notbe working. I don't know more
on the Reds from last night becausethe David Bell conversation. Again, I
was not wrong in my criticism,more heated today than I was yesterday.
But I have an idea for theBengals, who I think they have a

(33:00):
problem. We'll get to what thatis and so much more. Plus Brandon
Spinner on Bourbon and beyond, notthat festival in Louisville, but Bourbon and
other stuff that coming up in thefive o'clock hour. I'm Moegar. This
is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sportsstation. This report he is sponsored by
Ballet Sports so Ohio. Tonight atsix thirty on Balle ESPN fifteen thirty,

(33:22):
Cincinnati's sports station. All Right,that's us. Good afternoon, I'm Moegar.
This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Thankyou so much for listening. Hopefully
your Memorial Day weekend is off toan incredible start. Incredible, I said,
I still believe we are the onlypeople in Cincinnati working right now.
In thirty minutes, the weight isalmost over. We have the winner of

(33:49):
the mow yor Lawn contest. We'reannouncing their name at four to thirty five.
If you signed up, good luck. If you didn't sign up,
to wait till next year. Sothat is coming up in just about thirty
minutes. And our new friend BrandonSpinner from Channel nine is gonna come up
and he's gonna talk bourbon and somebaseball and some some weather, some other
stuff, but we're gonna talk aboutbourbon. Coming up in the five o'clock

(34:14):
hour. I'm gonna ask a polequestion here in just a few minutes on
Twitter at Moegar, I'm gonna answera question about David Bell, and I
will tell you which question I wouldask the people who run the NC double
A. We're broadcasting today from theESPN fifteen thirty studios, powered by Greater
Cincinnati's Roofing and exterior restoration experts madewell restoration dot com. We talked about

(34:37):
the Ring of Honor this week.The Bengals have the Ring of Honor nominees.
There are eleven of them, andI feel very strongly about one of
the two that should be in.If Dave Lapham doesn't get in, I
think that is an embarrassment. Ithink it's a stain on the franchise.
I think it's a poor look fromthe people who do the voting. And

(35:00):
I have a vote. Dave Laphamfifty years ago, drafted by this team,
a synonymous name with this franchise.If Dave Lapham's not in the Ring
of Honor this year, boy,shame on everybody involved the other pick it.
Really, it depends upon your criteria. This is the beauty of this

(35:20):
process. Right. It's not unlikeregular elections, you know, the elections
for public office. We all havedifferent criteria. We have things that are
really important to us. A causethat might be really important to you might
not be as important to me,And a cause that might be really important
to me could be something that's notthat big of a deal to you.
Right. It's kind of the funand at times frustrating part of our elections.

(35:45):
Something that you may really believe inmight be something that I really don't
care about, and so I mightvote differently. Doesn't make you a bad
person, doesn't make me a badperson. I know. Nobody wants to
talk about politics that way. Samething for voting for something like this.
Right, you may look at thisand go, I want to pick players

(36:06):
who are statistically superior. First,Okay, that's kind of hard to do.
I guess with offensive lineman. Oryou might prefer players who had a
hand in team's success. So,like, you know, Corey Dillon's interesting
because statistically superior player, He's thefranchises all time leading rusher. He had
two record setting games the records havebeen since broken, but most yards in

(36:27):
a game for a rookie and thenmost yards for a game for any running
back ever in two thousand. Statisticallysuperior player, but never played on a
winning team, played for the mostpart on some just horrific teams. Your
criteria might be like somebody whose imagewas squeaky clean off the field, and
another one might say not so much. One might go, look, I'm

(36:49):
gonna take the post career profile andadd it to what they did on the
field, so like Chris Collinsworth wouldbe big, or you might go special
exemption for somebody who played in multipleSuper Bowls, like a Jim Breech or
a Maximum Natoya. That's the funof this. Another way I look at
it is kind of how I lookat it. I don't want some of
these older players to get inducted andnot be around for it, and you

(37:13):
talk about stains on the franchise.I love that the Bengals did a Ring
of honor. I think it's alot of fun to talk about the candidacy
of some of these guys. It'sa lot of fun to talk about how
things are going to unfold with itdown the road. But Ken Riley getting
in after he passed was ridiculous becausethey should have had a Ring of honor
years ago, and had they had, when he would have been there for

(37:34):
his induction, and I hate whenthat happens. I didn't like it last
summer when he went into the Hallof Fame and his son gave a beautiful
speech, But that had to beheart wrenching for his family because he could
have gotten in and didn't until hewas passed. I want to avoid those
scenarios. So I leaned toward theolder guys Lamar Parrish, Bob Trumpy,

(37:57):
guys like that, but players thatI did not grow up watching play It
could be ridiculous if I don't thinkanything's going to happen to any of those
men. Nothing. There are nomajor health issues that I'm aware of.
But Lamar Parrish is seventy six yearsold. So if we keep kicking the
can down the sidewalk with him,we put him in and maybe he's unfortunately
no longer with this, Like Idon't want to do that, So that's

(38:20):
important to me. It might notbe important to you. Here's what I
want to know though, and Iliterally just ask this on Twitter. I
had a very good conversation with PaulDanner Junior about this for his podcast which
he's going to put out on Monday, and we do a deeper dive into
this. But you know, thisis the Bengals Ring of Honor. They
control the criteria. They can changethey can move the goalposts, they can

(38:44):
change the rules, they can doanything. So right now, every year
two men get voted in, Sothis year it's going to be two of
the eleven nominees most of us lookat that list of nominees and say,
you know, each one of thoseguys are going to get and eventually,
why do you have to limit itto two? Now, on one level,

(39:07):
I like the exclusivity. You likethat every player kind of gets a
little bit more of the shine onthem. You know, Corey Dillon popped
off last year, and I getI get his frustration, right, I
mean, he's great player in thisfranchise's history. Corey Dillon has a very
good Hall of Fame case, muchless a Bengals Ring of Honor case.
I think there are people who don'trealize on the four Patriots that when fourteen

(39:29):
and two he was their best player, he was their best It was awesome.
But you know he was pissed offlast summer, not in the Ring
of Honor. He has never beenshy about expressing his opinion. And the
problem isn't the electorate. It's notthe people who voted against Corey Dillon.

(39:50):
It's it's not right now, atleast a Bengals problem. The problem is
there's a backlog, backlog of awhole lot of guys who you might argue
thirty years ago Breach would have beeninducted, and David Fulcher would have been
inducted, and Chris Collinsworth would havebeen inducted, and James Brooks certainly would
have been inducted. But now youknow, we're kind of making up for
lost time with a lot of theseguys. I shouldn't be voting on Lamar

(40:14):
Parrish in twenty twenty four because heshould have gone in in nineteen eighty four.
But we can't go back in time. What we can do is maybe
clear the backlog a little bit.I don't know that i'd put in eleven
people, but especially understanding that there'regonna be some other people that are not
yet being voted on. At somepoint, we're going to get a say,

(40:37):
maybe they put on some coaches inthe ballot, Forrest, Greg Samwich,
Marvin Lewis one day, or someof the players who have recently retired,
Geno Atkins, Andrew Whitworth, KevinHuber, guys like that. Aj
Green. I don't know that CarsonPalmer will ever be inducted, but I
mean, at some point, couldhe be on a ballot or Andy Dalton

(40:59):
when he's done playing beyond a ballotor when he's done playing. Joe Mixon
Hill certainly be on a ballot,you might say deserve to be in.
So what I think would make senseis to increase the class size. And
you know, maybe not ten oreleven people, but I mean the Pro
Football Hall of Fame puts in sixpeople at a time, the Major Lee

(41:21):
not the Major League Baseball Hall ofFame that the National Baseball Hall of Fame
puts in more than two people,and they don't really have a backlog.
With the Bengals. It's like withCorey Dne, a lot of people looked
at him and said, well,he's going to get it at some point
eventually. Well, if we acknowledgethat, then why do we have to
make these men wait any longer?And would you really dilute what they're doing

(41:44):
if you said, you know what, we're going to put in this year
four or six, or you knowwhat, this year, we're going to
have multiple Ring of Honor ceremonies andwe're going to do it two guys on
this night and two guys on thisday, or we're going to do it
Dave Lapham day and he's in andthen two other people are going to go

(42:04):
in. I think that's really thebest way to do this, because again,
like I look at this list,I have a hard time looking at
Corey Dillon and going, nah,not right now. Why man's waited long
enough? But he hasn't waited aslong as again, a Lamar Parrish or
a Bob Trumpy. And you mightlook at either of those guys and say,
no, they're not Ring of Honordeserving, and then there's a good

