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July 4, 2024 112 mins
Elly De La Cruz shines in New York.
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Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty, CincinnatiSports Station, Elie Dela Cruz, Right,
I mean, lots of other guysdid really good things last night,
including the guys at the back ofthe bullpen, which is not insignificant,

(00:23):
both in the context of a gamelast night where the two Yankee hitters you
fear most didn't come to the platein either the eighth or ninth inning,
but also in the context of theseason. Reds need a better, more
reliable steadier Alexis Diaz in the secondhalf of the season. They also need
that gram Ashcraft, who we're goingto talk about this afternoon. I'm Oleegar.

(00:46):
This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Goodafternoon, Thank you for listening.
I here's what I hope. Ihope that you're not only having an awesome
Wednesday. I hope today is yourFriday. Actually, I hope today is
your Saturday, and then you havelike a few more Saturdays before you get
to Sunday. I hope you're offtoday. And if you're not off today,

(01:06):
if you're working, that's cool,so are we. But I hope
you're doing the whole four day weekendthing, because well I am, and
so we have a lot of groundto cover. We are gonna go to
DC in chat with Kaylin Carr fromMLS Season Pass, Apple TV FC Cincinnati
on the road tonight against DC.One might call it a trap game with
Miami looming on Saturday night. Thatconversation coming up in just about thirty minutes

(01:30):
plus. We have to talk aboutcompetitive eating. It is a sports talk
radio must that in the dead ofsummer when they do the hot dog eating
contest, you spend time talking aboutit, and so I will I have
a question. We might also playa game of Stuart Fairchild bingo or or
we're not gonna play the game asmuch as we're gonna come up with the

(01:53):
card and what should be on it. See, we can laugh because the
red won the game, and theywon the game because of a lot of
different things and a lot of differentthings happened. Let's just start with what
is kind of taking on a lifeof its own. The Reds are awesome

(02:15):
in the opening game of series.They're now nineteen and nine. This is
legitimately one of the crazier oddities insports that I've ever seen. And audities,
like myself, audities are sort ofthe fun part of sports, right.
I mean, that's what makes sportsunique, oddities, things that are

(02:38):
different. The Reds are forty andforty five, five under five hundred,
yet they're nineteen and nine in gameone of a series. I was no
math major at the University of Dayton. I went to public school in Kentucky,
so my math is shaky. Butif they are ten over in game

(03:00):
one of a series and they're fiveunder for the entire season, correct me
if I'm wrong they're fifteen under fivehundred in games two, three, and
four of a series, that isremarkable. It's almost or it's also,
I should say, and you cancorrect me if I'm wrong. Five one,

(03:22):
three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty is our phone number.
I don't think there's anything that explainsit. Somebody asked me in the
office today. Is is that areflection of David Bell? I don't think
so. I mean, is thereany validity to the idea that the Reds
weird splits if you will, wherethey're so good in game one of a

(03:46):
series and then so bad in everyother game. Is there any validity to
the idea or to the suggestion thatthis is a result of the Reds kind
of taking their foot off the gasafter they win a series opener. I
don't think so, but I'm opento the idea. By the way,

(04:08):
I do also think if they're sobad in the other games in every series
and again they're nineteen and nine,right, nineteen and nine, which means
they are twenty one and thirty sixin the other games this season, twenty

(04:28):
one and thirty six, which isputred It's awful, But nineteen and nine
is the exact opposite. It's awesome. That's like six seventy eight baseball.
I haven't even looked this up.It's actually six seventy nine baseball. I'll
pull out my phone and do this. If you played, If you had

(04:49):
a team that played six seventy ninebaseball over the course of an entire season,
they would win one hundred and tengames. In the first game of
series, the Reds are a onehundred and ten win team. In in
the other games, they're playing threesixty eight baseball. If you played three

(05:13):
sixty eight baseball over the course ofan entire season, you'd win sixty games.
There are a sixty win team.In games two, three, and
four, they're a one hundred andten win team in game one there is
I've never seen anything like that.It's it's really hard to explain. Now,
if you're gonna do the whole thingwhere you talk about how well they

(05:34):
take their foot off the gas afterwinning the first game of a series,
whether you believe that or not,if that's gonna be something we've float out
there, can I then counter thatwith yeah, but yeah, yeah,
but when they lose, and theylose the last game of a series and
now they have to go on anairplane to go somewhere, and it can
at times be heartbreaking. They're reallygood at picking themselves up by the bootstraps.

(05:59):
Does does anybody have bootstraps? They'rereally good and picking themselves up by
the bootstraps and bouncing back and winning. It's remarkable. Ellie Dela Cruz is
remarkable too. And he was terrificlast night. Somebody said to me,

(06:21):
you know, he was awesome inLA when the Reds took on the Dodgers
out there, and he was terrificlast night the Yankee Stadium in New York.
And so somebody here at the radiostation said, well, is he
auditioning for one of those teams?That's I guess one way of looking at
it. The other way of lookingat it would be Elie Dela Cruz continues
to get better. He homers,he triples, he shows off his speed,

(06:43):
he shows off his power, heshows off what he can do in
the field. I am, Iprobably should not admit this. I was
cutting grass last night and I'm tryingto listen to the game and I couldn't

(07:04):
for like two innings. I couldn'tget the game on the iHeartRadio app,
which it turns out all I hadto do was reboot my phone, and
so I go on the MLB appand the first thing that comes up is,
you know, if you've ever donethis before, you could listen to

(07:26):
the home broadcast, the road broadcast, and if one exists, the Spanish
broadcast, but it defaulted to theYankee broadcast, and it's Susan Waldman and
whoever the other guy is that tookover for John Sterling, And as I
catch it, they're talking about EllieDela Cruz and what the mail announcer said,

(07:46):
and I guess I could look uphis name, but he goes.
You know, in Cincinnati, there'sbeen some exasperation with Ellie de la Cruz,
and I'm trying to figure out why. Sometimes, you know, you
watch a player every day. We'vedone this with every great player that has
come through town, Like we didthis with Joey Vado, right, we

(08:07):
did this with Joey. I'll neverforget twenty thirteen, Joey Vado was in
the top ten and like nineteen differentcategories. And yet every single day,
every single day, I'd have totalk about Joey Evado and stick up for
Joey Evado and insist, you know, Joey Vado is actually great, is
actually having a great season. AndI'd sometimes explain that I had to do

(08:28):
this to people from other cities whoroot for other teams, and they would
go, wait a minute, thebiggest complaint is about that guy. And
I think, to a degree,we've done this a little bit with Ellie
de la Cruz. Man, yougot it. Any other city. You
talk to any fan of any otherteam and go, yeah, Ellie de
la Cruz, the season he hashad, people here, not the majority
by any stretch, have found areason to complain about him. They're gonna

(08:52):
go written him. You got ateam that's putting Stuart Fairchild out there,
who doesn't know where to throw theball when it ends up in his glove,
and you're complaining about him. You'recomplaining about this guy. Ellie de
la Cruz is gonna be an AllStar, perhaps as soon as this year.
He was terrific last night, andyou're gonna hear the MLB network guys

(09:13):
talk about the sky being the limitfor Ellie dela Cruz here in just a
few minutes. I thought the mostimportant part of last night's game, though,
and the final line might not becompletely reflective of how good he was,
but Graham Ashcraft was really sharp lastnight. Now, he wasn't perfect.
He wasn't perfect in the field,and he wasn't perfect on the mound.

(09:37):
He threw a pitch at one pointin the third inning to Aaron Judge,
an two pitch that looked like thefattest, most hittable meatball I've ever
seen. I cannot believe that AaronJudge didn't hit that ball to Yonkers.
But he didn't, and Graham Ashcraftgot away with it. And sometimes you

(09:58):
have to have that happened to you. He looked really sharp. Graham Ashcraft
is a guy who was making lastnight his second start since being demoted.
Demoted, This wasn't he wasn't hurt, This wasn't a rehab assignment. They
sent him to Louisville because he's stunk. Now he's back. This is a

(10:20):
really big next three months for GrahamAshcraft. A huge next three months for
Graham Ashcraft. And we've I've talkedon this show about how I think the
second half of the season is asmuch about figuring out who you're gonna win
with next year as anything else.And yeah, it's about jumping back into

(10:41):
the playoff raise, and yeah,it might still be about making the postseason.
And remember there they're now a gameinto this season defining thirteen game stretch,
which will set up another season definingstretch right after the All Star break.
So this current season defining stretch justgot off to a really good start.
But man, Graham Ashcraft has toshow that he's a part of this.

(11:01):
Hunter Green has gotten better, NickLodolo has gotten better, Andrew Abbed
in many respects, has gotten better. There are other guys in the system
that are gonna push their way towardthe big leagues. They've shown a willingness
to go spend some money for rentalpitchers who are veterans. Graham Ashcraft has
to use the second half of theseason the show that he is getting better,

(11:22):
that he is on the same trajectoryas some of those other guys,
and that he clearly deserves a spoton the rotation in twenty twenty five.
So far this season, last night, aside, he has pitched like just
another guy. I'm trying to winbig next season. I'm trying to win
big this season. Don't have roomfor just another guy. Last night he

(11:43):
was far better than just another guy. He was really sharp. And again
you look at the final line,three runs in five innings, taken out
in the sixth early after he gaveup a couple of runs. I thought
he looked really sharp last night.I thought he looked as good as he
had in any start he has madethis season, including the one right after

(12:03):
the demotion when he got called backup. If you're looking at developments that
you try to go, okay,let's grab this and move forward. We
know Elie de la Cruz is goingto be really good. We know he's
capable of doing some jaw dropping things. We know statistically he is getting better.
We know there's so much raw talentthat you can't help but want to

(12:24):
bet on it. We also knowthat he's twenty two years old. I'd
like to know more about Graham Ashcraft. I'd like to know that the guy
that I'm watching this year is aneven better version of the guy that I
watched two years ago. Last night, I saw a glimpse of the Graham
Ashcraft the Reds got two years agogood Win in New York. Reds are

(12:48):
nineteen to nine and series openers fivepoint three seven four nine fifteen thirty is
my phone number. You could alsouse eight sixty six seven oh two three
seven seven six. I posted theshow preview video on x It's a service
of Emery Federal Credit Union, yourcredit Union with heart since nineteen thirty nine.
Go to EMORYFCU dot org. Weget to everything we have coming up

(13:09):
this afternoon, and one or twothings that I did not mention in the
video that we have coming up aswell. We'll get to those a little
bit later. On MLB Network onEllie and his Ceiling and you hear things
in this business, I'll tell youwhat I don't hear when it comes to
Eli Next on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnatisports station Quali five for and team handball.

(13:31):
Yet again, I'm mallegor. We'rebroadcasting from ESPN fifteen thirty Studios,
powered by Greater Cincinnati's roofing and exteriorrestoration experts, Madewell Restoration. Your home
deserves to be made well. Getit made well at Madewell Restoration dot com.

