Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast
Wednesday July 24th, 2024 - FULL SHOW
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Blackout and other restrictions apply Major League Baseball Trapparts used with permission. Nice. Today's episode is sponsored by Nerd Wallet Smart Money Podcast. Get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. Nerd wallets experts will set future you up for success. With dependable, fact-based insights, no financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation. Find your next credit card or loan for a big purchase, and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow Nerd Wallet Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app. [MUSIC PLAYING] Always feels good to hear that intro after a pod-- pod raise when a pop pod raise win. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pod raise. Good morning, everybody. Ben and Woods, 97.3. The fan, let's get our heads right on a Wednesday, July 24, 2024. I'm Woodsy. That's Paul Rindel, the executive producer. Good morning, Paulie. Good morning. How is the-- how's the ankle over there? Oh, man. Has it turned into a kankle yet? Not really. Are you down to show everybody your-- I put my feet on the internet last week. Paulie rolled his ankle last night at basketball. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not fun. And he's got ice on it. Do. Is it kenkly? No, it's like red. Just red, OK. Well, it's probably from the ice. The ice makes it red. Real ice or frozen peas? It's ice. [LAUGHTER] We'll get to that in a second. You know, that laid me out yesterday. Is it all right? Are you going to tape it up? Yeah. Where does that put your status for the Tier 1 game on Sunday? Should be OK. OK. Day to day. Day to day. No aisle. Can I know of no aisle? I'm day to day. Day to day. I mean, they can't-- you can always retroactively make-- Yeah, I can put them on the aisle. [INAUDIBLE] Now, I'm going to have to do some roster manipulation and stuff. This is terrible. I screwed up. Big time yesterday. Hooping at the gym. It was open gym, just running a couple of games. I rolled my ankle halfway through the first game. Gotta hate that feeling so much, man. Hold up. Ben Higgins is also here. Good. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. How you doing? Good, good, good morning. Looking great. On a max headroom Wednesday-- Good, good, good, good, good morning. I was telling my wife, she goes-- I was like, yeah, I played two and a half more games after I rolled my ankle. She was, why the hell would you do this after? It's basketball. And I said, look, I have played enough basketball in my life that when you go out there and you got these gym rats-- Yeah, these G's out there. They already don't like having the fat white guy on their team. Who doesn't mind knows what he's doing. Now, I held my own. I played fine. Like good, yeah. But I rolled my ankle. And it was a very innocuous way. I didn't get tangled up, making a cool play or anything. I was going up for a rebound. I just got to talk. Yeah. I just kind of landed on another guy's foot and it just rolled right under me. And it hurts so bad. I don't have that, Jane, but my brother and my dad are that guy. They will not leave the basketball court unless they are perhaps dying. Because my team already doesn't want me. I can't be the guy that's like, hey, I'm out. I rolled my ankle four points into the game. So I just ran. They'll just gut it out all the way to the end, no matter what. And I was like, I know this is going to hurt even worse now, but I got to do what I got to do. Bro, the older I get, the slightest twinge. I'm like, no, that's it. I'm shutting it down. Because for me, it's a lone Jeff. I want to play longer. Not that day. I want to play longer than in baseball. You don't have that much, especially me. Like I'll play a few innings at first base. I usually just manage and hit. But when I even when I run the bases, I'm like, ooh, there's a twinge in my groin. I'm out. Somebody pinched around. That's the difference, though. My brother and my dad have played basketball all their lives and will never come off the court for an injury. They have to do the cold stuff, you see kinetics and everything just to try to get every joint, whereas I'm pretty good when it comes to the joints. And the reason why, I feel like the tiniest twinge of anything. Shut down. I shut the mother down. Let's rest for a week. It's different for different sports and different injuries. Like if I was playing baseball, if I was pitching especially, if I had an elbow soreness, I'm not going to try to gut through that, dude. But like a rolled ankle, you're like, I've already heard it. It's going to hurt either way. I'm not going to snap on me. No. All right. No, I get it. I totally get it. You know, you're young. I'm old. The twinges. I have had a twinge in my groin for like two years now. And that's why somebody who's making fun of me for sitting on this lacrosse ball. And I just sit. I jam it down in my groin. I don't do it for pleasure. It's not a pleasure filled union that I seek with this ball. But I just try to like situate it. So I'm smashing that twinge all the time with this ball. So I get it, man. I hope you feel better, Paulie. I hope you're good to go on Sunday. We need you as we play the clam dusters. What does that mean, guys? What are we referring to? What is the double entendre with the clam dusters? When you're doing like a clam bake, and you dust it with spices just to make sure that they taste fully delicious. You get them. They're a team full of mariners or sea men. And they sea men. And you have to dust each clam before you boil it. Do you boil clams? Yeah, do you? Yeah, I think so. I don't eat. I would never know. I would need the filthy things. You just got to make sure they open before you eat them. You don't want to pry them open. Those are the bad clams. But if they're open and ready for you, you can eat them. I love eating clams. See my soul just leaving and flying out the window. This is going to be a bit of a weird transition. After that, a very weird one. But I wanted to give a shout out to my mom, Mama Woods. Who is-- Not that kind of shout out. Not that kind of shout out. No, God, no, no. This is not a shout out to her family because that would be bad. Probably don't. But this is a shout out. This is just a shout out. If you're the praying type, the keep someone in your thoughts, please keep my mom, Marsha Woods, in your thoughts. She is undergoing a lump act to me today. We had talked a little bit about the blood cancer that is dormant, and she's got to go get it checked every 90 days or so. That's good to go. She's really good there and healthy. And then they found a lump. So they got to take that out, take out her lymph nodes this morning. So she's in surgery right now. My dad's listening. And-- Good morning. I'm not going to cry about it because she's not at all. She is so-- such a positive person. I mean, I talked to her last night. She's like, I'm going to get it out, and I'll probably have to do some radiation. And then I'm done with this. And she said, it will not break me. It will not beat me. So I'm not going to get upset about it. I don't really know how to talk about it, but I just wanted to tell her that I love her and that she's going to be fine. So she's a beast and always has been a beast. So she will be in surgery for, I think, about another hour. And then they've got a really nice set up there. My dad's going to take care of her. They think she can go home tomorrow, which will be great. And then get this thing done. She thinks by September, she'll be good to go. So shout out to my mom. But not perfect. But not perfect. Yeah, that's it. Just a shout out. But we're all thinking of Marsha tier ones as well. And if she's leaving the power of a positive thinking, lots of good vibes coming her way from here in San Diego and beyond. And I knew that would be an awkward transition, which is part of the reason why I did it, talking about what we were talking about before. But anyway, great game last night. Phenomenal game last night, a real testament to the starting pitching of this team. We will talk about a lot about that this morning. I got a new watch yesterday. I was very excited about you like that. Yeah, very nice. That's cool. It's a garment. So this is one of those-- Those are the kind that tracks everything. It tracks everything. But you know what else it does? GPS, golf. Nice. You can load golf courses on here. And it's like your-- I can stand next to my ball and go. I got 210 to the flag or whatever. So it's got that capability. Steps. Steps counts your steps. Of course it does, steps, yeah. Good. And it does-- It's all built into the watch. Because I have an Apple watch. And I can have the app that we use called The Grint for golfing. Load it on. And it's an app through the watch. It's not built in. This has got pretty good GPS. This has got really good GPS. And also it's waterproof. When I go do my cold tub, I can just get right in there. And which is a big feature. We got a cold tub in the backyard now. I remember it seemed like every other ad when I was growing up were for waterproof watches for scuba diapers, like going, are there that many people who scuba dive? And then are there that many people that really need to wear their watch when they're going down 20 meters under the water? Is that something that's a valuable, desired commodity in a watch? You know? I don't know. There's probably amazing they wear. I certainly would not-- I don't want my watch to stop working if you accidentally drop it in the sink or something. So waterproof is good. But the ones that keep working when you're down, like-- 100 meters. 100 meters below the water? I'm going, I'm never going to have any use for that. I mean, for them though, yeah, you want to know the depth. And I thought-- I'm not hesitant to test it, like-- I mean, too. The first time in your life in a pool-- This isn't going to work. Even if you're taking a shower with your watch, like my Apple watch is like, oh, it says it's waterproof. And I'm like, I'll be the one where it'll start sorting out. So we're going to Hawaii on Tuesday. We're going to be taking a ton of hikes, probably more than I desire. But we're going to do that. I've committed to it. And so I want to track. I want to know kind of where we are. And when you do your cliff diving-- When we dive up the cliff, it'll be fine, because it'll be-- I'll be waterproof. I'll be good to go. My wife rolled her eyes so hard when I told her what watch I was getting, so hard. She's like, isn't that for triathletes and stuff? I'm like, yeah, it's popular in the triathlete world. Don't worry. Hey, one thing I can promise you, I'm not about to start doing Iron Man. It's like my little brother, who just finished another one on Sunday in late placid, 15 and 1/2 hours. Whoa. He did another Iron Man. He finished it. And here's me over here. And I'm like, I just like this watch, because it looks cool. It's got the golf feature. And I can take it in the cold tub with me, so I bought it. So yeah, she rolled her eyes pretty hard at me. But I love this thing, man. I love this thing. It's really cool. I haven't even messed with all the doodads on it yet. Got it last night when we got home from Frozen Robes. Got it charged up and got to add a bunch of stuff to it. Squirrely says, when you're in Hawaii, beware the waterfall flash floods. My neighbor was almost killed there last month in Kauai. So be careful, Woods. We want you to come back safe and sound. I've seen all kinds of things. There's the jellyfish and man of war. And it's something's going to happen. It's me. I'm not going to get through this thing unscathed. I mean, I think we all can agree today that I'm not going to come home unscathed from this trip. But really looking forward to it, leave on Tuesday, was thinking about your response to me yesterday, Ben, was in the grocery store. And I said, man, Benny will absolutely knock one out of the park on you sometimes. And I'm at the grocery store. I'm getting a couple of necessary things. We'd run out of bread, make the kids lunches. I've got to get some bread, had to get some grapes, had to get some plates, and I had to get some protein waffles for both. That's what he likes to eat for breakfast. The Kodiak protein waffle. So I go in and get those. Do you like them or do you like him to like them? Wouldn't you just rather have an Eggo waffle? Well, I think Kodiak's good. They need protein. Well, right. But my wife bought these for him, and she's the one that makes them. I'm not home at breakfast time, so she handles all that. But I went and bought them. So I was standing in line. And I looked at the dude in front of me, and he goes, how you doing? I go, good. And I glanced down at the belt. And what he had on the belt. And he had a bottle of Hershey's syrup, a bag of frozen peas, and a can of Crisco lard. And I-- Just those three things. That's it. That's it. That is it. That was the extent of his list. And I said, no, I didn't do the thing where I took a picture. But I did text you. I was a little bit invasive in that I texted my buddies. Ben and Paul. And I said, this is an odd combo. I said, he's got Crisco and Hershey's syrup and frozen peas on his deal. And what did you say? What did you respond? I said, maybe he's-- Oh, here it is. I got it. Found it. Eating lard Sundays after his vasectomy. And it took him two seconds to write that joke. And I died laughing. I mean, you laid me out in the store as I was checking out. Just trying to, you know, it's like chopped. You've got to put the ingredients together in some meaningful fashion. And I'm going, how can you put together frozen peas? Crisco, Hershey's chocolate syrup. He goes home, and he puts the peas on his nuts. And then he gives us a scoop. It's a bowl of Crisco. Crisco goes into the chocolate sauce. Chocolate sauce. And goes to town. I go, Ben, it was like, that's an odd combo. That's a very, very-- That is a-- It might be the honest combo I think I've ever seen. Really? Like, you see some stuff, and you-- I like to piece together what they're up to. I'm like, oh, you're making chicken. And oh, there's that. You're going to make chicken and veggies, little stir-fry sauce. I know what you're up to tonight. This, I had no idea. Throw in, like, Pacific halibut. And you have a chopped basket. Yeah, 10 hours, given you. Your ingredients are Pacific halibut, Crisco, Hershey's chocolate syrup, and frozen peas. You have 20 minutes to create an appetizer. I think you could do it with all of those-- With all the chocolate sauces, like the drizzle on top of the fish, which would be not good. But, man, you laid me out with that yesterday, Benny. So let's get into some Pottery's baseball talk. Benny will-- Excellent. He'll set the mood and set the end menu next. Oh, we have an exciting show. We teased it yesterday. If you missed it, I'll tell you who we have coming on later on the program today. Should be a very good Wednesday. Don't go anywhere. Kelly's going to check traffic. And then we're right back with Bena Woods on San Diego's number one sports station, 97.3, the fan. We are going full old school radio today, as one of our main computer drives is down. And Holly is over there having to act like Merlin, the wizard, trying to put stuff together. I don't know how else to explain it. Like, we have a shared network drive that the entire station uses. And in that drive, there is a Benan Woods folder. That Benan Woods folder has literally, literally, everything we have ever done, especially since we started here at 97.3 in June of 2019. And a little bit beyond that. Every Ben drop and the things that text me goes, yeah, the drives are bad. I've got new drives on the way. I hope to have it fixed, you know, sometimes some more. So if it's gone, like all of Ben's likes are gone? I think everything you've ever said is gone. You have to, like, start recreating them. Ooh, I like it creamy. Oh, I like the crispiness of the waffle. It's pretty like a Nickelback song or two. That's like, is it, bro? I mean, it's all south. Perfect. Give me your-- oh, my God. Oh, my God. That's not bad. That's not bad at all. It's not bad at all. Oh, yeah, yeah. OK, good. I have some that were already, like, they're logged in. They're not going anywhere. But yeah, if this were to happen-- If we lose that stuff, my hair's going to fall out. Like, for the firm-filling-- I texted our engineer. I said, now, when you get these new drives, I don't know anything about this. Will you be able to recover? Because we're talking years of material, buddy. And he has not responded yet. So I'm reaching out. I like chase two or two. You know, I told you guys, like, in the Rhinder Report, once I remember we were talking about the college football 25-an-ounce series, how they had to sit in a studio-- Yes, they do every word. Guns, AKA cannabis. That's what we're going to have to have Ben do. I'm going to lock you in a studio, and you're going to recreate every-- One of the thousands of Ben drops that we've had. Yeah, you have to do what you have to do. You've got to do it. You must go on, man. So I think we're-- I like big butts. I think what we have to do-- So the Padres wrap-ups, obviously, are going to sound a little different today, because we don't have the backbone. That is coming up in some sort of weird version. Yeah, yeah. Tune in back, because you don't know what's going to happen. And we will go through the game. We'll go through the game in our 635 segment. Huge show today, though. After our regular features, 7-7-15 with take on Woods and don't do this, 735 begins our big league Wednesday. It's been a couple of weeks. We will catch up with Adam Jones. He went to the All-Star game. He's been all over the place. He's traveling the country, getting a lot of baseball in. So we will catch up with AJ at 735. In our 8 o'clock hour, Brad Boone will be back with us. But as he has been most Wednesdays, always great talking to Brad Boone. And then at 9.25, we will be joined by the current holder of the Claret Jug, Zander Shoffley. Fresh off his Open Championship win and talk to San Diego's rising golf star, two majors, this year, and I thought about it. Zander Shoffley holds three of the coolest, like sports prizes possible. No. The gold medal at the Olympics. Seeing his gold medal in person is mind-blowing. The Wanamaker trophy, which you might not know as well if you're not a golf fan. But it's this giant PGA championship cup thing trophy that you win, Drake Booze out of it. And then the Claret Jug, one of the oldest, coolest trophies, imaginable. And he's got all three of them right now. The other way he needs to win a Masters? Yeah, Grinch Jug, he's good. And then a Stanley Cup, and he's good. Stanley Cup, that's going to be more difficult, I think. Unless he takes his money, buys a hockey team, and they win, which, hey, absolutely feasible for him. He won 3.1 million just for the Open, a record first place prize. So he's on his way to buying his hockey team and winning the Stanley Cup. That would be incredible. What's the other major? What am I forgetting? The US Open just has US Open trophy. Yeah, which is awesome, too. Yeah, but the Claret Jug and the Wanamaker's amazing. He really likes spectacular prizes to win, and he's got both of them in his trophy case right now. When we saw him at the Wishbone over at Goat Hill, shout out to Goat Hill, he brought his gold medal there to show all the kids and stuff. And he had it, and I was right there next to it. I'd never seen one up close. I've gotten the participation medals in school. You finished fourth in the long jump or something at Field Day. You see this thing, man, in front of you, and you just go, OK, I get it. That's unbelievable. So now he's got to be, what, in Paris? Well, I'm not sure. The tournament starts August 1st. So I'm sure practice runs. But I don't know if he came home and then his dad's back, or if he stayed in Europe for that extra week. And it's just, I know, because I've been working with his team for this interview, I don't know if I should say where he's at, but he's international. He's still international. Pamped it in, down on. He's in room 326, knock on the door. All right, so he's international. I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense to fly back for like five days, and then go all the way back to Paris. No, no, no, no, no. International does make some sense. So we will time shift and talk to Xander Shoffley coming up. That's scheduled for 9.25, very specifically this morning. But if you're a golf fan or just love top San Diego athletes-- San Diego fan. Boom. Yeah, I mean, you don't listen to that interview. You clearly hate San Diego. I don't know what to tell you. That could never be me. So you're going to make sure you listen to that at 9.30. Xander's a great dude. Very happy for him. All right, we'll see what Paul has come up with. I got a curve ball for him, too. Make shifts. Love curve balls. Potrays wrap up in our next segment, minus our usual opens and effects and highlights that we usually get. So we'll figure it out. We will figure it out. We will talk about last night's 4-0 win, third in a row for the San Diego Padres. We will be right back with more Ben & Woods on San Diego's number one sports station, 97-3 the fan. [MUSIC PLAYING] Going to see what Paul is a come up with for our Padres wrap up minus some of his critical elements. Now, you have a few things that are left on like a different computer. Yeah, on like a button bar. Like you have random stuff. Yeah, but not booty, booty, booty, rockin' everywhere. Bob Pilates. Yeah, you do a great job. I broke my bat. I still have some. Still have some. Like, I have these, yeah, a button bar is what it's called. And I got probably 100 drops I saved on those. So we can get by. But we're talking like 10,000 drops on the drive that is still TBD. I don't even know what I would do. How did you gain all the weight? I was like, yeah, that one. Thank God. Ha ha. [LAUGHTER] But yeah, so I don't know how this exactly is going to sound, but I was able to put something together for a Padres wrap up, because we have to do it. It's sponsored by Humul Casino, Jamul. And so what I did is I just went and pulled from yesterday's post-game show. If you listen to the Padres, a post-game show. Good idea. Sammy plays the highlights. And he doesn't just play them back to back