August 15, 2025 • 8 mins
Heisi Watney is the sideline reporter for "Friday Night Baseball" on Apple TV+, which is carrying Friday's Reds/Brewers tilt. Heidi joined us on ESPN1530 while en route to Cincinnati for the game, on ESPN1530.
Podcasts of The Mo Egger Radio Show are a service of Longnecks Sports Grill.
Listen to the show live weekday afternoons 3:00 - 6:00 on ESPN1530.
Listen Live: ESPN1530.com/listen
Get more: https://linktr.ee/MoEgger
Follow on X: @MoEgger
Instagram too: @MoEgger
Podcasts of The Mo Egger Radio Show are a service of Longnecks Sports Grill.
Listen to the show live weekday afternoons 3:00 - 6:00 on ESPN1530.
Listen Live: ESPN1530.com/listen
Get more: https://linktr.ee/MoEgger
Follow on X: @MoEgger
Instagram too: @MoEgger
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is gonna be fun this weekend. Reds and Brewers.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Cincinnati is not going to catch Milwaukee, but you have
the hottest team in baseball, and here obviously a team
that has pulled to within a game of the Wildcard.
It's an Apple TV Plus game Friday night Baseball, so
you'll watch it if you're not at the ballpark with
Rich Waltz, former Red David Ross and Heidi Watney handling
the dugouts for Apple TV Plus.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And Heidi kind enough to give us a few minutes.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
It's awesome to have you, Heidi, I guess preemptively welcome
to Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I'm not sure if you're here yet, but how are you.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I'm en Roots Cincinnati. I'm in an airport right now,
but that's great. I'm great. How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm well.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I think this is a cool opportunity for you guys
to do some storytelling, because I'm sure there's going to
be a lot of folks around the country who are
trying to figure out how are the Brewers so good
and who maybe haven't been paying very close attention to
the Reds because quite frankly, in recent years, they haven't
given him a reason to and now you can tell
the story of this team.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It should be fun.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Absolutely, it's going to be a great game. We've already
been to Cincinnati twice this year, covered the Reds earlier
this season, so I know what a young, dynamic team
they have. And I actually have known Terry Francona since
two thousand and eight when I was the Red Sox
team reporter for a couple of years there when Peto
was in Boston, so I know what kind of a
leader he is and what he can bring to a group.
(01:21):
So Red Team Young Dynamics, Sun Ellie's Bath. The last
game we did there was unfortunately when Ellie's sister had
passed away and he was on actually he was out
missed in time to be with his family there. But
the Brewers team, i mean, twelve straight wins, they haven't
lost since the trade deadline. Absolutely on fire. They're getting
(01:43):
it done a different way every night, and they're really
putting it together in all facets of the game. They're pitching,
their relief pitching has been great. They're really solid defensive team,
and they're base running is aggressive but smart, and this
team really seems to have it all.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
They're a team, you know, the Reds two years ago
kind of came from nowhere with a lot of young
guys and hung in the race until the final Saturday
of the season, and we watched the team that just
had great chemistry. I look at what's going on in Milwaukee,
and if you look at just the raw stats, there's
not a whole lot of guys who are having career
years anything like that. But it feels like with the
manager they have, Pat Murphy, like they've they've stumbled upon
(02:22):
something that I'm not sure you can necessarily quantify with
that with statistics or analytics.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, it's interesting because today's day and age, where so
many successful managers or player managers right that always back
their players publicly, they don't air them out. I mean
a great example of that right now. We just had
the Yankees last week and Aaron Boone always publicly does
not criticized his players, and you got he just scared it.
(02:51):
Behind the scenes, he's not letting them, you know, just
skate by, but publically he presents united front. Pat Murphy
is the opposite of that. But from whatever even it
works there in Milwaukee, he'll criticize the player. He'll tell
him that was a boneheaded move. He'll say, you know,
a guy needs to be hitting better if he wants
more playing.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Time, said, shouldn't have done that. He will call his
players out, and it's totally different than what we've seen
across the league really over the last gosh, I would
say almost decades, but definitely over the last like four
or five years. It's just you don't see a lot
of that. But that's how he was as a college coach.