(13:52):
Klin Carr is gonna join us MLSanalyst for APPLETVFC Cincinnati and DC tonight.
A huge matchup coming up on Saturday, as the Orange and Blue will
host Miami. So the dreaded proverbialtrack game against the DC team that has
played very poorly recently. Uh,we had Xavier scrut and yes, his

(14:15):
name is Xavier Xavier Scrugs from AppleTV with us yesterday. You can listen
to that conversation with the podcast pageof ESPN fifteen to thirty dot com or
the iHeartRadio app thanks to our friendsat Long Neck Sports Grill. Xavier was
effusive in his praise for Ellie DelaCruz, who then last night goes out

(14:37):
Homer's triples and just blatantly and dramaticallylooks awesome. And so you know,
we could play that audio. Foryou, or we could play some of
the audio from late last night onMLB Network where the guys slab or over
at Ellie Dela Cruz. This guy'sdelivering this is not again. Sometimes like
we get excited to call Neil Cruz, who was like another you know,

(14:58):
super tall shortstop. We love thearm when he's throwing ninety eight. Then
he hit a four hundred and seventyfive foot home run. But Tom,
I don't care if you're hitting leagueaverage. This guy's hitting well above league
average and doing all that. Yeah, and I think you can almost see
his improvement on a daily basis.I mean I was skeptical about his hitting
from the right side. He's improveda lot. On the right side,
he still strikes out a lot.I think the defensive metrics are split because

(15:22):
he does have some careless errors.But when you watch him play the position,
the range is spectacular. The armis you know, probably top three
in baseball, so you know he'sgonna stay at short stop. I know
we look at these tall short steps. Can I show you this the first
time? Like, look look atby the way the bottom you see on
the bottom note there his hit hisslash line as a right handed hitter,
at his weighted run scwitter plus wastwenty eight. That means you got to

(15:45):
stop hitting from that side. Andyet this year as a right handed hitter,
it's one twenty two. So hashe fixed that or where Definitely,
as I said, you can seehim improving. He definitely has fixed that.
I'm sure he will cut down onthe strikeouts. This guy really works.
If you go to a red gameearly, he's out there doing a
lot of work. He's got Heloves the game of baseball, puts the
work in. So with his skillset and his work ethic, he's going

(16:07):
to continue to improve. I thinkthe next phase two is his swing decisions
on breaking pitches. He absolutely destroysfastballs, especially early than count. The
Yankees learned that last night. Donot throw him fastballs in his own early
in the count. He will nottake them. He will swing at them
and do damage with them. Youcan get him to chase breaking balls.
But again, that the improvement onthis guy, and he's already a great

(16:27):
level right. I mean, theceiling for him is whatever he wants it
to be. Tom Verducci and BrianKenny last night MLB Network after the Reds
beat the Yankees Ella de la Cruzwith a homer and a triple. The
two words for me are improvement andceiling. He still strikes out a lot

(16:49):
fine. That's probably never going tochange, and he's not a finished product
in the field. Improvement and ceiling. You you do this job, and
you you hear things, right,talk to enough people who are around,
who are close to it, whocover you. You hear things, and

(17:15):
you know, sometimes you hear somethings that you don't put a lot of
stock in, and sometimes you hearsome things that you do put a lot
of stock in, but you hearenough that sometimes what's most striking is when
you don't hear anything. So,no Reds player, no Reds prospect,
has been under the microscope for alonger time or with as much hyper focus

(17:38):
on everything that he does than Elliede la Cruz. None, No,
No, no player on the teamhas had more attention paid to him.
And this was the case probably evenbefore he got called up. So like
I always say, I side withthe talent and then I hope the catches

(18:00):
up to him. And that happensa lot in sports, right Like uber
talented guy, uber talented prospect andnow has to have a lot of the
other stuff catch up. Some ofthe other stuff might be just the league
or some of the nuances of thesport. Some of it might be maturity.
So I'm going to bet on theraw talent, and then if you're

(18:22):
worried about him not being a finishedproduct, you go, Okay, well,
when's all the other stuff gonna catchup to him. What you don't
hear about Elie de la Cruz isyou know what this guy back, you
know behind the scenes, doesn't workvery hard, or guy's a little bit
too consumed with his own statistics,or he's not a very engaging teammate,

(18:45):
or he doesn't care. Like I'vebeen doing this long enough, I'll pay
attention when I hear things like thatabout athletes. And there have been some
that I've heard that, and I'veused that to color whatever I've said on
the air. Eliade la Cruz hasbeen a part of the reds Now for
a while. You don't hear thosethings. You hear about how much he

(19:07):
loves the game. You hear abouthow hard he works. You will hear
many say, look, he's he'sgot a ways to go. Everybody will
talk about how he's improved. Everysingle person I've listened to, every single
person whose opinion I respect that Italk to, believes the ceiling for this
guy is almost unlimited. I'll sidewith what I see and hear. I'll

(19:36):
also take into consideration what I don'tTwenty nine minutes after three o'clock, more
of that coming up to make yourphone calls welcome as well. Five one,
three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty. You can send
me a tweet anytime thanks to ourfriends at Delta Dental. Delta Dental is
building healthy, smart, vibrant communitiesfor all good at Delta dentaloh dot com,

(19:56):
Follow and tweet at mo Beggar.Major League Baseball has found a way
to screw up the unscrew upable,and I need someone to explain something to
me. But first, Kaylen CarrApple TV will explain what he likes about
FC Cincinnati so far. Coming offa win and another opportunity for three points

(20:19):
on the road tonight against DC,Caitlin joins US next Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty
to traffic. It is twenty sixaway from four o'clock. This is ESPN
fifteen thirty, So FC Cincinnati isplaying again tonight and a lot of excitement
for obviously what's coming up on Saturdays, they'll host Miami. But first things

(20:44):
first, opportunity for a three points. Second time they have played DC this
year, had a scoreless draw againsthim earlier this season. Tonight's match,
obviously, you can find it onApple TV as part of MLS Season Pass,
and one of their many horrific analystsis a guy who had a terrific
professional soccer career and a host ofthe Movement and MLS game and studio analyst

(21:10):
Kaylin Carr is with us. Itis a good to have you, Kalen.
How are you well? Doing great? Thanks so much for having me
on. Awesome to be here.I appreciate you doing this. You know,
it's a weird night tonight for FCCincinnati because all anybody could talk about
is this game they have coming upon Saturday, and maybe amplifying that is
the fact that DC has recently sortof gone downhill, taking a turn for

(21:30):
the worst. Let's start with them, because we saw them earlier this year.
What has happened recently to that side? Yeah, well, you know
that's exactly the danger I think forthis match from a Cincinnati perspective is you
can maybe look past this DC matchlooking towards Saturday. And you know,
I think Christian Benteke has been suspendedfor two matches, had a bit of

(21:51):
a meltdown in a match again Houstonthat they were in good control of.
And they've got fourteen goals to assistan MLS All Star, and so they're
gonna miss him in a big waybecause so much of their style of play
goes through Ben Tech. They relyon him for service in the air.
He's one of the best in theair, so dangerous scoring goals of course.

(22:11):
And you know, there's a newsfranchise in a way, and I
think I spoke to the manager,Troy Lussain, and he said, basically,
he hopes that DC can become aCincinnati, but it's going to take
some time to build towards that sortof level of consistency and success. Right
now, he's trying to impart histeam with the philosophy and get some consistency
because it's been difficult. And PatNewnan knows that this team cannot look ahead.

(22:34):
Cincinnati needs to continue to take careof business because if they want to
go and achieve their goals to winthe Supporter Shield. These are the types
of matches you have to win.So I understand there's gonna be a lot
of eyes on the Miami match atTQL. I'm sure it's gonna be buzzing
on Saturday night. But on theroad today, this team's going to need
to take care of business. Gotto take care of business, and have
to take care of business while shorthanded. They'll get Miles Robinson back here,

(22:57):
I guess pretty soon, but alot of guys who aren't going to be
playing for the team for the restof the season. That conversation begins.
I guess with Matt miasgo, whatdo you make of how they've done without
playing with the full squad. It'sbeen impressive. It's been impressive, but
I'm not too surprised just because ofthe identity of this team. We've seen

(23:17):
players step in. The depth hasbeen tested, but they've set up to
the challenge so far, and I'vebeen impressed by that. DeAndre Yedlin was
a big signing mid season to comefrom into Miami. His leadership and experience
I'm sure will be leaned on andthese times with no Miasga, no Robinson
out and then Haglin's injury. Ithink maybe is being overlooked a little bit

(23:38):
because he's been a consistent player forthis team and had a really good season
so far, was expected to playa bigger role. Even so, I
think Cincinnati's going to need to goout into the transfer market open up,
you know, the bank a littlebit to bring in a replacement in the
defensive area. It seemed like theywere only continuing to add maybe in the
attack, but now it'd expect themto have to if they're focus a little

(24:00):
bit to make sure they have somedepth in that center back position. I
ask a similar question to every singleone of your colleagues who joins me to
preview a certain match. You know, one thing you could do to overcome
being shorthanded is have on your teamthe reigning league MVP and Lucho Acosta.
Give us an example of some ofthe superlatives you use to describe him.

(24:23):
I mean, he is an impossiblematchup. And I tell people that if
I were to pay money to goto an MLS match, which hopefully I
won't have to, and they don'thave to go tonight, you got to
get it free tonight. At least, and they need me tonight, but
luchow Acosta would be the guy Iwould pay to watch. Yeah, I
would send money out of my ownpocket to go see him. He's just

(24:45):
that dynamic. He can just he'san impossible matchup. If you get tight,
he can turn, if you dropoff him out of fear, he
can pick the right path. Hejust always seems to find that moment.
And I almost think his size beingfive to three is an advantage because he
takes two steps to everyone from thedefender and by the time you go to
plant, he's already changed directions andgone the other way. So he has

(25:08):
just been phenomenal for me. Ithink he's having a historic season. No
player ever in MLS history has wontwo MLS or two MLS MVPs back to
back. That's never been done before. And I think if SC Cincinnati win
the Supporter Shield, which I thinkthey can, I think he has to
be the MVP. And I knowthat Lionel Messi, the other Argentine number

(25:30):
ten, is going to get alot of the headlines and national global publication,
of course, but I think Lucois that special that if this team
is able to get over the topof Inter Miami that he deserves to get
the back to back MVP for thefirst time in I watched Acosta and as
a fan, you're constantly just waitingfor him to do something, and it's

(25:51):
it's not unlike when they played Messilast year in the US Open Cup,
Like you know, FC Cincinnati playedreally well and you just you waited,
You waited for him to deliver amoment, and he did. And Luco
has done that so often over thelast couple of years. What is it
like playing against someone like that.I'm glad I don't have to know my
Houston teams. We were known forour physicality and I'm sure we would have

(26:15):
tried to get a body on him, but that's about all you can try
to do. But then he canhurt you from a set piece. So
it goes to you know, again, just what I was saying of how
difficult it is, and then youstart adding in these other pieces around him,
where if you focus on Luco,then upsteps or a Shano or Kevin
Kelce now and we'll see who elsethey add into the transfer window. So

(26:37):
I think that's really why it's sodifficult. A little extra wrinkle tonight with
Lucho Akopta's history playing here in DCfor so long, with Wayne Rooney and
these DC United fans here, soI'm sure they loved watching him in this
stadium. I'm not sure they're gonnarelish so much seeing him on FC Cincinnati
return, but I'm sure for aneutral, I mean, he is just
one of the best to watch inMLS. It has often felt like a

(27:00):
two team race atop the Eastern Conference. Obviously there's a match on Saturday that's
going to go a long way towarddetermining how things play out. Is is
there somebody you would say, look, yes, right now it's FC Cincinnati
and Miami at the top, butsomeone else is going to enter the phrase
there a team that you would sayis more likely than the others to do

(27:21):
that. Yeah, And it's inLa LAFC And I know the Galaxy are
tied with them right now on fortypoints. That is just two points behind
Cincinnati and four behind Miami, soyou know that's definitely the team and the
reason why. Also as they're goingout in the transfer window and signed Olivier

(27:41):
Cherux, so it's a bit ofan arms race right now. Where you're
going to have all of these teamsgoing out and adding big pieces, and
the French all time leading goalscorer WorldCup champion with the France national team adding
to that already dynamic attacks with Bologain LA, you know, going all

(28:02):
the way to the final, losingto Columbus last season. So they're always
in the mix. So I wouldkeep my eye on them as a three
team race. But you know,I'm not just saying it because I'm on
the show. I think having thisthis little bit of a break where I
know Miami have been flying without Messi, without Suarez. But these are the
types of matches when you look backon the end of the season, you

(28:22):
say that Wednesday it was hot inDC. Who's going to win the Supporter
Shield? These will be the typesof matches you look back on and you
say, oh, that match mayhave decided the race. Yeah, no
question about it. Enjoy the matchtonight. I do appreciate the time,
man, Thanks so much, Thanksso much for having me on. You
got it tonight. FC Cincinnati onthe road against DC. Kaitlin Carr on

(28:44):
the call for Apple TV that matchat seven thirty. Of course, you
could also hear it on ESPN fifteenthree, five, three and eight sixty
six seven oh two three seven sevensix. Some would argue the biggest sorting
event happening this week is not happeningin DC tonight. It's not happening in
the Bronx this evening. It's it'shappening with some dudes eating hot dogs.

