*Rich Kincaide, talks Detroit Tigers & Redwings

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jack Ebling here with my good friend Matt Sloan. A
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Speaker 2 (00:05):
That's right, Jack.

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Speaker 1 (00:24):
Zero percent. Can't get much lower than that. That's exactly right,
Papacy Matt in the gang here on West Grand River, Okamiz.
They're making Fred welcome back. It is a drive with

(00:45):
Jack the Spotlight a radio network. Jack Eblin here with
my producer Boston Rob and waiting patiently. I don't know
if he's a patient guy or not, but tell you what,
he has lost enough of weight now he should be
doing ozembic ads. Richard Kincaid tremendous work with w j R.

(01:07):
And also as an author his book Gods of Olympia Stadium.
Rich you're going to take this as a compliment that
it was meant to be. I was talking with one
of our most loyal listeners earlier name was Lynn Turco
down in Trent and I said, what do you think
of Rich Kincaid. She said, Oh, he knows his stuff.

(01:27):
I said, well, you're going to hear more of him
now because he's going to be on on a regular basis,
at least that's the plan. And yeah, she was excited
about that.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, I'm excited too. I think there's gonna be loads
of fun, so much, you know, so much to talk
about today. The passing Bill Frean. I think it my
personal list because he was my he was he was
my hero when I was, when I was little ly Gates.
You know, you see those twelve year olds playing Little
League baseball, But when I was, when I was a
kid grown up, I emulated him. I ran the way

(01:59):
he did. I was a cat, yeah, you know, and
yeah kind of cheffle, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
You know, he had a big ten batting record for
a long time at the University of Michigan, stood for many,
many years. And you know, as a as a Tiger,
in terms of gold gloves and being an anchor, you
always knew you were going to get one hundred and
fifty to one hundred and sixty games out of Bill

(02:26):
free hand behind the dish.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, an amazing statistic and of itself that you know
that many games also. Sergei center offits and I was
today is having his jersey number ninety one.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Retired, Yes, overdue for me being.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
A I would say, yeah, absolutely, one of the greats,
one of the all time greats. It was my one
of my great professional privileges to cover him in his
entire career here in Detroit. And he's responsible for me
being a dad.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Oh tell us that story quick.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Well, now, well used to the I used to do
the Red Wings postgame show. Yes, And one night my
wife Jeanie came down and she was there, and as
we were packing up the gear to leave, there were
a group of girls singing to Sergei Federoff fed r
O V. We love Federoff, Oh yes, because he is

(03:17):
the best. And they with and actually with more tune
than I put into it, and they sang it over
and over again. And Genie told me later that's how
we remember when our daughter was conceived.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Oh okay, so it just it was that night.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
It wasn't because of federal Often if Federff hadn't been
Serge Federal Offen, those six young women would not have
been singing. Fdo got right?

Speaker 1 (03:43):
And was he like one of the most skaters to watch.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Unbelievable, was a great I mean, I mean listen. I'd
watch him skate the CENTERAI circle as fast as he could,
and you sort of got to visualize this. The CENTERAI
service about twenty feet twenty four i uh in diameter
and there's only I watched Sean Bird try to do
the same thing after Sergei stopped and Shud made it

(04:08):
about one time around, one a quarter times around before
spinning out. Just and you would think at the Nation
league level that one player would not be able to
so dominate, you know, a similarly situated player in the
National league. But it was it was man against boys
with him.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, yeah, I guess I should ask you this question.
I hadn't thought about it. But since you're the one
who wrote the book Gods of Olympia Stadium, who's the
fastest skater you've ever seen with the winged wheel?

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Oh wow, Dylan's got to be up there.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Dylan Lark has got to be up there.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
But see, they measure everything now so that you know,
in miles per hour, how fast to how fast you got?
But Dylan Larkin wins the off Star speed skating competition
a couple of years there, I would have to say
it would therefore be him. But in terms you know,
when you talk in terms of skating ability, yeah, then
you're talking about guys like like a feder Off and
thank yeah, you know, just just amazingly skilled skilled athletes. Now,

(05:05):
I personally am against the notion of retired numbers. Did
you know that? No?