That's how he's always been.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
He's a guy you're going to know exactly where you
stand with him because he's going to tell you right
to your face. He's not going to sugarcoat anything. But
it's got this team performing really well, and sometimes that
kind of approached him backfire right, you can lose the players.
It doesn't work, but it works for this group, and
by all accounts, they're a very tight knit group.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
We had your your colleague Forrisha Whitaker on last week
because Apple TV plus had reds pirates. Will you have
one of Pat Murphy's pocket pancakes?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Oh my god, No, absolutely not. I hate kudos, Trusha.
She's stuck with the bit. She was like all in
on the job. I would have been like hardcast. Thanks,
keep your pocket size to yourself, thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, all right, we're on the same page there, I
you know, better better her than me and and better
her than you. You you mentioned knowing Terry Francona for
as long as you have, and I'm I'm sure this
will be discussed on the broadcast tomorrow, but I'm interested
in your perspective because, look, the credentials speak for themselves,
the bona fide speak for themselves. I can look at
Terry Francona's resume and go, yeah, it's a Hall of
(04:30):
Fame manager. But I think what's been fun to watch
here is a lot of the stuff, a lot of
the stuff that we saw plague the Reds early in
the season. We were waiting for the Tito effect. We
were waiting for, you know, some of that stuff to
be cleaned up, mistakes made by a younger team, some
of the mistakes the Reds made last year. And I
feel like over the last i don't know, forty to
(04:51):
fifty games, we're not talking nearly as much about base
running mistakes. We're not talking nearly as much about accountability,
We're not talking nearly as much about defensive misc and
I'm not talking about, you know, physical errors, I'm talking
about the mental mistakes. I feel like, and I know
this is more of a comment to a question, I
feel like we are starting to see the Tito effect
take hold here.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I kind of he knew that was
going to come around eventually, because Terry Frankona is someone
that like he certain he's going to command respect right
from day one of spring training. But you can't just
snap your fingers and changes are made in a day.
I mean, these are the course of habits, and these
players have been playing this game for their entire lives,
(05:33):
so it too. It takes some time to kind of
clean that up and and implement the way that he
does things. But and Tito is a guy, he's going
to be the opposite of Patner there on the field.
He's another guy that you know, publicly he put a
back you guys. He's going to call him out when
he needed but he picks and chooses. It's times when
he's going to say something like that, he mostly hammles
(05:55):
it behind closed doors. And players absolutely love him and
he has so much respect. But it wasn't going to
happen overnight, right And it's actually kind of surprising to see,
you know, them come this far over the course of
one season, because sometimes it takes a little more time
than that to really implement lasting change. But that's what
he's going to do. And the interesting thing about Tito,
(06:17):
I mean, I knew him when he was in Boston
and then that collapsed in twenty eleven. He left, and
when he went to Cleveland, everyone was scratching their heads
like conal World Cheries winning manager, what like he took Boston,
Like why did he going to Cleveland? And he spent
a decade there, and he tells me that some of
the greatest times of his life. He absolutely loved his
(06:40):
time in Cleveland. He needed to step away for health issues.
He did. He got all of that kind of back
on track. But he's not going to stay away from
the game. And so it's the same thing when he
went to Cincinnati. There was a lot of head scratching
outside of Cincinnati about why Terry Francona is going to Cincinnati.
He believes in the organization. He believes in the direction
of the organization. He told me it's very similar to
(07:00):
what he felt when he went to Cleveland. He believes
in the guys in the front office to put together
openning program. He did not come out of retirement to
loose and he believed in the talent of this young
group of players. So it wasn't going to happen overnight.