(29:08):
I have questions and your phone callscoming up. On ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati
Sports Station. Hey, if you'relistening to me right now, I have
one thing every business needs most attension. I am doing this late because
I don't want to make our guestwait. Sports headlines are a service of
Kelsey Chevrolet, home of lifetime powertrainprotection and a guaranteed credit approval from their

(29:33):
family to yours for life kelseyshev dotcom. Is is anybody at three forty
seven on the Wednesday before July fourthworking? Yes? Besides you and I?
Yes, okay, because they're probablynot working Friday. This is true.
This is But if you're if you'reif you're on the verge of four

(29:56):
day weekend right and the workday isending, you know, tim, let's
say around five or six right now, you are you are you getting to
the you can get into that fiveo'clock finish line. You might be at
work? Is is there anybody rightnow who's just actually grinding away? I
mean, I'm not Reds and YankeesTonight game two, seven oh five,

(30:21):
this evening on a seven hundred wwelw hey, Let's hope tonight's Red starting
lineup has made well comes to youthanks to a made well restoration. Not
sure what's your home needs? Trustmade well? Do that? Uh?
Starting lineup tonight, Andrew Abbott startsfor Cincinnati against left ended pitcher Carlos rode
On uh India is leading off atsecond. Elliott short Jamer Candelario at first

(30:44):
base, bats third, Spencer Steerand left Stevenson behind the plate. Noelde
Marte is at third base. Heis hitting seventh. Stuie Fairchild in center
field will bat seventh. Santiago Espinalis d agent tonight he is hitting eighth.
Blake Dunn is a right field hebats ninth. You might be going,
what Blake yep, Blake done hisback and he's up from Louisville,

(31:07):
and Levi Jordan has been sent toLouisville. What else do we have Florence
y'all's take on Washington that game.That game may have already happened. See
here's what I'm gonna do, becauseI'm a diligent broadcasting professional. I am
going to in real time look upand tell you that game is tonight and

(31:30):
that's in Washington, PA, whichis a lovely town. FC Cincinnati on
the road tonight against DC. Thatmatch airs live on ESPN fifteen thirty.
UC Football announces the addition of JordanRobinson, two years of eligibility remaining.
He spent two seasons at the Universityof Kentucky, played in eleven games in
twenty twenty three as a reverse reserve. dB joins the Bearcats and the Cincinnati

(31:56):
Cyclones have entered an affiliation agreement withthe Toronto madle Leafs. Last year,
the Clone spent the year as theaffiliate for the New York Rangers in the
EHL, and UH Toronto was affiliatedwith Newfoundland and now Toronto's affiliated with the
Cyclone. So congratulations. That soundskind of cool, right' say? Congratulations?

(32:19):
Congratulations to all parties involved. UHBob and Bowling Green You're on ESPN
fifteen thirty. High Bob Oh,how you doing. I'm wonderful yourself.
Well, I'm actually in Nashville rightnow. But I had a, uh
had a great meeting yesterday with misterTommy John. Really like the Tommy John,

(32:45):
the Tommy John like of like TommyJohn surgery and pitching fame. Yeah,
not the underwear guy. Wow,thank you, very good picture.
Yeah, and my son, aguy that's known Tommy for forty years.
That kind of got us to visitand Tommy at his house. And you

(33:10):
know what, I went in therewith tons of baseball questions and I found
out shortly after sitting with mister Johnthat baseball was a part of his life
forty years ago and no longer isreally and yeah, and to my disappointment,

(33:36):
but you know what that being said, we still enjoyed ourselves. I
mean, the man is just he'sprobably the smartest man I've ever met.
The guy is brilliant. He becamea doctor after he left baseball, studied
at Vanderbilt, moved to Nashville innineteen sixty nine. Actually, and the

(34:01):
guy is just he Yeah, here'show I would describe it, though,
and I would ask him. Iasked him several questions about baseball, and
he would give me just a fewword answers, you know, nothing,
nothing but going into any detail.Certainly. One question that I did have

(34:22):
is how he felt about not beingin the Hall of Fame, which,
for the life of me, Ican understand. And I got just basically
almost you know what, that partof my life's over and I'm okay with
it. So he now correct meif I'm wrong. And I say this

(34:45):
as somebody who does not like thepicture win law statistic, but I believe
he has the second most number ofwins of anybody who's not in the Hall
of Fame. Is that correct?Two hundred and eighty eight. Yeah,
and you know guys are getting inwith slightly over two hundred, I think,

(35:09):
And you know what, MO.Back in those days, I think
wins and losses meant far more thanthey do now. But just an amazing
guy. And you know what.I left there, like I say,
feeling disappointed and not not really gettingany of the answers to the stuff I

(35:31):
wanted, but leaving there with asense that here's a guy who's eighty one
years old, who is very verycomfortable with his life now, doesn't look
back on it is you know,with any regrets or anything that you know.

(35:52):
I gosh, I wish I wasin. I think he's just I
don't even think he thinks about it, and you know, it just it
kind of blew me away, tobe quite honest with you. But you
know, good for him, well, I mean, you know he what,
he pitched like twenty five twenty sixyears in the big league, so
that's a long run. And thenhas had other chapters in his life that

(36:15):
you've just outlined. He's well knownfor a surgery that we'll talk about forever,
and he's got an underwear company namedafter him. That's a pretty good
life. I'd be content as well, Bob, I guess right, But
yeah, yeah, no, no, I totally get it. And he

(36:35):
was kind enough. Oh I hadI had his rookie card, and I
had I don't know, four orfive other cards from different years with him
with the White Taks and Dodgers,and he signed all of those for me.
He signed a baseball, he signedmy glove. How does one get
a meeting? How does one geta meeting with Tommy John? You es,
well, you write him a letter. You just show up in Nashville
and go to his house, Like, how does one get FaceTime with Tommy

(36:58):
John well my son cours Oons Villingersdown here in Nashville. Outside Nashville.
A buddy of his who is anolder gentleman, I think the guy that
got us to the media. Ithink he's seventy years old. Anyway,
he's done work for Tommy over theyears, put a roof on for him,

(37:21):
and his house is just gorgeous.Mo he designed a pond outside for
him that is just unbelievable. Andanyway, his name is Dale Portman and
well Dale went with us, andbut Tommy. He had talked to Tommy
last week and told him that thatI really wanted to meet him, and

(37:45):
he, like I say, hecouldn't have been more gracious, you know,
just pretty cool. Did you guysbreak breads? You guys have a
meal together? No, we didn't, although he certainly offered a cocktail and
yes, what's Tommy's cocktail of choice? Oh you know what? Nough for

(38:05):
us. The drinking part never evencame up, really, so I have
no idea. I did ask theguy that worked for him if if Tommy
did drink, and he said,oh yeah, he said, I've shared
a beer with him were you know, over the years, but you know,
nothing, nothing major, and it'sjust you know, I'm, like
I said, I'm just kind ofuh, kind of blown away by the

(38:29):
whole thing. I was pretty goodand I still am. Yeah that's pretty
cool. Do you get a picture? I did? Yes, very good.
How did the meeting end? Handshake, high five, hug, We'll
see you next time. How didit end? Yeah, handshake, hug.
And told my son and I andof course they all the other guys,
told us come back anywhere anytime wewant. Wow, so you have

(38:52):
an open invite to go to Nashville, which is obviously pretty close to where
you live now, and and justhang out with Tommy John. Yeah.
I mean, here's what's really weird. My son owns some property less than
a mile from where Tommy's place is. So and and he knew when my
son was talking in the conversation withus, he knew exactly where the property

(39:15):
was. Wow. So uh yeah, so I could say all and all,
it couldn't couldn't have been better?Uh, well, it could have
been better, But you know Iwhat would have made it better? I
want? Well, yeah, youwanted to like old school baseball stories,
yeah, baseball song Yeah, yeah, that's that's what I was there for.
But like I say, I'm notI'm not disappointed. And uh he

(39:37):
uh it couldn't have could not havebeen a nicer guy. Well, that's
pretty cool. That's awesome. Yougot to meet Tommy John. That's that's
a neat story. It is,Yeah, for sure. All right,
Well, I appreciate you passing italong. And uh, the next time
you see Tommy John, feel freeto to bring a phone with you and

(39:57):
call us and we'll get him onthe air. Okay, I'll do it,
all right, although you probably wouldn'tget ten words out of him.
I have a lot of questions.Yeah, I have a lot of quo.
I'll come up with something. I'llfigure out a way to squeeze something
out of him. Let me tellyou how interesting it was. I started
talking to him about himself and hewould look at me like, really,
tell me more. And then heturned over one of his baseball cards and

(40:22):
started reading it. Wow. Wow, I was a really interesting guy.
And you know, just I leftthere just you know, like I said,
I left their satisfied because I knowhe's happy. So you know,
it was cool. All right,Well that sounds awesome, great stuff enjoyed
the fourth of July, Bob,I will thank you, all right,

(40:45):
very very good. Bob got tohang out with Tommy John. What was
the most like random, like famousguy you got to hang out with that
I got to like hang out with. Yeah, I don't know, I

(41:09):
mean like that I've met or hungout with. Like he was like he
was just out somewhere and you wassurprised to see him there and had a
conversation with Uh. So, Iwas once in a cigar bar in Las
Vegas and across the way Dennis Rodmanwas signing autographs and he sat down with

(41:32):
people sitting at the table next tous, And my thought was, had
we gotten to the cigar bar threeminutes before, he would have sat with
us. Uh. But I triedto listen as these people just peppered him
with question after question after question afterquestion, and it was awesome. It
was incredible. You know. Theanswer for me, I think I've I've

(41:53):
told the story of of Jerry Springerdoing a show and this is well before
where I was on the air.They needed someone to like go to Chicago
and make sure his studio worked andthen we did that, and then Jerry
decided to take us the other peoplethat I was with to lunch, and
it's it's then that I got achance to see like what real fame is

(42:15):
where I mean, this is likepre self or pre smartphone. It was
just one person after the other.But like in this town, Jerry Springer
is like, ah, yeah,there's Jerry Sprey. Obviously since past,
but there's Jerry Springer. If ifyou had a chance to spend the afternoon
with anybody who's not in the Hallof Fame, go ahead and call us
at five, one, three,seven, four nine, fifteen thirty.