to back. He interjects, and he goes, and then we go to the sixth, and he has runners on second. So we got there too. So I got to put it all together. Genius. All right, we will repurpose Sammy's post-game show for our Padres wrap up right after this check-it traffic on 97.3 of the fan. I love winning, man. I love winning. You know what I'm saying? It's like better than losing. Oh, my God. [LAUGHTER] Both young starting pitchers were locked in early on. DJ Hirst started his day with four scoreless innings, four at the gnats. The Padres loaded the bases in the top of the fourth inning, but they did not score. Randy Vasquez was at just 40 pitches through four scoreless frames of his zone. That brought us to the top of the fifth inning. At first, it was more of the same for the Padres offense. Hirst went two up, two down. But then it was Luis Arise, who dug in. One and two rise. Hits it in the air to right field pretty deep. Thomas is backing up. He's at the big wall. Looks up, going to go. Luis Arise with his third home run as a Padres. And a couple of pitches after they knock him down. He takes one out, and the Padres lead it one to nothing. Padres were in done, and Jerks and Profar was next. Now Profar sticks into deep left and gone over the Padres bullpen. And on back to back pitches, they hit back to back home runs, and it's two to nothing. Third home run for Arise, the 15th home run of the season for Jerks and Profar. And just like that, the Padres had a 2-0 lead. Meanwhile, Randy Vasquez kept rolling, a 1-2-3 fifth inning. On just 10 pitches, Manny Machado led off of the double. To begin the top of the sixth inning, he went to third base on a ground out. That set things up for Jackson Merrill. Pitch to Merrill is lining to right field. That's a base hit. That's going to add on. Danny Trotzel from third base. Jackson Merrill's second hit of the night is an RBI single. And the Padres up three to nothing. Vasquez needed 15 pitches for a score the sixth inning. He was at just 65 pitches through six brilliant innings. He pitched into the seventh. And allowed a lead off double Padres. Then decided to go to Adrian Moore home. He finished the inning without a whole lot of trouble. Padres still had a 3-0 lead. Jeremiah Estrada came on the last chance for Washington was James Wood. Oh, two-pitch Wood swings and misses. Strike 300 mile an hour heater to close the door. And the ball game is over. Padres come to Washington and they continue to pitch a four-nothing shut-out win over the Nationals behind Randy Vasquez. And back-to-back home runs from Louisa Rise and Jurgson Profar. Well done by Sammy. Well done by Sammy. Well done by Jesse. Well done by Paulie. And well done by the San Diego Padres last night. That fired me up. It was a little bit of a disjointed Padres game for me. He got to watch a lot of it. Then we had to drive up to Frozen rope. So Bo and I listened to it. Then I had to watch an inning on my phone. And then I listened to the very end. And just what a great, great. I didn't see the Estrada error. I heard it. I heard Jesse talking about it in Tony as well. And that play, I don't know why it's such a bugaboo for pitchers, but it absolutely is. It abss the hot shot right back to you. And you see the guys usually will jog over and under him. Yeah, and it looked like he kind of wanted to do that and then saw the runner was going a little faster than he was hoping. So he decided to kind of overhand shove, push it, and then it just sailed right over Jake's head. Well, I mean way over his head. And Jesse was talking about on the broadcast that Higgy came out and Zander came up. And it's just one of those things where you don't want to let that thing get away from you after a bone head. Giving away and out is such a tough thing to do. And having now to get four outs instead of three, essentially, it just, it guts you when you're on the mound when you make a bone head decision. And good veteran leadership there to come over and say, "Hey, don't worry about it." And he got out of it, got the next guys, and all was well. But a really, really great game last night, Benny. Yeah, this thing of like, you throw up and in and then we hit a homer, I can get behind that. So that was a great call by Jesse. Great call. Yeah, pointed out that Louisa Rise took one. I mean, it was gonna drill him. He ended up fouling it off, but it was right by his injured thumb, like way up on the handle. And clearly, it's bothering him. You can see it. He hasn't been quite as locked in, probably because of that thumb injury. But then three pitches later, the guy who rarely hits an extra base hit and had only two home runs all season, gets one, I mean, that didn't go out by much, but doesn't have to go out by much, just first row out in right center. And that's what the Padres needed, rattled hers and then, and jerks in the next pitch, I think it was. It was. Took one out to left field. - It was a change up. - They were off and running. It was a change up down the middle that it's like Jerkson knew what was coming. He leaned on that pitch at that ball. Well, I don't even know the exit Vilo of it, but he tattooed that thing. I mean, he got it center cut and he was waiting on the change up and he just pounded it, pounded it. And hers was good. Yeah, he was really good. He was effective. He was, he was pounding the zone. He was 95, like very, very impressive outing. That's, that's another one of those kids to look out for down the road, man. Once he kind of figures it out, but the Padres had his number when they faced him last time. They hit him pretty well last night. And it was nice. It was a nice night. - The stat I heard on Sammy's pregame show was that he gets the third most swing and miss on his four seam fastball. - That's nuts. - That's not. - Like anyone in baseball. - That's nuts. Kirby Yates was one above him, but he does have some nasty stuff. - A four seamer. - Yeah, he's got a good fastball that is hard for big league hitters to hit. But it wasn't a fastball that Jurikson took out. - Nobody could get, nobody could get it on top of the ball. I mean, everyone got on top of the ball. Everybody was grounding out early. It was just Randy Rollover, followed by Randy Rollover every, you know, until, until Arise had that really good A.B. And then Pro Far gave us a lead and never looked back. And a couple of really good moments last night. Jackson Merrill getting that insurance run in, was really solid, Manny doubled. Merrill drove him in, right? - Yep. - Yeah, 'cause I was. - Yeah, Merrill, Merrill was had a really good, really good game. - Really good game. - He played for, and then had the other with the, at least made contact with the bases loaded to get the other run home. So really solid game for Jackson, who had about, I think 10, you know, his mom and dad were there as they usually are, but he had more friends and family because he's from Merrill land. And he will be, I guess there's gonna have like 500 people going to the games in Camden Yards. - 500. - Like, Jackson Merrill has a crowd of 500 people going to the games this weekend. - I think it's so cool. Obviously his whole family able to be there when they're on those East Coast trips like that. And then his parents, I think they're both teachers, right? So they have the summers off. Like, they've been able to see a ton of his games whether they're here in San Diego, I know they were up in Boston. Like, I think it's great. I think it's like a traveling party with him throughout the year. - If either of my kids plays beyond high school, I will be at every, if they go to school in Vermont, I'll be there, I will move to Vermont. I can't imagine, I get such joy watching them play. I can't imagine what it's like to watch them play at Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium. I'm like, can you imagine the terror that you feel every time he takes the field or takes an AB? How proud you are? - Do you think, I mean, they're teachers, obviously. - Yeah. - Is Jackson picking up the tab for all the travel? - Got to. - I think so, got to. But as a parent, I would never want to ask my child to pay for something for me. I just thought I would feel like that that would be so hard to do. - Yeah, that's a question. I don't want to ask him that question ever. It's none of our business, how they get around. But I do think that that's, they just, they love being there. - He's making the minimum, which he says $200,000. - Anybody in Manny Machado's family wants to go on a road trip and watch him play. It's a no brain. - It's on the house. - But Jackson's making League minimum. - I mean, League minimum's still decent, really decent living. - Yeah. - And a couple of teachers, you know, like, yeah, he's gonna find me as well on his way to signing a huge deal at some point. - You can bet, you can hedge a little bit, right? Mom and Dad, I opened up a credit card with a massive limit. We're gonna be fine. I'm gonna put it on the card. We got it. Just got a thing in the chat. I'm glad that Braves, let's see. Braves ear Robin 88 says this. This is great 'cause you tweeted about it last night. Hey, Woodsie was wondering what your take on Kim's two out hit was watching it last night. I thought the nats were probably happy to get the left on left match up to get out of the inning. Braves, Robin 88, I could not agree with you more. I could not agree with you more. Now, I don't wanna walk back what I said. I did say yesterday and I always say, "Hey, bunting for a hit's pretty cool." But situationally, there, you're gonna, you're not playing well right now if your house on Kim. You're not hitting the ball well. You turn it over to Jackson, left side, 95, you know, tough, tough lefty. Jackson, I think, ended up striking out in that at bat if I'm not mistaken. I didn't particularly like that bun from us on Kim. It's a bad play. It's a bad play. You know, I don't think there's really another sign to the argument. I tweeted it out, didn't like it. A couple of people pushed back. I mean, he got a base hit. He's been struggling. Do whatever you can to keep the inning going. I kinda understand that, but I really think, and Mike Schilt will never admit it. In fact, I don't think I'm gonna even ask him about it because it was a winning game. But I would imagine that there was a conversation. - Yeah, you need to be drug tested. - I would imagine there was a conversation after the game, like with Hasan Kim going, "I know you gotta hit there." That doesn't really help the team. Where you have to try to drive in that run in scoring position with two outs in that situation as opposed to sending a rookie left handed hitter up against a tough, hard throwing left handed pitcher that's not the matchup we're looking for. We're looking for you to drive the ball into the gap and drive in one, maybe two runs there. And I know you've been struggling. I know the third baseman's playing way back. You know, why he's playing way back? 'Cause he wants you to bunt that ball. He wants you to try to bunt that ball because the worst thing that happens for the Nationals is that you're on first, the bases are loaded and they've got the matchup they want. It's just-- - You played right into their hands, right? You gave them a better matchup. And I can certainly understand him struggling. I can understand him wanting to make a play. Now listen, they could throw the ball away at first base, running in on a bunt, trying to make a play. Sure, that stuff happens. But Hassan Kim, in that, in that, and I promise you, not come from the dugout. No, you know, that's a Kimmy move. And again, he's trying to make a play. I tip my hat to it, but I also think in that situation you got to swing away. You got to. - I do not subscribe to the Padres fans who think that Hassan Kim is a low IQ baseball player. He's not, but when he's pressing, he does tend to make some mistakes. Base running mistakes, we've seen him, fielding mistakes this year, and now just a bad decision at the play. 'Cause he's been pressing and, you know, he's feeling it, but he's a smart baseball player. He knows what he's doing out there. You can tell. - I mean, you can tell. - The play he made, I mean, it was a terrible base running job by Yepiz, but, you know, wherewithal to make the throw to third, get that lead guy there for your Hassan Kim. He's a smart baseball player. He's a good baseball player. He plays really, really hard, but yeah, they absolutely played into the Nationals' hands. And that, again, they got the match up they wanted and they got out of that inning. - And by the way, even if Jackson Merrill had hit a grand slam, - Yeah. - It's still the wrong game. You can't go by the result. Someone said, you tweeted that out after Jackson struck out. It doesn't matter what Jackson does. That's baseball. The idea is make the most right decisions possible. - Yeah. - And hopefully, like 30% of the time, it works out for you. - Yeah. - But, you know, and sometimes you'll make the wrong decision and it works out because that's baseball. But that was not, in my opinion, the right decision by Hassan Kim to lay down a bump. - Yeah, I mean, listen, it's nitpicky after a four-nothing win, and he did make that nice defensive play. And, but yeah, to get him going, you know, he needs to yack one in the gap and score two runs there. And he's absolutely capable of doing it. Now, if we lost some of the audio, question is, do we still have the Incorporator from Jesse Aguirre last night? - I was able to pull that. Okay, good. - Set up and the execute. - Great calls there from Jesse, especially on that Arise home run. - Did you hear his little snark early in the game when Jerkson Profar came up? Jesse Aguirre said, oh, and the dozens of fans here boo him. I said, God, I love, I love snarky Jesse. - Jesse, just, just boo. - He will just get you and you don't even expect it. - All right, so we had Jesse on yesterday, every Tuesday, I gave him his Incorporator word. Here's what it was. Jesse, since you're heading back to Baltimore scene of the original crime, I thought we'd do a little throwback, a food-related Incorporator for today, but of course they've gotten much more challenging over the years. So, Polly, if you would, please. - Fenugreek. - Fenugreek. An Indian spice with bitter seeds and aromatic green leaves that have a maple-like aroma and are less bitter than the seeds. Fenugreek. - Fenugreek, ooh. - All right, Fenugreek was the Incorporator word for yesterday, and Jesse did accomplish the task. - Yeah, he texted me, he did it in the top of the ninth inning, and he said, top of the ninth, got it done, da, da, da, da. Meh, he wasn't very proud of this one. - Oh no. (laughing) - I'll let you guys decide. - I thought he was fine. - I thought he was fine. - All right. - But he said, I had a way to do it, and then there was a double play, the inning ended, and things just kind of went quickly after that. So, here we go, top of the ninth inning, Jesse Aguiler on the call. Come back from commercial break. - Bottom of the ninth inning, Padre's trying to close this thing out against the Nationals, the Nats remember, they've won three straight, five out of their last six, and the Pods here tonight have done it all different kinds of ways. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, one of those recipes that calls for a lot of ingredients that have all been perfect here this evening, starting pitching, relief pitching, little power, little small ball, and it adds up to a four-nothing league. It's one of those dishes that has the fenugreek and the curry and all this powder and that powder. It's all in there. - Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. - I like this, he's kind of Chris's, what if you guys did song or rap lyrics for the Incorporator, I could be swayed on that. I could absolutely be swayed. - Might be the next evolution. - Yeah, you never know. That was great, I thought he did a great job. He's always so hard on himself, but he's really brilliant. - It's all in there. - Yep, yeah, it's all in there, yep. (laughing) Great, Jesse, you do a great job. - I see some people pointing out, including my mom at Stephen Coronado, probably happy that Hassan Kim laid down a perfect bunch. - Oh, he loved it. - He got a perfect 10 score on the bunting scale for his bunt. - Oh, yeah, yeah, what was his grade on that? It would have been a-- - Bunt five? - I mean, I give it a zero. - I give it a zero. I give it a zero. - I give it a zero. - Part of the grade, it's got to be situational. - It's situational. - Yeah, man. - And you don't want to lay down a bunt there. Even a perfect bunt. - The other interesting part of last night's game and post-game is that apparently the Ben & Woods show caught a stray in Sammy's post-game and Pauli heard it and he sent it over to me this morning and we'll play that for you next. I have some thoughts. - Hour number two, take on Woods as well, just ahead on San Diego's number one sports station, 97 and three to fan. (upbeat music) - Now with the MLB app, you can get baseball your way. Pick your favorite team, your favorite players, and get customized highlights, stories, and breaking news right on your home feed. Follow the action with Game Tip, where 3D replays add another dimension. Plus notifications can keep you connected to every pinch, every hit, every game. The MLB app, baseball, your way. Download it now for free from the App Store or Google Play. Block out another research and supply major league baseball trademarks used with permission. - Nice. - Today's episode is sponsored by Nerd Wallet Smart Money Podcast. Get your hand in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. Nerd Wallet's experts will set future you up for success with dependable fact-based insights, no financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation, find your next credit card, or loan for a big purchase, and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow Nerd Wallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app. (upbeat music) - What kind of programs does this school have? How are the test scores? How many kids do a classroom? Homes.com, those, these are all things you ask when you're home shopping as a parent. That's why each listing on homes.com includes extensive reports on local schools, including photos, parent reviews, test scores, student teacher ratio, school rankings, and more. The information is from multiple trusted sources and curated by homes.com's dedicated in-house research team. It's also you can make the right decision for your family. Homes.com, we've done your homework. - I suspect that this happens more than you realize. - Oh, yeah. - Because, obviously, you can't listen every second of the day. Well, I mean, some of our tier ones do. - They really do. You guys are nuts, by the way, and we love you so much for that. - Just saw someone in the chat said, they wish there was 20 hours of live programming every day here on 97.3 The Fan. - We knock out four, eight, 12. So we would need to add, you know-- - A couple more shows. - Two or three more shows. - Two or three more shows, yeah. I mean, it costs money. - Tough to listen to every second of it. - Who goes 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. then? - 10 to 2 a.m. - So when I started in sports talk radio, I believe it was at least 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. on the old mighty 690. We had-- - How much? - 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. The final show of the day was 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. - Somebody was live at 1.30 in the morning, just spewing their hot tapes. - Finishing the day with the last four hours. - That's a tough shift. - I mean, I know guys that did overnights at music stations, right? And they would just play a ton of records and pop A and V midnight one. And those shows could get a little bit squirrely. It was fun. And the night owls would be up and listen to, hey, can you play whatever for me? And they would shoot the breeze on the air. And you get some goofs, like, that's kind of a harbor in radio. - How much did you do on your old show? You did like the overnight or the multiple day broadcasts? - Oh, we did once a year for charity. We did a 28 hour radio show with no commercials at all. - Did you guys play music on? - No. - So you were live for 28 hours? - So what we did do is we had, we would do some, hey, this happened, just to give us a breather, we'd play some best of and then, but it wasn't a lot, it was a lot of live radio. You're crying at the end of it. I'm not joking, you're weeping. - When he first started, I think Jim Rome was doing eight to midnight. That was his slot, yeah, that was his local slot. - They probably paid him nothing, nothing to do that. And then that's where he gets his start. That's where he, you know, hones his chops and all that. And, you know, now he's Jim Rome. - But you get, as the day goes on, the collars sometimes get a little more loose. - Yeah, loose, opinionated, lubricated, as it were, as the day goes on. So this probably happens more often, but Paulie caught this during the post-game period. - Now that's surreal to catch it live. - It was divine intervention. - That really was. Leaving the gym and I missed the last two winnings of the game or whatever. So I was like, I'm gonna pop on the, the Padres post-game show. I wanna hear my beloved Sammy Levitts. And I mean, bro, 30 seconds in as I'm listening. I flip on the radio and I hear Sammy, all right. Let's, we're gonna take some of your calls next. And I heard, I heard this. - We lead things off tonight with Mike calling in from Chula Vista. Hi Mike, you're on the Padres post-game show. How are you? - Sam, what's up, man? Doing well. They gotta give you your own morning show, Sam. I'm the fan that we watch in the morning. - No, I'm good. I'm good. Ben and Woods do a fantastic job. I'm a tier one myself. - Oh, I don't know about that. - Well, no, come on. Mike, Ben and Woods are the best. - Come on, I am just, I am just fine in my role here with the Padres post-game. - You're doing a great job, Sam. - I don't know. Do you really care, do you wanna hear his, whatever he called in to talk about? - No, that's all. - No, the trash that he talked about. - It wasn't that bad. - What's your name? - Mike. - Mike, I'm in the stage of my life where I'm working on my personal growth. Okay, that's what I'm working on. Working on me, looking in the mirror more. And I just wanna say to you, Mike, I thank you for listening, even if you don't like the show or I'm not your cup of tea or maybe it's Ben that you loathe or Paul, I don't know. I'm guessing it's probably me. - Yeah, it's not me that he loathe. - That's probably me. - Let's be honest. - But I will say this, Mike, we have a, we have a very, very, very deep and special connection with our audience, very deep and special. I've never experienced anything even close to it. It actually freaks me out sometimes when I think about it. I know that you listen, I appreciate you listening and you're so more than welcome to be a part of the Tier 1 family. You're so more than welcome. And we may not always agree and we may not always do the thing that you wanna hear, but you're more than welcome in this family, just so you know. So the one thing that I really enjoyed from that was hearing our teammate, Sam Levitt, have our bat, which is not something that you get a lot of. And that made me very happy. So again, special-- - Ben, what's up, man, doing well. - They gotta give you your own morning show, Sam. Tell the fan that we watch in the morning. - That was like a very nervous laugh from Sam. - Yeah, everyone is going, oh God, oh God, oh God. - Tell the fan that we watch in the morning. - No, I'm good, I'm good. Ben and Woods do a fantastic job. I'm a Tier 1 myself. - I don't know about that. - Wow, no, come on, Mike. - Sammy, you're getting after him. Sammy just went 98 to that dude's hip for us. - There are some people out there, I can respect it, that do not want us to ever deviate from sports talk. - Yeah, it's hard in this time. - They want it to be 100% sports talk all the time. - Padre's off today, you better be talking about Aaron Rodgers, Hietz practice, and-- - The lion's draft. - The maple leaf's doing this off season. - But even I recognize that it's good to mix some other stuff in, especially in the morning. - Got to. - And with that in mind, take on Woods is coming up in a couple of minutes. We need to get a test chance. 