Speaker 1 (05:09):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
I think we should honor that we were going to retire.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
I guess we can't do that, Rob, We're going to have.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
To just well you get you could you can honor
my number, especially if you use the Canadian you when
you're doing the honoring.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Oh I got.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
I would love to. I'd love to look down her
some night and see a number nine skating on Detroit
ice wearing a Detroit Revolute uniform that.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
A few times number nine wearing a Yeah, hey, I
got one more guy for you in the skating conversation here,
And I'll let this go because I don't think he
was as maneuverable as the guys you mentioned. But just
in terms of coming up on a rush. When you
get him on the left wing, he could cover more
ground those long strides. Was Frank Mahovlich and the Red

(05:53):
Wings got him a little later in his career. That
was I think an almond trade, right. Uh so they
got him a little later, but when he was in
his prime with the Maple Leafs, it was like one
of those table hockey games where the guy, you know,
you just shoved the stick and the guy goes.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
And yeah, but him and Gordie Howe and the just
recently departed Alex Jelvechio gave us one of the great
seasons in Red Wings history in nineteen sixty seven. So
I'm sorry in nineteen sixty nine to seventy when they
reformed and renamed the production election line and when those
three had when those three had come over the boards. Man,
Olympia state of interest, it's like nothing you could even

(06:32):
imagine today. You have a place for just going.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
You've already broken the record for the most hockey talk
in mid August. I want to talk to you about
the Tigers and what's going to happen now with this
eight and a half game lead over the Guardians, nine
over the Royals, and what a matchup tonight with Trek
Scoubel going up against Brown for the Astros. And then

(06:55):
tomorrow we're going to be there. We're going to get
to see Charlie Morton.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
It's gonna be Yeah, it's gonna be so much fun.
Basically eight and a half. I'll tell you what I feel.
I'm not going to come out here and apologize for
panicking about the Tigers three weeks ago when their lead
was down to you know, we'n sixteen seven game range
and it gotten down. It got down to five at
one point. As a matter of fact, The thing you
have to note is that from July ninth until August ninth,

(07:21):
the Tigers went eight and sixteen. Yeah, yeah, all right,
and I'm thinking that's not enough games, right, that's so
many off days, twenty four games in thirty days. But
I've forgotten the All Star break. So they had a
terrible month of July. But yeah, you're feeling better about
things right now because they started beating up on the
Hamburgers like the Twins, just hammered the Twins of the weekend,

(07:42):
and now they're they're taking it to a pretty good
ball club in Houston.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, yeah, I think one of the keys for the Tigers.
Rich has been the hero of the night plan. And
it's not like there's one guy you have to shut down.
I mean Riley Green games without getting a hit. I
can go three games all getting his bat on the ball,
and it's still they have a great chance to win.

(08:05):
And they get guys like Wz. I can't be how
important Dylan Dingler has been behind the plate framing pitches.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Say you know what, you know who leads the Tigers
in War It's Dylan Dingler.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, I can imagine.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
And second and second is McKinstry.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Okay. Now I can't explain baseball to women anymore because
of the stats, right, you know, I don't know what's
good about a ground ball to fly ball ratio for example,
you know, And therefore I'm unable to explain some of
this stuff. But in terms of War two is considered
to be all star caliber and the Tigers the first
five guys are tour above and then Buys as one, nine, four,

(08:45):
and Turkleson's up there as well. It has spread throughout
that they're dangerous throughout the lineup. Is the point here?
And then and war measures offense and defense, does it not?

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yes, it does have offensive war put them together. And
that's where Dingler.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Really exactly you're being compared to an age player.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Is the idea with war replaced my player?

Speaker 2 (09:03):
So right, right exactly? And uh yeah, so there there
they stuck up real well, give you thirty seven pitchers
this here? Did you know that?

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Thirty seven?

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah? Isn't that amazing? Uh?

Speaker 1 (09:17):
That is? Is that a record?

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Now? You got me? I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Gotta be close, Rich.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
It got to be close. Now that does count a
couple of position players who pitched?

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, Jake Rodgers loves that.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
So well, I'm looking at the Tigers batting averages here, Andy,
you know you're talking about two sixty five, two forty three,
two fifty nine, two fifty eight. Now I know batting
as have gone down two sixty six to sixty eight.
Here we go, Dylan Dingler two seventy four. How often

(09:53):
do you have a catcher who's leading you in batting average?
I guess Will Smith or the Dodgers might be in
that situation if he or Freddie Freeman whoever is leading
him from night to night. We know what cal Raley
has done with thirty seven home runs, but.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Two seventy four used to be a chrony batting as.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, though that was mediocre, right at best?