(42:28):
discussion about their overall profile and theircareers and their resume, and that's the
fun stuff. But I don't knowwhy, Like if we acknowledge if you
look at those eleven players who areon the ballot now, and if you
look at them and go, god, they're all going to get in,
that means someone on that ballot's goingto wait six years. Why you know,

(42:52):
the Ring of Honor ceremony itself athalftime is very, very brief.
I hate that fans head to theexits for it. It drove me nuts
last year. But whatever, You'reallowed to do whatever you want. What
would be the harm in just expandingthe classes until you kind of take care
of the backlock, and then onceyou do that, you can kind of

(43:14):
revisit how you're gonna do this,and then you maybe slow it down and
down the road only one guy yeargets in, or you do it only
every two years, that sort ofthing, like the Bengals can. They
can change the rules whenever they want. They can decide today we're putting all
these eleven guys, all eleven ofthese guys in, or we're putting six
guys in, or we're putting DaveLapaman, and you could vote for whoever

(43:36):
you want the rets Hall of Fame. Not everybody's up to a vote.
They'll just say, hey, thisguy's a Hall of Famer, and then
you're going to vote on these modernguys. They can do it. There's
no hard set rule, and whoeverwrote the hard set rule, if it
exists, can change it. SoI think that's the best way. And
I admit that I've kind of changedmy mind on this because I have felt

(43:58):
in the past, like, youknow what, give give two people or
three people, whatever it is.Give a small class the individuals, give
them their give them a little space. But I think it would be ridiculous
if you look at this list ofeleven men. And again I am not
wishing ill on anybody. I certainlyhope to God that everybody we're talking about
here lives to be one hundred andthirty five years old. That would be

(44:20):
That would be awesome. But ifwe understand there are different criterias, and
we understand that there's a lot ofdifferent cases to be made to be in
the Ring of Honor, and wewant to avoid situations like with Ken Riley,
and we don't want to make playerslike James Brooks and Corey Dillon Waite.
Why not put a bunch of guysin, maybe not all this year,
but over the next couple of yearsand then kind of recalibrate the thing.

(44:45):
I put this on social media onx at moegor. Our poll questions
are a service of United Heartland Insurance. Your insurance needs United Heartland Insurance.
We had those folks in studio yesterday. That was a lot of fun.
You a giant dot com. Itcould be home, could be business,
could be auto, you name it. United Heartland Insurance. They've got offices

(45:06):
across the tri State Hamilton, Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky. Check out uhi ands
dot com. Should the Bengals inductmore than two former players into the Ring
of Honor this year in order tohelp clear the backlog of deserving nominees.
A little bit of a wordy pollquestion, but a good question. Nonetheless,
if I say so myself, votenow at Moeger thanks to United Heartland

(45:28):
Insurance. Tension is building. Weare less than twenty minutes away from finding
out who is winning this year's MowYour Lawn contest. We ripped David Bell
yesterday and I got an email.I'll explain next then fifteen thirty on Moeger.
Anything you might have missed you canfind on the iHeartRadio app or on

(45:52):
the podcast page of ESPN fifteen thirtydot com. We have been light on
guests this week, but a wholebunch of me and so how could you
not want to want to indulge yourselfwith me on your Memorial Day weekend podcasts
of our show, our service ofa Long Next Sports Grill. You know,
as you make your Memorial Day weekendplans, remember there's nothing better than

(46:15):
a warm night on the patio.Long Next. They've got outdoor TVs,
they've got an awesome beer selection,they've got wings, they've got a great
menu. They just need you.Wilder Hebron and Richwood long Nex Sports grill,
stay long, come often we're goingto give away a lawnmower and some
River Bend concert tickets. In tenminutes, you could feel the tension building

(46:38):
and the NCAA settlement where now basicallycollege athletes are going to get paid,
which I think is awesome. Thereare still more questions than answers. I
have a question that coming up injust a bit. Speaking of questions,
I got one yesterday. So IWe've watched David Bell manage the Reds for
for five and a half years,and I think when things go wrong,

(47:01):
whoever the manager is and whatever citygets an unfair amount of criticism. And
I also think there are folks whoare more reluctant than anything to acknowledge that
the batting order which we obsess overis not solely the creation of the manager.
It's not just who he wants inthe lineup, It's not just who

(47:22):
he wants batting in a certain order. It's the result of a collaborative effort.
He's oftentimes a very easy scapegoat.And so over the last five and
a half years, I've talked alot about David Bell. There have been
certain individual games where I wish hewould have put this picture in or played
this guy, or used the pinchit or in this situation that sort of

(47:42):
thing. Every manager is subject tosecond guessing when it comes to that stuff.
I've always felt like, on abig level, David Bell has done
at least an adequate job. Idon't think the team has ever really underachieved,
and usually when they haven't won,it's been because of forces outside David
Bell's and there certainly are a lotof those this year. It's not his
fault that Matt McLean hasn't played aninning this season. It's not his fault

(48:05):
that Noelve Marte cheated. It's nothis fault that TJ. Friedel has barely
played. It's not his fault thatthey've accumulated a bunch of injuries. I
mean, it's not his fault thata lot of players have underperformed. And
so I'm the first to acknowledge thosethings. And you know, when he
got his contract extension last year,I didn't have a problem with an extension.
I didn't really understand why they hadto give him three years. But

(48:28):
okay, yesterday was really the firstday on this show that I fired off
on David Bell because of the TylerStevenson thing in the ninth and tenth inning
last night, and I think that'sfor me, at least in the five
and a half years he's been theReds manager, that's been the sharpest criticism
I've ever aimed at him. AndI can only speak for myself, and

(48:52):
I think it was fair criticism.It was criticism based on wanting the team
to win, frustration with how theseason is going, and a lot of
different things. I was asked viaemail from Victor mo at ESPN fifteen thirty
dot com by the way, uh, you're David bellbashing dot dot dot.
Why now? It's not David Bellbashing. Bashing to me is personal.

(49:15):
I don't do personal criticism and critiqueof decision making and performance completely in bounds.
Yes, probably the loudest criticism andcritique of David Bell in this show
since he became manager. Why now, Well, because I feel like the
manager's job matters more now there isa bigger premium on this team right now,

(49:42):
with where it is in the season, on ensuring that the already small
margin for error doesn't shrink anymore.David Bell gets put under a microscope a
little bit more now you know,we said this to a slightly different degree
last football season when Joe Burrow gothurt. For my money, coaching mattered

(50:06):
more like Joe Burrow can bail youout. Joe Burrow in that offense for
his four season, can bail youout. Now you're trying a quarterback who's
never played. You got to figureout a way to build game plans around
him, play to his strengths,hide his weaknesses. A little bit more
difficult to do when you don't havean MVP candidate. Quarterback coaching matters more

(50:28):
when the team is abjectly awful.I don't care who the manager is two
years ago. There's not a humanbeing alive that would have done dramatically better
than David Bell did when they lostone hundred games. When the team is
really good, got all sorts ofplayers who could bail you out. When
you are where the Reds are withthis combination of impatience with the franchise,

(50:49):
but the upside of some of theplayers on the roster. Where we are
in the calendar, where we're stillholding out hope that this team can re
enter the race, a small marginof error, a very real sense that
the season is slipping away because ofwell, where they are in relation to
first place in the playoffs. Who'scoming up on the schedule. The Dodgers

(51:12):
are here this weekend. The manager'sdecisions matter more, and it's not as
simple as God, he brought thisguy in and he gave up a home
run again. Over the course ofa season, every manager is going to
make a decision that you can understandand the results blow up in their face.
I rarely criticize. I rarely criticizethe results of a decision. If

(51:35):
I can understand the decision, Imight not have made the same decision right.
It's like the Bengals in the draft. You might not have wanted a
Marius Mims, but you had tounderstand why they took him. You had
to understand the decision making. Andif that's the case, you're good with
it. David Bell yesterday, Icannot understand the decision making and the result

(52:00):
blow up in his face. Andthe team is now ten under five hundred,
and it feels like the season isslipping away and the margin for error
is really small. Do I wanthim fired? No? Not really.
Now. If they fired him today, it'd be weird because they play a
game in less than three hours.But if they did, I don't know
that I would feel like, ohmy god, they really did him at