(42:37):
It's four o'clock on ESPN fifteen thirtyCincinnati Sports Station Sports. I'm Christine Lacy.
Cork Paper's indicate former Raptors forward Johntay Porter will face federal felony charges
in the sports betting gambling scandal thatresulted in his lifetime ban from the NBA.
Not one, but two members ofthe James family agreed to deal with

(43:00):
the Lakers today. ESPN's Adrian Wardzanowskireports Lebron agreed on a two year,
one hundred and four million dollar maxcontract player option for the twenty twenty five,
twenty twenty six season and trade clause. As he enters his twenty second
NBA season, there's still a greatdeal on Lebron's shoulders, says MSG Knicks
analyst Alan Han fourty years old.This franchise still revolves around Lebron James.

(43:22):
As much as he has talked aboutpassing the torch, and you know Anthony
Davis becoming that piece, as muchas they've talked about finding another start to
come in and take some of thepressure and some of the load off Lebron
James, we all know it's stillorbits around this man, and he's still
highly productive player. According to ESPN'sDave mcmahamon, second round pick Bronni James
agreed to his rookie contract four years, almost eight million dollars. The Lakers

(43:44):
hired longtime coaches Nate McMillan and ScottBrooks as top assistants on new head coach
JJ Reddick's staff. Hey, it'sthe resident Super Bowl chap. Chris Canny
from on Sports were like, didyou miss any of the shows? Make
sure you download the podcast and makeshure to two in every weekday at six
am light here on ESPN Radio,ESPN two and ESPN You Non Cincinnati's ESPN

(44:13):
fifteen thirty. Hi. There arelots of things I love about doing this,
lots of things. There's lots ofthings that make talk radio the single
best media. And one of thosethings is you, Uh, you spend

(44:37):
a lot of time thinking about whatyou're going to say, and uh,
here's what we're gonna talk about,and here are my thoughts on it,
and let's try to organize them,and let's here's here's how we're gonna do
things. You know, we don'tjust show up at five five minutes before
three o'clock with the newspaper under ourarm and and go and do it right,

(44:58):
Yeah, okay, We're we're gonnado it Ellie and talking about the
game last night and all this stuff. And then you you go and you
decide to take a phone call,and the first call is a guy who
just wants to talk about the twohours he spent hanging out with Tommy John.
I. I don't know that Ican fully articulate why that is funny,

(45:23):
but that is that is what Ilet us that and and that is
that is what I love about thisshow in particular, because there are shows
where that call would have been screenedout. And guess what, we we
didn't just take it. We heldit on the air for seven minutes.

(45:44):
We're gonna we're gonna carefully outline hereare the specific topics we're going to discuss,
and uh, we're gonna put thishere, and then we're gonna put
this in this segment and we'll leaveroom for a couple of phone calls.
The first one of the days isour guy Bob wanted to talk about BSM.
John. I know I find thatmore humorous than you do, but

(46:13):
I still finding yours, so adulgeme. All right, what are we
doing now? It's eight after four. This is ESPN fifteen thirty on Mowegor.
Thank you so much for watching,for listening to the show. Tonight
Brennanman and Jones on baseball is comingup in just about forty five minutes,

(46:37):
and we've got more on the Redsin their win last night and the Elie
de la Cruz Show. I mean, you know, last night they won
the game, which is important,and if they're ever gonna go on a
run, they have to figure outhow to win games that aren't the first
game of a series and maybe thatcan start tonight and that the Graham Ashcraft
start last night was significant. Thisis a this a big second half of

(47:00):
the season for him. You know, let's be honest, right, Like
in twenty twenty two he helped forma big three. Like we knew and
have talked for a while about howHunter Green is one of those franchise cornerstones,
and I think we have felt thesame way for a while about Nick
Lodolo in twenty twenty two. Inthis season that was otherwise just a dumpster

(47:25):
fire, Graham Ashcraft emerged as aguy that you went, well, okay,
he could be added to the mix. And god, you know what,
as bad as this team is,if you can move forward with Green,
Ashcraft and Lodolo, that's a prettydamn good place to start. That's
a good foundation. And then youknow, last year it just it really

(47:47):
didn't work out for anybody. Itdidn't work out for well, the team
was better, but it didn't workout for Hunter Green, whose season was
interrupted by injury, and it didn'twork out for Nick Lodolo, who season
basically didn't happen because of injury,and Graham last season he went through injuries
as well, and pitched at timesvery well and at times not so much.

(48:09):
But I think his season last yearcould be described as uneven, and
I think his season this year todate could be described as uneven. There
have been times where he has reallyhad issues, and I have felt I'm
no pitching expert, I'm not anexpert on anything, but I have felt
like, God, he's not thatfar away. He's not that far away

(48:30):
from the pitcher we saw two yearsago. But we all agreed the pitcher
two years ago has to has tochange, has to evolve, has to
get better, has to become morereliable. And then you know him getting
sent to Louisville. We all thoughtit was temporary. We all thought it

(48:50):
made sense. We all hoped itwould be sort of a short term thing.
It's turned into a short term thingbecause they needed Graham back to take
Nicolodolo's spot. But it's year freeand as we've talked about with Hunter Green,
Graham Ashcraft is now. He's madefifty nine big league starts, and
there have been some really good ones. There have been some injury interruptions,

(49:15):
unfortunately, But if we're sitting herea year from now, still waiting for
Graham Ashcraft to figure it out.And by the way, we could say
this about a lot of guys,like we've given some young players a pass
were I'm all about patients, andI think patients patients should be sort of
the role that we go by herewith so many of these guys. But

(49:37):
if we're sitting here seven the sameconversations about so many different players on this
team a year from now, thatain't gonna be good. And Graham Ashcraft
is somebody who leads that heads thatlist of players, or drives the conversation,
or however you want to put it. They need more, they need
more consistency, they need more reliability. They need a guy that you're not

(50:00):
even thinking about sending back to Louisville. And the reality is, for most
of this season he has pitched likejust another guy at the back end of
the rotation. But the back endof the rotation is where you're gonna look
to make changes this offseason, right, Like, one of the things we're
going to talk about next year is, well, can the Reds have better

(50:22):
starting pitching? And that's a questionabout internal options, but it's also gonna
be a question about guys who youcould acquire from other teams, and if
you acquire them from other teams replacingsomeone, it would help if Graham Ashcraft
wasn't one of those guys that youautomatically went to replace. So last night
I thought was a major step inthe right direction. The Elie de la

(50:44):
Cruz hype, and you know,we played about an hour ago the audio
from MLB Network where they talked abouthis his ceiling and what he can be,
you know, more than anything,let's be honest, I felt like
this weekend in Saint Louis for theReds was kind of disappointing because you got
win series at some point and thegames on Friday and Sunday were there for

(51:05):
the taking. And can you imagineif they just do a little bit more,
a little bit more specifically on offense, how we feel about the Reds
going to New York coming off takingthree out of four or god forbid,
even sweeping the series. And priorto that, there have been all those
series the Reds had lost subsequent totheir seven game win streak. They losed

(51:28):
two series to the Pirates, theylose two out of three to the Boston
Red Sox. They had just hada bad homestand the Saint Louis series they
ran in place. And yet lastnight, maybe because there was the Yankees,
me whatever, last night, youhad to at least check in on
Ellie Dela Cruz. Maybe you didn'twatch or listen to all nine innings,

(51:52):
but didn't you have to at leastcheck in with Ellie Dela Cruz. And
I've said this often. This ispart of what is made this season still
fun and still really interesting and stillworth paying attention to and consuming because of
Ellie. And sometimes it's doing superhumanstuff with his legs, and sometimes it's

(52:14):
simply hitting a two run homer.He is still worth watching, and his
growth and evolution and development and everythingthat comes with it, regardless of the
circumstances around him, regardless of howwell this team performs over the second half
of the season, still makes thisteam worth checking out. And there are

(52:36):
other guys as well. I feelthat way about Lodola when he comes back,
and Hunter Green too, and ahandful of other guys. Ellie Dela
Cruz is must watch TV man,and he was must watch TV last night.
We live in a very divided timeswhere you can't get people to agree
on anything. If there's one thing, though, I think you could get

(53:00):
every single baseball fan, or maybeeven every single sports fan to agree on
it's the statement I'm about to make. Next on ESPN fifteen thirty an email
here from that online where they haveset the odds for the Nathan's Hot Dog

(53:22):
Eating Contest, which is taking placewithout Joey CHESTNUTT me too. I got
that e mets it never heard ofJames Webb. James Webb is the odds
on favorite at minus one ten.The are there only five participants in this

(53:42):
event? Aarn There's only five peoplethat have odds. James Webb is at
minus one ten, Jeffrey Esper isat plus one fifty, Nick Weary is
at plus three fifty, Bartley Weaverthe fourth is at plus eleven hundred,
and then Gideon og is at plusthirty three hundred. So if you want
value on the Hot Dog Eating contest, Gideon Og is Is that a guy?

(54:07):
Is that a man? Not sure? Gideon Og is your horse?
Can someone explain to me and like, you know me, man, I'm
the ultimate to each their own person. We're not all gonna like the same
things. You like what you like. I like what I like. Many
things that I don't like, Icould at least understand why people like them.

(54:30):
I could see the entertainment value insomething that I might not necessarily be
all that into. I do notunderstand why so many people find entertainment value
in competitive eating. I need someoneto explain to me not only the entertainment

(54:52):
value in competitive eating, but thereare people who will tell you that they
are are proud of the fact thatmaybe the over under for so many of
these competitors, the over under forwinner of hot dogs eating is fifteen and
a half. You'll find people whoare like, oh, dude, bro,
I could do that, okay,Like if I if I were to

(55:17):
and I eat fast, Like ifwe go out to eat, man,
I'm gonna be done before you,just because by nature I eat fast.
If I find something I really like, I inhale it. I'm not out
to try to beat you. Ijust that's that's how I eat. Maybe
I'm gonna rush. But if Iwere to do what some of these people
do in these competitive eating contests,I wouldn't get there. I mean I

(55:42):
wouldn't eat as much as they didbecause I already would have vomited, and
so watching people eat those hot dogslike that makes me sick to my stomach
because I think of how my stomachwould feel if I were doing that.
Something that makes me sick to mystomach isn't something that I want to watch.