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Exactly exactly at best. So anyways, so.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
I think they have what the nine players something like
that who are over three hundred this year, and you know,
it's just it's not like it. You know, if you
can bat three hundred, that means that seven out of
ten times you're failing and you'd have a chance to
lead the league.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Amazing, it is, it really is. So so it's it's
been we have to re understand baseball. Yeah, yeah, you know,
it's not It's not the game that we grew up
with where the pitchers threw eleven innings. At the game
went eleven innings and if they have to throw three
hundred pitches, they did. You know, it's we all know that. Yeah,
it's just but I like it, you know, I like

(11:03):
I like the pitchclock, I like the rule changes. I
like things being speeded up a little bit. I like
I've always liked baseball and I still do.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, it's going to be two hours and thirty five minutes.
I'm predicting tomorrow if we don't get any weather issues
or anything else. Long argument where guys are getting thrown
out of the game, but you know it used to
be over three hours not long ago.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
I'm really looking forward to the seat improvement program.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
You're a master of this. Do you want to explain
this to our listeners?

Speaker 2 (11:30):
The seat improvement program is simple. If you show up
at the ballpark and you don't look like to see
what you got, you try to move to better ones.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
The worst that's going to happen is they'll kick you
out of the better seats and you'd be slightly embarrassed.
But if it works out, Hey, I've done a front row.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
I saw Rico there get ejected twice at the Champions Classic,
trying to watch Michigan State and Kentucky. And first of all,
Kentucky had enough people there that there weren't many empty seats.
But Rico found one, and then someone showed up and
they had his butt kicked out, and then he found
another one, and next thing you know, the cops are

(12:07):
pulling him out there too.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
So the cops. Yes, the only police involvement you want
is this. I was at a ballgame at the ballpark
in Ireland. Me and Paul Wood were covering the Rudders
in the playoffs. When you're right, some guy has to
be ejected from the stadium because he leaned over the
rail in the front row trying to come up with
a baseball, which he did not, but he tumbled onto

(12:29):
the field, So that's automatic ejection. Well, this particular ballpark,
these security guards were Pinkerton's and the two they sent
to address this situation where just they were just gorgeous.
They just it's like they had the Pinkerton uniforms, you know,
painted on kind of thing, the handcuffs, Billy cubs and
the whole thing. I felt compelled Jack to stand up
and say to point out, I've been bad too.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
You wanted to be Yeah, I understand, that's.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
That's right. I've been bad too.

Speaker 4 (12:57):
Hey.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
I heard a stat the other night, Rich, I think
Benetti was talking about this. What do you think the
Tigers record is when they lead after eight innings, something
in one, something in zero, they're going to the major
league record. They're sixty two and zero.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
When they've played to Wow.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Now they've blown leads in the sixth inning, the seventh inning,
and the eighth inning, but if they can get into
the ninth inning with the lead. And they've also had
a couple of games where they lost the lead and
then scored once it was tied, but they have not
lost a game when they've led after eight innings. They're

(13:40):
sixty two and zip.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
And consider the fact that nobody in baseball thinks the
Tigers have a legitimate closer. There you go, well, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, I was stunned by that. And it is all
Kyle Finnegut, you know, that's just found a way to
do it. And sometimes it hasn't been pretty. You know,
they might have had a rerun cushion and then something
happens and then it's one, you know, and you know

(14:09):
they're only up by a run, but that that happens.
So the Tigers also lead the major leagues in a
one run wins.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
That's always a nice one to lead in.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely, when they're nineteen and eight, I
believe in one run games. So that's that's how you
win the division.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Rich it is it is, yeah, and Baseball Reference says
this was interesting to me. Baseball Reference today says the
Tigers have a ninety nine point three percent chance of
making the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeh.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
However, at the same time it says they have a
nine point three percent chance of winning the World Series.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Oh, nine point three percent? Did it say? What chance
they have a make the World Series of being in
the World Series?

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Now, I just had those two numbers.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Okay. I know a guy very well who has a
significant bet, let's say, okay, and he got nine to
one before the season on the Tigers making the World Series,
not winning the World Series because the Dodgers were a favorite,
but representing the American League in the World Series. And

(15:27):
you know, he's really watching this with great interest because
it's important to him that the Tigers finished with one
of the two best records in the American League so
they don't have to play the wild.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Card round exactly exactly. And you know what, for all
of it, the eight and sixteen stretch that lasted for
a month, they got off to such a beautiful start
this year. Yeah, there are seventy three wins right now,
and they you know, they're still in the top one,
two or three in terms of wins in Major League Baseball.