(52:21):
disservice. Oh watch somebody else snatchhim up. It wouldn't really move the
meter for me. I want him. I want him to not shrink the
margin for error by using the playersbetter and making decisions that make sense.
I care about the results, Butin all the years I've been doing this,

(52:43):
I've never gotten mad at a coachor a manager purely based on results.
Three years ago, Bengals are playingthe forty nine Ers. Joe Burrow
orchestrates this insane comeback. They're drivingdown the field. I think it's late
in the fourth quarter or in overtime, and Joe's and he runs. Zach
Taylor calls a couple of running plays. The results were frustrating, but what

(53:07):
drove me nuts was the decision making. You're taking the ball out of Joe
Burrow's hands when he's red hot,Like, really, it doesn't make any
sense. It's not just the result, and it's not just that they're losing.
It's that they're losing. I stillthink less. So every single day
they've they've got a chance to berelevant. I want him to use his

(53:29):
players better. I want him touse his assets when the game and the
situation demands at most. And look, part of it is if they're nine
over five hundred, okay, fine. If if this is a team that
had players that were good enough toovercome some of the shakier decisions by the

(53:53):
manager, fine, it's not thedecisions matter more. They're not playing meaningless
baseball. Margin of error is small. I need David Bell to make decisions
that make sense, not using TylerStevenson yesterday. Sorry, man, it's
one the series of decisions in onegame in one season, and there were

(54:15):
others yesterday, but that it's it'sa tiny, tiny, tiny example.
But oh man, I need thatstuff to be better. I need I
need the decisions to just make sense. I will not get upset at the
results, be disappointed by them.Need the decisions to make sense. That
yesterday made zero sense. It alsomakes no sense if you didn't sign up

(54:39):
from O your lawn. So you'reabout to hear me announce someone else's name
if you didn't, But we're aboutto announce a name. Somebody's gonna win
a more, somebody's gonna win ticketsto go see every concert at Riverbend.
Somebody's gonna have a really good Fridayafternoon. We'll find out who that person
is next. Cincinnati's e service ofKelsey Chevroleigh home of lifetime powertrain protect guarantee

(55:00):
credit approval from their family to yoursfor live kelseyshev dot com, Reds and
Dodgers first of three tonight at GABPseven ten is your first picks. Graham
Ashcraft and James Paxton your starting lineuptonight. Hopefully it's made well thanks to
Madewell Restoration. Go to Madewell Restorationdot com. Fairchild and Center, Elliott
Short Candelario at first, Steers battingclean up and left field, Stevenson behind

(55:23):
the plate. Espinall's at third base, Nick martiniz dching and batting seventh,
India at second, and Jacob Herdabiesin right field is batting in the ninth
spot. Cincinnati coming off two straightlosses to the San Diego Padres one and
two so far on the homestand Florencey'alls are taking on the Evansville Otters tonight

(55:45):
down there in Florence. Big EastBaseball Tournament at Prasco Park. At last
check, Xavier just added a runin the fourth inning, three to one,
XU leading Georgetown. Xavier is theroad team in this game. In
the top of the fourth inning.If the Musketeers win, they will play
tomorrow against Saint John's. If theybeat Saint John's, they'll play Saint John's

(56:07):
again tomorrow. Both games tomorrow night. If c Cincinnati is on the road
against Toronto, you will hear thatgame live on ESPN fifteen thirty Pregame coverage
starts at seven pm. This isalways a blast. It's always so much
fun, and it always gets suchgreat response. The annual Mow Your Lawn

(56:30):
Contest. I've explained this every dayfor almost four weeks. We partner with
two places we love. Back's theTractor with a showroom in Batavia. They
give us a lawnmower to give awayand it's awesome and it's perfect. And
Riverbend Music Center. They give ustickets to every River Bend show. And
we call it Mow your Lawn becausemy name, you know, my name's

(56:52):
Mo. And over the last threeand a half weeks or so, we've
asked you to go to the contestpage of ESPN, fifteen thirty dot com
and UH and sign up and it'svery easy, doesn't cost anything, and
I always feel like the really coolthing, and I genuinely enjoy this.
You know, there are prizes wegive away and you got to come pick
it up at the radio station thisbecause there are two prizes, and let's

(57:14):
face it, moving a lawnmower aroundis not the easiest thing. Uh.
We we we pack it up inthe station van and I drive it out
to your house if you win.And I always get a kick out of
meeting the people who win this contest, and it's so much fun. So
we're gonna do this next week.We're about to announce the winner again.
I want to thank the folks atBacks the Tractor. I certainly want to

(57:36):
thank the the people at Riverbend MusicCenter. And thanks to everybody who UH
who signed up and ask questions aboutit and UH and seem to be excited
about their chances of winning. Arewe Taran? Are we ready? Do
you have like, do you havesome sort of drum roll? Do you
have some sort of musical open thatwe could use to uh to get ready
for this momentous event. You havea drum roll that' you're probably gonna laugh

(57:58):
at. Go ahead and play thedrum roll. Have you ever seen one
of those old toys where it's it'sa monkey, a toy monkey banging on
a drum. Yeah, that's whatthat sounds like. That's our drum roll
for a contest of this magnitude.That's the best drum roll. We couldn't

(58:19):
get a timpany. That's the bestone we could come up with. All
right, Taran, go ahead andgive it to me again from out your
long contest. Thanks the Baxslattractor.River Mensa. The winner this year from
Terris Park, Jason Mandy. JasonMandy of Terris Park, where I think

(58:40):
most people pay someone else to cuttheir grass. I don't know if that's
the case with Jason, but there'sno longer a need to do that,
Jason, because you have won abrand new lawnmower thanks to Tabaxla Tractor,
and you're gonna go see every showat River Bend in twenty twenty four.
Jason Mandy of Terris Park, Congratulations, thank you so much for signing up.

(59:05):
You are the this year's winner ofthe mor Lawn Contest. We'll be
in touch. I'll be over,I'll have the mower, I'll have the
concert tickets, and I always offerto cut our winner's grass, provided you
have the right type of refreshment we'llsee. Congratulations to A. Jason Mondy
of Terras Park. The winner ofthis year is mow your long contest again,

(59:29):
thanks to everybody who signed up,thanks to backs of the Tractor,
thanks to Riverbend, and a bigspecial thanks to A. Jason Mondy for
we're having an easy name to say. That's really when I'm doing this for
a living, what I care aboutis can I pronounce that name? Am
I going to have issues with that? Jason Mandy of Terras Park. I'm
coming over, I'll have a mower, I'll have tickets, and all your

(59:50):
friends can start badgering you about whichconcerts they want to go to this year.
All right, already, look alreadyalready looking forward to next year.
And by the way, TARRYN,we have a year. Can we get
a better drum roll between now andnext year? Typically we give this this
prize away the Thursday or the Fridaybefore Memorial Day, so it's up to

(01:00:13):
you to find a better drum roll. You know, the budget we're working
on here. That's true. Wespent it all on the virtual coin flip
that we use for our trivia games. You make a very very fair point.
We got bourbon. I think wedo. We think Brandon's bringing bourbon
for us. Got I hope.So, Brandon Spinner from Channel nine hosts
of Bourbon. He's a meteorologist,he's a scientist, he's a journalist,

(01:00:36):
multi media journalist, and he knowsmore about the weather than any human being
walking the planet. But he alsomight know more about bourbon than any human
being walking the planet. I can'tdrink weather, I can drink bourbon.
So we watched his Bourbon show,and now we're going to have him on
our show coming up in just abouttwenty minutes. And if he's a smart

(01:00:57):
man, if he's as smart ashis meteorological degree would sugges, then he
will have brought bourbon with him.We'll find out. Brennanman and Jones on
Baseball coming up, and we'll takea phone call or too as well.
On ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports station. I'm Kareem Avany, Brenneman and Jones
on Baseball moments away. Our pollresults, Thanks to a United Heartland insurance.
Most of you are on the samepage. I am expand the field,

(01:01:19):
expand the ring of honor field votenow at Moegar. We'll get to
that in a further detail in justa few minutes. I've babbled long enough.
Scott and Dayton. You're on ESPNfifteen thirty. What's up? Oh,
how do you doing? I'm well, Scott? What's now? It
is a fun fact? Okay,Steve Rawley's son played football at Butler with

(01:01:43):
my son? Is that right?Yeah? About that? Don't you feel
better today knowing that I do?You have? You've You've enriched me as
I get into the Memorial Day weekScott. So do you see that that
David Dell knows that Tyler is hisbest hitter right now? Yeah? You