(56:04):
I don't see the entertainment value.And again, if like you're all
excited for tomorrow that the competitive isthe hot dog eating contest is happening,
man to eat their own, goknock yourself out. I just I don't.
I am seen a chicken weed eata chicken wing eating contest at a
Reds game like fourteen years ago,and it was fun and you know,

(56:27):
it was lighthearted and it was agood time. But like watching people eat
like that, I kind of gotsick. Like I fulfilled my role,
I did my announcing, I calledplay by play, and then I went
into the bathroom and I thought Iwas gonna hurle. Just was I thought
I was gonna do a Hunter Green. I've never under I've never understood the

(56:52):
allure. There are a lot ofsports, are a lot of things that
I'm not really into, but Iget why others are. Like I'm not
a huge UFC guy, but likeI get it and the like I could
watch it and be entertain It's justit's not a sport that I follow very
closely, but I can watch it, feel entertained, engage in conversations with
people around me. I get whya lot of people really love it,

(57:13):
Like that makes sense, competitive eating, gorging yourselves on hot dogs. I
don't. I don't understand the fascinationin these highly divided times where we can't
agree on anything, we can't agreeon what facts are. I believe the
one, at least among baseball fans, the one statement that I think everybody

(57:39):
would not along with would be that, for years, for decades, the
coolest thing about the Major League BaseballAll Star Game was that the players who
played in the game were the uniformof the team that they played for.
So for those of us certain age, one of the coolest things, you

(58:01):
know, let's say back in theeighties, was if Barry Larkin was in
the All Star Game, Barry Larkinwore his Reds jersey and his Red's uniform,
Or if Ken Griffiedd Junior was inthe All Star Game while with the
Reds, he would wear his Redsuniform and to me, I feel like
that's a part of the All StarGame that if you watched it, and

(58:21):
if you don't watch it, Iguess it's one thing that if you watched
it, we all agreed was oneof the coolest parts. And Baseball uniforms,
like uniforms across all the sports,have gotten kind of complicated, like
there's more of a line between what'shome and away and now they're city connect
But I think we've always felt likethere's one thing I can get all baseball
fans to agree on it that inthe All Star Game, it's cool that

(58:45):
the players wear the uniforms of theteams that they play for. In recent
years, that's changed and now theyhave an American League uniform and a National
League uniform, and they never estheticallylook very good. I was scrolling through
Twitter today, which I do lessand less, and someone tweeted out,

(59:07):
what the uniforms this year? Iguess, look like the game is going
to be in Arlington. The uniformslook terrible. They look terrible. They
never look good. And this isan instance where you have something that nobody
asked for, nobody asked for,and yet they gave us something that we

(59:28):
didn't ask for and universally you canfind baseball fans across the country, regardless
of which team they root for.Who would say that whatever the uniform of
the year is from Major League Baseballis not as cool as it would be
as if players just did what theyused to do, which was where their
regular uniforms. And I get ifthey're trying to sell All Star jerseys,

(59:52):
they're trying to sell merch. AndI do understand for years they just had
a batting practice uniform, and fansare more likely to see the game batting
practice, I guess. But evennow, if there's one thing, if
I walked into a room of onethousand baseball fans and said, all right,
show a hands who wants the AllStar Game to go back? And

(01:00:12):
even in an era where we understandthings have changed across the sport, across
all of life dramatically, would yourather have the players all wearing their uniform
that they wear in regular competition orall the players wearing the same thing with
it saying national or American on thejersey? What would you prefer? One
thousand out of a thousand would say, give me the regular uniforms. What's

(01:00:38):
amazing to this about me as abit of a uniform nerd, is they've
made the All Star Game uniforms,they still haven't gotten the regular uniforms,
right, Like sometimes in life youget something that nobody asked for. This
is one of them. By theway, the NBA did that for a
while, where everybody were their regularuniforms look cool. That to me has

(01:01:00):
always been like the game itself haschanged dramatically and it's diminished in stature from
what it used to be, andwe're all willing to accept that. Like
even me, the kid who grewup looking forward to the All Star Game
every year. I had it onlast year. I remember nothing about it.
But the introductions have always been awesome. Pomp and circumstance leading up to

(01:01:23):
the game itself have always been awesome. And the best visual is when they
show the two teams on their respectivelines and every guy's wearing their own UNI
from their team. That always lookscool. We've done away with that,
and every year that we have doneaway with it, we get worse and
worse looking uniforms. It would beone thing if there was a great public

(01:01:45):
demand for there to be a changefrom what they used to do. What
they used to do is what weall preferred. This isn't hard. Just
give us what we want. Thankyou. Twenty seven after five o'clock more
year one calls are coming up fiveone, three, seven, four,
nine, fifteen thirty and eight sixtysix, seven oh two, three,
seven seven six A lot more ona win last night in New York.

(01:02:08):
I have a question about it comingup at five oh five on ESPN fifteen
thirty Cincinnati Sports Station, Cincinnati's ESPNfifteen thirty. Traffic from the UC Health
Traffic Center, the University of Cincinnati, credit approval from their family, the
Yours for Life, Chelsea Chef dotCom, Reds and Yankees again tonight in

(01:02:29):
the Bronx seven oh five, sevenhundred w l W Andrew Abbott, Carlos
rode On on the Hill starting lineupthanks to a Madewell Restoration Whatever your Home
needs Trust Madewell, Maadewell Restoration,dot Com, India, De La Cruz
and Candelario one through three, SpencerSteers and leftfield Tonight batting fourth Stevenson dewelve,

(01:02:50):
Marte Stewart, Fairchild in center fieldbets seventh, espinol Is dhing Tonight
Blake Donn is back from Louisville.He is Tonight's DH Cincinnati heading to Louisville
Levi Jordan. Meanwhile, Florence onthe road against Washington Soccer Tonight, FC
Cincinnati with a midweek match against DCthat starts at seven thirty live on ESPN

(01:03:10):
fifteen thirty. UC announces the additionof former Kentucky dB Jordan Robinson. He'll
have two years of eligibility in Clifton, and the Cincinnati Cyclones are pivoting to
another original six NHL club for itsaffiliation agreement. The Clones are now a
Toronto Maple Leafs affiliate. How aboutthat? To tell us more? Tell

(01:03:35):
us how this came about the voiceof the Cincinnati Cyclones enjoying his offseason.
I'm sure Devin Gray, Devin,what's up to talk with? Dana?
Might have I called you, Devinfor some reason. I have no idea
why I did that. Dana,thank you, thank you for joining us.
Like last year that the New YorkRangers, that was pretty cool.
But the Toronto Maple Leafs is there'ssomething about that that's got cash say,

(01:04:00):
that's pretty damn cool. It certainlyhas that feeling and that is no disrespect
at all to the New York Rangers. I mean, that's an original six
franchise too. But there has beena mood over the last few weeks when
rumors kind of started floating around theoffice that this could happen, that this
feels big time, it feels bigleague, and you know, all these

(01:04:20):
different NHL clubs value their EHL teamsdifferently. I don't think anyone would argue
with that. And it's tough tobeat the way that Toronto treats their affiliates,
the prospects that they put down here, and you know, the confidence
that they had and the growth atthis level. So yeah, no,
it's pretty it's pretty damn cool.We're excited to be partnered of them.

(01:04:43):
Walk me through the logistics of howan affiliation changed during the off season works.
Yeah, so it all depends onon the contract usually that signed.
So the Cyclones and the Rangers justsigned a one year deal. So we
know a couple of months ago thatthe Rangers from moving on actually to Bloomington
the new EHL franchise, and thenyou know, there's only a handful of

(01:05:05):
NHL teams that don't have an affiliate, and you kind of start to shop
around on our great president Ray Harrisis been in talk smooth the Leafs for
a while now, and it's justall about the mutual fit, right.
We want the Leafs to feel likethey can trust our coaching staff, trust
our organization. And that's everything froma practice facility to the nutrition, the

(01:05:28):
gym that they're going to be entrusting. You know, these prospects which they've
put a lot of money into.They want to make sure that when these
kids, for a lot of themgetting their first look in pro hockey,
are getting good ones. And youknow, I'm biased, but I think
it's tough to be. You know, twelve thirteen thousand people on a Friday
night in downtown Cincy, at leastat this EHL level, that feels pretty

(01:05:53):
pro and big time from a rosterperspective, How does this work? Yeah,
so it all comes down to whatthis Toronto organization. They've got the
Ayle Liefs at the NHL level andthen the Toronto Marley's are their AHL team.
They're only like two miles away,so it's convenient for them. And

(01:06:14):
what you know we can look atis their previous years, their previous affiliates,
and they have sent anywhere from twelveto eighteen contracted players down to their
ECCHL teams in the past. Thatmeans that these aren't guys that the Cyclones
are signing themselves and using up theirsalary tap. These are may be leef
signed players that frankly, Toronto's justgot so many good prospects that they need

(01:06:39):
a place to put them. Sothat makes things a lot easier and more
fun. On the head coaching sidefor the Cyclones is that they have more
money to spend on. You know, maybe they only need to sign five
to six seven guys and those canbe pretty good players that are going to
come and just sign contracts with theCyclone. So it's a we're looking at

(01:06:59):
problem be a much larger piece ofthat mix coming straight from nhl AHL contracted
players, which I mean that onlyjust means more talent out on the ice
of the team. Obviously, theoff season has been underway for a while.
Do changes like this typically happen thistime of year? Yeah, I'd
say if anything, this is alittle late in the game. I think

(01:07:23):
there's only one more affiliate announcement tocome. There are a couple of swaps
at this level about a month ago, but this is just right around the
time that you know, we announcedwith the Rangers last season. It's kind
of crazy, like the Stanley Cupgot awarded, it was eight or nine
days ago. And then there's thedraft, then there's free agency. I
mean, it's it's all bad.Kind of coordinating with the Leafs guys over

(01:07:45):
the last forty eight hours. Ithink some of them are still out in
Vegas just trying to deal with thedraft and free agency. So the NHL
is still enjoying packing everything into oneof the week in the summer and just
we're kind of at diversi I think, but it works for us. Pretty
cool stuff. Since I Cyclones nowan affiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs,

(01:08:06):
the season will be here before youknow it. We'll have you on again,
Dana, Thanks so much. Soundsgreat. Thanks. I'm going to
talking and tell your brother Devin HighI will. Yeah, no, he's
listening right now. He's a bigfan, all right, Dana Gray,
Voice of this You got a voiceof the Cyclones. Clones now an affiliate.
I have no idea what I calledthem Devon on the email too,

(01:08:28):
Dana Gray, Voice of the cyclonesare now at Toronto Maple Leafs. It
is twenty one away from five o'clock. I'll throw some pole questions out there
on X in just a few minutesthanks to United Heartland Insurance. On Moeger,

(01:08:48):
this is ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati SportsStation. Get beauty Comfort energy Efficient
for the Yankees tonight. It isit's uh seventeen away from five o'clock.
On my Leger. My friends callme Devin. Uh. This is ESPN

(01:09:10):
fifteen thirty. Mike, You're onESPN fifteen thirty. Have you ever hung
out with Tommy John As a matterof fact, good friend of mine?
Is he? You? And youand Tommy are type? Yeah, we're
really We're real thick. Hey you, I shouldn't be more with you on
this hot dog. So it's sodumb, it's just stupid. Well,

(01:09:33):
you know, if some if someonelikes it, fine, like I'm I'm
not a I'm not a I'm nota big like you shouldn't like to eat
their own I'm i am the ultimate. You know, we're all not going
to like the same things. Butthere are certain things that a lot of
people really enjoy that I I justdon't get it. Like, there are

(01:09:54):
a lot of things that aren't reallymy deal, but I but I get
why others like them. Right right, competitive eating where the participants are likely
to want to vomit when they're done, and an activity that when I watch
people do it makes me want tovomit. I I don't understand the entertainment

(01:10:15):
value. I don't understand why peoplelike it. No, it took my
year three wife tried for years toget me into the opera to enjoy the
opera, and I just I tried, but I just couldn't get into it.
But I had. These people haveincredible voices. It's just the music.
This is something different. Yeah,I'm not a big car racing guy,
but like I get why people likecar racing and not my thing.