833-288-097-3. - Mike, call in. - Our music trivia challenge that has absolutely nothing to do with sports. - Which is why we did it. - But you can win a trip to Las Vegas, and it only takes like about three or four minutes. It's just a nice little palate cleanser before we get back to sports talk, and it's coming up momentarily. So if you want to call in, be our contestant today. Dial us up now, 833-288-097-3. Before July ends, get your name into the hopper for the drawing, for the two nights stay at the Rio, and the dinner, and the day bed, and the whole shooting match coming up in just a couple of minutes. I do need to thank quickly. My son, maybe it's because I think this is like my 15th straight work day since I got back from vacation. And I'm starting to get a little loopy here at the end. And I got to work yesterday at Channel 10 at about 3-3-15, and I realized I left my work computer at home. - Oh my God, you can't do your job. - And I can't really do my job without it. All my stuff is on there, just like Paulie's a server. It's really hard to do. And this is, traffic is starting to get really bad. It took me almost an hour to get there, and I go, if I drive home right now and come back, I'm not even gonna be back, maybe in time for my six o'clock, much less have time to put it all together. What can I do? But I knew my son was home and I called him, and said, "I need a hero right now." - I need a huge favor. - I need a absolutely huge favor. I'm gonna owe you big time. (laughing) Can you drive my computer down to me off the 94? We live in Encinitas. - Oh my God. - And drive back to the teeth of traffic both ways. - Both ways. - Usually traffic goes one way, but then, it's going both ways. - Would it be traffic on the way down? - One and ask. - Traffic on the way back. And without hesitating, he hopped right in the power. - Makes me tear up, dude, sweet angel. - Got in, got to me in about an hour. Got home in about an hour at 15. - Yeah. - There's two hours of 15 minutes in the car. - Oh my God. - Just to get me my computer. You didn't want to thank him for that. - I think that is epic move from Jack. And I would have probably, if I got any pushback, I would have been like, "Do you know how many times?" - No push, not even a smidge. - Not even a smidge. - Well, you know how many times I've cleaned up your diapers and your butt, get in the car and bring me my laptop. My kid would have pushed back. He's also six and three, so. - That's awesome. - Great move from the young man. - Love it. - Jeter says, "Better get Jack and gift." Oh yeah, I said, "Meals on me the rest of the week where everyone go out." - All of Garden, Texas Roadhouse, all the hits. - Play all the hits. - Got your choice. - I love it. - Great job. - Great job, Jackie. Coming through for the old man. - Yeah, well, we'll just all do a nice Texas Roadhouse trip. - Oh, sounds amazing. I'd like to come, actually. - Get those rolls, you want to come with us? - Oh, I'm gonna come. (laughing) - So good. - You have a big ol' Yee-haw? - Yeah. - Hey, Ben, give him a big Texas Roadhouse. - Let's do a Woods birthday dinner at Texas Roadhouse where they can give him a big ol' Yee-haw. - We'll murder it. I will murder Texas Roadhouse right now. - S-I-D, you've ever had? - I love it. - All right, we gotta contest it. Let's do it. It is time for take on Woods. - Is it Mike? - No, it's not. - It's time for take on Woods. ♪ Take on ♪ - Woods. ♪ Take on ♪ ♪ Take on ♪ ♪ Woods ♪ - Take on Woods. Brought to you by Valvoline Instant Oil Change. It only takes 15 minutes. You don't have to get out of your car for directions. And discounts, go to socoutoilchange.com. That's socoutoilchange.com, as promised. Our contestant today is Matt. Matt, good morning. - Good morning, guys. Don't worry about Mike. You got an awesome show. - Thank you, Matt. - Appreciate it. You're all ready. Can we give him an extra point for that? - No, no, I got to stick with the rules. If you beat our Thai Woods, though, we will put you into the drawing for the getaway to the Rio Las Vegas. As I said, tonight's day, dinner for two. Day back, food hall, four new pools, remodeled rooms, new ownership. Check it out at reallossvegas.com. All right, here are your category choices today. Matt, seen and heard. Five different song titles, including either the word seen or heard. Three Thai, five song titles featuring the word lady. And, in honor of Xander Shoffley coming on later, X marks the spot. Five songs are artists that end in the letter X. So seen and heard, three times a lady, or X marks the spot, Matt. - Seen and heard. - Seen and heard. All right, again, we are looking for five different song titles. They all include either the word seen or the word heard. 60 seconds, pass. If you don't know it, we'll come back to it. First question is the two second song. If you give me the title and the artist of the music Paulie plays, we'll give you the point for that one. Matt, are you ready? - I'm ready. - All right, 60 seconds on the clock. Again, the category is seen and heard. Your time begins when Paul plays the music. Good luck, Matt. Let's take on Woods. ♪ Someone told me long ago ♪ - I never see the ring, they're over here. - Correct, several artists recorded it, but I bet you're wondering how I knew Marvin Gaye's version of which Motown classic landed in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Randy Bachmann said the recording of which BTO's biggest hits was never intended to be released and was just a joke for his brother, Gary, who spoke with a stutter. The first line of which seven minutes single by progressive rock band Yes is the song's title, followed by "Turn Their Heads Each Day, So Satisfied, I'm On My Way." (keyboard clicking) - Man. - Tough one today. One more hit. The biggest hit for the Marshall Tucker band was which 1977 single that combined the guitar and flute in an easy listening mix of country and rock. - Man, this is the wrong type of rock band. - Go back to this one, you can get this one. Several artists recorded it, but-- - Oh, time is up. That was a tough one. That was a tough one. We did get the one, so you're not out. Who knows? Bet you're wondering how I knew about your plans to make me blue. Heard it through the grapevine by Marvin Gaye. You ain't seen nothing yet is the BTO. - Buh-buh-buh-buh. - But baby, you ain't seen nothing yet. I've seen all good people is the title of that Yes song and "Hurt It In A Love Song" is Marshall Tucker band. I don't know how wood this is gonna do here. Woodsie comes back to the studio. Matt, score is locked in. Woods is not getting the category here. Might be a tough one to figure out. We'll see. All right, 60 seconds back on the clock. Woods, your time begins when Paul plays the music. Good luck. Let's take on Matt. ♪ Someone told me long to go ♪ - What's up? - CCR. Have you ever seen the record? - Correct. Several artists recorded it, but I bet you're wondering how I knew Marvin Gaye's version of which most of the grapevine. Correct, Randy Bachman said the recording of which BTO's biggest hits was never intended to be released was just a joke for his brother Gary, who spoke with a stutter. - Ain't seen nothing yet. - Correct. The first line of which seven minute single by progressive rock band Yes is the song's title. - Round about? - No. - The biggest hit for the Marshall Tucker band was which 1977 single that combined the guitar and flutes and an easy listen to it in a love song. - Correct, are you got four? And you would have gotten the last one I think. If you waited. - Damn it, sorry. - The first line you won though, four to one. Yes is the song's title followed by turn their heads each day so satisfied. I'm on my way. You know that you get the category? - No. - It says seen and heard. Have you ever seen the rain, heard it through the grapevine? You ain't seen nothing yet. I've seen all good people. - Oh yeah. - And then you got heard it in a love song. You did pretty well though in a tough category. - I did not know that that was yes. Seen all good people. - Seen all good people. - That song, the Marshall Tucker one, when I was a little kid, I thought it was a pretty little love song. - I thought it was pretty little love song. - Pretty a pretty little love song. - Pretty yeah, that's what I thought. ♪ Pretty little love song can be wrong ♪ ♪ It's a jam ♪ ♪ Pretty little love song ♪ - Yeah. - It's a good one. - But it's heard it in a love song. - It's a good one. - Now the scene and heard was the category to do. - I had to really put the thinking cap on. - Yeah, no, long off. - People pointed out some long questions. Imagine if you didn't have time to go back after passing and by the time I read them all. So a tough one today but would see. - Another win. You went on a good streak like that. - I did not like that Bachman. - I don't either. ♪ Boo baby ♪ ♪ Boo boy ♪ - One of my least favorite songs of all time actually. - We still have not done our worst songs bracket. And we'll do it in the off season. That's in there, I think. - I would agree. - How the hell didn't we do that last week during summer break? - We had all of them sitting there. We just didn't do it. Summer break was pretty successful though. I was very proud of those shows. - Very proud. - All right, don't do this is coming up next. We already have our first cheating scandal of the Olympics. - And it hasn't even started yet. - Wow, and there's another Olympic story that I was unaware of till yesterday that's the gnarliest, dumbest thing ever, ever. - We'll be back with that after traffic on 97.3 The Fan. - Don't do this. - It's time for Don't Do This. - What were you thinking? - Three stories from the world of sports that make us all shake our heads. - Why? - How many times do I have to tell you? - I'm sorry, I fudged up guys. - You idiot, you moron. - Don't do that. - The apple sometimes does far fall from the tree. - Don't do this. - Do not tweet that. - With Ben and Woods. - I like a Nickelback song or two. - On 97.3 The Fan. - How do you already have a cheating scandal before the Olympics even started? - I'm so fascinated to know what it is. Don't do this is brought to you by the Craft Taco in Srennel Valley. Craft Taco is some of the best quality tacos in all of San Diego. Go to thecrafttaco.com, take a look at their Happy Hour specials today at thecrafttaco.com, I'll tell ya. The opening ceremonies are not until Friday, but competition about to get underway in the soccer tournaments and the teams are already there working out in Paris and practicing ahead of their games, including one of the very first games, Canada versus New Zealand women's soccer. And the New Zealand Olympic Committee has already filed a complaint because they were at practice and guess what? They spotted a drone flying over their practice. - Whoa, oh my. - That was being operated by a staff member for the Canadian women's soccer team. - I tell them a little bit. - You want women's drones now? - Maybe he's coaching. Now that he's no longer in the NFL, maybe he's on to Canadian women's soccer. The Canadian Olympic Committee said that a separate drone incident on New Zealand training on July 19th had come to light. As result, Canada head coach Bev Priestman said she would remove herself from overseeing Thursday's game against New Zealand. They call it an uncredited analyst, like a non-official staff member of the team, but it doesn't seem to matter. They're part of the team and they were flying a drone over the other team practice. - I'd say that's a pretty big deal. - Pretty big, you know. - Pretty big cheating scandal already at the Olympics. - Man, you wanna talk about scandal at the Olympics. I sit down yesterday when I get home for lunch. I open up my phone and I'm scrolling some news and I, the first time I've ever heard the name Stephen Vandavel. Ben, been included on the Dutch beach volleyball team, but the problem is with Stephen Vandaveled, he is a convicted child rapist. And raped a 12-year-old English girl. He did four years in jail, three counts of rape against a child. He was released after serving only 12 months at a Dutch prison, then resumed his career and they are isolating him from the rest of the people at Olympic Park. It seems like a really, really great lengths to go to, to protect a child rapist. You would think that when you're convicted of raping a child- - And there are a lot of teenage athletes. - Bro, yes, are you kidding? And you would think, and I think even in, I think I read, even in his sentencing, the judge was like, your dreams, your Olympic dreams, everything is over. Turns out, no, no, he's actually competing and this was the most shocking thing. Peter van den Hugenbond. He's a former Olympic champion swimmer. He is the Netherlands chef de Mitchell. And he says, I'm surprised by the reaction. I'm surprised by the fuss. He's been active in international sport, the beach volleyball world for some time. He's played in World Cups, European championships and World Cups, but then you see things that are different around the games that things are exaggerated. He's not gonna downplay it. We have respect, we have to respect that and help him as a member of the team be able to perform. I think, no, I don't think that that's incumbent up on you to protect a child rapist. - You wonder if he'll end up facing Lecosta Canyon's Chase Buntinger, so in the U.S. Olympic beach volleyball team, the former NBA player. - Again, like there has to be some sort of line. Like he did his time and he's out of jail, but like this is, that's one of those lines I think that you can't, they kick somebody off for smoking cigarettes. - In Japan. - In Japan, they're like, this guy's fine. She has some alcohol and cigarettes. - Different countries have different rules, I guess. - How does that happen? How does that happen? The fuss, they called it. I would say, child rape is a fuss. - Yes. - This is where the dutch- - I would be fussed. - We're talking about the dutch. - The dutch! Bro, come on. That guy should not be allowed to compete in for the country's highest honor. He's not an honorable person. - I don't get it, man. I really don't. - I really don't get that. - It's only two things I hate. Bigger tree and the dutch. - I get it. - What was that from? - It's like, I think it's Simpson's line. - Austin Power. - Austin, that's Austin Power's right. - Good one, Polly. - It's a gold member. - It's a gold member. - Yeah, it's Michael Caine. And he goes, there's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant to other people's cultures. - And the dutch. - And the dutch. - Weird, man. - Weird. - Weird. - Very good, Paul. - Weird. - It's better Paul than me. - Very nice. - Finally, a little do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. - We need a palette cleanser. - Yeah, a dutch. - A dutch. - That's a pretty good palette cleanser. Guess what? Kyle Higashiyoka, Padre's catcher did on his off day in Washington, DC on Monday. This is really cool. Kyle Higashiyoka received a replica of the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to his grandfather's World War II unit during a ceremony at the National Museum of the United States Army. He was presented with the medal by retired general Eric Shenseki. And it was a medal that his grandfather received for serving in the 100th Infantry Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. And what made this team very unique is that it was made entirely up of Nisei soldiers, their second generation Japanese Americans who demanded the opportunity to fight for the United States, even after their family members were interned in camps on the West Coast, one of the darkest stains in American history, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but they were Japanese and they said, no, we live in this country, we're Americans, we want to fight against Japan and they did. And they saw some really intense battles as part of the war, this unit of Japanese American soldiers and Shigeru Higashiyoka was part of that unit. - Awesome. - But Kyle was there and they gave him the replica medal and gave him a tour of the museum on his day off. Isn't that a really cool story? - That is, that's fantastic, man. And they started to talk about it on the broadcast last night but the audio cut out. My father said, today Kyle Higashiyoka had a really nice, and then there's just guitar music in the background, they're showing the medal and I'm like, what happened, what happened, what happened? And then he cut back in and then he would disappear again. The old mic didn't work. I was thinking, I wish I had known about this. We could have asked Kyle about it when he was in studio. - On the first thing I thought of. - However, and this was Kyle's quote, I don't know that he would have had much of an answer. He said, it was a really cool experience, just learning more about my grandfather's time in the war because before this year I really didn't know much about it at all, I never got a chance to talk to him about any of that stuff. So he's kind of, it was an educational experience for Kyle as well in learning about his grandfather and their unit in the World War II were able to do and what heroes they were. - It's pretty special, man. Very, very special, very, very cool. - And that is don't and do do this for a Wednesday. - That was don't do this with Ben and Woods on 97.3, the fan. - All right, it was a big league Wednesday. It's been a couple of weeks. Adam Jones was at the All-Star game. He's been all over the place. We'll get caught up with AJ, the five-time All-Star. Next, when Ben and Woods continues on San Diego's number one sports station, 97.3, the fan. Good win for the Padres last night. Four-nothing over the Washington Nationals. They'll continue the series today. Another 245 Ecowater SoCal pregame show, 345 first pitch from Nationals Park. And we're gonna talk some baseball and more. We got Adam Jones standing by the five-time All-Star. We'll join us right after this check of traffic on 97.3, the fan. ♪ California ♪ It's the summer in the States for Adam Jones, including a trip to the All-Star game last week. I think I saw his head into Milwaukee coming up here and the five-time All-Star joins us right now here on Ben and Woods on 97.3, the fan. AJ, good morning to you. - Gentlemen, how y'all doing? Always good to speak with you guys. - Yeah, we miss you, man. It feels like we haven't talked to you in forever. I'm gonna be traversing the planet next week. I'll be in Hawaii. And I feel very much like, yeah, I'll feel very much like you. I may check in with the boys too at some point, but I do, I feel like Adam Jones had enough to kawaii with my family for a week. - I like the, I like, I miss Hawaii. I haven't been Hawaii in probably six, seven years. And that's such one of my favorite places. The weather, everything is just perfect in Hawaii. I mean, man, I miss it. - I can't wait. - Please enjoy it. - I will. Oh, I'm going to, trust me. I'm gonna really, really drink it in and hang with my boys. - He's worried about the jellyfish. - I am worried about the jellyfish in the man of war. I don't want to get stung by anything, nothing. - Well, I mean, it's all part of it. You know, I'm gonna notion if you ain't, it's just part of it, just stay in a pool. - It's not part of the experience. - It's not part of the experience. Nowhere does it say when you go to Hawaii? - You get a floaty. Get a floaty and stay in hotel pool, okay? - We're not staying in a hotel, though, I don't, I'm gonna go, the only person that goes to Hawaii and stays dry for seven days. - Yes. - So what is, you won't be dry. - Yeah, that's true. - That's true, it's a point. - It's a point at some point. So what is the, what was the all-star experience like for you, a five-time all-star back at the game, Home Run Derby? Seeing those guys, give us some of your highlights. - The all-star game was fantastic. Again, 32 first-timers, so young guys getting to share with their families and just getting to just be around the special, the specialty of this event. I've told these guys, special oil guys who I know a little bit better. I said, "Hey, cherish this, man. "You're getting to spend time with your teammates, "but you're with the best players in the league. "Your families get to enjoy this. "Your families are the ones who really are "really gonna enjoy this because for the players, "it's annoying, it's a tactic organizing everything. "But I just told the guys, let