(01:02:10):
acknowledge it after the game. Sodo you think that he knew that that
was a pivotal game yesterday? Imean, I would like to think that
he he would he would view agame in which there are nine hunder five
hundred approaching Memorial Day weekend with theDodgers come into town as as not only

(01:02:30):
one that it would behoove him towin, but one that he could win.
I mean, it wasn't like itwasn't like you're asking Tyler Stevenson to
pinch it with a guy on basein the six to one game of the
ninth inning, right, And I'mnot going to make excuses for him,
but they sometimes have information that wedon't, right, all I can do

(01:02:52):
is offer comment on what we doknow. Yeah, there is there is
nothing to suggest that Tyler was injuredyesterday. Had David come out and said,
look, he took a foul balloff his mask the night before,
rung his bell, we just didn'tfeel comfortable, fine, or he's he's
dealing with you know, he's gotan injury that we think is not going
to preclude him from playing tomorrow.That's one thing. He talked about how

(01:03:15):
ready he was to hit. That'sthose are his words, not mine.
He talked about how ready he wasto hit and how they they were maybe
a base runner away from using them. So he was by David Bell's admission,
unless there's something he's not telling us, and I don't think that's the
case. By his admission, TylerStevenson was available to be used. He

(01:03:36):
simply chose not to use him.Well, I guess I just refused to
believe that he dumb isn't the rightword, but that his baseball IQ didn't
tell him that maybe there was aspot he needed to use time. I

(01:03:58):
think that's what makes yesterday so confounding, because I've watched a manage for five
and a half years and I've neverthought, Look, he's made decisions that
haven't worked, but I've never thoughtthat he did anything just objectively dumb.
That changed yesterday. Again, I'mnot screaming that he should be fired.
I don't do that. I couldsit here for the next hour and nine

(01:04:23):
minutes and tell you the number ofthings I think David Bell has done really
really well that people don't give himcredit for. But that doesn't make him
immune from criticism for making a decisionthat over the last twenty four hours I've
tried to understand and haven't until there'sinformation that would suggest that making the decision

(01:04:45):
he made yesterday was actually the rightone or had some common sense behind it.
I don't know that my position isgoing to change. Well, it
is just kept founding to hear someof the criticism, like sending Sam Mall
down. Their hands were tied,they had no one else they could send

(01:05:11):
down that they wouldn't have lost.Yeah, and that's not David and that's
not David Bell. Unfortunately for him, he asked to speak to those things.
I mean, I understand it,and the Reds are not the only
team that would have handled the SamMall situation the way they did. But
I mean, you know, youis keeping your best reliever? And look,
it's not like Sam Mall has pitchedgreat since he came back, But

(01:05:32):
is keeping your best reliever worth maybelosing a guy like Lucas Simms the way
he's pitched. Is it worth maybelosing a guy like Justin Wilson. I
think there are teams that would havesaid, fun, we'll put these other
guys through waivers and see what happens. I got a run, man,
Scott, you have a great weekend. Okay, Oh yeah, all right.
We're gonna have our guy, BrandonSpinner here. I put on Channel

(01:05:55):
nine for him and we're gonna talkbourbon and weather and baseball and more.
He's with us in studio. Itlooks like he brought stuff. Tarn.
I think we're I think we're infor a treat. But first, Brendan
and Jones on Baseball this report.What's up? Good afternoon, i'mulegar.
This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Thankyou for listening. Hopefully your Memorial Day

(01:06:18):
weekend is off to an incredible startand we're about to have some fun here.
It's five o'clock Happy hour, thanksto our friends at Michelobultra. One
of those sounds good right now.Great for the ball game tonight, if
you're going this weekend, they shouldhave great crowds, Reds and Dodgers.
They're also home on Monday afternoon,and so grab a mc ultra when you're

(01:06:39):
at the ballpark or across the street, or just chilling at home or sitting
by the pool. Mick Ultra isgreat. So is Bourbon. We carry
Channel nines weather reports, and sometimesit's Jennifer Ketchmark, and sometimes it's Raven
Richard, and sometimes it's Steve Rawley, and sometimes it's it's Brandon Spinner.

(01:07:00):
And two weeks ago, two anda half weeks ago or so, we
hear the weather. And like thenight before, I was downstairs in my
basement working and I was on YouTubeand Brandon Spinner popped up on YouTube.
Who's somebody I'd actually watched him coverall that rough bad weather tornadic activity the

(01:07:21):
night before, and up pomps thisshow on YouTube and it's Brandon Spinner,
but he's not talking about weather.He's talking about bourbon. And I love
bourbon, and I love listening topeople who know a lot about bourbon talk
about bourbon. It's like for me, it's like listening to people talk about
hitting. Right, I could listento that show that's out there, Ted
Williams and Tony Gwynn talking about hittingall day. I don't know that much

(01:07:44):
about hitting. I know I couldn'tdo it. So I love listening to
people who are experts and things thatI enjoy talk about them. Brandon will
probably scoff at the suggestion that he'san expert, but I mentioned, Hey,
that Brandon Spinner. Do that youjust heard do the Weather's got a
bourbon show? And then we startedcalling him Bourbon Brandon, and we said
we were going to try to gethim on with this, and then somebody

(01:08:05):
told him, so lo and beholdhe hits the DMS. He was I
guess grateful that we mentioned him andsaid, yeah, I'd come up anytime,
And I thought, what better timeto do it than the five o'clock
happy hour of Memorial Day weekend onFriday. So here he is the I
just tweeted out a link to hisYouTube show and I said this to him

(01:08:26):
off air that night, I endedup, like Binge, watching three of
these. I'm watching him bounce aroundliquor stores looking for bourbon. I'm watching
him sit at his home bar talkabout different bourbons and terms that I don't
fully understand. And it's really good. As you can imagine, because he's
a TV guy, the production valueis really high quality. So I encourage
you to check it out on YouTube. And Brandon's here with us what's going

(01:08:47):
on? That was flattering? Thankyou, longest intro ever. You make
me sound more important than I actuallyam. A big deal man, I
don't know. It's a bigger dealthe weather stuff, for the bourbon stuff,
a little bit of both before weget started. Yeah, I told
you I owed you four cents oryour v so if you have four pennies,
you're the first person to give meany sort of currency while you visited

(01:09:10):
in the studio, So I'm payingyou off. I'm just paying you what
you got me. Thanks, Thanks, it's good to have you. Yeah,
I'm happy to be here, happyto meet you. You've you've done
weather at Channel nine for a littlebit more than two years, right April
first of twenty twenty two. Theylike to call it the April Fool's joke
that keeps on giving, and youlike it. It's good. I'm doing

(01:09:31):
the weather. I love being myselfand hopefully at times save people's lives.
Yeah, that's part of the job. Well, I did watch and I
said this to you the night thatthe weather guy really is sort of scared.
Yeah, and uh, I enjoyin situations like that watching two people
who are typically not on TV togethercome together as a team. And I
think that happened throughout town. ButI was watching you and Steve. I

(01:09:54):
know Steve a little tiny bit,and he was sort of taking lead and
you were guiding him, and itwas it was kind of interesting. Yeah,
I love it. I like callingit Batman and Robin, right,
Like I'm his assistant in that case, and I'm looking at different things that
he may not be seeing. Right. It's always interesting to me when you
have situations like that, because that'swhen you guys take off the coats.
Yes, coats come off. Thatmeans things are start rolling the sleeves up.