(15:57):
They should have a pretty good shot. I think the
whole thing, though, comes out of those six games that
we play against Cleveland the week the next last week
in September, in the week prior to that.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
So what concerns you most these next two games against
the Astros going against two very good pitchers, or the
four after that against the Royals, who are going to
be desperate. They're nine out, but if they could sweep
the Tigers and cut it to five, or even win
three out of four and cut it to seven, then

(16:29):
they're not exactly out of it. So which series is
more important? They're both at Kmaria.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
You sound exactly. You sound exactly x Perky Anderson, and
you know the answer, No series is more important than
any other. It'd be nice to whoop usedon a couple
more times, you know, obviously, Well you got school of
going tonight. You got to heckle with shout right, But
you just you got to continually kick them when they're down.
Kansas City was given up on earlier this year. Now

(16:54):
they're mounting a little charge as we see. You Just
you know, it's these little these little fires. You got
to keep stomping them out. I'm sure, spark you know, no,
Manager A J. Hinch to Sparky Anderson, to John McGraw.
You know, ever, ever, we'll concede that the victory is
in the bag. All right, seventy three wins, that's not enough.
We got to win tonight, all right?

Speaker 1 (17:16):
What are we going to see tomorrow? Hunter Brown and
Trek Scoopball? Do you think three runs will win that game?
Would you take three? Right now?

Speaker 2 (17:27):
Surewood?

Speaker 1 (17:30):
Tonight? Do you take three?

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Three?

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Three is enough? Right?

Speaker 2 (17:36):
It hasn't been with these guys, is the thing. But
you know what three is the number of hockey. The
first team to three generally wins or gets the point.
You know, I'm starting to think three is the number.
It can be the number in baseball.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
And the game that we're going to hire four or five.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
I'm sorry, that's sorry.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
The game that we're going to see tomorrow afternoon it
Kellie Morton on the Mount for the Tigers, see forty
one years old? Now, what do you make of that?

Speaker 2 (18:09):
If he gets them out, if he gets them out,
you know what?

Speaker 1 (18:14):
That? Do you trust him?

Speaker 2 (18:15):
I don't know yet. I don't know, you know. I
mean that's kind of the fun of the thing too,
if you think about it, Jack, Because it's people are
battling for jobs, right now to be on that postseason roster. Yeah,
you know, you only get to take twenty it's twenty five, right, Yeah,
let's say let's take twenty six, you know. But yeah,

(18:35):
so it's it's a little it's a little like spring
training all over again in some regards. Have you seen.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Kevin McGonagall play. Have you seen any video of him
or seen him live?

Speaker 2 (18:48):
No? I have not.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Okay, he's in Toledo now, right, He's good. No, he's
an eerie. He's an eerie. He's a double A. He
went from West Michigan to eerie. But he had four
home runs last week and he's a number two ranked
prospect in baseball, so much so that Scott Harris said,
we ain't trading this guy. I don't care what you
give us, We're not trading him.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
With the trade deadline.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, So a lot of people are now starting to
think that with the position changed, because you got two
shortstops McGonagall and this Bryce Rayner, who they love a
little bit bigger, that these guys could turn into Whitaker
and Trammel two point zero. Is that too much pressure
to put on a pair of guys in double A.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I
don't think young athletes worry about things like presser, and
I don't think they have a real good understanding what
Whitaker and Pramel means, because you know, we're the guys
that got to watch them for whatever it was seventeen
eighteen years turning those double plays. I guess what's intriguing
to me here. I mean Witterker and Trammel got you
know they were There were September call ups back in

(19:54):
seventy seven. It wasn't seventy six, No, seventy seven, and
then they debuted in seventy eight when Witaker won the
Rookie of the Year award. I just I don't think
you can do that right now with your team in
the middle of a Pennant race. You know, you might
want to bring this guy up to see how he
faces major league pitching for a stretch. But it's just
I think it's just a little bit different. It's exciting, though,

(20:16):
isn't it.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yes, you are ten days away from starting your broadcast
of high school football, and I don't know what it
is about North Armington and some of these other schools
in that area. Most of the schools in the state
are opening on the Thursday before Labor Day, but you
guys insist on playing on Friday, right the same time,

