Rich and Bret discuss if a Hard Knocks style show would work for Major League Baseball and why the behind the scenes look would be totally different than what we see in the NFL.
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Plenty of seating options from cozy daybeds to private temperature controlled cabanas stadium swim book your spot today at circa Las Vegas dot com looking for a financial institution that has fewer fees better rates and gives back to the local community as one of Colorado's largest credit unions Bellco offers great rates on products like our free boost interest checking and lower rates on loans including our home equity choice line bank virtually any time anywhere through online banking and our mobile app becoming a member has never been easier visit belco.org or stop by any belco branch membership eligibility required equal housing opportunity all on subject to approval insured by n c u a belco banking for everyone would you say so here's what I talked about this in the radio last weekend I'll talk about it again this weekend is that baseball's been here and it's pretty steady Eddie but football separated itself by leaps and bounds in his grown-up popularity where baseball hit hasn't lost popularity but it certainly hasn't gotten as big as the NFL has and it seems to me like they're trying so hard to keep up with some of the stuff you see in the national football league you look at the hype of the draft and the combines the baseball's trying desperately to try to match that type of energy and appeal and it just it just it's missing it's mark no I agree with you and and I think the the avid first of all I think there's more just casual fans for the NFL but the avid fans the fans there the fans that do the fantasy league and go to the game and put on the guys jersey and they're at that bar every weekend watching football they're a different fan than the baseball fan right and and I think they have to take that in consideration you can't do that every day in baseball I could do it once it's once a week once a week I can't do it every day for baseball right right you'd have to put baseball more in the golf category you know how I used to complain oh if you want to be an athlete you want to make millions of dollars you got to get rid of those quiet police signs and and let them talk about your mom like they do talk about my mom when when I'm in the batter spot hey nobody talks about Sue Boone well they yell they used to yell at me they could say anything and I just thought you know kind of no holds barred type approach but they pay the money to get in the seats which results in the contract that I have so that's kind of the negative side of being an athlete so I'd look at golf and say why does golf have to and they always said because Brett golf is a gentleman sport and it always has been so I think baseball to a certain degree it is baseball let's keep it in that genre instead we can't go to the football crazy once a week fireworks all over the plate that's just it's just a different sport and it works for them what could what would Brett Boone suggest what would Brett Boone suggest that baseball could do to grow the sport man much football has grown what could they do to grow the swing listen have a combine they try to have a draft you're just not able to match what the NFL does I think that the concept uh I think you need to go back more to the fundamentals of baseball I think you need to have a real the first thing I think you always should do in growing the sport baseball is really engage the the up-and-coming players engage the ex-players and really get them involved in the game I and I'll use the I'll use the Yankees as an example when I used to go as a player to play the Yankees and my generation was was Bernie Williams and Paul O'Neill and Jeter came along and and Jorge Posada and those great Yankee teams we come to play them that place was buzzing and it wasn't it wasn't necessarily because of them it's because Reggie Jackson was leaning on the cage which is my dad's generation and then in the other corner Yogi Berra is leaning on a fungo I think that's the best thing you can do for baseball for that father son grandpa in the stands grandpa's telling the grandson about see Yogi Berra he was in my day the dad can say Reggie Jackson there's Mr. October and the kid this is my generation's going but I'm here to see Jeter now that's changed I want that father in this in the stands going you should have seen Derek Jeter son and that son's sitting there going but I'm here to see Aaron judge that's what baseball is about I think they need to get back to that generational feel and appeal to to all generations of baseball because it's grandpa that takes dad to the game and it's dad that takes son to the game and to be able to hold on to those memories I know as a dad now I sit there and I I sit there on the screen and I tell stories to my kids about see that guy right there that guy was unbelievable well dad we don't even know who he is two of my kids didn't even know when I was having Bo Jackson on the podcast and I said are you kidding me they're like well we kind of heard of him right how good was he I said it was the epitome it was the athlete times ten I've never seen anyone like him then and I've never seen anyone like him since so it's that kind of connection that I think baseball needs to get back to so this young generation knows exactly who Derek Jeter is now he's out there he's doing that the Fox you know with poppy and and a rod but I just think you can't lose touch of that and I think I just really keep that generational thing um by the way I did get a response from Matt Boone I'll share that with you a little bit later in the podcast um I don't know if you're gonna be happy or not of what what he thinks of your looks but we'll do that coming up I'll throw this out at you so I'm fascinated right now watching hard knocks you know hard knocks is the football thing football show so right now they're doing a hard knocks off season and I am locked into this like nobody else's business comes out on Tuesday it's everything that goes on in the off season players aren't involved in it it's not inside the locker room it's inside the front office so we're watching the general manager go through free agency getting ready for the draft the combines I find this behind the stuff behind the scenes stuff fascinating for someone like me and I think all sports fans getting