(01:10:39):
But if that's your thing, likeI I understand why some find that really
entertaining. Competitive eating is not onthe list of things that I find entertaining,
and that I understand why others do. I'm with you. It's like
when the Romans at the old arenas, you know, the coliseums some of
them. If the Romans would reallyget matitude, like you did somewhere wrong,

(01:11:00):
your locks up, you know,what they do. Instead of torturing
these guys musically, they chain atthe ankle and the and the wrist a
dead corpse really, and make themdrag it froun until it turned to a
scout sexually brutal. That's even worsethan a crucifixion. That's pretty rough,
isn't it. Pretty Well doesn't soundvery pleasant though, Well, we'll move

(01:11:24):
on. Uh so, I'm feela little ignorant here. Hey, we
welcome, Welcome to my world,Jeremy roush aral and next was saying that
Kelly tied a record or broke TedWilliams record for something, but I didn't
catch the whole thing. It wasa number of games prior he has played,

(01:11:48):
I think in like one hundred andand eighty games, right, He
and and Ted Williams are the onlywho have played the only two players who
have played in one hundred and eightythree games to have five games with at
least one triple and one homer inthe same game. That's pretty cool,

(01:12:12):
yeah, So, Ellie Dela Cruzand Ted Williams are the only two players
to, within their first one hundredand eighty three games have five games with
at least one home run and onetriple. How do you like to have
him and o'tany on the same teamin a couple of years. Oh my
god, that'd be fine. That'dbe fun. And by the way,

(01:12:34):
a tawny starting its road now onthe side a little bit, just gradually
working on his arm. See ifhe can pitch against I didn't get to
ask you now I know you gotto go and you might have mentioned this
on the air. The Klay Thompsontrade intrigued me, and as a caveat
to his dad, Michael Thompson,who was a great basketball player, first

(01:12:56):
with the Spurs, then with wasan integral part the Lakers for a couple
of those champion and ships off thebench, big dude, big sick man
power forwards. And he was disappointed. He wanted Clay to go to the
Lakers, but he said he'd grown. Man, it's his life. What
did you think about that deal?And we called George to the Sixers.
Uh, Klay Thompson to the MAVs. If the idea is we're just going

(01:13:21):
to spot him up and he's goingto make outside shots, I think he
could be very effective with the waytheir team is constructed. That backcourt,
to me, can get a littlebit crowded. What I wonder about Klay
Thompson is an extraordinarily underrated defender.I don't know at this stage in his
career that you could take advantage ofthat. But I mean as as a

(01:13:42):
dude who could just make outside shotsif he's open, I'm still willing to
bet there's no one better. PaulGeorge, I think, is the ideal
off ball teammate given what they alreadyhave in Philadelphia. I think what we
have seen about the NBA now though, is it's not about having a big
three, it's about having a bigfive. Uh And so Philly, Paul

(01:14:03):
George is thirty four years old,and he has missed a lot of time,
and Joel Embiid's career certainly recently hasbeen defined by either postseason under achievement
or injury. I don't know thathaving Paul George changes that. But the
top of their roster is certainly betterthan it was this past season because they

(01:14:26):
extended my favorite non New York Nickand Tyrese Maxi. But he is a
thirty four year old guy, andhe's joining a team that's key player the
a team whose most valuable player stillfaces a lot of durability and injury questions.
Yep, thank you, mall,I appreciate it. There you go,
Mike, thanks so much. Fivepoint three seven four nine, fifteen

(01:14:47):
thirty and eight sixty six seven twothree seven seven six. By the way,
nothing against Jeremy Row. That's statElie de la Cruz. The person
that originally came up with that wasSarah Langs, the outstanding researcher for ESPN
and the MLB Network. So EllieDayler Cruz has now had five games where
he's had at least one triple andone homer five games. It took him

(01:15:13):
one hundred and eighty three games todo that. Ted Williams is the only
other player to accomplish that within hisfirst one hundred and eighty five games since
nineteen hundred. That's pretty damn goodcompany. Brandiman and Jones and Baseball.
Next Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Trafficfrom the uc Health Traffic Center. The

(01:15:38):
University of Cincinnati Cancer Center is openingthe most comprehensive blood center in the nation.
The future of cancer is here calledfive one three, five eight five
uc CC slower traffic is causing aten minute delay on northbound seventy one between
Norwood Lateral and Ronald Reagan Cross CountryHighway. Much out for a disabled vehicle
on Glendale Milford Road at seventy five. There's a five minute delay on northbound

(01:16:01):
seventy five between Mitchell Avenue and PaddockRoad. I'm Nicole with Traffic Sinnati's ESPN
fifteen thirty, and you have foundthe michelob Ultra of five o'clock Happy Hours,
which is awesome good that new mowegger, ESPN fifteen thirty. Thanks for
listening. It is. It isthe mic Ultra five o'clock Happy Hour,

(01:16:23):
thanks to michelob Ultra. As you'recelebrating fourth and July and ideally a four
day weekend, ain't nothing better thana nice, cool mic ulture. This
show ends in fifty five minutes,and then I'm going down to Fort Mitchell
to a stream for hit seekers tonightand open up some Toms Tier one cards,

(01:16:47):
talk sports, and then can Ihave a mic Ultra. It is
brewed for pretty much everything, whetherit's hanging out by the pool, hanging
out watching the rain, playing eighteenholes, a ballgame, whatever it is.
Mic culture. Grab a six packor more. On your way home

(01:17:08):
tonight, I got a couple ofpole questions. Our buddy Jeff Carr,
who has filled in on this radiostation, who has been a guest of
this show and many many others,is on social media. I guess he's
fighting with people who are upset orworry that Ellie Dela Cruz might play for
the New York Yankees in twenty thirty. This is obviously a topic we have

(01:17:30):
talked about before on this show.I view this through a very simple,
and one might argue pessimistic lens.I would say it's more likely a realistic
lens. Ellie Delacruz can hit freeagency in twenty thirty. Between now and
then. The only reason he wouldgo play for another team is if the

(01:17:53):
Reds trade him now. They're nottrading them now, and they're not trading
them next year, and they're nottrading him the year after that. Could
they at one point trade him?Sure? Could we wait and see what
the circumstances surrounding that trade might bebefore we start to worry about it now
in twenty thirty, he can hitfree agency barring signing a long term contract

(01:18:16):
extension with even his agent Scott Borishas said he is not gonna do I
know. I think I brought thisup on the show last week or maybe
the week before. I look atthis through a very simple lens. Ellie
de la Cruz will probably be playingfor another team in twenty thirty. And

(01:18:36):
that's okay, likes, that's thereality of that's how it works. Could
be wrong. But if you andI were to put our money together and
wager an amount of money that mattersto us whether or not Ellie is going
to play for the Reds or anyone of twenty nine other teams in twenty

(01:18:58):
thirty, we're putting our money onknow, right, the Reds versus the
field in twenty thirty, I'm takingthe field. I spend very little time
worrying about things that are going tobe happening in twenty thirty. If they
don't involve my daughter, if theydon't involve my finances, and if they
don't involve my family, I'm sorry, I just can't. This Elie de

(01:19:24):
la Cruz thing is just getting started. And when I say thing, the
snowball effect of a guy who's gotraw skill, raw talent, who's starting
to harness it better who's improving thisyear, who might be an All Star
this season, who is becoming oneof the most talked about names in the
sport in some respects one of themost talked about stars in the sport.

(01:19:47):
Now, is he a star inthe same level as a Mookie Bets or
a Ronald Acunye or a show HeyOtani. No, those guys are better
players. They've accomplished more. Butis he Is he trending in the direction
of becoming one of those players thatwe talk about as being among the premiere
in the game. Yeah, hemight not get there, and he might

(01:20:09):
never realize the lofty status of bestplayer in the game, which many people
predicted for him even before he playeda big league baseball game. But things
are going in the right direction withElie de la Cruz. We could debate
whether or not things are going inthe right direction with the Reds. I
still believe that, as frustrating asthis season has been, that big picture,

(01:20:31):
there's a lot to like. Ialso believe big picture, there's some
work that has to be done beforewe can really talk about this club competing
for a championship. And I alsodo understand there's just built in cynicism when
it comes to the Reds being ableto get over a hump that for thirty
years they haven't been able to getover. But the Elie de la Cruz

(01:20:53):
thing, I am so much moreconcerned with. A. Can he continue
to improve? B Can they winwith him? The rest is irrelevant to
me, and I just I canrelate to almost anything I can. I

(01:21:15):
cannot relate to somebody who is watchingEllie through the very specific, narrow and
very pessimistic lens of yeah, buthe's gonna be gone in a few years,
Like if you buy something, nota house, but if you buy
something or are you are you worryingabout like what it's gonna be like in

(01:21:42):
five years when that thing has depreciated. No, you're gonna enjoy it while
you can. You're gonna try totake care of it. You're you're gonna
do everything. It's like a car, right, Like you know, hopefully
you have a car that lasts morethan five years. But like you buy
a car, it's like, allright, what can I do in the
short term to make sure that thisthing runs as long as a possibly can?
What are the things that I cancontrol? The Reds cannot control Ellie

(01:22:03):
de la Cruz where he plays intwenty thirty, five years from now,
really five and a half years fromnow. I can't control it. So
the part you can control is createas good a baseball environment as you possibly
can that at least compels Ellie fromthat standpoint, assuming he is a prize

(01:22:25):
free agent, that makes him go, this is the place I want to
stay. Can you outspend the teamsthat will be dangling nine figure deals at
him, high nine figure deals inhim? Probably not so. I I
just I can't do the thing wherewe wonder where's Ellie? I don't know,

(01:22:48):
man, Like, do you knowhow far in American life? The
next four months are going to bepainfully slow. I'm gonna worry about five
and a half years now. Ijust can't. And I'm watching Jeff and
I tweeted out a similar segment justas a response to him, because his

(01:23:10):
thing was miss me with that wholeconversation about where Ellie's gonna be in twenty
thirty, Like, first of all, there's just something about enjoying something,
enjoying something as it happens. Itried to convince a lot of people to
do this with Joe Evado tried,I'm doing it with Joe Burrow, do

(01:23:33):
it with lu Joe Acosta. Itried to do this with the twenty twenty
one Bearcat team. Like sometimes youjust need to stop. And by the
way, in the sports talk radioworld, we're always talking about, well,
what's gonna happen next, what's thenext move gonna be? But as
a fan like man, sometimes youjust need to stop and watch and enjoy.

(01:23:57):
And if you can't. With EllieDella Cruise, that's fine that I
can't relate to. I think he'sa blast to watch. I think the
conversations around him, excuse me,are a blast to watch. I think
watching the country and watching baseball fanslearn more about him and and and and

(01:24:19):
want to learn more about him,and watching him become more familiar to more
people, I think that is ablast to watch. Watching him take these
raw skills and refine them and harnessthem and add higher baseball IQ to them
is immensely fun. And it's immenselyfun during a forty and forty five season.