(01:10:16):
Yeah. Yeah, it's kind ofa nonverbal cue, right right.
It means something like they don't dothat in sports, Like there's no roll
up the sleeves moment in sports,but in whether it's roll up the sleeves,
take off the coats. Well,as a basketball coach, you might
take the coat off, right likethe second half you get you're getting lathered.
Yeah the official really yeah yeah,so yeah, I mean there's tanyo

(01:10:41):
Roorke's not saving anybody's life right now, but but that night, possibly it's
worth wondering if you did right watchand did the right thing fingers crossed.
I think we had nine or tentornadoes, no fatalities that I know of,
So in my mind, job welldone. Now, obviously you'd want
no one to suffer loss of life, get hurt, suffer loss of property.
But when you have nights like that, and like you're not talking about

(01:11:01):
hey, it's going to be sixtythree overnight and clear in the morning,
like, do you get like asa little adrenaline, I mean, are
you excited? I love as collegeathlete, played college football, huge baseball.
Al Raiso played high school baseball.Was actually a better baseball player than
was a football player, just injuriesled one direction in the other. But

(01:11:23):
what I say is a severe weatherevent like that, you're on it.
We were on air for three hoursand fifty two minutes. Yeah, wall
the wall. Yeah, so there'sno like break. It's the most equivalent
adrenaline rush that I can get towalking out on a football field or on
a baseball field to compete at thehighest level that I ever competed at.
Right, Yeah, you get jassedup, jazzed up, you get juiced

(01:11:45):
up. You know that people's livesare in your hand. But that's also
part of the job, and that'swhat you kind of train for for your
entire career. How does the decisionget made because you guys bumped into programming
for the entire night. How doesthe decision get mad? Who makes that
call that says, look, thisis big enough. We're not just gonna
pop in and do an update.We're going long form. Yeah, it
kinda is discussed prior. Each event'sdifferent. Some events here like okay,

(01:12:10):
we're probably gonna have one or twostorms, and for the duration of that
storm, as long as it lookssevere looks dangerous, will stay on air.
But if it's just a regular severethunderstorm, which is fifty eight mile
per hour wind gus in one inchailor greater in both directions, probably not
staying on. But if there's thepotential for that to produce a tornado or

(01:12:30):
in some cases a severe thunderstorm,I kind of poop pooped the severe thunderstorm
warning. And that doesn't mean thatit's not a powerful, powerful storm.
It's just tornado is top of thecharts. But you can get severe thunderstorms
that are equally as bad as tornado, seventy five plus mile per hour winds,
two to three inch hail. Inthose situations, it's like, okay,
that's life threatening, right, weneed to stay and serve the public.

(01:12:55):
But in a tornado event like that, pretty much once there's a tornado
watch issued and we have a warningin our area or up to the county
out towards our west where it's aboutto move in to our DMA is what
it's called few limits heard the viewingarea we're on, we're on action.
How many phone calls do you getfrom people that are like, you're interrupting

(01:13:17):
the goldbergs or whatever. I don'thear the phone calls because those all go
to the front desk. Back whenI was younger and in a smaller market,
where the phone rang in the weathercenter, I would get a lot
more. I don't know if maybemore now because it's expected or we just
aren't hearing it from the people whoget off my long kind of deal.

(01:13:41):
But I know there was three orfour years ago awful tornadic activity. Do
you like that term, by theway, tornatic activity? Y? Yeah,
in Dayton destroyed businesses, homes,and there were folks who called some
of the TV stations up there thatended up really in hindsight, I'm sure
they felt awful, like, ohmy god, these people were on TV
for a reason. Look what happenedto our area. Thank god they were

(01:14:04):
on television, And maybe people willhave a better realization as to why those
decisions are made. I always liketo say, well, there's a lot
of people will be like, you'rejust hyping this event up, right.
I'll never hype something up. I'drather error on the side of least regret.
I would not want to say,oh, we're not going to have
anything today, and all of asudden we have a severe thunderstorm that created

(01:14:24):
a tornado and five lives. Icould have saved those had I said,
okay, we've got tornado potential today. It's like making a cake if you
don't have all the ingredients. Ifyou don't have the sugar, cake's not
gonna taste good. No, hestill can make the cake, but it's
not the cake if you don't havethe corn. The bourbon's not going to
rite. Yeah, to make ita whiskey sense or a bourbon sense.

(01:14:47):
But some of these ingredients you expectto be there, and it just one
little decimal or one little ingredient isjust not quite there. So the storms
don't happen. But then we havethe these events like this. You get
some people who are mad that we'reon air, but then there's others too.
I got more thank you emails inthe last couple of months because we

(01:15:08):
had another one in April eighth,I believe, no, it was April
second. It was the week beforethe eclipse, and I got more thanks
between those two events than I've evergotten in my career. So I hope
it's more so a mindset changing that, oh, they're doing this for a
reason, trust me. I don'twant to beat I've worked that morning from
ten am to one am. Iwas exhausted. Would you have been would

(01:15:30):
you have gotten in trouble if inthe middle of all that, you're like,
you know what, I need adrink and you break out a burbon,
have a couple of fingers, getin trouble quite a bit on that
one. But we have people whowalk in, Hey do you need water?
Do you need this? Surely that. But because it's a marathon,
right, it's three four hours andat sometimes you don't know what time it

(01:15:51):
is. You got to remind yourself. We have all these cameras that we
have across the city, but youget tunnel vision sometimes and you need someone
in your ear, just like yourproducers saying, hey, toss it to
the litle camera, toss it tothe letl camera or something along those.
Yeah, I am basically a robot. My producer does all the work,
uh for me? That what tarnWho was who was our friend that we

(01:16:12):
harassed from the Weather channel? Whowas that? Remember that dude's name when
he was in town and we triedto get him to go on the air
with us and he ended up beingvery nice, but I think we bothered
him a little bit too much inCantory. No, it was it was
in April, like they had aguy from the Weather Channel posted up in
coving It was in Covington, rememberthat. You can't remember his name,
And we badgered him because we wantedto know, like, at what point
does the Weather Channel you guys likerivals with them, do you guys?

(01:16:34):
I mean they're technically competitors. Competitorsin a way in a sense, they're
a different show to watch, sure, right, yeah, but well there
suddenly this dude from the Weather Channelparachutes in and he's standing in Covington,
and it's like, yeah, man, I don't I don't want to watch
this guy who flew in from Atlantaor New York or Washington or something like
give me, give me Brandon,give me, gim me Steve, give

(01:16:55):
me the folks who know this area. Yeah, but that that was in
early April. Why is he here? Ah, that's a good question.
But we were in. We werein in that date. That April second
was the highest risk we've been putin in Cincinnati in like eight years,
so and we were right in thecenter of it. So it's probably their
best hot spot to get someone there. Yeah, because they'll do the same

(01:17:17):
wall to wall coverage. It's juston cable and not available everywhere. It
feels to me like what they doand there's a very serious application, but
they're they're there for the pictures andthe sensational part of it, and you're
there for the practical purposes of let'smake sure people are are safe. Yeah,
they're maybe not a fair characterization,but they don't have quite the local

(01:17:42):
touch that we do. Right,they're there to show the entire country mm
hmm. We're here to make surethe people of the community in Cincinnati are
safe, are taken care of,are warned. Like our our thing is
we're a nine first warning station,right, we want to give you the
nine first warning, giving you thatfirst heads up right to keep you safe.
So I'm not gonna poop pooh onthe national people. They're just it's

(01:18:05):
more we're more hyper local there.Just yeah, And I mean, I
I'm man like making fun of people, so am I'm happy to do.
I remember about the dude was hedid having his buy I can't I'm looking
him up. He did having hisbuyer, that he was a whiskey guy.
Oh so maybe the next time hecomes to town, we could we
could have a glass together. Igive him to the Spinner speaking. You
guys can you guys can can allnerd out about weather and I'll just sit

(01:18:28):
there and have it. We cantalk sports, talking sports. Well,
we're gonna we're gonna do that.We we're gonna step away. Then we're
going to talk about your bourbon show. Okay, well, I don't know
what you brought your bag there,got a bag of tricks, man.
Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna spendsome time on that. And you're a
big Cubs fan, die hard,die hard Cubs fan. I like the
Reds. But it's fine. It'suntil the Cubs playing. Yeah, I
get it, I get it.That's fine at Rigley. Yeah, I'm

(01:18:50):
going next Saturday. Yeah, parttime season ticket holder. Favorite place on
Earth, legitimally. Yeah, I'ma Reds fan. My favorite place on
Earth. All right, it's magical. Yeah, seventeen after a five o'clock.
He's a Brandon Spinner follow on socialmedia. Follow on x Justin Michaels
was the dude's name, that's right, Justin? Do you know Justin?
I don't know, I'm going tolook him up there. Yeah. Follow

(01:19:12):
Brandon on social media for the whiskeyside of things on at Whiskey Underscore w
X and check out his YouTube show. If you love bourbon, you'll enjoy
He's back with us. We arehere till six o'clock. My name is
Moeggar thrilled you with us today onESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station Moron.
When I put out there on Xthe link to Brandon Spinner's Whiskey Weather show,

(01:19:36):
I sent the wrong link. Soif you went to that, my
apologies. I have corrected it.I've sent the right link out. So
if you love bourbon, you'll loveBrandon's show, Whiskey Weather. He does
that whiskey because he likes whiskey andweather because he's meteorologists. Do you like
hate it when people call you theweather man? I mean meteorologists. You're
a scientist, Yeah, meteorologist isthe term. I mean, you don't