your family really, really enjoy "this and soak it in because you always get an all-star. "So just take this in, ask questions. "Again, you're with the best guys right now in the world. "So take it in and ask questions." And it seemed like everybody had a great time. The Home Run Derby was great. The skills competition was a little weird, but they should, it was a little weird. I think I could have won that right now. I was just blunt at the old time. But I think the whole thing, the game was great. Having schemes start, I think that was just good for the powerness of the movement of the youth of baseball. And just overall, it was a great event and cap where I'm with. We had a great event, always being around the guys, just putting out and promoting our positive energy and promoting this game. - Love that, man. And I know your feet are in both camps. You're watching the Padres every night, you're watching the Orioles. Pretty gnarly injury last night with Jorge Mateo, former Padre, collided with Gunnar Henderson. The arm went the wrong way. And a lot of people are saying now, okay, does that pave the way for Jackson Holiday? The heir apparent, you know, to come back and get another shot in the big leagues. I actually saw him, AJ mentioned in trade talks, which is crazy to me. Like, and I understand he scuffled at the big league level, but he was one of those guys can't miss. The pressure on him has still got to be through the roof. What do you think they're gonna do? You think they're gonna bring him up? I don't think they're gonna trade him. - Well, I mean, I wouldn't trade a one-one. That's a very, very special few years after he was one-one. It's not like it's eight years ago. I mean, again, he's still 20. This with him, there's no, for me personally, there's no rush with him. Maybe Connor Norby is, since he's an older guy, college guy, can come in and fill in and so see what we'll figure out with Mateo, just for the bridge. I think with Jackson, I don't think having him be a, I would say like a relief. That's not, I don't think that's what we want him for. You want him to play. Like, hey, you're out of play. You're gonna play 145 games. - Yeah. - Not like, hey, we need you for the weekend. - That's true. - I'm gonna be down like, you can't do that with him. I'm, me personally, I don't think that unfortunately you do have guys on the bench and on your roster who you can do that with, especially older guys, who understand these moves a little bit better. So I think that's why maybe Norby, but I heard, you know, maybe Mullins and then talking about Mount Castle. Hey, come on. The trade deadline, I think it's awesome though, because it opens up everybody's Pandora's box of thoughts. - Oh, yeah. - What, what, what are the oils gonna do? Are they gonna trade for door crochet? Is the pottery's been linked to crochet? Like, what, what is going on? Like, there's so many different options and different things and scenarios. I think that's a good thing, especially when guys are buyers. And what are the pottery's gonna do? What are the oils gonna do? You know that the Yankees are gonna have to make a move. You know the Red Sox are probably gonna have to make a move. And Guadu and all that, the Dodgers are still trying to get a school. So like Anna Rosarena is the latest. They, they've been linked to Aron de Rosarena. And you know, you figure he's not having a good year. Doesn't mean they're gonna sell low on it. And they're not, they're still gonna get, you know, 'cause he's done it on the biggest stage. And I think you put him in that lineup. It's like, oh my God. Now I have to hate Randy Rosarena. Like I have to hate show Hale Tony now, which doesn't make me very happy. - And you add athleticism. I mean, he's again, he's having a down year right now. He's kind of in the struggle, but you go to L.A., you will all know what happens. That's the bright lights. They have no damn lights over there. That's a candle over there in Tampa. You got the bright lights over here. - He's playing it like a dark airplane hanger in Tampa. Then you go to L.A., yeah. Weird things do happen. - The lights are bright. You know what I mean? And like him being around, Shohei being around Mookee, being around Freddie, Kioska. Like these are things that just juiced you right on up. And I would hate to see him go to L.A. Because you know, it could be over a 60 game span. He can be one of the best players in the game. Well, that can be very, very scary when they already have three of the top five. - Adam Jones is with us. And Padre is obviously heading to Baltimore this weekend. I think it's just gonna be Manny's second trip back. - Yeah. - Since he was a member of the Orioles. What's that gonna be like? I mean, what are the feelings about Manny in Baltimore still, you know, all these years later? - Well, it's, I think it's mostly love. Obviously you got those aficionados who Manny didn't do this and he didn't do that. He didn't do that. Manny raked and he played unbelievable defense. Jesus Christ, he didn't run out every single ground ball. Okay, we got it. Okay, that's what you wanna cry about. The guy played a dance off. And to me, a lot of people, they always cry and complain about that. You know, what I hear from, but also to that, there's a lot of guys that say, "Man, I ain't seen nobody since Bruce Robinson." So he played ball like that. And you know, it's a good thing now that the Orioles do have a young infielder like Gunnar Henderson, like Westbrook to be able to, I would say throw away Manny's time there, but like fans were able to move forward now and continue to move forward because now they have a generational talent in Gunnar, which I believe Manny is the same kind of guy, the generational talent. So I just think that, you know, I'm gonna be there Friday, so I'm gonna be excited to see the crowd reaction. I'm gonna have one of my AJ 10 beers and just watch a good baseball game and hopefully, and then say, that's gonna be a mix of emotions, right? It's the game where I can't lose. - Yeah, right, yeah. Good win. - The win wins, I can't lose this weekend, but who do I cheer for? See, there's like a silver lining. I'm just gonna cheer in the bathroom. - Yeah, what do you know what jersey are you wearing? - You cheer for both, right? Like, you're just excited to see good baseball and your guys do well and, you know, hopefully it's some good ball games. Potter, he's been playing some better baseball. I was, I think like all of us coming out of the break, stumbling seven, nothing, you lose. You're like, this is gonna be a rough second half. They rebound and they beat a really good guardian's team. They are pitching their asses off right now. Every single guy in the rotation is just taking it on their back right now and it's just been so impressive to watch. And I just, I love it. And it's so fun to watch guys go out and compete and be in the zone and just attack hitters. It's been great the last few days. - I mean, before we, I mean, obviously we, you guys have a job to do talk to sports, but before all that, you guys are fans of the game. So you guys wanna see the effort. And again, you make your money by talking about it, but you wanna see the effort. And that's, as a fan now that I'm not a player, that's all I promote with players. They always ask you guys, how you feel? Hey, go out there and give it all you got. I mean, because at the end of the day, that's all the fan wants is for you to go out there and compete. Is the game hard, is it difficult? Are you gonna be in slumps and not play well, of course? But a fan knows when you're not giving it your all. And that's one thing that I learned very early and you gotta respect that. And so that's why I always play hard for the fans. You know, the Padres make it difficult for people because it's like they'll go on a five game losing streak and then they'll go on a five game winning streak. Like, which team am I right now? Am I buying right now? Am I selling right now? Am I being a halt right now? So with them playing well, we talk about them buying. But if they go on a three game skid, we talk about them soon. It's just weird. And, you know, hopefully the Padres just want to, you know, sweep the Nationals. I don't know, I mean, take time. You know, lose the series and I don't know how I feel about this weekend. (laughing) Because everybody needs W's. But again, I want them to be buyers, especially, you know, because, again, we want to see L.A. again in the playoffs because we got an unfinished business. - I'll give you a softball then. Adam Jones is with us. So not only are Padres fans packing Petco Park every night, but they've been traveling really well to road games. And I know there's going to be a big Padres fan contingent, even some tier ones at Camden Yards this weekend. What's your recommendation? Like first time visit to Camden Yards. What do you have to see? Where do you got to go in, around the ballpark, whatever? What are AJ's recommendations for Baltimore? - For Baltimore, first off, you got to go to, to me, you got an Addie Burger. Got the place where I have a burger still in the menu. It's a low-key spot. - You've got your own burger? - What's on your burger? - All right, lay it on, lay it on us. What's on it? - You got the beef, you got Kobe, Jack, spicy pickles, lettuce and tomato. And then you got Taylor Tots with natural cheese on the side. I took the elementary school back days. - You know what I mean? - You're like me, dude. (laughing) - And it comes with a duvel beer. So that's a, that's a place that I like to go. Also a place, it depends on, you know, your pocketbook, but it's a really good Italian place to tag me out. Delicious place in a breakfast place. It's called Simply Marie's. She is this black woman. She is amazing. Her life goal is to meet Oprah. And she has murals of me all in her damn place. - Wow. - And, oh, some believe, every time I'm there, I go in there. - Of course. - And she's as big as her. And she makes me just, yeah, all the food making wanna go right to sleep. But I'm a small time person. I don't need to go to the biggest restaurant, the prime ribs, and I'll be in a place for so long, I was able to find small places. And I was able to, you know, just go out here, be in carnitos and enjoy myself. And Baltimore's a really good city like that. And there's also one place, Clubville. - Clubville. - That is a must. - Clubville. - It's a must. - Clubville. - Look, I grew up on Mexican food. This is the closest thing. You don't get to it. It is amazing. Absolutely amazing. - I, you're real tight with C.C. Sabbathia, yeah? So I watched a clip yesterday, speaking of food. I was, it had me howling. And it was him and Jimmy Rollins. And there was somebody else, I can't remember who it was. But they were talking about the cheese steaks in the visiting clubhouse in Philly. And C.C. said bar none the best in the city. And the first time he showed up, he was with the Brewers. And him, Prince Fielder, Corey Hart, put down 20 cheese steaks. - There's like competitions to see which teams and which players can eat the most. - Well, it's all strategy. The Phillies aren't allowed to get it in their own. They do it because apparently you eat one and you're like, you fall asleep. And so these dudes, they actually said, C.C. told the story goes, when we went back with New York, Joe Torrey took him out of the clubhouse. We were not allowed to order him. Jimmy Rollins said, we wanted him so bad, but we knew what they would do to us. So we stopped, like we would have to send a cluby over to grab a couple here and there. But we weren't allowed to have them. They were like, they did it as a strategy to like get people fat and sleepy. Have you ever had one of those? - I've had about, let me count, about 48 coming in there. Can I borrow for her? Oh, it's a well known thing. You got to have one. And you know, I would always ask Buck. 'Cause we didn't go to Philly often, but that third game. Hey, let me get that day off. Let me get that day off. - So we can eat a cheesesteak. - Oh, 100% oh yeah. It's all true. And the thing made it the best is that you got to customize. It's like if you could eat Ruth Chris on your couch, they wouldn't make it that much better. - 100%. - So they make you the customer, you can get it a little bit extra meat, a little bit more hot and they won't judge you. You know what I mean? - That's incredible. - Oh, it's everybody knows. And some teams come in there, you're like, damn. And you look at the results and if you see they got swept, just better believe they ate a lot of damn cheesesteaks. - And then quickly, I'm just, what about at the ballpark at Camden Yards? I mean, I heard of Boogs Barbeque. I mean, what's anything at the ballpark? - Boogs Barbeque obviously is still a staple. About the fourth inning, there used to be a breeze that came around centerfield. Nice to just look to my right and on my left and be like, damn, I missed Boogs. I would love to get a nice brisket sandwich. In the ballpark, they have some ballpark food. I'm not the craziest about like a crab. - Yeah, I'm with you. - I'm with you. - Crab hot dogs or something like that. - I'm not. - I'm with you. - I can't do all that. But there's one company and they're sponsoring a lot of that and don't podcast. Jimmy Seifoo, they have these crab cake, they're called crab cake egg rolls. Oh my Lord, oh my Lord. Yes, that is the most at the ballpark. Jimmy Seifoo, crab cake egg rolls. It is a must. - All right, last thing for me, one of our beloved tier ones is Dominic. He lives in Baltimore. He'll be at the game that you're at. If a weird guy named Dominic, he's not weird. But if a guy comes up and he says, "Hey, I'm Dominic Bennett Woods fan." He said he would do anything to have a beer with you. So if you do see him, say hello, he's a really good dude. We can vouch for him. He's not gonna do anything weird or creepy. So he's a really good dude. - Okay, awesome man, I would love to have a beer with him. And I have my own beer. We have a Joan beer from Monument, so he can buy me my own beer. - Yes, buy Adam Jones, his own beer too. - Yeah, we have our own beer too. So settle down, we don't have any murals yet. - Thank God. - Thank God. There's not enough hate in saying it. - I do not want a mural. I do not want a mural. Thank you my friend. Have a great time. - Always gentlemen. Adam Jones, big league Wednesday. And that's a segment made everybody in San Diego hungry. So sorry about that. - I won't stop thinking about crab cake egg rolls. I will not. I love crab cakes. I love egg rolls. Holy shit. - I would love to have a breakfast place where they just, they have murals in me you walk in. - Yes. - It just makes you a giant breakfast. - Oh, you're back. It's good to see you. What do you want? - Oh, it's amazing. - I don't want a mural. 'Cause it will not be a good. - Remember the last time somebody painted a picture of us? - Remember that? - Yeah. - Do you remember that? The last time, can we find that and put it up? - The last time. - May I get a clock? We'll put it up in the chat. It's been a while. - The last time that somebody painted a picture of me, it made me feel even worse about myself than I already do. Who hit me in the face with like a bat or a pan or something? - That looks like a boxer. - It was Impressionism. It's not necessarily realism. It was kind of Cubism. I'm not even sure what they were going with. - You look fine. - I'll put it up for eight o'clock. - We'll pull that up when we come back. Bigly Wednesday will continue with Brett Boon. Gonna join us at 8.35 or else you can give away some Sebastian Maniscalco comedy tickets in the next half hour. So do not go away. And then Xander Schoffley will be with us at 9.25 on a big Wednesday here with Ben Woods on San Diego's number one sports station, 97.3, the fan. (upbeat music) - Oh yeah, halfway home on a Wednesday. Ben Woods, 97.3, the fan. Lovely to be here with all of you. Beloved the tier ones out there. And yeah, I always get the question, how do I become a tier one? Very easy. There's no form or anything. You gotta fill out. There's no donation. - Send $100. - Ben Lewis. - Yeah, $100. - Yeah. - And you're all the way here. - Four easy payments of... - Oh yeah, there's listen. - And then tell your friends if you like the show. That's it. The word of mouth has been great for this show 'cause we've never had one marketing nickel. So you guys are actually the ones responsible for our success, not us, not us at all. You guys telling your friends, hey, listen to Ben Woods, it's great, it's great. If we ever did have a billboard or anything like that or a painting promoting us, I hope actually it doesn't look like the one that was hanging in the foyer, foyer, foyer, foyer. Foyer, foyer of our old building. It's something that's like a tradition there and they've been doing it forever. And I was so honored to work at that station and have my own picture. - It's in the Louvre now. - And then they painted Ben and he looks, he was a bigger guy back then. (laughing) I look fat, let's just be clear. - How did you gain all the weight? - Oh my lord. And then there's our old executive producer in the middle of us. And then... - He looks great. - He looks fantastic. - He looks fantastic. - Weird how that worked. - And then there's your old pal Woods, who apparently-- - Now that's not Paulie. - No, apparently he just, I just went like four rounds with Conor McGregor, who smashed my face in and I mean it is, it is a really bad representation of me and I had no offense to this person that painted it. Maybe you were in a hurry. 'Cause the only thing I can think of, is I look like-- - Did they go to the San Diego County Fair and have one of those guys, the caricature-- - Quick, sketch drawers, yeah. - What happened to my nose? (laughing) I don't have that nose. - No, that's not your nose. - That's, someone else's nose. - So he says Ben looks very happy. - Yeah, he's fat and happy. - Fat and happy back then. - Do you have a crustash there? What's going on? - Yeah, there's a bit of the facial hairs. He got the double chin down. - You would not have let you massage your wife. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that is real. - Oh, he's not zooming in on it, I mean it is just, it's the nose that really was-- - I mean, I'm tipping the scales at at least 370. (laughing) - I'm not picking that picture. - When their eyes are like really close together, they are. - Beatty. - Beatty. - Yes. - It's not what you look like. - Beatty eyes. - No, you do not. - This is the glasses. - Yeah, that was in the receptionist area. When you walked into the station-- - First thing you were. - You were a guest, if you were there to pick up a prize. And they had them all on the wall, framed, they looked good. - Yeah, there's Darren's gym room. - Yeah, there's gym room. - Everyone looked great. - I'm hanging with these legends up here. This is amazing for me. - I can't believe then the unveiling happened. And I felt like, was it Ronaldo? When he saw his, was it Ronaldo's statue? That does not look-- - He does not look at all the cameras. - And that thing went on the wall and I went, "Oh, oh." - Everyone's saying, "My hair looks good." And it does. - Hair does look good. - Yeah. I, I just-- - Give the old blue Padres handle. - Yeah, man. - Now, when that station went under, it's kind of free for all. Everybody grabbed a bunch of stuff. - Craig Elston literally walked out with like microphones. And I remember, he's like, "Hey, look what I got." - I was like, "What is going on?" - I didn't know that we could just take stuff. - But before all that went down, my girl Elaine was like the office manager. - I love Elaine. She was about to-- - She was a maid angel. - She pulled me aside and said, "Hey, I have something that you might want." You remember the guy that we replaced at the station. - Oh, yeah, yeah. - And at this station. - Yep. - Maybe he can, can you get the like job at the number one station in like LA or New York or something? - I don't want to move though. - And he falls up and we can come in and replace him. - True. - She had his horrible caricature paintings. - Oh, it was the greatest. - And you have it. - And I still have it. - You still have it? - It's in storage and my wife goes, "Get rid of that." I said, "Absolutely not." - Never, never. - "I'll get rid of you before I get rid of that." - Yeah, 100%. - It's you or him and it-- - It's a family heirloom. - It really is. - I can sell that for like four bucks. - Yeah. - Are you kidding me? - I bought his autograph on eBay. It was $3 I think. We hung it here in the studio. (laughing) - Yeah. - That is a rough look. - Before we move on and I do want to talk a little bit more about last night's Padres game. They always tell us in radio teasing is important. - Yes. - Like what's coming up next. Keep them hanging on the edge of their seat. There's also something called horizontal teasing where you tease what's going to be happening tomorrow at the same time, like yesterday. We told you about Xander Shoffley coming on. I'd like to tease that tomorrow at this time, our show will be over. We will be off the air. (clapping) - Yes! - I'm excited I got to hit the microphone. Holy cow. - Because our show will only run until 8.05 tomorrow morning when we will turn things over to the Ecowater SoCal pregame show at 8.05 AM with Sam Levitt for a 9.05 first pitch in the series finale against the Washington National. So, there's your tease for 24 hours from now. We'll be on our way home. How about that for a day that ends at 8.05 AM? - I'm all the way in. I'm all the way in on it. How's your coffee turned out this morning, by the way? - Did you go back? - No, actually I went to the bigger chain and spent a little bit more to make sure it was actually coffee in my coffee. If you missed it yesterday. - Oh no. - Got my McDonald's coffee, but the guy who was filling it up, and I watched him do it, put in, he started filling it up and then halfway through, I hear him go, oops, and then he moves over to a different spigot and starts filling the rest of my iced coffee up and then just hands it to me. And I realized quickly that half of his iced tea and half of his iced coffee didn't start over. - It's an awful combo. - I gave it to me and that's what I had yesterday and I could not go back this morning. So I will go back at some point, but I decided to treat myself today to actual iced espresso actually. - Coffee. - And