(20:37):
Michigan State is facing Western.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Michigan exactly, and I had to make a choice. You know,
it's it's it's it's the assignment high school football and
the season opener all the rest. So I hate to
hate to miss the Western MSU. By the way, it
was so nice hearing from Mike Pearson earlier in the hour.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
I don't know if you know this, but he was
the guy at Sports Publishing. It was responsible for my
book being published. And I just thought, you know, here
I am coming back on the radio for the first
time a long time, and here's Mike Pearson, who's responsible
for that book I wrote, That's a Hockey Hall, the
fame of which I'm so proud you should be and
just last and so what a day.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Well, he has helped a lot of aspiring writers, and
he's responsible for a couple of mine. The Tales from
the Detroit Tigers dugout As is one, and you know
he also helped with Judd a Magical Journey when we
got that crazy idea we were going to do it.
I didn't tell you the story about the toughest part

(21:36):
of doing that book. Rich was convincing the old man
to do it.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Oh that's always the way.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
Finally he retired and they had this all star game
that was the nineteen years called the Front nine and
a half in the Back nine and a half, and
they brought the Urvin era guys and then they brought
the Skyles era guys and they played and it was
like a very competitive game because none of these guys
are used to losing, right, They didn't want to lose

(22:05):
before the fans that you know, back their old place.
So they're playing this game in Breslin Center and I'm
in there. It was the afternoon of the game, and
I said, jud I'm only going to ask you one
more time. This is a seventh time I've asked you.
Do you want to do this book or not? Because

(22:25):
in five years it's too late, nobody's going to care.
You want to do it? He says, should we do it?
I said, well, do you think I keep asking you
if I didn't think we should do it? So get
the guy on the phone. So he gets Mike's boss
on the phone, guy named Bannon and band it's Peter
Bannon says to jud you know when do you want

(22:48):
me here? So in Champagne, Yeah, did I want you here?
In six hours? And he drove up. He drove up
and sealed the deal. But with Judd, you never knew.
I mean, if you waited eight hours, he might change
his mind twice.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Now, Jack, when you were interviewing him, did you find
that he loosened up and just kind of got free
and easy with the memories. Because that's what I found
when I was interviewing all those great hockey players from
the fifties and the sixties. Day once they started once
they were apprehensive at first and once but once they
started getting going, it was just you could see it
in their eyes. It's a beautiful thing.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
You had a tougher challenge than I did because you
had to weave all these stories together. That's what made
your book so good. I was just the voice. So
I took what Judd said the recordings and put it
in his voice, and you know, I let jud be Judd.
We did twenty two hours of taping. We did eleven

(23:47):
two hour sessions, and the only rule was jud once
we turn this tape recorder on, anything you say can
go in the book. So if you don't want in
the book, don't say it.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
And the last day we had to have the thing
at the post office. It had to be shipped if
we're going to get a bonus for being on time
in our contract. Right, so I had to be mailed
by five o'clock. And I gave him the manuscript and
I said, just take one more look at this. We
could still do a minor correction if you see something

(24:21):
you don't like.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Right.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
So, he'd had the heart attack, and he always would
come home and he would have a sandwich, and then
he would take a quick nap, right, or we go
back for practice. And sure enough, he puts the manuscript
up on the table, goes to take a nap, and
Bev picks it up. And the best chapter in the

(24:46):
book by far, was jud talking about how basketball had
cost him fatherhood and he'd been a bad father and
all the things that had happened, and how he regretted
and he was crying. He was Judycoat was crying when
he told these stories.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
I understand.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
I actually stopped the tape the only time I did it.
I stopped the tape and I said, hey, I told
you the rule, right, So I just want to tell
you now. You know, if you don't want to talk
about this, we can change the subjects. I want to
talk about it, okay, So we started. We wrote that chapter.
It was riveting stuff. His wife picked it up and
read it and just read him the Riot Act when

(25:24):
he woke up. There's no way you're airing our family
laundry in this book.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
You can't do that, right.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
So he calls me and it's like three forty five
or three forty it's about an hour and fifteen minutes
before we had to have this thing in and he says, hey,
EB got some bad news. What bad news would that be?
He said, the family chapter. I said yeah, I said,

(25:53):
it's out. It's out. What do you mean it's out?
We got to have the book in the mayor. This
thing is going to be shipped in an hour and
fifteen minutes. He says, how long does it take you
to get from my house he lived right near Walnut
Hills to the post office, said eight minutes. I've timed it.