But we're definitely seeing it happen with the team and
they absolutely have a great shot of the postseason right
now at a wildcard. I mean, the Brewers are just
(07:22):
otherworldly right now. So the division might be talk and
that's something grazy happened, but with the wild card and play,
they absolutely could do it. And they're getting healthy saut
the Hunter greenses the other night. They've got a plethora
of guys in the starting rotation, guys you can move around,
and my coaching staff has experienced too under Teava, They've
got a lot of really good guys that know what
(07:43):
they're doing. So while you have a lot of use
on this team, you've got the guys in the coaching
staff and the guys in Tito's office that know what
they're doing to help guide this young group.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Friday Night Baseball Apple TV Plus pregame coverage starts at
six o'clock Reds and Brewers with Rich Wall. It's former
Red David Ross and Heidi Wattney. You guys do a
really nice job. Your broadcast look clean. You guys tell
good stories. It's fun when you guys carry the reds
and consecutive weeks for our teams, so we are pretty excited.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I appreciate the time. Heidi, thanks so much, my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
It'll be fun tomorrow
This is gonna be fun this weekend. Reds and Brewers.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Cincinnati is not going to catch Milwaukee, but you have
the hottest team in baseball, and here obviously a team
that has pulled to within a game of the Wildcard.
It's an Apple TV Plus game Friday night Baseball, so
you'll watch it if you're not at the ballpark with
Rich Waltz, former Red David Ross and Heidi Watney handling
the dugouts for Apple TV Plus.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And Heidi kind enough to give us a few minutes.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
It's awesome to have you, Heidi, I guess preemptively welcome
to Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I'm not sure if you're here yet, but how are you.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I'm en Roots Cincinnati. I'm in an airport right now,
but that's great. I'm great. How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm well.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I think this is a cool opportunity for you guys
to do some storytelling, because I'm sure there's going to
be a lot of folks around the country who are
trying to figure out how are the Brewers so good
and who maybe haven't been paying very close attention to
the Reds because quite frankly, in recent years, they haven't
given him a reason to and now you can tell
the story of this team.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It should be fun.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Absolutely, it's going to be a great game. We've already
been to Cincinnati twice this year, covered the Reds earlier
this season, so I know what a young, dynamic team
they have. And I actually have known Terry Francona since
two thousand and eight when I was the Red Sox
team reporter for a couple of years there when Peto
was in Boston, so I know what kind of a
leader he is and what he can bring to a group.
(01:21):
So Red Team Young Dynamics, Sun Ellie's Bath. The last
game we did there was unfortunately when Ellie's sister had
passed away and he was on actually he was out
missed in time to be with his family there. But
the Brewers team, i mean, twelve straight wins, they haven't
lost since the trade deadline. Absolutely on fire. They're getting
(01:43):
it done a different way every night, and they're really
putting it together in all facets of the game. They're pitching,
their relief pitching has been great. They're really solid defensive team,
and they're base running is aggressive but smart, and this
team really seems to have it all.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
They're a team, you know, the Reds two years ago
kind of came from nowhere with a lot of young
guys and hung in the race until the final Saturday
of the season, and we watched the team that just
had great chemistry. I look at what's going on in Milwaukee,
and if you look at just the raw stats, there's
not a whole lot of guys who are having career
years anything like that. But it feels like with the
manager they have, Pat Murphy, like they've they've stumbled upon
(02:22):
something that I'm not sure you can necessarily quantify with
that with statistics or analytics.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, it's interesting because today's day and age, where so
many successful managers or player managers right that always back
their players publicly, they don't air them out. I mean
a great example of that right now. We just had
the Yankees last week and Aaron Boone always publicly does
not criticized his players, and you got he just scared it.
(02:51):
Behind the scenes, he's not letting them, you know, just
skate by, but publically he presents united front. Pat Murphy
is the opposite of that. But from whatever even it
works there in Milwaukee, he'll criticize the player. He'll tell
him that was a boneheaded move. He'll say, you know,
a guy needs to be hitting better if he wants
more playing.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Time, said, shouldn't have done that. He will call his
players out, and it's totally different than what we've seen
across the league really over the last gosh, I would
say almost decades, but definitely over the last like four
or five years. It's just you don't see a lot
of that. But that's how he was as a college coach.
That's how he's always been.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
He's a guy you're going to know exactly where you
stand with him because he's going to tell you right
to your face. He's not going to sugarcoat anything. But
it's got this team performing really well, and sometimes that
kind of approached him backfire right, you can lose the players.
It doesn't work, but it works for this group, and
by all accounts, they're a very tight knit group.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
We had your your colleague Forrisha Whitaker on last week
because Apple TV plus had reds pirates. Will you have
one of Pat Murphy's pocket pancakes?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Oh my god, No, absolutely not. I hate kudos, Trusha.