you know, the first thing in the chat this morning, the very first comment was McDonald's guy one. Oh look, it's that Ben Higgins guy. McDonald's guy two. Throw some cranberry juice in his coffee this morning. They're just gonna get you every day. So I, hey listen man, that's a classic misstep. You know, they made a customer unhappy and that customer then went to a, I guess, competitor the next morning for his coffee and actually spent a little bit more money on it. So I can see why you didn't wanna go back. - I wanna talk about Mike Schilt just for a second here because we're definitely been learning the personality of the Padres manager, both in our conversations, but also through the decisions that he makes. And one thing that has become very clear is that Mike Schilt, when he sees a win, you know, within his grasp, he's going to try to take it. - That's correct. - It doesn't matter if it's a safe situation or not. If he thinks that there's any chance of the other team coming back, he's gonna step on it. And he used his top relievers yesterday, four-nothing game, did not have any qualms with going with, you know, Robert Suarez. And I'm okay with that because you can't predict the future. You don't know if you'll need Robert Suarez today or tomorrow. You could have saved him and not pitched him at all. And then, you know, had him completely fresh for today. But with the difficulties that the Padres have had in the bullpen, beyond their top, I'm gonna say three guys. - Three. - Suarez, Estrada, and Morihone. - That's it. - Beyond that, there's really no lead that you feel is that safe. - No. - And you get this chance to win a third in a row, take the first game of the series, getting a series. I'm okay with the decision to just step on their throat and put the best guy in and make sure you win that game. And then you take your chances with the next game tomorrow, today. Maybe you're up by seven this time and you can go with a different option or maybe you're down by three and you're like, well, I wish we'd use Suarez yesterday when we had a chance to get him some work with the lead. I'm all right with that. But that's clearly part of Mike Schilt's makeup. He sees a win. He does not want to take any chances in letting that win get away. - He doesn't pussyfoot around with it at all. - No, just God. - I got a DM last night from Steve and he said, "Is Vasquez on a pitch count? Six innings, 68 pitches, they pull him or an innings limit and bring in Suarez in a non-safe situation? What if we need him the next two games? Make these pitching decisions make sense." As far as Vasquez goes, guys, he is such a unknown commodity still and he gave up the double. I have no problem. Because what happens if the next guy yacks one out? That leads now cut in half. You know what I'm saying? - He had given up, I think, two doubles in the last three batters. - Two doubles in the last three batters, so yeah. Hey man, let's take this good fortune. Let's send him out on a high note of really doing a great job and hanging a zero on these guys and let the bullpen come in and continue to end zeros. - Keep in mind. And again, the pitch count was low and if they needed him, I mean, if they were up eight nothing, they probably would have just let Vasquez go. But it is the seventh inning. It's the deepest he's ever pitched and even though it's not that many pitches, it's still up and down seven times to get out there. And Vasquez does not get a lot of swing and miss. So you can, I think he only struck out one batter the entire game. So you know, a runner on base, the next guy's probably making contact somewhere, contact could then fall in. It could be soft contact, but you blew it in. Bring in Morayone, you've got a better chance. He gives up almost no heart contact. He gets a lot more swing and miss. Ended up getting out of that inning really quickly. Got the force at third on the base running mistake and the nice play by Kim and Manny and then quickly got a double play to end the inning. So, you know, I'm sure he's available today if they needed Adrian Morayone again with how little he was used yesterday. And you got Randy Vasquez out with a really good feeling, another good start, a confidence builder for him, someone that you're probably gonna need to rely on continually down the stretch here because at this point, he's your fourth starter. Even if you get Musgrove back or even if you make a trade, he's still five, six at best. You're gonna see him over the course for the rest of this season. And that was a good outing for Randy Vasquez. - Yeah, and I just don't have a problem with that. What bugs me sometimes is, again, it's not a Mike Schilt problem, right? It's not a Mike Schilt problem at all. It's a Yuki Matsui, Austin Davis, Sean Reynolds, and Steven Colek problem. That's where the issue lies, is that there is not a lot of trust there. And I think for good reason. Now, he has given guys shots in high leverage. He gave Yuki one last Friday against Cleveland and Yuki got the job done. He gave Yuki another shot the next day and way less high leverage at all. It was very low leverage and he got the job done, gave Colek a shot in high leverage, didn't get the job done. So you're a little bit up against it. When you don't, we don't have the Phillies bullpen, Ben. We don't have the Diamondbacks bullpen where you just like every guy comes in throwing 98, you know, with movement. It's just, they have what they have for now. That's why the bullpen remains something that's very important to address. - Bill says, yeah, no need to put Suarez in in a non-safe situation. Now he can't close if the next two games are tight. It, yeah, it's, there's the risk there that they'll have one run leads the next two days. - I'm sure he'd be available for at least one of them. - Absolutely. - So they had a day off on Monday. - Yeah. - We just had the all-star break. - He had to go again today, he could. Now, if he went today, he'd probably be down tomorrow morning. - Yeah, but if he goes today, you feel like you're winning that ball game. - Right, and you've already won the series and you take your chances. And if he doesn't go today, then obviously he could go on on Thursday. - You need some things to break in your favor. You need to put up some numbers to wear an Austin Davis, a Sean Reynolds, a Stephen Colek, is not going to hurt you tremendously. Last night, I didn't feel it was one of those games. I didn't feel like this team's out of it. We had an eight run lead against these guys and they came back on us, right? Does everybody remember that? So you don't- - In five and they had the- - The tying run at the plate. - The tying run at the plate and they hit one like looked like it was gone, right? - Correct, so you don't think Mike Schilt remembers? We had an eight nothing lead against these guys. I'm not gonna f around with a four run lead when I've got these guys rested and healthy and he won a ball game. Why are we complaining about winning a ball game? You know, he's not going, I don't think he's going to put his pitchers in harm's way, right? And if Robert Schwartz says, "I can't go," he's not gonna make him go. So again, that eight run lead that they blew is definitely fresh in his mind as it should be. - What a great turn all the way through the starting rotation though. Four guys, I think I saw after the game, the stat was 0.69 ERA since the all-star break for the starters. - One run in 27 innings. Something like that. - The last 27. - No, well, 'cause they had the eighth inning on Friday which-- - Well, just for the starters though. - Oh, the starters, yeah. - So Waldron gave up one in, what, seven innings and then C set his gym and then King had a gym and now Vasquez with six shutout innings, so. - And then since that eighth inning, it was something like one in 27, since then. - Or one run on eight hits, I think in 26 innings or something ridiculous? - No, I saw someone in the chat earlier. I was talking about the starting pitching. Yeah, it was really, really good. - It's been really, really good. - Do we, do we think that it's gonna continue? I hope so. Is there any reason to-- - Really cool. - Is there any reason to think that, okay, now they're good with their number one through four, they just need to find a five? Not yet. The one thing that they still have lacked all season long is consistency. So-- - You don't want to track your beam to show up today and back to the-- - Back to the two run. - Yeah, back towards 500, you got a really tough series in Baltimore, really tough. - And I get every starting pitcher's gonna have clonkers throughout the course of the year. - Yeah, you don't want to be the one though that breaks the streak. Matt Waldron today is gonna, and he is, he has really, really pitched well, doesn't get any run support. Got another lefty on the bump today. That, is that gone away now? The left-handers are the bugaboo, and we scored four runs last night. It feels certainly a little better than it did for a while where they just could not beat a left-hander, so. - Well, you know, I think Donovan Solano has helped. Getting Zander Bogart's back will help with the lefty, so it's a different lineup. - Is Don, is he gonna play? - I think he'll play today, would be my guess. Maybe even the next two days. We'll talk about that coming up. Let's take a quick time out. I got some Sebastian Maniscalco tickets to give away. Also, you know what, I'm not throwing you under the bus, I'm gonna throw us both under the bus here. - Oh, this sounds great. - Embarrassing Padre's things that you should probably know of your radio host and didn't know. - Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, I'm embarrassed. - Ben & Woods edition. - I'll wear it. - Coming up next. - Oh, God. - After traffic here on 97th grade of fame. - You can't be the only ones. - You have to be honest with us. - Yeah, you have to promise. - Promise, you'll be honest. - We admit what we're gonna admit, that you're gonna say, oh, I also did not know that. Next, on 97th grade of fame. It's Ben & Woods Confessions time. I'm not proud of this. - I'm not either. - You're not proud of it either. - I'm actually really embarrassed by it, at all. - But I would like to know, if you're in our chat and wanna chime in on YouTube, or you can tweet us at Ben & Woods, if you were unaware of this as well. Because Woods texted, and I had to nod in the same thing. When the Padre's put the lineup together yesterday, and they had Bryce Johnson out in the outfield, batting ninth, and then he came up to the plate for the first time. And what was that, the third inning, I think? - Yep. - And he was batting from the right side of the plate, not the left side of the plate. - Yeah. - We were both kind of shocked. Did you know he was a switch hitter? - I did. - I thought he was a lefty. - I thought he was strictly. - I thought he was just a lefty. - I thought he was strictly a left-handed bat. - Are we sure that he wasn't just doing some bit, or something? Could have sworn that that guy was just a lefty. - I have a, there's a guy on my team that he's hitting really well, and he'll just sometimes, when we're up big, he'll go, "I'm gonna hit left-handed." And he does that. And I thought, "Is Bryce Johnson doing a bit right now?" - Drew Walk, I mean, didn't really have to swing the bat. - I feel a little better. - Okay, some other people are getting the same thing. - No, he doesn't. - He's actually, we don't even know if he's a hitter. - That's a good point. - Fair. - I did not know that. You guys don't, you know this about me. My attention span is not great always. It's weird that I like baseball. Don't you think? Like, doesn't it weird that that's my greatest love is baseball of all things? When my attention span is what it is, and I'm oftentimes at home, you know, it's bedtime, and everything else, and it's hard to sit and watch a ball game. And holy smokes, man, I, when he walked up there right in, I go, "Who's this?" (laughing) Like, I think we even said in the air yesterday, well, Bryce Johnson won't be in the lineup. Who can play right field? 'Cause obviously he's a left-handed hitter. I had no earthly idea. - I'm trying to call up his splits for the season as a versus lefty. Apparently he has 10 at-bats this year versus left-handed pitching when presumably-- - We missed him all. - He was batting from the right side of the plate. And yeah, I don't remember any of them. - That's real. - He doesn't have any hits from the-- - No, maybe that's why. - From the right side of the plate. He's an 0-4, 0-0-0 average. - Doesn't that mean he hits from the left side? - He has walked three times as a, including once last night as a right-handed hitter. Which, yeah, neither of us were aware of that. - Yeah. I mean, as a lefty, he's batting a robust 182. And as a righty, he's batting a not so robust 0-0-0. Got some good wheels though, and plays defense. Yeah, they need Tetis to get back. I mean, I know you can't rush it 'cause then you're risking even longer-term injury with the stress reaction, but man, that would be a major upgrade. And Peralta's done a nice job against righties, which is why we haven't seen Bryce Johnson as much lately since he's been out there. But defensively, you know, David Peralta is not the same player that he used to be, and Johnson does give you that speed in the outfield. - Yeah, there's the latest in the rumor mills. I believe this is from Dennis Lynn's latest. It's the Padre's league sources said, continue to inquire about both hitters and pitchers ahead of the July 30th trade deadline. I can kind of assume, I have baseball players. They're interested in baseball players. I had assumed it was going to be pitching only, and I don't want to read the tea leaves. Hopefully it's just a big nothing burger, but it says they're interested in the former being the hitters. Might have something to do with Fernando Tetis Jr.'s uncertain timeline and a possible desire for insurance in case a rise re-aggravates his thumb injury, which I thought he did last night before hitting a home run. Their need for pitchers is well-known. So AJ, checking in on both the ball here. - Yeah, I mean, yeah, you do need, you could upgrade with another bat that can play the outfield. - Yes. - But then if Tetis does come back in a month. - Nice. - Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet Smart Money Podcast. Get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. NerdWallet's experts will set future you up for success with dependable fact-based insights. No financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation, find your next credit card, or loan for a big purchase, and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app. - Now with the MLB app, you can get baseball your way. Pick your favorite team, your favorite players, and get customized highlights, stories and breaking news right on your home feed. Follow the action with Game Ted, where 3D replays add another dimension. Plus notifications can keep you connected to every pinch, every hit, every game, the MLB app. Baseball, your way. Download it now for free from the App Store or Google Play. Block out another research and supply major league baseball trade parts used with permission. - You don't just live in your home. You live in your neighborhood as well. So when you're shopping for a home, you wanna know as much about the area around it as possible. Luckily, homes.com has got you covered. Each listing features a comprehensive neighborhood guide from local experts. Everything you'd ever wanna know about a neighborhood, including the number of homes for sale, transportation, local amenities, cultural attractions, unique qualities, and even things like median lot size and a noise score. Homes.com, we've done your homework. (upbeat music) - Good win for the Padres last night. Four and nothing over the Washington Nationals. They'll continue the series today. Another 245 Ecowater SoCal pregame show, 345. First pitch from Nationals Park. And we're gonna talk some baseball and more. We got Adam Jones standing by the five-time All-Star. We'll join us right after this check of traffic on 97.3 of the fan. ♪ California ♪ - Little summer in the States for Adam Jones, including a trip to the All-Star game last week. I think I saw his head into Milwaukee coming up here and the five-time All-Star joins us right now here on Ben & Woods on 97.3 of the fan. - Hey Jake, good morning to you. - Gentlemen, how y'all doing? All is good to speak with you guys. - Yeah, we miss you, man. It feels like we haven't talked to you in forever. I'm gonna be traversing the planet next week. I'll be in Hawaii and I feel very much like, yeah, I feel very much like you. I may check in with the boys too at some point, but I do, I feel like Adam Jones had enough to kawaii with my family for a week. I like, I miss Hawaii in probably six, seven years and that's such one of my favorite places. The weather, everything is just perfect in Hawaii. I mean, man, I miss it. - I can't wait. - Please enjoy it. - I will, oh, I'm going to. Trust me, I'm gonna really, really drink it in and hang with my boys. - He's worried about the jellyfish. - I am worried about the jellyfish in the Man of War. I don't wanna get stung by anything, nothing. - Well, I mean, it's all part of it. You know, I'm gonna get an ocean if you ain't. It's just part of it, just stay in a pool. - It's not part of the experience. - It's not part of the experience. - Nowhere does it say when you go to Hawaii? - You get a floatie. Get a floatie and say an hotel pool, okay? We're not staying in a hotel, though, I don't know. I'm gonna go, the only person that goes to Hawaii and stays dry for seven days. - So, what is it? - You won't be dry. - Yeah. - That's true. - It's a point. - It's a point. - Yeah. - So, what was the all-star experience like for you? A five-time all-star back at the game, Home Run Derby, seeing those guys, give us some of your highlights. - The all-star game was fantastic. It's, again, 32 first-timers. So, young guys getting to share with their families and just getting to just be around the specialty of this event. And I told these guys, special oil guys, who I know a little better. I said, "Hey, cherish this, man. "You're getting to spend time with your teammates, "but you're with the best players in the league. "Your families get to enjoy this. "Your families are the ones who really are really going "to enjoy this because for the players, "it's annoying, it's a tactic, organizing everything. "But I just told the guys, "let your family really, really enjoy this "and soak it in because you'll always be an all-star. "So, just take this in, ask questions again. "You're with the best guys right now in the world. "So, take it in and ask questions. "And it seemed like everybody had a great time. "The Home Run Derby was great. "The skills competition was a little weird. "It was a little weird. "I think I could have won that right now. "I would have just won it the whole time. "But I think the whole thing, the game was great. "Having schemes start, I think that was just good "for the powerness of the movement of the youth of baseball. "And just overall, it was a great event "and cap where I'm with. "We had a great event, always, being around the guys. "Just putting out and promoting our positive energy "and promoting this game." - Love that, man. And I know your feet are in both camps. You're watching the Padres every night, you're watching the Orioles. Pretty gnarly injury last night with Jorge Matteo, former Padre, collided with Gunnar Henderson. The arm went the wrong way. And, you know, a lot of people are saying now, okay, does that pave the way for Jackson Holiday? The heir apparent, you know, to come back and get another shot in the big leagues. I actually saw him, AJ, mentioned in trade talks, which is crazy to me. Like, and I understand he scuffled at the big league level, but he was one of those guys, can't miss. The pressure on him has still got to be through the roof. What do you think they're going to do? You think they're going to bring him up? I don't think they're going to trade him. - Well, I mean, I wouldn't trade a one-one. That's very, very, especially a few years after he's one-one. It's not like it's eight years ago. I mean, again, he's still 20. Just with him, there's no, for me, personally, there's no rush with him. Maybe Connor Norby is since he's an older guy, college guy, can come in and fill in until he'll figure out with Matteo, just for the bridge. I think with Jackson, I don't think having him be a, I'd say, like a relief. That's not, I don't think that's what you want him for. You want him to play. Like, hey, you're out of play. You're going to play 145 games. It's not like, hey, we need you for a low weekend. - That's true. - Let me calm you down. You can't do that with him. I mean, personally, I don't think that unfortunately, you do have guys on the bench and on your roster who you can do that with, especially older guys, who understand these moves a little bit better. So I think that's why maybe Norby, but I've heard, you know, maybe Mullins and then you're talking about Mount Castle. Come on. The trade deadline, I think it's awesome, though, because it opens up everybody's Pandora's box of thoughts. - Oh, yeah. - What, what, what are the oils going to do? Are they going to trade for girl crochet? Is the pottery's been linked to crochet? Like, what, what is going on? Like, there's so many different options and different things and scenarios. I think that's a good thing, especially when guys are buyers. And what are the pottery's going to do? What are the oils going to do? You know that the Yankees are going to have to make them a move. You know, the Red Sox are probably going to have to make them a move. And while doing all that, the Dodgers are still trying to get a scoop. So like-- - Anna Rosarena is the latest. - Anna Rosarena. - They've been linked to Arona Rosarena. And, you know, you figure he's not having a good year. Doesn't mean they're going to sell low on it. And they're not, they're still going to get, you know, 'cause he's done it on the biggest stage. And I think you put him in that lineup. It's like, oh my God. Now I have to hate Randy Rosarena. Like I have to hate show Hayo Tani now, which doesn't make me very happy. - And you add athleticism. I mean, he's again, he's having a down year right now. I've watched it, he's having a struggle. But