excited for hard knocks baseball wants to try to do something like that but but they haven't been able to take you inside the game to take you to that next level of fandom the way the national football league is we try the show time show time try to do a hard knocks style show with the Marlins why doesn't baseball go forward and say hey HBO come to a hard knocks on us and take us inside the clubhouse of the locker room and uh on the bus and the charters and let us get a behind the scene look I think it's a great idea I think it's great especially that way you know I I think you have to be careful when following football and football does a great thing you got to realize once again this is not football this is baseball it's a different fan you got a cater to your fan base and everything that works in football is not going to work in baseball but I think this behind the scenes of of a baseball season I think it's more it would be more interesting to me for the fans to be able to see how does my glove get into my locker in Texas when I'm playing a night game in Seattle the next day and how is everything uniform and perfect when I get to the ballpark and I still haven't seen a bag I think people would be fascinated about the process right but what about stuff but the other part of hard knocks is and I I'm guilty of this every time I play fantasy football is I draft all the guys I saw are hard knocks because I have a personal connection to them right what about just allowing us to get really a real personal connection right now baseball has this idea that we want to do we want to hear on field interviews during the game while someone's playing in the field and we've seen a couple people get distracted and cause cause an error or ball gets misplayed I don't think that I don't think that shares with us the personality what's like to be in the dugout so if I were to produce if I were to produce line drives or whatever I'm going to call it in major league baseball is you as a player would you be comfortable I really got to see the personal interaction the good the bad and the ugly that goes on in a baseball game well I think unless as long as you're aware and you have a microphone on it's never going to be a hundred percent authentic it's just like we do reality shows are they really reality if there's a camera following you around and you're out you have a microphone clip to you uh yeah if you do a 24/7 you're going to slip up and they're going to see some real moments right but if I have a mic on for an hour and I go out onto the field I'm going to give you a little insight a little it's like uh but I'm always going to in the back of my mind going watch what you say watch what you say not that anything controversial would get on the air because you're going to have producers that say we can't show that on Fox we can't show that on MLB network so you do have a safe gap there a net but if you did on cable TV you can drop all the f-bombs you want yeah but you're you're still never going to see the reel because they're going to be calculated f-bombs they're going to be oh is this hit here does it hit there you're not going to see that in the moment real reaction uh so reality TV as close as it can be to the real thing reality TV really isn't real because it's you're still aware I think NFL films NFL films has gotten as close as you could be and I used to be a silent reporter so I would see the access that NFL films would have on the sideline during the game watching people throw things curse yell stream if you're if you're in the dugout and there's a fixed camera and there's just a big boom mic that's going to pick up little things uh and it's there every day for 162 games oh you're going to let your guard down at some point you're going to forget the cameras are there right but if you do it for an individual day or game or you know all-star game they put a mic on me for an hour I'm going to be very super aware almost like uh when I'm talking in interacting with someone letting them know like hey I have a mic so be careful right it's first date behavior right if you just fixate cameras and say they're going to be here every single day after a while you have to you're going to go about your business and you're going to forget that the cameras are there well I've seen hard knocks where they do have the fixed cameras that are that are robotic and then they have the guys walking around omnipresent but you always have cameras around you so I think that for a while they forget about it all right so tell me this if if I'm making you my executive producer when we're talking about what am I really going to capture inside the dugout because we'll watch TV and we'll kind of look and see a couple shots of somebody that dug out so the big thing was Marcus Strowman and uh an errant judge it was like a 15 second conversation but it got replayed over and over again you would have thought it was a it was a one-hour in position when when oh well I'll tell you what I think I think you'd be probably maybe even shocked to find out that that conversation had nothing to do with happen that day on the field Take your business further with a smart and flexible American Express business gold card it offers flexible spending capacity that adapts to your business you can also earn up to $395 in annual statement credits on eligible purchases at select business merchants that's the powerful backing of American Express Terms apply learn more at american express.com/business gold card right so those are the things we don't know what do I always say to you when something happens there's always a backstory and we don't know the the details the only details only people in the true know are those guys on the ground in that club for sure and and that's where the NFL does a better job than major league baseball there's a situation a couple of years ago too if this is fair rich I think a football player is different than a baseball player there's a different mindset different mentality they're just different and that's what I found in my travel well there's there's there's there's just raw there's raw emotions and football that you could take out because it's so physical if I get mad at something I'm going to go smash into them you have to be more controlled how you do it at baseball but there was an incident in the national football league Dallas Cowboys it was a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys it just saw him