(01:19:59):
go so I always like to say, you don't call him a plumber boy,
right, like it's a plumber.People call me like sports boy,
sports boy. Yeah, I'm sureyou get that too. I don't mind
it. I know it's a biggerthing with the females. A weather girl.
Oh here, weather weather. Yeah, that drives me nuts too.
Yeah, because they're meteorologists. Sure, but it should be weather woman,
honestly. Yeah. But yeah,I'm not too big on it. As

(01:20:24):
long as you're talking to me andcalling me something, I'll respond. All
right. How'd you get into doinga bourbon show? Okay, that's a
long story. I got into whiskeyback in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen,
got a bourbon bourbon twenty seventeen,twenty eighteen, and I was in Huntsville,
Alabama. This job, TV wisetakes you a lot of spots.
You gotta step up the ladder.I was in Duluth, Minnesota, then

(01:20:45):
who Falls South Dakota, Huntsville,Alabama, and now here in Alabama,
all the real glamorous Yes, yes, yes, I'd like to call it
a circle across the Midwest and thento the South. But I was in
Alabama. I loved bourbon. Iwas posting about it on my Instagram page
WX Spinner, and I was like, I probably shouldn't be posting about whiskey
in the South on my professional account, So I started an Instagram page called

(01:21:12):
Whiskey Underscore Weather, Whiskey and Weather. Just it's always whiskey weather. That's
what I like to say. Right, So I just post pictures talk about
what I'm drinking. I don't knowif anybody even gives a crap, right,
Yeah, people started following me thenthese reels, which was the new
TikTok but on Instagram. I'd doa funny one here there, and then
more people started following me. Getto meet some more people and just talk

(01:21:33):
to them and make friends. Andthen a buddy of mine that I knew
in Huntsville, huge Cubs fan,huge bourbon fans, you want to do
a podcast. So we started apodcast called Barrels and Barrels, a bourbon
and baseball podcast. Right. Wedid that, and we're still We're kind
of on hiatus for some personal reasonsbetween the two of us, but it

(01:21:55):
still exists. But in that timebeing while it's been on hiatus, I
kind of which to my own.I had a YouTube account myself, but
didn't really do much with it.But I was like, I'm gonna do
more. I have the TV personality. I can talk in front of a
camera. That's a big thing forsome people because that's a mental block.
I love what I'm drinking, Ilove whiskey. I like to inform people,

(01:22:19):
and I love The best part aboutwhiskey in my mind in bourbon is
without the weather. You don't havethe whiskey, right aging the barrel.
Yeah, sure, you don't getwhat the weather has blend lot. So
that's the most interesting part of it. And learning how the weather itself affects
the whiskey, in getting to diveinto that, and then just getting to

(01:22:42):
drink good whiskey. And every oncein a while a distillery will reach out
to you or bring you out.Yesterday I was at Augusta distillery, got
a behind the scenes tour that noone has seen yet of their distillery out
in Augusta. They just reach outto you. Yeah, they reach out
to you. Maybe they'll send yousome samples here and there. Do you
like stuff. There's bourbon fests,Yeah, Kentucky bourbon fests. I'll be

(01:23:03):
at in September. Meet a bunchof the people in the community. Some
of my best friends are from thewhiskey community, right So, and then
just talking about whiskey is my otherhappy place, right sure. Whiskey and
weather. Yeah, so yeah,a little bit of both. Yeah,
it can be for folks who arebecause I got into it. I got

(01:23:25):
into bourbon maybe early twenty tens justbecause I was around. Yeah, I
was around a lot of people whowere drinking bourbon, and then I met
the woman who's now my wife,and she was a bourbon drinker and had
friends who were bourbon drinkers, andso I kind of got into it.
It can be if you decide,like I'm going to get into this,
yeh, I'm going to develop thepalette. I'm going to develop the taste

(01:23:45):
for bourbon. It could be alittle intimidate h and that that could be
rough. And I've had people saythat to me, like I don't know
where to start, so I'm notgoing to start. I drank whiskey on
the rocks for about two years inthe start of my bourbon journey. Yeah,
I drink it neat ninety nine pointnine percent of the time. Now
we're a cocktail. But you don'thave to jump all in right away,

(01:24:09):
right like start low. You don'thave to get the most expensive bottle.
You get this and could get acheap bottle and something you like, drink
it the way you like. I'mnever going to tell you how to drink
your whiskey. I would start in, I would get three glasses. I
would pour one in a cocktail,pour one as neat, and then pour
one with the rocks, and seewhich one you like the best out of
that, and then move from there. And then maybe you start to develop

(01:24:32):
the palette and you start to pullthings out, right, because I wasn't
pulling chocolate and vanilla out of them. I was like, damn, this
is just alcohol, but it tastesgood. That sounds a lot like me.
Right, But the more I've drankthem different kinds of whiskeys, finding
out how the process is, learninghow to taste it. There's a there's
a science, right, learning howto smell it. He knows you're whiskey.

(01:24:57):
That's the big thing. Find outhow to do that. You got
to learn how to do that withoutlooking like a pretentious without the pinkies out
well, looking like guy's like awinery, like with the special glass.
Special you've got the special glass.Look at that. That's big. Now
this but obviously Kentucky is the bourboncapital of the world. But Cincinnati itself

(01:25:17):
has has turned into could I theCincinnati area a bit of a hotbed,
would that be? Yeah? Imean we're we're on the northern side of
the Kentucky bourbon trim. We've gota lot of great local distilleries here New
Riff. I was just telling youabout Augusta. But there's Boone County,
even small craft distilleries. We've gotWenzel, which is out in Covington,

(01:25:38):
which is not well known of.There's brain Brew just east of town,
and then in Ludlow there's second Site, very very small distillery. But every
every one of these has like areally cool story or some origin story behind
it, which is another amazing partof the bourbon life in the bourbon community
is there's a story about every differentdistillery. Yeah. Uh raws squib about

(01:26:01):
Lawrenceburg. Yeah, yeah, that'sso. That's out what they call m
g P, which is the OldSeagrums Factory. They produced probably about five
percent of the world's bourbon. Doyou do you have a place in town
that you prefer to go to huntfor good bourbon? Oh? Place,
and I mean the party sources,the destination, right, I love the

(01:26:23):
Yeah, I don't really have aspot. And I did get my first
Pappy van Winkle last weekend really atKroger in Union, Kentucky that there was
this massive bourbon drop. Actually,I had a couple of people come up,
are you gonna be on with mo? Yeah, but no I didn't.
I did bring some some stuff though. You mentioned Kentucky. Yeah,

(01:26:47):
well, so people hear about bourbondrops, right, yes, and I
have I'm too damn busy to dothis, but I know people who will
say, like, I'm going togo to the Kroger and Dent or the
Kroger in Union, certain and yougot to get there a Tuesday at like
nine to fifteen, and that's whenyou're gonna get the good stuff. And
if you show up by eleven thirty, the good stuff is going on.
How common is something like that?You don't have to mention spe you mentioned

(01:27:10):
the Kroger in Union Again, youhave to mention specific places. But yeah,
sometimes they're random sometimes, you know. I think it's Saturdays that they
do bourbon drops. That the Kroger'sin Cincinnati. It used to be a
random day of the week, butbecause the same people would go and camp
out it. Yeah, one,I think they split them up now.
The Kentucky one that I went tolast weekend. It was advertised for about
two weeks. I had knowledge ofit about a month and ahead of time

(01:27:31):
because you make relationships with the peoplethat are at the stores right and they're
like, oh hey, we gotsome stuff coming. I sat and line
crazy. I got there at threeforty five in the morning, got a
wristband at four am, and thewristband polling. They they did the way
they did it was fantastic. Ilove the way that they go about it
because it's all random, rather thanyou got here Thursday at five am and

(01:27:55):
waited till Saturday. You're the numberone in line, you get the best
bottle because a lot of times someof the those people they're just doing it
to turn around and get the bestbuck for it. Right. One of
the Bourbons where you see this happeningis Egle Rare Rare. When I first
got into Bourbon, Egle Rare youcould find everywhere. My wife and I
was drinking it. Now my brotherin law's dad got me a bottle.