(01:24:45):
I legitimately do worry about not wastinghim. I legitimately do wonder are
they ever gonna build this sort ofteam that avoids the Reds being in a
situation like the Angels are with MikeTrout. Now, Mike Trout has played
for the angel his entire career,but they've wasted it. Generational player some
will say, is maybe the greatestof all time. He's played in three

(01:25:08):
playoff games. They haven't won anyThat is criminal. They've kept him.
He's been terrific the entire time.They've done nothing with him. You could
apply some of the same stuff toJoe Evado. Some of his absolute best
seasons just totally wasted on teams thatlost ninety five games. What are we

(01:25:29):
doing? The bigger concern for me, and I think the bigger concern for
you, if you care at allabout this franchise is not oh good,
GOLLI you. It's gonna hurt whenhe leaves. He's probably gonna leave.
Worry about this stuff. The franchiseitself can control. When you have opportunities
to win, take advantage, whenyou have opportunities to go all in,

(01:25:53):
go all in. Continue to createthe sort of environment the players want to
play in. And by the way, I think they've done a good job
of that was watching the Yankee broadcastlast night because I had access to it,
and they were talking about how Igot the Red smile a lot like
they look like they really enjoy Wetalked about that a lot last year.

(01:26:15):
The chemistry of the club, likeit does really feel like there's a cool
environment, cool culture. Now gethealthier and get more good players, get
better players, and win while youhave Ellie Dela Cruz, I just,
for the life of me, forthe life of me, I cannot imagine
just spending any amount of time.And I've now done two segments on it,

(01:26:38):
and I'm probably never gonna do itagain, because what's the point.
I cannot imagine watching Ellie Dela Cruzthrough that filter. OMG. He may
leave in five and a half years. Okay, So I've just decided to
assume that that's going to be thecase, and maybe I'll be wrong,

(01:27:01):
and if so, that'll likely bea very pleasant disappointment. How about this,
While you have him, you havea lot of time to figure out
how you're gonna replace him. Youhave five and a half years. I
did the bit last week. I'llgive you good news. The good news
if you're a Reds fan, isyou get this guy for five more years.
You are watching an insanely fun,insanely talented, improving a sending player

(01:27:27):
that a lot of fans around thesport are gravitating toward the Reds. Get
him for five more years. Thatis awesome. That is a very optimistic
point of view. And it's alsoone based on reality. It's one based
on something that's going to happen.It's not based on something that may happen

(01:27:51):
or could happen, or if itdoes happen, happens not until twenty thirty.
So I can't tell you had afan. I can't tell you how
to think. I can't tell youhow you should consume this team. I
can't tell you how you should watchEllie. I can't tell you what you
should think, what you should feel. I don't. I don't try to
do those things. All I cando is try to project how I'm doing

(01:28:13):
it and see if you agree ordisagree, and perhaps to a small extent,
convince you that my way of doingthings is right. I know the
way I'm doing it with Ellie dela Cruz is right. And if you
want to have a far more enjoyable, far more fun experience with Ellie,
specifically and hopefully with the team asa whole. Do one of two things.

(01:28:40):
Either forget about twenty thirty or justconvince yourself look the likely outcome as
he leaves. By then until thenfive more years, five more years.
There are glass half full people andglass half empty people. Maybe I'm too
glass half full. I view thatas awesome. Five more years. I

(01:29:04):
view that as us as fans beingextraordinarily lucky. Like I know that a
lot of people watching Ellie last nightwho maybe hadn't watched him before, maybe
had not watched him all that much, and because he was doing what he
was doing in New York against theYankees, it was well, yeah,
wait till he plays for him oneday. He may ain't gonna playing for

(01:29:26):
him next year, ain't playing forhim now, ain't gonna play for him
in twenty twenty six, ain't gonnaplay for him a twenty twenty seven or
twenty twenty eight or twenty twenty nine. Isn't that awesome? Isn't that awesome?
The New York Yankees have no say. The LA Dodgers have no say

(01:29:48):
in where Ellie Delacruz plays baseball untilthe start of the next decade. The
Reds quite legitimately hold every card here. So again, control what you can
control, put together the best possibleteams, you can create the best possible
environment. You can give him everyreason imaginable why he should be compelled to

(01:30:15):
stay. And if he does,even better, and if he doesn't,
Okay, the Reds will have gottenseven years of Ellie Dela Cruz. They
will have gotten a lot of hisprime. Hopefully they will have won with
him. I think we should worryabout that a lot more than we should

(01:30:36):
worry about where he may play ata time that is so far off in
the distance, I can barely tellyou how old I'll be. Five point
three, seven, four, nine, fifteen thirty is our phone number.
Two pole questions neither have really anythingto do with Elli Dela Cruz or the
Reds. One is about competitive eating. One is about my favorite olymp sport

(01:31:00):
that we suck at. Vote now. Thanks to United Heartland Insurance, they'll
help you save mo money on homeinsurance, car insurance, business insurance,
residential, whatever it is. Threelocations Hamilton, Cincinnati, and Northern Kentucky.
One website uhi ns dot com.That's uhi ns dot com. Vote

(01:31:21):
now at Moegar. Five point threeseven four nine fifteen thirty is our phone
number. This is one of themost bizarre red seasons ever for one basic
reason we'll get to that next centisI'm not sure they're going to be doing
very comprehensive coverage of my favorite Olympicssport, team handball, which we once

(01:31:42):
again do not qualify for. Wehaven't qualified for the Olympics and team handball
since nineteen ninety six. Now Iguess we're going to qualify either on the
men's or women's side. Uh,my understanding is we will qualify for the
Olympics and team handball in twenty twentyeight because we're hosting the twenty twenty eight

(01:32:04):
Summer Olympics. Team handball is myfavorite sport because it looks like something I
could play. It looks like gymclass. It looks like a sport designed
for people who are They don't wantto run a lot and so soccer is
no good. They can't skate,so hockey's no good. And they're not

(01:32:24):
good at shooting a basketball, sobasketball is no good. Now, in
my day, I could shoot abasketball. A team handball looks like something
played in gym class. Somehow,some way, a country that has all
these amazing athletes, we can't findenough to at least qualify for the Olympics
and team handball legitimately, Like,go go on YouTube, find yourself some

(01:32:45):
team handball highlights from the last Olympicswhich we did not qualify, and tell
me that we should have a teamthat at least at least every four years
gets to the Olympics. We donot. So we have a two pole
questions on X at Mowegar there againthanks to United Heartland Insurance. Is it
a stain in our country that thelast time the United States qualified for the

(01:33:10):
Olympics and team handball was nineteen ninetysix. I believe it is fifty seven
percent of you agree, staying onthe country. The other ones about competitive
eating, is it entertaining or disgusting? So far and it's early sixty eight
point three percent of you say disgusting. Vote now at Mowegar. This is

(01:33:32):
a red season that has been interesting, right, We say it all the
time, be good or be interesting, ideally be both. They haven't been
very good. We'll see if theyget better. They have been interesting.
One of the things that is amazinglyinteresting about this year's team is how good
they've been in the first game ofseries. They win again last night,

(01:33:54):
hold on to a five to nothinglead. By the way Alexis daz in
the ninth inning last night was terrificand for an Ando Cruz was good enough.
And we've talked about Graham Ashcraft howimportant this second half of his third
season is for him. They winthe first game of a series, as
they did in Saint Louis, asthey did last week against the Pirates,

(01:34:15):
they nineteen and nine. That's sixseventy nine baseball remarkable. This team's five
under five hundred as a whole,fifteen under five hundred if you take all
the games that are either the second, third, or fourth game of series.
It's the beauty of sports. Thebeauty of sports. And sometimes there
are things that pop up oddities,statistical quirks that are maybe kind of hard

(01:34:41):
to wrap your brain around. There'sno one reason I would love to tell
you that I was hot, thatI'm hot, takey enough to give you
like this like hot, take ishreason why they're so good in Game one
and so not so good in Gamestwo, three, and four. I
would love to be that hot,taky I can't. I will ask somebody

(01:35:06):
brought it up to me here atthe radio station. Is is that a
sign of a team that starts hotin a series and then they've won their
game in the series and then theytake their foot off the gas. I
don't know. I think it's justa weird sort of quirk of the season.
Uh It It better persists, becauseif they're gonna keep being really bad

(01:35:28):
in games two, three, andfour, they're gonna have to continue to
play at an insane pace in thefirst game of series. It's bizarre.
It has to change at some point. Not winning first games in series but
being so bad games two, three, and four, and obviously mostly games
two and three because teams don't playa ton of four game series. Perhaps
that can happen. Starting tonight fivepoint three, seven four nine, fifteen

(01:35:53):
thirty Sports Headlines and in fifteen minutesto look Ahead, Tonight's FC Cincinnati Tilts
on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports Station. Some of the Bengals Cincinnatis ESPN fifteen
thirty Sports Headlines are a service ofKelsey Chevrolet, Home of Lifetime Powertrain Protection
and Guaranteed Credit approval from their familyto yours for life, kelseyshev dot com.

(01:36:21):
Reds are in New York. Stillthey're taking all the Yankees in the
Bronx seven oh five Tonight on sevenhundred wlw Andrew Abbott will start Tonight's game
for Cincinnati. Red's looking for twoconsecutive wins and a series victory. You
know this is the thirteen game stretchyou may have heard that is going to
define the season until the twelve gamesafter the All Star break. That stretch

(01:36:45):
will also define the season. Let'shope Tonight's red starting lineup is made well.
It comes to you thanks to MadewellRestoration. Go to Madewell Restoration dot
com. Against Carlos Rode on tonight, Reds will send this nine out.
India's leading off at second base,Lli's at short, Candelario at first,
Spencer Steer and left. Stevenson iscatching Noelve Martz at third base, Fairchild

(01:37:09):
in center field. We didn't doour Stuart Fairchild bingo card. Where on
a nightly basis you wonder, okay, is it gonna be a throw to
the wrong place, a throw tothe wrong base? Is he gonna forget?
How many outs? There are isIs he gonna start in on a
ball that's going over his head?Is he gonna get picked off? Is
he gonna get caught stealing? It'san adventure with you know, nobody's worrying

(01:37:32):
about Stuart Fairchild playing for the Dodgersin twenty thirty. Are they Fairchild's in
centerfield tonight? Betting seventh Espinal Dhingand Blake done back from Louisville is in
right field tonight, betting ninth.Cincinnati sending Levi Jordan down to Louisville,
Florence. Yawl's are on the roadtonight against the Washington wild Things. FC

(01:37:54):
Cincinnati on the road tonight against DC. That game live on ESPN fifteen to
thirty. Pre game covered starts atseven o'clock. You see announced today the
addition of Jordan Robinson, who hastwo years of eligibility remaining. He is
a dB who played at the Universityof Kentucky the previous two years. And
the Cincinnati Cyclones are now the EHLaffiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Not

(01:38:21):
only earlier did I refer to thevoice of the Cyclones, Dana Gray as
Devin I think in the first hourof this show. I said they were
going to be an affiliate of theToronto Blue Jays, which is not going
to happen. All right, whatare we doing now? We're chatting with
Pat Hi. Pat, You're onESPN fifteen thirty. What's up, hey?