you go to L.A., you will all know what happened. That's the bright lights. They have no damn lights over there. That's a candle over there in Tampa. You got the bright lights over here. - He's playing it like a dark airplane hanger in Tampa. And you go to L.A., yeah. Weird things do happen. - The lights are bright. You know what I mean? And like him being around, show Hay being around Mookee, being around Freddie. Hey Oscar, like these are things that just jushy right on up. And I would hate to see him go to L.A. Because you know, it could be over a 60-game span. He can be one of the best players in the game. And that can be very, very scary when they already have three of the top five. - Adam Jones is with us. And Padre is obviously heading to Baltimore this weekend. - I think it's just gonna be Manny's second trip back. - Yeah. - Since he was a member of the Orioles. What's that gonna be like? I mean, what are the feelings about Manny in Baltimore still, you know, all these years later? - Well, I think it's mostly love. Obviously you got those aficionados who Manny didn't do this and he didn't do that. He didn't do that. Manny raped and he played unbelievable defense. Jesus Christ, he didn't run out every single ground ball. Okay, we got it. Okay, that's what you wanna cry about. The guy played his ass off. And to me, a lot of people, they always cry and complain about that. You know, what I hear from, but also too, that there's a lot of guys that say, man, I ain't seen nobody since Brooks Robinson. So he played ball like that. And, you know, it's a good thing now that the Orioles do have a young infielder like Gunnar Henderson, like Westbrook to be able to, I would say throw away Manny's time there, but like fans were able to move forward now and continue to move forward because now they have a generational talent in Gunnar, which I believe Manny is the same kind of guy, the generational talent. So I just think that, you know, I'm gonna be there Friday. So I'm gonna be excited to see the crowd reaction. I'm gonna have one of my AJ 10 beers and just watch a good baseball game and hopefully, and then say, that's gonna be a mixed emotion, right? It's the game where I can't lose. - Yeah, right, yeah, win, win, win, win. I can't lose, I can't lose this weekend, but who do I cheer for? See, there's like the silver lining. I'm just gonna cheer in the bathroom. - Yeah, yeah, what do you know what jersey are you wearing? - You cheer for both, right? Like you're just excited to see good baseball and your guys do well and, you know, hopefully it's some good ball games. Pottery's been playing some better baseball. I was, I think like all of us coming out of the break, stumbling seven, nothing, you lose. You're like, this is gonna be a rough second half. They rebound and they beat a really good guardian team. They are pitching their asses off right now. Every single guy in the rotation is just taking it on their back right now and it's just been so impressive to watch. And I just, I love it. And it's so fun to watch guys go out and compete and be in the zone and just attack hitters. It's been great the last few days. - I mean, before we, I mean, obviously we, you guys had a job to do talk to sports, but before all that, you guys are fans of the game. So you guys wanna see the effort. And again, you make your money by talking about it, but you wanna see the effort. And that's, as a fan now that I'm not a player, that's all I promote with players. Hey, always that's what you got. How you feel? Hey, go out there and give it all you got. I mean, because at the end of the day, that's all the fan wants is for you to go out there and compete. Is the game hard? Is it difficult? Are you gonna be in slumps and not play well, of course? But a fan knows when you're not giving it your all. And that's one thing that I learned very early and you gotta respect that. And so that's why I always played hard for the fans. But, you know, the Padres make it difficult for people because it's like they'll go on a five game losing streak and then they'll go on a five game winning streak. And you're like, huh, which team am I right now? Am I buying right now? Am I selling right now? Am I being a halt right now? So with them playing well, we talk about them buying. But if they go on a three game skid, we talk about them some. It's just weird. And, you know, hopefully the Padres just wanna, you know, sweep the Nationals. I don't know, I mean, take time, I don't lose the series. And I don't know how I feel about this weekend. Because everybody needs W's. But again, I want them to be buyers, especially, you know, because, again, we wanna see L.A. again in the playoffs 'cause we've got an unfinished business. - I'll give you a softball then. Adam Jones is with us. So not only are Padres fans packing Petco Park every night, but they've been traveling really well to road games. And I know there's gonna be a big Padres fan contingent, even some tier ones at Camden Yards this weekend. What's your recommendation? Like first time visit to Camden Yards. What do you have to see? Where do you gotta go in, around the ballpark, whatever. What are AJ's recommendations for Baltimore? - For Baltimore, first off, you gotta go to, to me, you gotta Addie Burger. Got the place where I have a burger still in the menu. It's a low-key spot. - You've got a burger? - You've got your own burger? - What's on your burger? - All right, lay it on us. - What's on it? - You got the beef, you got Kobe Jack, spicy pickles, lettuce and tomato. And then you got Taylor Tots with Nacho Cheese on the side. I took the elementary school back days. You know what I mean? - You're like me, dude. (laughing) - And it comes with a do-veil beer. So that's a place that I like to go. Also a place, it depends on your pocketbook, but it's a really good Italian place, Pagliata. Delicious place in a breakfast place. It's called Simply Marie's. She is, this black woman, she's an amazing, her life goal is to meet Oprah, and she had murals of me all in her damn place. Every time I'm in assembly, every time I'm there, I go in there and she's drinking the biggest hug. And she makes me just, yeah, all the food making wanna go right to sleep. But I'm a small time person. I don't need to go to the biggest restaurants, the prime ribs, and I'll be in a place for so long, I was able to find small places, and I was able to just go out there and be in Carminito and enjoy myself. And Baltimore's a really good city like that. There's also one place, Club Dale. - Club Dale. - That is a must. Club, it's a must. - Club Dale. - Look, I grew up on Mexican food. This is the closest thing, you don't get to it. It is amazing, absolutely amazing. - I, you're real tight with C.C. Sebastian, yeah? So I watched a clip yesterday, speaking of food, it had me howling, and it was him and Jimmy Rollins, and there was somebody else, I can't remember who it was, but they were talking about the cheese steaks in the visiting clubhouse in Philly. And C.C. said, "Bar none the best in the city." And the first time he showed up, he was with the Brewers, and him, Prince Fielder, Corey Hart, put down 20 cheese steaks. - There's like competitions to see which teams and which players can eat the most. - Well, it's all strategy. The Phillies aren't allowed to get it in their own. They do it because apparently you eat one and you're like, you fall asleep, and so these dudes, they actually said, C.C. told a story, he goes, "When we went back with New York, "Joe Tory took him out of the clubhouse. "We were not allowed to order him." Jimmy Rollins said, "We wanted him so bad, "but we knew what they would do to us." So we stopped, like we would have to send a cluby over to grab a couple here and there, but we weren't allowed to have them, they were like, they did it as a strategy to like get people fat and sleepy. Have you ever had one of those? - I've had about, let me count about 48 coming in there. It's a well-known thing, you got to have one, and you know, I would always ask Buck, "Hey, 'cause we didn't go to Philly often, "but that third game, hey, let me get that day off." Let me get that day off. - So you can eat a cheese steak. - Oh, 100% oh, yeah. It's all true, and the thing made it the best is that you got to customize. It's like, if you could eat Ruth Chris on your couch, they would make it that much better. - 100%. - So they make you the customer, you can get it a little bit extra meat, little bit more hot, and they won't judge you. You know what I mean? - That's incredible. - So you do what you, oh, it's everybody knows. And some teams come in there, you're like, "Damn." And you look at the results, and if you see they got swept, just better believe they ate a lot of ham cheese steak. - And then quickly, I'm just, what about at the ballpark at Camden Yards? I mean, I heard of Boogs Barbeque, I mean, what's anything at the ballpark? - Boogs Barbeque, obviously, is still a staple. About the fourth inning, there used to be a breeze that came around centerfield, and I used to just look to my right or my left and be like, "Damn, I miss Boogs, I would love to get a nice brisket sandwich." In the ballpark, they have some ballpark food. I'm not the craziest about like a crab. - Yeah, I'm with you. - I have hot dogs or something like that, I'm not. - I'm with you. - I can't do all that, but there's one company and they're sponsoring my dad and joint podcast, Jimmy Sifu, they have these crab cake, they're called Crab Cake Egg Rose. - Oh my Lord, oh my Lord, yes, that is the most. At the ballpark, Jimmy Sifu, Crab Cake Egg Rose, it is a must, at the ballpark. - Last thing for me, one of our beloved tier ones is Dominic, he lives in Baltimore. He'll be at the game that you're at. If a weird guy named Dominic, he's not weird, but if a guy comes up and he says, "Hey, I'm Dominic, Ben Woods fan," he said he would do anything to have a beer with you. So if you do see him, say hello, he's a really good dude, we can vouch for him. He's not gonna do anything weird or creepy, so he's a really good dude. - Okay, awesome. - All right, man. - I would love to have a beer with him and I have my own beer. We have a Joan beer from Monument, so he can buy me my own beer. - Yes, buy Adam Jones, his own beer too. - Yeah, we have our own beer too, so settle down. We don't have any murals yet. - Thank God, thank God, it's not enough, don't eat. - I do not want a mural, I do not want a mural. - Thank you my friend, have a great time. - Always gentlemen. - Adam Jones, big league Wednesday. Yeah, just segment made everybody in San Diego hungry, so. - I won't stop. - Sorry about that. - I won't stop thinking about crab cake egg rolls. - I will not, I love crab cakes, I love egg rolls. Holy shit. - I would love to have a breakfast place where they just, they have murals in me, you walk in, it just makes you a giant breakfast. - Oh, you're back, it's good to see you, what do you want? - I don't, I don't want a mural. 'Cause it will not be a good, remember the last time somebody painted a picture of us? Remember that? - Yeah. - Do you remember that? - The last time, can we find that and put it up? - The last time? - We'll put it up in the chat, it's been a while. - The last time that somebody painted a picture of me, it made me feel even worse about myself than I already do. Who hit me in the face with a bat or a pan or something? - That look like a box. - It was impressionism, it's not necessarily realism. It was kind of cubism, I'm not even sure what they were going with. - You look fine. - I found it, I'll pull it up for eight o'clock. - We'll pull that up when we come back. Bigly Wednesday will continue with Brett Boon. Gonna join us at 8.35 or else you can give away some Sebastian Meniscalco comedy tickets in the next half hour. So do not go away and then Xander Schoffley will be with us at 9.25 on a big Wednesday here with Ben & Woods on San Diego's number one sports station, 97.3, the fan. (upbeat music) - Oh yeah, halfway home on a Wednesday. Ben & Woods, 97.3, the fan. Lovely to be here with all of you. Beloved it, tier one's out there and yeah, I always get the question, how do I become a tier one? Very easy, there's no form or anything. You gotta fill out, there's no donation. - Send $100, yeah, $100 on your hand. - You're all the way here. - Four easy payments. - All you gotta do is listen. - And then tell your friends if you like the show, that's it. And now the mouth has been great for this show because we've never had one marketing nickel. So you guys are actually the ones responsible for our success, not us, not us at all. You guys telling your friends, hey, listen to Ben & Woods, it's great, it's great. If we ever did have a billboard or anything like that or a painting promoting us, I hope actually it doesn't look like the one that was hanging in the foyer, foyer, foyer, foyer, foyer, foyer of our old building. It's something that's like a tradition there and they've been doing it forever. And I was so honored to work at that station and have my own picture. - Picture in the Louvre now. - And then they painted Ben and he looks, he was a bigger guy back then. (laughing) I look fat, let's just be clear. - How did you gain all the weight? - Oh, my lord. And then there's our old executive producer in the middle of us. And then-- - He looks great. - He looks fantastic. - He looks fantastic. - Weird how that works. - And then there's your old pal Woods, who apparently-- - That's not Paulie. - No, apparently he just, I just went like four rounds with Connor McGregor, who smashed my face in. And I mean, it is a really bad representation of me. And I had no offense to this person that painted it. Maybe you were in a hurry, 'cause the only thing I can think of, 'cause I look like-- - That's-- - Did they go to the, did they go to the San Diego County Fair and have one of those guys, the caricature-- - Quick, sketch drawers, yeah. - What happened to my nose? (laughing) I don't have that nose. - No, that's not your nose. - That's a, someone else's nose. So he says Ben looks very happy. Yeah, he's fat and happy. Fat and happy back then. - Do you have a crustache there or what's going on? - Yeah, there's a bit of the facial hairs. You got the double chin down. - You would not have let you massage your wife. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that is real. Paulie's not zooming in on it. I mean, it is just, it's the nose that really was-- - I mean, I'm tipping the scales at at least 370. (laughing) - I'm not picking that picture. - When their eyes are really close together, they are. - Beatty. - Beatty. - Beatty eyes. - Yes. - It's not what you look like. - Beatty eyes. - No, you do not. - That was just fake glasses. - Yeah, that was in the receptionist area. When you walked into the station-- - First thing you were. - A guest, if you were there to pick up a prize, and they had them all on the wall, framed. They looked good. - Yeah, there's Darren Smith. - Jim Rome. - Darren Smith, Scott, IBR, everybody looked great. - I'm hanging with these legends up here. This is amazing for me. I can't believe then the unveiling happened, and I felt like, was it Ronaldo? When he saw his, was it Ronaldo's statue that does not look right? - Yes, does not look at all the camera. - And that thing went on the wall, and I went, oh, oh. - Everyone's saying my hair looks good, and it does. - Hair does look good. - I, I just. - Give you old blue Padres handle. - Yeah, man. - Now when that station went under, it's kind of free for all. Everybody grabbed a bunch of stuff. - Craig Elston literally walked out with like microphones, and I remember, he's like, "Hey, look what I was doing!" "What is going on?" I didn't know that we could just take stuff. - But before all that went down, my girl Elaine was like the office manager. - Love Elaine. She was the best. - She was a sweet angel. - She pulled me aside and said, "Hey, I have something that you might want." You remember the guy that we replaced at the station. - Oh, yeah, yeah. - And at this station. - Yep. - Maybe he can, can you get the like job at the number one station in like LA or New York or something? - I don't want to move, though. I know, but he falls up and we can come in and replace him. - It's true. - She had his horrible caricature paintings. - Oh, it was the greatest. - And I took it. - And you have it. - And I still have it. - You still have it. - It's in storage, and my wife goes, "Get rid of that." I said, "Absolutely not, never." I'll get rid of you before I get rid of that. - Yeah, 100%. - It's you or him and it-- - It's a family heirloom. - It really is. - I can sell that for like four bucks. - Yeah. - Are you kidding me? - I bought his autograph on eBay. It was $3, I think. We hung it here in the studio. - Yeah, that is a rough look. - Before we move on, and I do want to talk a little bit more about last night's Ponderace game, they always tell us in radio teasing is important. - Yes. - Like what's coming up. - Next, keep them hanging on the edge of their seat. There's also something called horizontal teasing where you tease what's going to be happening tomorrow at the same time, like yesterday. We told you about Xander Shoffley coming on. I'd like to tease that tomorrow at this time, our show will be over. We will be off here. - Yes, I got to hit the microphone. - Holy cow. - Because our show will only run until 8.05 tomorrow morning when we will turn things over to the EcoWater SoCal Pre-Game Show at 8.05 AM with Sam Levitt for a 9.05 first pitch in the series finale against the Washington National. So, there's your tease for 24 hours from now. We'll be on our way home. How about that for a day that ends at 8.05 AM? - I'm all the way in. I'm all the way in on it. - How's your coffee turned out this morning, by the way? - Did you go back? - No, I actually, I went to the bigger chain and spent a little bit more to make sure it was actually coffee in my coffee. You missed it yesterday. - Oh, no. - Got my McDonald's coffee, but the guy who was filling it up, and I watched him do it, put in, he started filling it up, and then halfway through, I hear him go, oops. And then he moves over to a different spigot and starts filling the rest of my iced coffee up and then just hands it to me. And I realized quickly that half of it is iced tea and half of it is iced coffee. - Such an awful-- - Did it start over? - It's an awful combo. - Just gave it to me, and that's what I had yesterday, and I could not go back this morning. So, I will go back at some point, but I decided to treat myself today to actual iced espresso, actually. - Coffee. - And, you know, the first thing of the chat this morning, the very first comment was McDonald's Guy 1. Oh, look, it's that Ben Higgins guy. McDonald's Guy 2. Throw some cranberry juice in his coffee this morning. They're just gonna get you every day. So, hey, listen, man, that's a classic misstep. You know, they made a customer unhappy, and that customer then went to a, I guess, competitor the next morning for his coffee, and actually spent a little bit more money on it. So, I can see why you didn't want to go back. - I want to talk about Mike Schilt just for a second here, because we're definitely been learning the personality of the Padres manager. - How do we? - Yeah, both in our conversations, but also through the decisions that he made. - Yeah. - And one thing that has become very clear is that Mike Schilt, when he sees a win, you know, within his grasp, he's going to try to take it. - That's correct. - It doesn't matter if it's a safe situation or not. If he thinks that there's any chance of the other team coming back, he's going to step on it. And he used his top relievers yesterday, four-nothing game, did not have any qualms with going with, you know, Robert Suarez. And I'm okay with that, because you can't predict the future. You don't know if you'll need Robert Suarez today or tomorrow. You could have saved him and not pitched him at all, and then, you know, had him completely fresh for today. But with the difficulties that the Padres have had in the bullpen, beyond their top, I'm going to say three guys. - Three. - Suarez, Estrada, and Morihone. - That's it. - Beyond that, there's really no lead that you feel is that safe. - No. - And you have this chance to win a third in a row, take the first game of the series, hitting a series. I'm okay with the decision to just step on their throat and put the best guy in, and make sure you win that game. And then, you take your chances with the next game tomorrow, today. Maybe you're up by seven this time, and you can go with a different option. Or maybe you're down by three, and you're like, "Boy, I wish we had you Suarez yesterday "when we had a chance to get him some work with a lead." I'm all right with that, but that's clearly part of Mike Schilt's makeup. He sees a win. He does not want to take any chances in letting that win get away. - He doesn't pussyfoot around with it at all. - No, just God. - I got a DM last night from Steve, and he said, "Is Vasquez on a pitch count? "Six innings, 68 pitches, they pull him, "or an innings limit? "And bring in Suarez in a non-safe situation? "What if we need him the next two games? "Make these pitching decisions make sense." As far as Vasquez goes, guys, he is such a unknown commodity still, and he gave up the double, I have no problem. Because what happens if the next guy yacks one out? That leads now cut in half. You know what I'm saying? - He had given up, I think, two doubles for the last three batters. - Two doubles for the last three batters. - Yeah, like, "Hey man, let's take this good fortune. "Let's send him out on a high note "of really doing a great job "and hanging a zero on these guys, "and let the bullpen come in and continue to hang zeros." - Keep in mind, and again, the pitch count was low, and if they needed him, I mean, if they were up eight nothing, they probably would have just let Vasquez go. But it is the seventh inning. It's the deepest he's ever pitched, and even though it's not that many pitches, it's still up and down seven times to get out there. And Vasquez does not get a lot of swing and miss, so you can, I think he only struck out one batter the entire game. So you know a runner on base. The next guy's probably making contact somewhere, contact could then fall in. It could be soft contact, but you bloop it in. Bring in Morihone, you've got a better chance. He gives up