(01:28:17):
And when I told my friends Igot a bottle, you you would have
I mean, you would have thoughtI had like the Red's World Series trophy
in my basement it was, andI'm like, it's eagle rare. It's
good. I'm glad I got it. But why does something like that that
was so common become something that endsup being marketing. Yeah, the other
one I'm holding up. I broughta bottle of blatants and right, that's

(01:28:39):
probably the biggest what they call taterbottle. You're tater because you're chasing hype,
right, right, Yeah, verygood marketing. The bottle of beautifl
bottle is great. Yeah. Thewhiskey is good. I don't think it's
the best whiskey in the world,right, I don't think it's the worst.
I'm not going to pay more thanwhat the MSRP is, which is
sixty five to seventy five dollars.Some people will pay one hundre and fifty

(01:29:00):
dollars just because they want to edmovie. Yeah, Buffalo Trace makes it
so anything Buffalo Trace has got tobe great because that's who makes Pappy van
Winkle. Right. I believe thatthe episode of Neat I think is what
it was called on Netflix, whichreally drove Buffalo Trace through the roof the
Pappy Vane Winkle boom. But there'sa lot of other good whiskeys out there
that I want. I want standin line for a bottle Eagle Rear Blatant.

(01:29:24):
I'll go stand in line for abottle Old Route eight Augusta. I'll
go stand in line for an oldFitzgerald. I'll go stand in line for
some of the other stuff. It'sall everybody's preference too, not not the
crap on Buffalo Trace. I loveBuffalo Trace, right, I think,
But you're not gonna wait in line. There's a lot of things that I
want, but I won't wait inline for right. Yeah, It's just
I'll wait in line for some,I just won't wait in line for others,

(01:29:45):
right, no question, All right. Brandon Spinner is with us from
from Channel nine Whiskey Weather on you. Tarranny's getting the whiskey out. You're
gonna come have a You're gonna comehave a sut glasses very yeah. Hey.
My my producer, Tarn Bland hasbeen looking forward to this all week.
Uh, and so he's he's gonnastop in during the break. It's
twenty seven away from Uh. Youdon't have to work tonight, da no,

(01:30:06):
not at you on this weekend,this weekend, watching tomorrow tomorrow night.
Now I'll do the evening shows onthe weekend. Good get to sleep
in all right, thanks twenty sevenaway from six o'clock. Sports headlines coming
up as well on ESPN fifteen thirtyCincinnati Sports Station. Any sports headlines are
a service of Kelsey Chevrolet, Homeof lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval

(01:30:29):
from their family to yours for life, kelseyshev dot Com, Reds and Dodgers.
Tonight, first of three at GAVPGraham Ashcraft James Paxton on the hill
seen on seven hundred WLW. Startinglineup thanks to our friends at Madewell Restoration
at a Maidwell Restoration dot Com.Fairchild's leading off in center, Elliott Short,
Candelario at first, Steers and left. Stevenson is catching batting fifth.

(01:30:55):
Santiago Espinal will be at third base, Nick Martini is dhing, Jonathan Indiat
second, and our guy Jacob Herdebesis in right field batting ninth. Florence
Yall's play tonight against Evansville the Ottersand Xavier is playing in the Big East
Tournament as we speak against Georgetown,and the news right now is not great.

(01:31:15):
Georgetown leads that ballgame in the seventhinning by a score of six to
three. Loser of that tilt iseliminated. Winner advances to championship Saturday.
And don't forget, we have FCCincinnati Soccer tomorrow on ESPN fifteen thirty is
the Orange and Blue takes on Torontoon the Road FCC looking for its seventh
consecutive victory. Good stuff from CallumWilliams of an MLS season pass from Apple

(01:31:41):
TV with us before. We'll havethat podcast for you on the iHeartRadio app.
Right now, we've got with thisour buddy. Now is the good
part. Brandon Spinner from Channel nineWCPO. You'll watch him tomorrow is at
five thirty six and eleven six elevenboth Saturday and Sun Saturday, and it
might be more on Sunday because we'vegot another have a weather event. Yeah,

(01:32:03):
stay tuned. On top of allthat, you could check out his
YouTube channel, Whiskey Weather. Brandongoes to stores and buys whiskey, He
tries whiskey, he smells whiskey.He talks about the process of bourbon whiskey
in particular. And I stumbled uponthis two weeks ago, mentioned it on
the air and Brandon fent out aboutit and not only showed up, but

(01:32:24):
he's brought some good stuff. Ibrought some bourbon. What are we about
to try? So? This isAugusta Distillery. It's out of Augusta,
Kentucky. It's called Old Route eight. It's a single barrel. It's an
eight year old bourbon, made inKentucky and aged in Kentucky. One thing
about Augusta, I was just thereyesterday, so stay tuned for a behind

(01:32:45):
the scenes look at that. Butthe cool thing I love about them is
they're very transparent. They have anNDA. They can't tell you where they're
sourcing it from, but it's allKentucky. And they will not put out
a bottle of whiskey for distribution unlessit's at least eight years old. Really,
really, they're only a four yearold company though. Or they started
in COVID so twenty twenty one.I don't know the exact day when they

(01:33:08):
started. So somebody eight years agostarted making the bourbon and then they didn't
go into business until four years later, right, So no, So what
happens is they're sourcing this from adifferent distillery somewhere in Kentucky, aging it
there, but they just built anew rick house. And in fact,
last year twenty twenty three, theSan Francisco Spirit Awards ranked their thirteenth or

(01:33:29):
their thirteen year old bourbon. Yeah, that's bourbon in the world, really,
yeah, in the world, inthe world. Well, bourbon.
It can only be made in theUnited States as part of the ABC's which
a lot of people don't understand.A lot of people also think it can
only be made in Kentucky. Alot of people have that misconception. And
I love the state of Kentucky,but a lot of people have that misconception.
It's good bourbon from all over theplace. They've got Ohio bourbon in

(01:33:50):
here, from Middle West spirits,Kentucky bourbon. Sure, that's where it's
from, right, But Indiana MGPright over the river in Lawrenceburg, they're
pumping out. A lot of thebrands you see on the shelves might be
coming from that, right Or Coloradodistilleries are popping up, Texas distilleries,
Washington State, there's California bourbon.Why do you think there was such this

(01:34:12):
the surge of popularity ten eleven yearsago that lasted. It really continues to
this day. Yeah, it's hardto tell a lot of it cyclical.
There was a big whiskey boom inthe early nineteen hundreds and eighteen hundreds,
right, That's why we have theBottle in Bond Act now, yeah,
eighteen ninety seven, right, whichis to this day still the best and
most like stringent alcohol law in effect. Bottle in bond if I'm sure you've

(01:34:36):
heard of it, But there's alot of different things that have to be
happening in order for that to becalled the bottle in bond. So back
in the late eighteen hundreds there wasa good amount of it, and then
we had probition, right, andI think prohibition really killed a lot of
distilleries, a lot of these onesyou see the pop up or distilleries that
were here into the early nineteen hundredsthat are now one hundred years later popping

(01:34:59):
back up because the histor he's beenfound or stuff along those lines. As
far as the boom itself, Ican't really put a one finger on what
really caused it, but uh,craft, right, craft beer had an
explosion. Craft whiskey is now doingthe exact same thing about a decade later.
Yeah, I got that Henry McKenna, and it says bottled and bottle

(01:35:20):
on the bottle. Yeah. Yeah, And so that was the first time
I'd ever seen that that phrase.You at the bottom and then learn about
it. It's a all right.So you've got the Augusta Route, Yes,
Augusta Route eight very good? Uh. New Riff in Newport a bottle
of that. I've got the eightyear here. There's never been a bad
product I've had from there. Ilove New Riff. I do get a

(01:35:41):
lot of spearmint out of new Riffs. Some people don't, right, And
that's what the cool thing about it. You are going to get something way
different out of that glass in frontof you than I am. Right,
that's the beauty of it. Right. Neither of us is wrong. Right,
We've all got our opinions, weall have our thoughts. You may
hate that, I may love it, and vice versa. It doesn't make
us any difference exactly. What isyour favorite bourbon cocktail? If you have

(01:36:04):
one, Oh easy, go tois in old fashion? Right, I
do like the paper train, andthen there's also the paper plane. You
put bourbon or rye whiskey and acocktail. I'm going and drink it unless
there's pineapple in it. But that'sa whole another sting. Okay, But
so for folks who don't understand thedifference between the two, go ahead.
Yeah. So bourbon and rye whiskeyboth made in America. Rye whiskey made