She's stuck with the bit. She was like all in
on the job. I would have been like hardcast. Thanks,
keep your pocket size to yourself, thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, all right, we're on the same page there, I
you know, better better her than me and and better
her than you. You you mentioned knowing Terry Francona for
as long as you have, and I'm I'm sure this
will be discussed on the broadcast tomorrow, but I'm interested
in your perspective because, look, the credentials speak for themselves,
the bona fide speak for themselves. I can look at
Terry Francona's resume and go, yeah, it's a Hall of
(04:30):
Fame manager. But I think what's been fun to watch
here is a lot of the stuff, a lot of
the stuff that we saw plague the Reds early in
the season. We were waiting for the Tito effect. We
were waiting for, you know, some of that stuff to
be cleaned up, mistakes made by a younger team, some
of the mistakes the Reds made last year. And I
feel like over the last i don't know, forty to
(04:51):
fifty games, we're not talking nearly as much about base
running mistakes. We're not talking nearly as much about accountability,
We're not talking nearly as much about defensive misc and
I'm not talking about, you know, physical errors, I'm talking
about the mental mistakes. I feel like, and I know
this is more of a comment to a question, I
feel like we are starting to see the Tito effect
take hold here.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I kind of he knew that was
going to come around eventually, because Terry Frankona is someone
that like he certain he's going to command respect right
from day one of spring training. But you can't just
snap your fingers and changes are made in a day.
I mean, these are the course of habits, and these
players have been playing this game for their entire lives,
(05:33):
so it too. It takes some time to kind of
clean that up and and implement the way that he
does things. But and Tito is a guy, he's going
to be the opposite of Patner there on the field.
He's another guy that you know, publicly he put a
back you guys. He's going to call him out when
he needed but he picks and chooses. It's times when
he's going to say something like that, he mostly hammles
(05:55):
it behind closed doors. And players absolutely love him and
he has so much respect. But it wasn't going to
happen overnight, right And it's actually kind of surprising to see,
you know, them come this far over the course of
one season, because sometimes it takes a little more time
than that to really implement lasting change. But that's what
he's going to do. And the interesting thing about Tito,
(06:17):
I mean, I knew him when he was in Boston
and then that collapsed in twenty eleven. He left, and
when he went to Cleveland, everyone was scratching their heads
like conal World Cheries winning manager, what like he took Boston,
Like why did he going to Cleveland? And he spent
a decade there, and he tells me that some of
the greatest times of his life. He absolutely loved his
(06:40):
time in Cleveland. He needed to step away for health issues.
He did. He got all of that kind of back
on track. But he's not going to stay away from
the game. And so it's the same thing when he
went to Cincinnati. There was a lot of head scratching
outside of Cincinnati about why Terry Francona is going to Cincinnati.
He believes in the organization. He believes in the direction
of the organization. He told me it's very similar to
(07:00):
what he felt when he went to Cleveland. He believes
in the guys in the front office to put together
openning program. He did not come out of retirement to
loose and he believed in the talent of this young
group of players. So it wasn't going to happen overnight.
But we're definitely seeing it happen with the team and
they absolutely have a great shot of the postseason right
now at a wildcard. I mean, the Brewers are just
(07:22):
otherworldly right now. So the division might be talk and
that's something grazy happened, but with the wild card and play,
they absolutely could do it. And they're getting healthy saut
the Hunter greenses the other night. They've got a plethora
of guys in the starting rotation, guys you can move around,
and my coaching staff has experienced too under Teava, They've
got a lot of really good guys that know what
(07:43):
they're doing. So while you have a lot of use
on this team, you've got the guys in the coaching
staff and the guys in Tito's office that know what
they're doing to help guide this young group.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Friday Night Baseball Apple TV Plus pregame coverage starts at
six o'clock Reds and Brewers with Rich Wall. It's former
Red David Ross and Heidi Wattney. You guys do a
really nice job. Your broadcast look clean. You guys tell
good stories. It's fun when you guys carry the reds
and consecutive weeks for our teams, so we are pretty excited.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I appreciate the time. Heidi, thanks so much, my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
It'll be fun tomorrow
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