(01:38:43):
Though I was just gonna you weretalking about team handball not qualifying since
nineteen ninety six those Olympics. ThoseOlympics were in Atlanta, so they would
have qualified that year because they werethe home They represented the home country too,
so god only knows when they actuallywould have called fight on their own
tippy in the Olympics. Well,fortunately here in studio I have internet access

(01:39:05):
and so I could tell you thatwe did not qualify for the Barcelona Games
in nineteen ninety two. We didqualify for the Soul, South Korea Games
in nineteen ninety eight, we finishedtwelfth. We went oho to six.
In nineteen eighty four, we qualifiedbecause the Olympics were in Los Angeles.
We finished ninth. We didn't havea Summer Olympics team in nineteen eighty,

(01:39:30):
but we we qualified and finished tenthin seventy six, which I think was
Montreal and the Munich Games in seventytwo, we qualified and finished fourteenth.
Our international history and team handball ispathetic. Okay, you what, maybe
the National Handball Association st at headquartersof Cincinnati. You know, we've we've

(01:39:54):
been eased all these years following theseteams that just never seem to get over
the top. Maybe we knew embracehandball. Well, you know, here's
something that I didn't note until today. We had the governing body of US
handball. It was United States,the United States Team Handball Federation, which
was the governing body for handball fromthe fifties all the way through two thousand

(01:40:16):
and six. And what happened wasthe US Olympic Committee, and this is
a true story. The US OlympicCommittee decided that the old Olympic, the
old US Handball Federation, was sobad, so incompetent, that they blew
it up and they relaunched it asUSA Team Handball. So it's now a

(01:40:39):
different governing body for team handball inthe United States. The problem is USA
Team Handball. Their CEO just quitand so at the top of the organization
is just upheaval. Which it's hardfor any organization to function when there's a
problem at the top. And sonow not only are we in the Olympics,

(01:41:00):
as we try to figure out whatwe can do to be better in
this sport that seems really easy,we now have no leader. So I'm
wondering if on a part time basis, maybe I could take over as the
CEO of USA Team Handball. Iwas thinking the exact same thing. I
mean, what could possibly go wrong? Nothing, We can't be any worse.
We're not qualifying for the Olympics.By the way, in the most

(01:41:24):
recent Pan am Games, which werein twenty eighteen, we didn't qualify for
them either. We're not even gettingour incontinent thank you. Yep, you're
right, Pat. It's it's frustrating, and I'm gonna do something about it.
Thank you for the phone call theyget give stock. Likewise, you

(01:41:44):
know, we are good in mostOlympic sports, obviously some better than others.
Just do yourself a favor. Theydon't. If you watch a lot
of the mainstream coverage of the Olympics, you don't see a lot of team
team handball, and I think themain reason is it's because we're not in
it ever. But when you dosee glimpses of it or if you can

(01:42:08):
go find footage of it, itquite legitimately looks like a fifth grade gym
class. Not the athletes, butthe game itself. Looks like something a
gym teacher would come up with tokill time on like a Wednesday in February.
Nothing against gym teachers. My favoriteall time teacher was a gym teacher.

(01:42:34):
We have to be better at thissport. We can't just pull like.
There's been a lot of talk aboutfootball. I guess it's gonna be
an Olympic sport. Joe Burrow wastalking about that. Are we gonna feel
any better about ourselves if we dominatethe world in football? No? Could
we at least get caught up tosome of the world when it comes to

(01:42:54):
team handball? How are we notbetter at this? Nineteen minutes away from
six o'clock, five point three sevennine, fifteen thirty is our phone number.
How would you not want to participatein this? Woman come back?
We'll previous tonight's FC Cincinnati battle inWashington on I on a ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati sports station. There is aMajor League soccer game tonight. FC Cincinnati

(01:43:20):
looking for three more points on theroad trying to avoid the proverbial dreaded trap
game Miami cre on Saturday. Thatshould be a lot of fun. First
things first, got to go takecare of business in the Nation's capital.
FC Cincinnati on the road against DC. These are our two teams that split.

(01:43:42):
They they didn't split, They theytied, they drew, each got
a point. FC Cincinnati has playedpretty well since then. DC has not
joining us as Klein Carr has thematch tonight on Apple TV for MLS Season
Pass. What has happened to DCover the last couple of weeks. Yeah,
well, you know, that's exactlythe danger I think for this match

(01:44:03):
from a Cincinnati perspective is you couldmaybe look past this DC match looking towards
Saturday, and you know, Ithink Christian Beneke has been suspended for two
matches, had a bit of ameltdown in a match again Houston that they
were in good control of. Andhe's got fourteen goals to assist an MLS
All Star, and so they're gonnamiss him in a big way because so

(01:44:24):
much of their style of play goesthrough ben Teke. They rely on him
for service in the area. He'sone of the best in the air so
dangerous scoring goals, of course,and you know there's a new franchise in
a way, and I think Ispoke to the manager, Troy Lussain,
and he said, basically, hehopes that DC can become a Cincinnati,
but it's going to take some timeto build towards that sort of level of

(01:44:45):
consistency and success. Right now,he's trying to impart his team with the
philosophy and get some consistency because it'sbeen difficult. And Pat Newnan knows that
this team cannot look ahead. Cincinnatineeds to continue to take care of business
because if they want to go andachieve their goals to win the Supporter Shield,
these are the types of matches youhave to win. So I understand

(01:45:06):
there's gonna be a lot of eyeson the Miami match at TQL. I'm
sure it's gonna be buzzing on Saturdaynight. But on the road today,
this team's gonna need to take careof business. Got to take care of
business and have to take care ofbusiness while shorthanded. They'll get Miles Robinson
back here, I guess pretty soon, but a lot of guys who aren't
going to be playing for the teamfor the rest of the season. That
conversation begins. I guess, withMatt Miasga, what do you make of

(01:45:29):
how they've done without playing with afull squad. It's been impressive. It's
been impressive, but I'm not toosurprised just because of the identity of this
team. We've seen players step inthe depths. Has been tested, but
they've sit up to the challenge sofar, and I've been impressed by that.
DeAndre Yedlin was a big signing midseason to come from Inter Miami.

(01:45:50):
His leadership and experience I'm sure willbe leaned on, and these times with
no Miasga, no Robinson out andthen Haglin's injury, I think maybe is
being overlooked a little bit because he'sbeen a consistent player for this team and
had a really good season so far, was expected to play a bigger role.
Even so, I think Cincinnati's goingto need to go out into the
transfer market open up, you know, the Banks a little bit to bring

(01:46:13):
in a replacement in the defensive area. Seemed like they were only continuing to
add maybe in the attack, butnow I'd expect them to have to shift
their focus a little bit to makesure they have some depth in that center
back position. I ask a similarquestion to every single one of your colleagues
who joins me to preview a certainmatch. You know one thing you could
do to overcome being shorthanded is haveon your team the reigning league MVP and

(01:46:39):
Lucho Acosta give us an example ofsome of the superlatives you use to describe
him. I mean, he isan impossible matchup, and I tell people
that if I were to pay moneyto go to an MLS match, which
hopefully I won't have to, Idon't have to go to night. You
got to get it free tonight atleast they need me. But Lucio Coffee

(01:47:01):
would be the guy I would payto watch. Yeah, I would spend
money out of my own pocket togo see him. He's just that dynamic.
He can just He's an impossible matchup. If you get tight, he
can turn, if you drop offhim out of fear, he can pick
the right pass. He just alwaysseems to find that moment. And I
almost think his size being five tothree is an advantage because he takes two

(01:47:21):
steps to everyone from the defender andby the time you go to plant,
he's already changed directions and gone theother way, so he has just been
phenomenal for me. I think he'shaving a historic season. No player ever
in MLS history has won two MLSor two MLS MVPs back to back.
That's never been done before. AndI think if ves Ci Cincinnati win the

(01:47:44):
Supporter Shield, which I think theycan, I think he has to be
the MVP. And I know thatLionel Messi, the other Argentine number ten,
is going to get a lot ofthe headlines and national global publication,
of course, but I think Luciois that special that if this team is
able to get over the top ofInter Miami, that he deserves to get
the back to back MVP for thefirst time inlist Billy, I watch Acosta

(01:48:08):
and as a fan, you're constantlyjust waiting for him to do something.
And it's it's not unlike when theyplayed Messi last year in the US Open
Cup, Like you know, FCCincinnati played really well and you just you
waited, you waited for him todeliver a moment and he did. And
Luco has done that so often overthe last couple of years. What is
it like playing against someone like thatI'm glad I don't have to know my

(01:48:32):
Houston teams. We are known forour physicality and I'm sure we would have
tried to get a body on him, but that's about all you can try
to do. But then he canhurt you from a set piece. So
it goes to you know, again, just what I was saying of how
difficult it is, and then youstart adding in these other pieces around him,
where if you focus on Lucio,then upsteps or a Shano or Kevin

(01:48:54):
Kelce now and we'll see who elsethey add into the transfer window. So
I think that's really why so difficult. A little extra wrinkle tonight with Lucho
Akoffa's history playing here in d Cfor so long, with Wayne Rooney and
these DC United fans here, soI'm sure they loved watching him in the
stadium. I'm not sure they're gonnarelish so much seeing him on FC Cincinnati

(01:49:15):
return, but I'm sure for aneutral, I mean, he is just
one of the best to watch inMLS. It has often felt like a
two team race atop the Eastern Conference. Obviously, there's a match on Saturday
that's going to go a long waytoward determining how things play out is is
there somebody you would say, look, yes, right now it's FC Cincinnati
and Miami at the top, butsomeone else is gonna enter the phrase.

(01:49:40):
There a team that you would sayis more likely than the others to do
that. Yeah, and it's inLa LAFC. And I know the Galaxy
are tied with them right now onforty points. That is just two points
behind Cincinnati and four behind Miami,So you know that's definitely been team in

(01:50:00):
and the reason why also as they'regoing out in the transfer window and signed
Olivier Cherux. So it's a bitof an arms race right now where you're
going to have all of these teamsgoing out and adding big pieces and French
all time leading goalscorer World Cup championwith the France national team adding to that
already dynamic attacks with Bolanga and LAFC, you know, going all the way

(01:50:23):
to the final losing to Columbus lastseason. So they're always in the mix.
So I would keep my eye onthem as a three team race.
But you know, I'm not justsaying it because I'm on the show.
I think having this little bit ofa break where I know Miami have been
flying without Messi, without Suarez.But these are the types of matches when
you look back on the end ofthe season, you say that Wednesday it

(01:50:45):
was hot in DC. Who's goingto win the Supporter Shield? These will
be the types of matches you lookback on and you say, oh,
that match may have decided the race. Yeah, no question about it.
Enjoy the match tonight. I doappreciate the time. Man, thanks so
much, Thanks so much for havingme on. Kaylin Carr had a good
MLS career, primarily with the HoustonDynamo. He is on the call tonight
on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV. FC Cincinnati on the road against DC.

(01:51:09):
Of course, you can listen tothe game on ESPN fifteen thirty Pregame
coverage starts at seven o'clock. Ourshow is over tonight. I put this
on my social media page. Ifyou love card collecting, check out the
link. It's on my ex It'son Facebook, and I'll be with the
folks at Headseekers. We're gonna bebusting open packs of tops tier one cards

(01:51:32):
eight o'clock tonight. It's gonna bea blast. This show tomorrow will be
a best of for an hour Chancehosting it on Friday. I am back
on Monday, so have an awesomeFourth of July weekend. Stay safe,
and we'll talk to you Monday.Thanks to Taran for producing, and thanks
to you for listening. This isthe ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati sports station.

(01:52:04):
This report is

Mo Egger News

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