(01:36:29):
in Canada as well. But thelaw for bourbon and I have a link
on my Facebook page that has justdropped about this as well. I like
to say the ABC's it else goesto g but A is America, right,
Bourbon can't be made anywhere else froma law back into the nineteen sixties.
B barrel or in this sense it'scontainer. Most distilleries you hear bourbon

(01:36:53):
barrels, right, has to bea brand new charred oak barrel, first
time it's ever been used, andit has to be in there for one
second. So some people think ithas to be two years to become bourbon.
That whiskey can literally go on thebarrel and then you can dump the
barrel right out and it's considered bourbonbecause it's been in the barrel. Has

(01:37:15):
anybody actually tried that? I believethere's been one or two distilleries. Some
just sell the wage five minutes.It's not gonna taste good. It's gonna
put some hair on your chest,probably burn your esophagus, but it's not
gonna be any good. But that'sthe B and then C is corn.
In order for it to be bourbon, fifty one percent of the mash bill,

(01:37:39):
which is what makes the bourbon,has to be corn. And then
you can have any other type ofgrain behind that. Usually it's rye,
sometimes it's wheat, and then usuallyyou're gonna have malted barley in there as
well. Sometimes you have four grains, sometimes you have three grains, but
at least fifty one percent of ithas to be corn. Then you get
to D, E, F andG G just means you win. I'm

(01:38:00):
not going to get into the nittygritty of the rest of you're interested in
that again, I've got the videoon YouTube if you want to check out
now the Bourbon Trail, right,yeah, So there are a lot of
folks, certainly in this part ofthe country, they'll make that a weekend
trip, or they'll they'll maybe aday trip, and they'll they'll they'll try
to go to as many places aspossible throughout Louisville and well beyond yes.
If if somebody says, all right, I got a weekend, I'm gonna

(01:38:21):
go to two go to two distilleries, right, I'm gonna I'm gonna take
I'm gonna take a weekend and doto you what would you recommend? Where
would you start? Frankfurt is thehome of Buffalo Trace. I just was
talking about how I wouldn't stay inline for a Buffalo Trace. But the
place itself is immaculate, right,it's great. I have yet to do

(01:38:42):
a tour there, but I've beenon the grounds three or four times.
They have their whiskey there to bebought. I believe they open at ten
am, it might be nine am, whatever it is, but they've got
great tours. There's a lot ofhistory there, and down the street is
Castle and Key. I'm not ahuge fan of the whiskey itself, but
the grounds is probably the most beautifulyou're going to see. It's an old

(01:39:03):
castle which was E. H.Taylor, Colonel E. H. Taylor's
old distillery back in the early nineteenhundreds, and then it kind of went
by the wayside. Castle and Keybought it, they renovated it, they
built it back up. The groundsare amazing. It's an hour and fifteen
hour and a half south of Cincinnati. Either're right within five to ten minutes

(01:39:25):
of each other. There's good foodout there, but those would be if
you just had a day. That'swhat I would do, August. I
was just out yesterday, not tojust keep pumping them up. But what
I love about what they're doing.They still haven't distilled their own whiskey yet.
You go today and then you goin two months. It's going to
be way different in two months becausethey're still building, so you can see
the evolution. Now you being abaseball guy, yes, have you done

(01:39:47):
the Louisville Bats across the street fromangels Envy? I have not. It's
literally across the street. I've notdone the Louisville Bats. I've not done
the Louisville Slugger Museum either. I'llget into the building because I went down
Whiskey Row back in July last year. But I haven't done too much of
Louisville. I've done more of theLexington, Cincinnati and even Bargetown. Bargetown

(01:40:09):
the Capitol of Bourbon right yeah,out there with Heaven Hill and all those,
But have not done as much inLouisville as I'd hoped to. That's
still on the calendar for the summer. I did, and I did.
I had been to a bunch ofLouisville Bats games, and then when I
got into Bourbon Else there's a microbrewery right outside the ballpark and I'm there
and I look over and I'm like, wait a minute, that's Angel's Envy.

(01:40:30):
And literally the next day was downthere for a wedding, went and
did the tour. Yeah, andyou can walk back across the street.
And then the guy who gave methe tour said, well, then you
got to go to the Evan Williamstour. And Evan Williams product is not
my favorite either, but they doa speak easy experience that was a lot
of cool and it was like aten minute walk. Yes, that was
pretty neat downtown Louisville. That WhiskeyRow. Basicly they've got a ton and

(01:40:51):
that's a great weekend. Yes,you can go down there, stay downtown,
walk the Whiskey Row, and evena couple of different distilleries that are
not downtown that are just outside ofdowntown. Fearless, rabbit Hole, Barrel,
Craft Spears just open their own tastingroom and barreling house. So there's
a lot going on. We're inthe thick of it, and that's what
I love about being up here too. Yes, I'm back in the home

(01:41:13):
country of it. Right, verygood? All right, we're gonna drink
this during the break. We canstart to drink it. Start to drink.
That's right. I have very goodBrandon spinner from Steve Rawley. Looks
like he's doing okay without you rightnow. He looks like the weather is
going to be fine for now.Does he Does he have a side job
at Century twenty one or something withthat jack. It is ten minutes away

(01:41:33):
from six o'clock. You could watchBrandon on Brandon on A channel nine and
also check out his YouTube channel.If you love bourbon, you'll love watching
him. Check it out Whiskey Weather. It's a nine away from US six.
This is ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sportsstation. They are more identity threats
than you realize. Even if youmonitor your credit, only a little personal

(01:41:55):
info needs to leak out, likeyour social Security number or pass Tonight be
at seven to ten on seven hundredw WELW and an update from Mason Xavier
and Georgetown Muskies have cut it tosix' five batting in the top of
the eighth inning. Matt McCormick ayto run Homer. So a good one

(01:42:15):
happening up at Prasco Park. BrandonSpinner from Channel nine is here The Whiskey
Weather Show on YouTube and you couldalso watch them save your life when there
are extreme weather conditions at Channel onterror. By the way, new rule
for all of our in studio guests, they have to bring booze. All
right, We're going to pass anew rule, like Danner, anybody who

(01:42:36):
comes up in studio, You're onlygoing to be allowed to enter the building
and be on the air with usif you bring if you bring booze.
Write that down. That's going tobe a new rule. Good stuff,
good stuff. What's like the biggestmisconception that people have about bourbon? I
think the biggest misconception is that ithas to be made in Kentucky. That's

(01:42:56):
probably the biggest one. Yeah,there's a I think the biggest one is
that you can only get good bourbonif you pay oh an exceptionally high amount
of money. Some of my favoritebourbon's on the shelf for fifteen anyway,
right, yeah, JTS, BrownBottle and Bond. Go buy it.
It's good, especially if you're tryingto get into it, right, what'd
you think? That's good stuff?Right here? That's good now now,

(01:43:18):
I like to me there's a noteof like nuts. Yeah, it's got
a nudiance to it. Yeah,get a lot of honey out of into
Yeah. Do you have a favoritebourbon establishment? You can buy? You
can get bourbon almost anywhere, butis there a favorite place you'd like to
go and sit down and have oneor two that that does it better than

(01:43:38):
the others? It's hard, youknow who does it really really well?
And it's going to be something youprobably never tasted before. Revival in Coverington,
Yeah, Vintage, I've ever beenthere. Yeah, they've Brad's got
an amazing assortment of whiskeys. Itry to I don't know if it was
bourbon, but it was bottled innineteen ten. Oh my. Yeah.

(01:43:59):
See, you're not gonna find thatanywhere. I'm not gonna find that at
a normal bar, No, downthe street. So he's got some good
stuff. He's got great stuff forsale. I found a bottle in his
store that had my hometown on itfrom Jim Bean back in nineteen sixty nine.
Yes, so I have to buya bottle of This was hell Lombard,
Illinois. It's not a big town, but it was on a bottle
of bourbon. That's pretty awesome.All right, Well, this has been

(01:44:21):
really fun. Don't be a stranger. Continued success, keep the show going.
I love it. I hope theCubs fall in their face, but
that's a different topic for a differentday. I see him next Saturday,
and the Cubs you will. Yeah, I'm jealous because I love those Friday
one twenty Reds Cubs games. Whenthey go up there. They're playing a
Saturday night game at Wrigley second straightyear. Yeah, did it last year

(01:44:42):
too. All Right, we're done. Have a great weekend. Back Tuesday.
Thanks to Taran for producing, Thanksto you for listening. Have a
great night, have a great weekend. This is ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati
Sports station.

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