almost no heart contact. He gets a lot more swing and miss. Ended up getting out of that inning really quickly. Got the force a third on the base running mistake of a nice play by Kim and Manny, and then quickly got a double play to end the inning. So, you know, I'm sure he's available today if they needed Adrian Morihone again with how little he was used yesterday. And you got Randy Vasquez out with a really good feeling. Another good start, a confidence builder for him. Someone that you're probably gonna need to rely on continually down the stretch here, because at this point he's your fourth starter. Even if you get Musgrove back, or even if you make a trade, he's still five, six at best. You're gonna see him over the course of the rest of this season, and that was a good outing for Randy Vasquez. - Yeah, and I just don't have a problem with that. What bugs me sometimes is, again, it's not a Mike Schilt problem, right? It's not a Mike Schilt problem at all. It's a Yuki Matsui, Austin Davis, Sean Reynolds, and Steven Colek problem. That's where the issue lies, is that there is not a lot of trust there. And I think, for good reason. Now, he has given guys shots in high leverage. He gave Yuki one last Friday against Cleveland, and Yuki got the job done. He gave Yuki another shot the next day, and way less high leverage at all. It was very low leverage, and he got the job done. Gave Colek a shot in high leverage. Didn't get the job done. So you're a little bit up against it. When you don't, we don't have the Phillies bullpen. Ben, we don't have the Diamondbacks bullpen, where you just like, every guy comes in, throwing 98, you know, with movement. It's just, they have what they have for now. That's why the bullpen remains, something that's very important to address. - Bill says, "No need to put Suarez "in a non-safe situation. "Now he can't close if the next two games are tight." It, yeah, there's the risk there, that they'll have one run leads the next two days. I'm sure he'd be available for at least one of them. - Absolutely. - And then they had a day off on Monday. They just had the all-star break. If he had to go again today, he could. Now, if he went today, he'd probably be down tomorrow morning. - Yeah, but if he goes today, you feel like you're winning that ball game. - Right, and he's already won the series. You take your chances, and if he doesn't go today, then obviously, he could go on, right, on Thursday. - You need some things to break in your favor. You need to put up some numbers to where an Austin Davis, a Sean Reynolds, a Stephen Colek, is not going to hurt you tremendously. Last night, I didn't feel it was one of those games. I didn't feel like this team's out of it. We had an eight run lead against these guys, and they came back on us, right? Does everybody remember that? So you don't- - They had the- - The tying run at the plate. - The tying run at the plate. - And they hit one, like, looked like it was gone, right? - Correct, so you don't think Mike Schilt remembers? We had an eight-nothing lead against these guys. I'm not going to f around with a four-run lead when I've got these guys rested and healthy, and he won a ball game. Why are we complaining about winning a ball game? You know, he's not going- I don't think he's going to put his pitchers in harm's way, right? And if Robert Schwartz says, "I can't go," he's not going to make him go. So again, that eight-run lead that they blew is definitely fresh in his mind, as it should be. - What a great turn all the way through the starting rotation, though. Four guys, I think I saw after the game, the stat was 0.69 ERA since the all-star break for the starters. - One run in 27 innings, something like that. - The last 27. - No, well, 'cause they had the eighth inning on Friday, which- - Well, just for the starters, though. - Oh, just starters, yeah. - So Waldron gave up one in, what, seven innings, and then C set his gym, and then King had a gym, and now Vazquez with six shutout innings, so. - And then since that eighth inning, it was something like one in 27 since then. - One hit on, or one run on eight hits, I think, in 26 innings or something ridiculous? - No, I saw someone in the chat earlier. I was talking about the starting pitching. Yeah. - It was really, really good. - It's been really, really good. - Do we- - Do we- - Do we think that it's gonna continue? I hope so. Is there any reason- - Really cool. - Is there any reason to think that, okay, now they're good with their number, one through four, they just need to find a five? Not yet, the one thing that they still have lacked all season long is consistency. So- - You don't want the tractor beam to show up today, and- (whistle blows) - Back to the 500 mark, you know. - Back towards 500, you got a really tough series in Baltimore, really tough. - And I get, every starting pitcher's gonna have clonkers throughout the course of the year. - Yeah, you don't wanna be the one, though, that breaks the streak. Matt Waldron today is gonna, and he is really, really pitched. Well, it doesn't get any run support. Got another lefty on the bump today. That, is that gone away now? The left-handers are the bugaboo, and we scored four runs last night. It feels certainly a little better than it did for a while, where they just could not be the left-hander, so. - Well, you know, I think Donovan Solano has helped. Getting Zander Bogart's back will help with the lefties, so it's a different lineup. - Is Don, is he gonna play? - I think he'll play today would be my guess. Maybe even the next two days. We'll talk about that coming up. Let's take a quick time out. I got some Sebastian Maniscalco tickets to give away. Also, you know what, I'm not throwing you under the bus. I'm gonna throw us both under the bus. - Oh, this sounds great. - Embarrassing Padre's things that you should probably know if you were a radio host and didn't know. - Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, I'm embarrassed. - Ben and Woods edition. - I'll wear it. - Coming up next. - Oh God. - After traffic here on 97 State of Fame. - You can't be the only ones. - You have to be honest with us. - Yeah, you have to promise. - Promise you'll be honest. - We admit what we're gonna admit, that you're gonna say, oh, I also did not know that. Next, on 97.3 of fan. It's Ben and Woods Confessions time. I'm not proud of this. - I'm not either. - You're not proud of it either. - I'm actually really embarrassed by it, but I'll-- - But I would like to know if you're in our chat and wanna chime in on YouTube, or you can tweet us at Ben and Woods, if you were unaware of this as well. Because Woods texted, and I had to nod in the same thing. When the Padres put the lineup together yesterday, and they had Bryce Johnson out in the outfield, batting ninth. And then he came up to the plate for the first time. And what was that, the third inning, I think? - Yep. - And he was batting from the right side of the plate, not the left side of the plate. - Yeah. - We were both kind of shocked. Did you know he was a switch hitter? - I did. - I thought he was a leftie. - I thought he was strictly-- - I thought he was just a leftie. - I thought he was strictly a left-handed bat. - Are we sure that he wasn't just doing some bit or something? I could have sworn that that guy was just a leftie. - I have a, there's a guy on my team that he's hitting really well, and he'll just sometimes, when we're up big, he'll go, I'm gonna hit left-handed. And he does that. And I thought, is Bryce Johnson doing a bit right now? - Drill walk, I mean, didn't really have to swing the bat. - I feel a little better. - Okay, some other people are getting the same thing. - No, he doesn't. - Actually, we don't even know if he's a hitter. - That's a good point. - Fair. - I did not know that. You guys don't, you know this about me. My attention span is not great always. It's weird that I like baseball, don't you think? Like, doesn't it weird that that's my greatest love is baseball of all things. When my attention span is what it is, and I'm oftentimes at home, you know, it's bedtime and everything else. And it's hard to sit and watch a ball game. And holy smokes, man. I, when he walked up there right hand, I go, who's this? (laughs) I was like, I think we even sat on the air yesterday. Well, Bryce Johnson won't be in the lineup. Who can play right field? 'Cause obviously he's a left-handed hitter. I had no earthly idea. - I'm trying to call up his splits for the season as a versus lefty. Apparently he has 10 at-bats this year versus left-handed pitching when presumably-- - He missed 'em all. - He was batting from the right side of the plate. And yeah, I don't remember any of them. - That's really-- - He doesn't have any hits from the-- - No, maybe that's why. - From the right side of the plate. He's an 0-4, 0-0-0 average. - Doesn't have many hits from the left side. - He has walked three times as a, including once last night as a right-handed hitter. Which, yeah, neither of us were aware of that. - Yeah. - I mean, as a lefty, he's batting a robust 182. And as a righty, he's batting a not-so-robust 0-0-0. - Zero. Got some good defense, good wheels though, and, you know, plays defense. Yeah, they need tattoos to get back. I mean, I know you can't rush it 'cause then you're risking even longer-term injury with the stress reaction, but man, that would be a major upgrade. And Peralta's done a nice job against righties, which is why we haven't seen Bryce Johnson as much lately since he's been out there. But defensively, you know, David Peralta's not the same player that he used to be, and Johnson does give you that speed in the outfield. - Yeah, I, there's a, the latest in the rumor mills. I believe this is from Dennis, Dennis Lynn's latest. It's that the Padres League sources said, continue to inquire about both hitters and pitchers ahead of the July 30th trade deadline. I can kind of assume, to baseball players. They're interested in baseball players. I had assumed it was going to be pitching only, and I don't want to read the tea leaves. Hopefully it's just a big nothing burger. But it says they're interested in the former being the hitters. Might have something to do with Fernando Tati Jr's uncertain timeline and a possible desire for insurance in case a rise re-aggravates his thumb injury, which I thought he did last night before hitting a home run. Their need for pitchers is well-known. So AJ checking in on both the ball here. - Yeah, I mean, yeah, you do need, you can upgrade with another bat that can play the outfield. - Yes. But then if Tati's does come back in a month, now you've got a couple of players that-- - But you also have a couple of players that are expendable at that point. - Yeah, I mean, you haven't even gotten Donovan Solano into a game yet a second half of the season. Like a right-handed hitting right fielder would be decent right now. But then, you know, when Tati's comes back, you really have no spot for that person that you just acquired. - Tati can DH, it's a pinch hitter. - Yeah, but you already need your DH in the infield every single day. - Yeah, potentially, if everyone's still here. - Or you're sitting in a rise, or you're sitting in Bogart's, or you're sitting at Chrono-worth. If everybody's healthy, you need your DH in the infield. So you can't really add another bat that you can get into the lineup. - Oh, but you can. You can add a bat because a bench, as we know, is still very important in the playoffs. And if you make it to the playoffs, it's important down the stretch. And again, Tati's coming off an injury. How much can he really play? Yeah, so there's a lot of moving pieces to this, but I guess it doesn't surprise me that he's actually certain. - I think a bench is more important for the 162. Once you get to the playoffs, you don't really need much of a bench. I mean, I don't know about that. - I do. You've got a designated hitter. You're gonna keep your best hitters out there. How many times do Bob Melvin uses backup catcher in the playoffs? - That's an anomaly. He should have. - He should have. - I don't know what happens. - You're gonna play your best player. - You're gonna play your best players. Occasionally, you've got a platoon guy where you're gonna go right and left. And in that sense, you'll use your bench, but once you get to the playoffs, it's very, very rare that you see bench players getting in that much. A pinch runner here or there. - Important? - Yeah, they have plenty of pinch runners. That's not the issue right now. But in terms of the bats, it's just not a need for pinch hitters without pitchers hitting anymore. It's just very rare that that happens. They're putting in more defensive replacements at the end of the game than offensive replacements. - That's true. That's true. - That's true. - Let's take a timeout because Brett Boone is gonna join us next. It's a big league Wednesday. Hosts to the Brett Boone podcast. Talk about everything going on with a trade deadline coming up on Tuesday next with Ben & Woods on San Diego's number one sports station 97-3, the fan. Baseball coverage on 97-3, the fan is presented by T-Mobile, switch to T-Mobile. You can get tons of benefits and still save on every plan versus AT&T and Verizon. Use their savings calculator to find out how at t-mobile.com/switch and some of our best baseball coverage every week comes in the form of our conversations with Brett Boone. Hosts to the Brett Boone podcast. Did you see who he just had on? - Was it Bo Jackson? - Bo Jackson. I will ask him about that and more right after a check of traffic here on 97-3, the fan. Boone knows baseball. We're joined by Odyssey MLB Insider, Brett Boone. Insider calls presented by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Granger has the right product for you. Call clickgranger.com or just stop by. Brett, also the host of the Brett Boone podcast featuring the most notable names in MLB and around sports every week. I'd say Bo Jackson qualifies as a notable name, Brett. Good morning. - Good morning, guys. How you doing? - Well, man, Bo Jackson. Oh, my God. Never saw anything like that guy. Never saw anything. - Woody, I would never just kind of agree with you just for the radio drama. - Sure. - But you know, when I interviewed Bo and I knew him as a kid, played against him a little bit when he was rehabbing in the minor leagues. But when I just started thinking back to Bo and I was going over highlights and stuff, I kind of agree with you. I don't think we've seen anything like him. I mean, he was just a freak of all freaks. And I say that in a very endearing way, but yeah, he was something that. - The arm, the arm. I mean, the hose piece that he had and he would, he made some of the gnarliest shows. The catch he made in Yankee Stadium where he ran up the freaking wall and ran around it. Like, he was a magician. - It was like a cyborg. It was like, here's the football. I see that white line at the end. - You'll get it. - That extends. Go, that's good if you go past that. He was, he was like a man. He was unbelievable. - The speed. - When he ran into the tunnel all the way through on the touchdown. - I know. - It's his presence on the field. It's almost like on the baseball field run on the base. It's almost like you heard him run by you. It's bizarre, it's bizarre. He was, he was something pretty darn special. - I asked him. - Oh yeah. - I asked him how much money, how much money he'd make in the, in the NIL, if he was at Auburn right now. And he just started laughing. He said, I would have never gone pro. - Right. I mean, I heard, we were talking about it. I was talking about with somebody yesterday at, my son's baseball practice. And I think the backup, I think arch manning with all in, this year, as the backup at Texas is going to make millions of dollars, like multiple millions of dollars as, you know, the backup, the air apparent, the incumbent. But that's insane to think about guys like Reggie Bush, Bo Jackson, how great they were, Vince Young, all those guys in college, what they would have made. It is, yeah, Dion, oh my God, it is a brave, brave new world out there, Boonie. - Yes, it is, yes, it is. - It's awesome. Did you go, you went to the All-Star game, yeah? - I did not. - Oh, you did not go. I thought you did go. Did you watch it? - I was going, I wasn't going, ended up not going. I ended up having an event in Seattle. So, now I didn't do the All-Star. And, you know, I caught bits and pieces. I'm a bit, I'm a bits and pieces all-star. I'm a bit, you know, the home run Derby. And, you know, I'm a bits and pieces guy. I did find something. I finally came clear. I said, well, how are these BP pitchers throwing such good strikes? They're throwing from like four feet. - Yeah. - It's like every hand soft toss with, and I know those balls in the All-Star game. They're always pumped up pretty good. So, I mean, they're like Pentacles, you know. So, I know, you know, they want the show. I get it. I hit the home run Derby, and those balls are just jumping. But it's like you're throwing from four feet. It seems like it's kind of easy. It turns into kind of a marathoner who's got the best cardio, who ends up winning the home run Derby. So, I think we're at a time. I think it's run its course. It's been entertaining. It's been great. I think we got to change the rules up a little bit. What those rules are, I don't know. I'll leave that to the nerds. I'll leave that to you. - Yeah, it's a bet. Well, I had my idea for the All-Star game to change up the rules this week was now that the American and National League distinctions are kind of lost with inter-league play. And you don't really feel like you're playing that much for your league anymore. I thought it would be very interesting to divide the game by age and have like the young players under 28 against the older players over 28. And I thought that might ramp up the stakes a little bit because veterans would not want to get shown up by the young guys and the young guys would love to show up the swag and play against the vets in the All-Star game. - Well, how about this? How about the unis? Let's talk about-- - Oh, well that's everyone agrees on that, Brad. - No, no, no, but do you remember the old commercials, the less filling? - Yeah, yeah, Bob Euchar, tastes great. - Yeah, it's like, yeah, the Euchar or Rodney Dangerfield. That's what those unis look like. 'Cause I'm all, you know, I got kids now. I'm not, I'm the traditional. I love the whites at home. I love the grays on the road. I didn't like the alternative uniforms. I didn't feel good at them. But I've come around a little bit. I like kind of some of the new unis I'm seeing, some of the new look for 2024. I think it's cool. The All-Star game, you're pushing the envelope guys. You got, you're losing me now. You're losing my progressiveness. I'm pulling back on you, get rid of those. I know everybody doesn't like them, but I've been trying to roll with Major League Baseball in their new way. I couldn't roll with that one. - They make it difficult sometimes. Booniam, with you 100%, talking to Brett Boon here on Ben & Woods this morning, and they can. They can make it, I'm, I kind of fall somewhere in the middle of traditionalist. And I like a lot of the new stuff as well. But man, it, trade deadline is something that we can count on every single year. Being a part of, you know, the pod raise team, essentially, nobody is safe. You know, I mean, you gotta be feeling, if you're a prospect right now, you're probably a little bit on pins and needles. If you are a couple of guys in that clubhouse, you're probably a little nervous about what could happen in a week or so. Agent Preller's always super active. Your thoughts on, on the pod raise, what they need to do and what they will do. - You gotta go out and get some pitching. You know, you gotta go get some pitching. I don't worry that much, Tati's to me. You need to have him back. - Yes. - You have a healthy Tati. So I know he's starting to do baseball activities now. But you need a healthy Tati. You get him, couple him with the veteran, Machado and the rest of that. I think the offense is fine. I wouldn't mind seeing him going out and adding a bullpen piece as well. You know, Suarez at the end of that line is pretty darn good. But I'd like to see him add a bullpen piece. I think there's a playoff team. I think this is a team that can go deep in the playoffs. And I think with that roster in place right now, you gotta go out and really add. You know, offensively, I think you're fine. I wouldn't, it wouldn't be a big deal to me if you didn't add anything offensive. But you gotta go add maybe a starting pitcher. You gotta add a piece in that bullpen with the up in the air of Darvish and Musgrove. So I think you gotta definitely add a piece there as far as the negation. Now, you know, the interesting thing around baseball, it's not just the Padres. It's every fan base, every team, are we gonna add, are we buyers, are we sellers? If you look at the landscape, there's so many teams at this stage with them moving that trading deadline to two months versus one month. There are so many teams still, there's so much parity. There are so many teams still in it. There are very few that you can say, oh, we're sellers, we're out of it. Yeah, there's the bottom teams that everybody kinda knows, hey, it's over for you. But never has there been so much parity, so many teams that possibly could be buyers at the deadline where the inventory is gonna be down. You know, everybody wants Google, maybe a crochet from the Chicago White Sox. But, you know, if you look at the big offensive, the Vladimir Guerrero, that could be a viable piece. That could be added. I look at him, but outside of that, who is the big difference maker offensive guys that could possibly be available at the deadline? Maybe a Robert from Chicago, but how much do you trust his health? You know, he's been a guy that's proven he can't stay on the field. So, maybe he looks great, he doesn't look so great 'cause you don't know if you can count on him. So, it's gonna be interesting in this deadline, a lot of buyers, not that many sellers, and the guys that are sellers don't have that much to sell. I think you look to the Blue Jays, though, from our perspective. They're talking about keeping that group in tact for another year. I don't think so. I think when Push comes to the show, everybody's available on that team. Glad he be in