screaming yelling at his quarterback and all of us in the media thought oh look what a prima donna he was and then when you actually heard the sound from NFL films it's he's standing screaming yelling his quarterback rooting him on trying to pump him up come on we got this we got this but everybody automatically thought he was being a diva it wasn't fair then we found out we were all wrong in the media so if I went inside that dugout with you and I had the reality style of of documentary in mind what would I see going on in the dugout oh you're gonna see a lot of emotions you're gonna see guys coming out uh stuff that you would not normally see big hit big situation a lot of times the guys gonna come up I told him not to throw that slider I knew it I've been sitting on that thing for three at bats now and he finally gave it to me and it's going to be that sort of sort of celebratory you're going to see a lot of uh interaction from hitter to hitter down the line what's he got what's his tendencies what's that two seem look like uh you're gonna hear you're gonna hear the other side of the of those guys that are really good at finding tells hey booney come here you want to know that when he holds his glove here it's a break ball when he holds his glove here it's a fastball and that is only a half a inch difference now I'm going to start watching I'm going to start watching and go I can't see it I can't see what you're seeing uh hey you want to know the signs now I don't know if they're going to put this out you want to know the signs it's first sign after through it's uh first sign after two okay so when you're on second base if you want to know the signs should relay them you're going to see real stuff like that if there's a fixed camera and we kind of don't uh that'd be good for the game I think it would be cool because you're still going to have people in that truck that are that are uh no I'm editing so anything that would be dangerous to get out or or something right and do a good job with that and and I think yes I think it would be good for the game because I think the fans would really like it because you'd be able to see the real you get to know the real players while they're going through this and you get that connection with them yeah and you still have the the ability of the edit button right right well they take they shoot it and they put it out like three days later but some pretty intense right editing would we see anything fun oh absolutely we see joking around a lot of it um I've never asked you this let's say Brett Boone made the last out in the third inning you come back on the bottom of the fourth what's Brett Boone doing what he knows he's not gonna he's probably not going to come up this inning I'm in the video room in our day now they have an air an iPad right there right in the day but I'm down in the video room with my my video guy Carl and I'm looking for things I'm looking for things I'm saying oh why didn't I sit in there relaxing never I was always as a hitter when I knew I wasn't going to be up I was always in the video room and sometimes watching video of my last at bat but a lot of times I just need a TV I'm watching my my teammates and how they're being pitched to in the situation oh so you're watching the feed you're watching live game a lot of times if I'm in the video room there's a live feed always next to to the to the feed that I'm reviewing video on so I'm getting the best of both worlds sometimes I don't need to see my last bet I want to see what he's doing to the guys deeper in the lineup right um I'm always looking for tendencies all right when did you know it was time to come back out run down the tunnel two outs hey you're you're you're just aware you haven't just you have a feel for it it depends I know exactly where my helmet my gloves are my bat now in a perfect world I know if I'm coming up third I'm gonna be in the dugout when that guy's in the box that lead-off hitter that lead-off hitter because I got to get my helmet on and get ready because he might swing at the next pitch now all of a sudden within 30 seconds I want to be in the on deck circle all right when you're on the on deck circle this is something for my for my HBO hard knocks MLB style what are you doing are you looking at him or you paying attention to you while you're standing there in the on deck circle am I paying it say that are you paying attention to the pitcher or are you preparing yourself worrying about you are you worrying about the pitcher you're worrying about you I've already got my I've already got my I've already got my at bat mapped out I already know what I'm gonna do I'm watching the I'm watching the pitcher I'm watching the game watching the hitter in front of me watching this is a situation of the game changing who's warming up in the bullpen is there a possibility he's gonna come in to face me I've got all these things going on in my mind and I pretty much have an idea what I'm doing and for sure when I leave that batter's box my my approach has already been formulated I already know what I'm looking for what I'm and I'm gonna stick with that I'm not gonna waver and I do that over a hundred and six two games gives me the best chance for for the best success that I can have individually do you really need the donut the pine tar and everything else over there to stretch out yeah that's just a yeah that's a part of it that's part is that routine for some prepare no I like it it's like when I get ready to play golf I have a heavy club that I swing it seems like I feel loose when I'm about to hit the ball so yeah heavy bat for me I like the heavy bat some guys swung a light bat before and then like to have a little more heavy so it's all preference it's all preference but my thing was donut I like something heavy now when I put the bat in my hand I feel good I feel loose I feel like I'm ready to go looking for a financial institution that has fewer fees better rates and gives back to the local community as one of colorado's largest credit unions belco offers great rates on products like our free boost interest checking and lower rates on loans including our home equity choice line bank virtually anytime anywhere through online banking and our mobile app becoming a member has never been easier visit belco.org or stop by any belco branch membership eligibility required equal housing opportunity all own subject to approval insured by ncua belco banking for everyone