(26:14):
He said, okay, be here at four point fifty. Nothing
like cutting that close, right, So he took a stack
of typing paper and a green flare pin that he
used on his golf score cards and printed a book
chapter in an hour and there was not one, not

(26:36):
one misspelled word. That was Jetti's cooe.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Remarkable guy. Yeah, my very first, my very first coach
of any kind. Yeah, because that was what Michigan say
when when that post was there. Yeah, so he was.
He was the first. He was the first coach athlete
I suck on my phone in front.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well I hope he treated you better
then some people incurred his wrath. You know, I thought
he's going to kill the page one time.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Well, you know, Bob can do that sometimes. You know,
we've got to love Bob Page. But no, I'm pretty
sure he treated me with gentility because I was a student.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah yeah, what do you remember about that? Was the
nick vista Fred Stable here, right?

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Oh? Absolutely, yeah, absolutely yeah. And that's why again, Mike
Pearson was working with Fred Stable back in the day
when I knew him when I was in JR. Back
in those uh you know, late eighties, in the mid
nineties period. Yeah, so I know him very well in
the terrific guy.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
If you had not had that experience, rich, if you
had not worked over in sports information and learned from
some of the giants who came through there. I mean,
the press box was filled with luminaries exactly. Well, how
would your career have been different?

Speaker 2 (27:57):
My crew would have been different if I couldn't have
gotten into rud Wing's games when I was in high
school for three dollars. Okay, here's how my career, My
career would have My career wouldn't have existed if I hadn't.
I was working at I was still going to school,
and I had the job doing the uh lunchtime news
at the country station in town, and I talked them
into having me cut file reports from Tiger Stadium cover

(28:20):
the Tigers. And I called Hal Middlesworth, who was the
Tiger's PR director back then. I don't know if you
remember him, the great guy. And my first question was
this shows you how naive I was. My first question,
how much does the credential cover the Tigers cost? There's
just silence on the other end. Believe that makes sense? Well,

(28:40):
wwayin Stacker. My news director told me it was seven
hundred dollars, but it just didn't sound right. To me,
So I called the Tigers and it turns out he
said it's free to a creditor Meetia And I said,
how do I become a credited media and he told
me it was a letterhead on the radio station. So
I talked these guys into doing the reports and said
something off in the following week of the Tiger Stadium
on the field a microphone talking.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
Well, that's tremendous that you could have that kind of
a start, and that conversation with Al Middlesworth got you
into the breast box. If it hadn't been for that, Yeah,
who knows, who knows where?

Speaker 2 (29:17):
You be a lawyer? Yeah, be a lawyer, you'd.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Be in film, you'd be a Hollywood right probably.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah. The Santa Fe is going pretty well.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yes, well, uh, this is going to be big fun.
And John Shinsky walked in. We're going to have him
on for just a couple of minutes here before we
go to dinner. But this is going to be fun.
With the Tigers, Lions, Red Wings. Pistons was talking to
Steve Klein, former Lansing State Journal sports editor, Sure, and

(29:50):
he said, looks like the Red Wings have been left
behind by these other three teams with their tremendous improvement.
So uh, that's something that maybe the right Wings have
to play a little catch up before Steve Eiserman loses
his honeymoon period. Right, it's been a while.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Hockey. Hockey is different. If you finish in the top
eight in your conference, you've got a chance to win
the Cup. It's not like that in the other sports,
but it's more likely for the upsets sucer and hockey.
All Steve's got to do to save his job is
get him in the playoffs this year. It's about time
there you.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Go, all right, yep, Rich, thanks so much and look
forward looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
So much fun, looking forward to it too.

Speaker 5 (30:34):
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(30:54):
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Speaker 1 (31:04):
Jack Kevlin here with my good friend Matt Slaughan a
graph of ochemists. Big summer here, Matt.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
That's right, Jack.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
We got the summer savings going on right now at
Graph Nissan and Graph Chevy of Okamists. Great deals. We're
offering zero percent financing on select vehicles up to sixty months.
If you're a Casto member, we got extra rebates for that.
We're getting fresh inventory every day. It's been a great summer.
We got great deals for you zero percent.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Can't get my flower than that. That's exactly right, Topafy, Matt.
In the gang here on West Grand River, Okametz, they're
making breads.

Speaker 4 (31:37):
So it's been a while since you've had your jewelry
clean and inspected. Right, Where will you go and who
will you trust with your most valuable and treasured heirlooms
At Meadowar Jewelers for locations in Lansing, Okamist, Jackson and
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and every piece interested in our care is thorally inspected

(32:00):
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(32:23):
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Speaker 1 (32:33):
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(32:53):
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Just call David at five, one, seven and nine hundred
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Speaker 2 (33:09):
Go Green