the shiniest object. But you got a gossip and you got a burials. You got a kukuchi. And the guys like that abasset in that starting rotation, that could be a good fit for a lot of teams down the stretch. - Our Odyssey Insider call with Brett Boone is brought to you by Granger. And Brett, I wanted to ask what was your experience with the trade deadline like as a player? Whether your name, you know, up in rumors, you certainly teammates that you had that were dealt or new teammates coming in, any stories from the deadline you have to share with us? - Well, I think as a player, you know, I was never really worried that I was going anywhere at the trade deadline. But it was always pins and needles for, I know we've got a really good team this year. You know, I'm doing a hypothetical. We've got a really good team. And I wonder what our ownership is going to do. It's amazing, this shot of adrenaline that could be pumped into that clubhouse. If there was, if that front office in your ownership group gets behind you and goes and makes a splash at the trading deadline, it can turn that clubhouse from a, what are we going to do here to wow? The big boys, the guys upstairs, they got our back. That could be a difference maker at the trading deadline. I've been on three or four real, real contending playoff teams. And the years that we went for it definitely gave us a rush in that clubhouse and a feeling like we're holding this together. I've also been on a really good team that at the deadline, we just kind of stood there and stood pat. And it was almost like, oh, well, you know, 25 guys at the time. Now I know the rosters are 26 and kind of look at each other in that clubhouse to go. Guys, I guess we're on our own. You know, we're going to do it without management. So it can really be a difference maker from a psychological standpoint for the guys on that roster. There's 26 guys down there. You make a move, whether you stand pat or you haven't forbid if you sell at the trading deadline when you're still in the hunt, man, that's a real quandary where you go, wow, management. I guess they're telling us what they think of us right now. They don't believe in it. So it can be a psychological positive or a psychological negative that I don't think anybody really ever factors in. - Well, we will definitely be keeping our eye on all the news over the next now six days until the trade deadline next Tuesday at 3 p.m. Pacific. And Brett, I'm sure we'll catch up with you again, maybe next week right after the trade deadline to get your reaction to all of it, appreciate it as always. - You got it, guys. - There he is. Odyssey MLB Insider, Brett Boon. Insider calls presented by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Granger has the right product for you. Call clickgranger.com or just stop by. Check out the Brett Boon podcast in the Odyssey app. His latest guest, of course, Bo Jackson this week. And yeah, I mean, we know that that's what they always say. You know, player comes in, trade deadline, shot of adrenaline, injection, we're really going for it. Padres have been there a couple of times and you see what happens. I mean, when Juan Soto arrived, one of the most electric days in Livingston, Padres history, right? And then the first game, when Brandon Drury hit the Grand Slam and I mean-- - I was like, we're never losing it yet. - There was really a thought that the Padres might go something like 58 and two down the stretch on their World Series. - Yeah, in their World Series. - It was like, yeah, I'll never forget it. - It was one of the most fun, like 36 hours ever. Like the three of us that morning, just refreshing, every-- - Just silence, by the way. - Just waiting, I mean, every insider pretty much had it at one point. Like it's done deal, but we're like, nope, nope, nope, not until passing, not until passing, not until passing. - At least. - But ultimately that shot of adrenaline or even the disappointment, it wanes and you still have to then just go and play baseball down the stretch. - The high was around for like three days and then we got the T-suspension news. That was the other part of it. We're like, oh, we just traded for one Soto and to T-s is coming back this week, like it's over. - It's over, it's over for all of you. What might have been is it's hard to lament, it's not hard to lament, but you know, nothing we can do about it now. You know, the pieces that AJ Preller goes out and tries to acquire. You know, look, man, it's not rocket science. It's gotta be the right guys and the health of this team moving forward is what's ultimately gonna propel them into a postseason birth or not. I mean, the guys got to stay healthy. They got to produce. They got some really tough games coming up. They have a stretch. I saw somebody made the point yesterday. There's a stretch in late August, Benny, that is just nasty, as you could imagine. So it's gonna be a tough road win today. Win today, you win a series. - Got open champion, Xander Shoffley coming up in about 30 minutes. Before we get to the top of the hour though, I still have those Sebastian Meniscalco tickets to give away. If you want to win them, let's do it right now. Comedian Sebastian Meniscalco coming to Vieja's Arena on August 16th. Tickets are on sale now at ticketmaster.com, but you can win a pair by being the third caller right now, 833-288-097-3, 833-288-097-3, win a pair of tickets to Sebastian Meniscalco coming to Vieja's Arena on August 16th next month. - Less than a month away. - Yeah. - You're moving quickly. - It is. - The lottery's not less than 60 games remaining, 59. - Oh my God. - Games left, less than the shortened season. They have a season like they did in 2020. What do they go, I'll say 37 and 23? That'll get it done. - That'll get it done. - No problem. - Yeah, sprint time. - They do 36 and 23, let's say, over the last 59 games, that would leave them 16 games above 500, which would be like 89 wins. Easy. - You're in. - You don't even, you probably need to be that, that good. That would be their pace, a little under their pace from the 2020 shortened season. - It is right there in front of you. This season, by the way, last season was the most draggy season of all time. This season is flying by. I'd like to continue with this frenetic pace. - It is, but I heard mud saying, doesn't it feel like Korea was like six months ago? - No, for me, it does not that long ago. - This season has flown by, you know why? 'Cause it's been a pretty enjoyable product to watch. It really has. It's been a pretty enjoyable product filled with really good moments. And so many more than last season. Last season was excruciating. - And less excruciating moments. They've had a couple bad losses, but not like-- - Oh yeah, of course. - I mean, it's not last year. - You're used to that, you know, you're totally-- - I mean, just the abundance of one run losses and extra inning losses last year. I mean, they were, oh, in, what? Oh, in 10 at one point in extra inning games. - Yeah, it's also part of it was-- - I mean, in 10-30 run games now in Hater. You're like, you're supposed to be so much better. - Yes, it's definitely a problem. - Definitely a different feeling. All right, people calling in for Sebastian Maniscalco. Paulie's gonna answer some phones and then come back with a rival report. Next year on 97.3, the fan. Doesn't know I've ever talked to the champion golfer of the year, but that's the title bestowed on the winner of the Open, which Xander Shoffley is and will join us in just over 20 minutes here on Ben & Woods, looking forward to that, Woods. - Hey, too, you nervous? - Well, we just talked to him like a month and a half ago after we won the PGA Championship. - We talk to Mike Schilt every Friday. - Oh, that's true. - You know, we get nervous every time. - Xander's a really nice-- - What's up, my dude, how you doing? - Hey, how you doing, Skip? - Not that Mike Schilt isn't a nice guy, but Xander has no reason to be stressed or tense. I mean, he's on top of the game right now. - He's gonna play in the Olympics though and defend that gold medal. We don't need to hold his feet to the fire at the moment. There's no Xander Shoffley fan base that's demanding that we ask the tough questions. - Be curious. - Xander in this interview. - This guy, his heart rate is so low. He has golfed in some of the most. He looks so calm. - He looks so calm. - I mean-- - I mean-- - What kind of pressure does the Olympics have? I mean, you're still going up against very good. Golfers, a lot of the same guys that you see on the tour, but teeing it up in the Olympics, is it like, where's it ranked as far as like the Masters? - Yeah. - You know, they open. - He has a gold medal though. - He's got one. - He doesn't take it away if you lose, so I feel like he's gotta be feeling pretty good going into this one. - Big time. - He has not played that course though. He was not on that Ryder Cup team that was in Paris. Oh, is that five years ago or whenever they had the last one there? So it will be a new course to him coming up next week when they do the Olympic golf tournament. - Something tells me he'll be fine. - I agree. This was-- - True one was a new course to him. - Yeah. - And he did just fine. - Just fine. - So we'll talk to Zander coming up about 20 minutes before then though, we can get some other headlines from Pauli in today's Rital Report. - And get things started here with our addition, today's addition of the Rital Report. - Couldn't lose that open. - No, I'll tune it to the muff. Greatest. (upbeat music) - Welcome to the Rital Report with Paul Rital. - Hi Paul. - All right. - Two stories from the world of sports that we haven't gotten to yet. - We'll start off in major league baseball. - And one story that you didn't know you needed. - Are you laughing, Beyonce? - It's the Rital Report. - Hey Paul, how you doing? - Okay, how are you? - On 97.3, the fan. ♪ Are you ready to blast the mood ♪ ♪ I need some help, please ♪ - That was good. ♪ Can I get a whole year? ♪ ♪ I'll laugh ♪ - All right. Boom. All right. How are we doing, gentlemen? - Fantastic. All right, let's start off a little football here, kind of. It's more of the football broadcast. So, I was reading a story on awful announcing this morning that, let me ask you first. Have you guys ever used VR headsets? - I've put one on, my nephews had one and they were over at my parents' house and I put it on. - Like a newer recent one. - Yeah. - I'm fairly new to recent ones. - I think we all at some point went to an arcade and used some crappy news back in the day. - Did you play something? - Some sort of game. I was incompetent at it, obviously. - And you have to like-- - Do you have it? Yeah, some sort of-- - I want video. - I know. - Next time, I will. - Make that happen, I think. - Take a video of it. - I don't have much experience with them, but they look pretty cool. I've seen, you know, Apple just came out with one that looks insane. And so, Disney, which owns ESPN, they are working on a way to put VR headsets in the broadcast booths. So, think Monday Night Football, you're watching Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. And they're working with this company called Status Pro, which a lot of athletes have used. Like, it helps like with training and practice and stuff. Like LeBron James, I think the whole Minnesota Vikings team, they all swear by it. So, ESPN is working with this company, Status Pro. And basically, the way they're explaining it is, imagine Troy Aikman, Hall of Famer, former quarterback in the booth, and he's able to put on a VR headset in the booth while calling the game. And he will be able to see exactly what Patrick Mahomes is looking at and what he sees. They'll be, you know, camera of a chip in his helmet on the face mask there. And so, Aikman would be able to then put on the VR headset and he's able to be like, okay, see, he saw that linebacker move. And so, that's why he called this. - In real time? - In real time. And it would enhance their broadcast. And, you know, this is like Tony Romo works for CBS. So, I don't know if this would be an NFL thing eventually, but right now it's Disney leading the charge and they're working on getting this going pretty soon. And I think that sounds pretty awesome. - I think that it will look funny when they show him wearing the goggles and stuff. That will be funny. - Just looking around. - But do we need more analysis of what's happening on the field or do they already do a pretty good job with the camera angles and whatnot? - Could this make it better? - Could this make it better? - I mean, we've said it before. The catcher's cam and the ump cam. When they show that, you really get a sense. When you're watching, last night you're watching Randy Vasquez pitch and he's throwing 94 and dotting the zone. How easy does it look on television? It looks moronically easy. Guy hangs a curve ball. You're like, oh, of course he hit that out. It's so much incredible. It's so much faster than it looks. When they show that ump cam and that catcher cam, you're like, yeah, it just gets on you like that. It's 94, which those guys see all the time. I think the NFL does a really good job already, but if it makes it better and cooler and you get a different perspective, I'm into it. - Yeah, I mean, if I could put on the VR helmet and just feel like I'm a quarterback, that actually was what I was playing. It was like a football game in the VR helmet, but that would be interesting. - You're dropping back to pass. - Do we need Troy Eggman once again going, oh, well, he didn't see, this guy was open on the right. I would have seen that, and he should have tried this way. I'm not sure I need that. At some point, it's an overload. I mean, it's still, you only have the same amount of time between plays to do the analysis of what's going on. There has to be a limit to what analysts and broadcasters can do at some point. - Yeah. - A human brain limit. - I mean, how much information they can probably have. - He came out of the gates when he first started and he was like, this is awesome. And then it kinda wore down on me a little bit. This little, it was like too much Xs and Os, but I think it could be cool. I mean, if they can figure out a way to patch that video into the broadcast and you're literally seeing like what Mahomes is seeing as he's walking up to the line, I think that would be pretty cool. - Yeah, that'd be pretty solid. They've had cams on quarterbacks and stuff before, haven't they? I feel like I've seen that before, but I'm, hey, I'm into it, man, I like that kind of stuff. And yeah, VR is training, like there's a baseball simulator that uses VR, and again, it looks funny as hell. If you're just sitting on a couch watching, you know, your son up there take hacks with a VR mask on. I wonder how much it can help. I'm assuming that it does. I'd like to try that at some point. That'd be pretty cool. - Interesting. - Yeah. - All right, next up, we'll switch over to baseball. Maybe it could've been a don't do this from earlier. Yesterday's TBS game of the week or whatever, it was the Subway series, the Mets and the Yankees. Come on, Yankees, let's go. - No kidding. What do they do? - A little help here. - Someone needs to beat the Mets every once in a while. - Tell Brett Boone to give his brother a call and say, "What are you doing?" - His brother's getting murdered right now. I mean, just getting trounced on Twitter. - Trounced. - The lineup they put out yesterday was so weird. It was a weird, weird lineup. I saw it when they released it and all these Yankee fans were, "What is going on with this? What are they doing?" - Soto, judge. - And then it's someone's brother in law, someone's cousin. - It's dead after that. I mean, they just, they got nothing. - Well, peanut vendor. - So yesterday was the national broadcast on TBS. Brian Anderson was on the call. - Okay. - And so Luis Hill of the Yankees was pitching and... - He was on the heel? - He was on the heel. - He was on the heel. And at the same time, as that game was going on, Paul Skeens was pitching against the Cardinals, took an awful loss yesterday. - First loss of the year. - First loss of the year. - What do you get, one run and eight innings or something? - I think two runs. - But they left him in for the ninth at a 1-1 game. - Yeah, he did give up the winning run. I mean, bold. He was only at like 91 pitches, but didn't work out for the Pirates. - You know, some would say that Paul Skeens is the front runner for Rookie of the Year. I would say Jackson Merrill will get it. But we'll see. Anyways, just listen to the broadcast here 'cause Brian Anderson might have forgotten one key thing here. - Skeens, the all-star starter. He's on the mound tonight, by the way. He's making his first start. Since starting the all-star game, you could make a strong case for Luis Heel in the Rookie of the Year race if not for Paul Skeens. Well, he's gonna be a run away. - No, there we go. Anyways, yeah, so Luis Heel plays for the Yankees. That is in the American League. - They're in the American League. - Paul Skeens, he pitches for Pittsburgh, I believe, they're in the National League. - There's two of them. - But at this point, should there really even be multiple? Should there just be one MVP for all of baseball, one Rookie of the Year? - For all of baseball, not if they all play each other. - No, I like this. - All year long. - I like to do this. - I do two. Makes it easier, I think. - Yeah. More accolades for more people. - The discourse over one singular MVP would make my head explore. - I do think it's-- - Or one Rookie of the Year. - I do think it's interesting, let's say, who's the front runner, Aaron Judge MVP in the American League? - Yes. - If he were to be traded this week, Bobby Williams is making a push for sure. Just the front runner MVP gets traded to the National League. Is he the National League MVP at the end of the year? Or is he the American League MVP? - I think it's happened once or twice before where we've had that kind of dilemma. - Yeah. - And it may have even cost someone an MVP. - Probably cite young awards. I can see a star pitcher gets traded. - Didn't, didn't, had great seasons in both leagues, but didn't have good enough numbers in either league to win the award. - Yeah. That makes sense. Makes sense, it's a, it's tough luck for sure, but it makes sense. Yeah, that's a, that's a, look, at the end of the day. - Nobody's perfect, Ben and I didn't know that Bryce Johnson was a switch hitter, so. - I am predicting that Aaron Judge will not be traded at the deadline. - I will, I will also predict that as well. - Shoe Heotani probably staying with the Dodgers. - Yes. - For $2 million a year. - Right. - How nice for them. (laughing) - Wow. - Well, you're for him. - And then finally here, one more note. You guys know the name Haley Welch. - Haley Welch is a figure skater. - No, no, I don't think so. - Haley Welch. - Maybe Welch, but I think it's Welch. - She's a TikTok star. - Olympic singer. You're closer. - Closer. - She is. - Oh, you got to give him that hook. - Oh, that's her. - That's her. - She has a name. She's not just Hawk, two of her. - I feel bad now. Haley, she's a real person with real feelings. - Somebody tweeted yesterday, "When are these 15 minutes up?" - She's gonna mention the 15 minutes. I've seen some clips of her. She's doing like little mini real documentaries or whatever on TikTok, Instagram. And she's like, "Everyone keeps saying, 'My 15 minutes are gonna be up soon. I'm gonna make the most of it.' And she's cashing in. And we talked about her merch sales, her, the hats, and the shirts. - Yeah, the hot two of hats. - All of that. Or 15 minutes aren't quite up just yet from that viral clip. It's been what, like a month now? - Yeah. - Probably on the Haktua. - Haktua. - Saw that she is selling trading cards. - Okay. - Like a baseball card with her autographs on there. And they've already sold out. They sold out for a hundred dollars. I think this came out like yesterday and they sold out immediately. You can get Haktua autographed trading cards. And she's got a few different ones out there. A personal inscription on there and she autographs it. - She just signs her name though. She doesn't say it's true. - She says I Heart Pookie. - 'Cause she says that in the video. - I love you Pookie. - Did you get yours? - She spells her name in a very odd way. 'Cause it's Haley, which I think maybe like H-A-L-E-Y. - Or H-A-I-L-E-Y, but no, she's H-A-L-I-E-Y. - She's Holly. - Holly. - Holly. - Holly. - Holly. - There's her, she's got a cowboy hat on and it says I love Pookie. Haley Welch. - Fuck! - Dude, spit on that thing. You get me? (laughing) - She's a big fan. I like her. She seems nice. - Fun. - Fun. - Not taking it herself too seriously. - No. - Yeah. - I don't think I'm gonna spend the hundred dollars. - I'm not surprised. - Taylor. - Trading. Tyler says burn it down. (laughing) Some people are very upset with their 15 minutes. It happens. Jeter says, go away please. - It was, Tim says she's a delight. - I was fascinating. Like a study on humans in 2024. - No, just this one short video clip went so viral that it literally changed her life, at least temporarily. Like they were, I was seeing stories like, oh, she's got an agent. They're talking to Hollywood about a reality TV show now. - What is our agent doing? If she, if we put in a lot of work. - Aren't you that Nick Castellanos guy I saw in TikTok? - Yes. - He's got me now? Holy cow. - Bro, by the way. - How many? - That went up over a quarter of a million views. - Come on, man. - Like Sammy gets like two million views of his TikToks. Like it's insane. But for us, I was like, that's kind of weird to be on the other end of that now. Like a quarter of a million people watch that stupid, just reading a list. - Edgard says stop promoting that nonsense. - Ever. - No. No, not going to. - Fuck! - Do it. - So quit ass. - What you don't know is we get 6% of every sale. - Every sale. - Yeah. - We talk to a... - No, we don't. We don't get anything. - We don't even... - If you get your chance at the 15 minutes. - We don't even get that much on our own merchandise. - No. - Corbin. - Corbin says you got 6% or something. - You got to milk it. You got to milk your 15 minutes. I couldn't agree more. Could not agree more. Good for her. She's a good kid. She's a good kid. - No. We'll ask Andrew Shoffley all about it. - What do you think of Hock To a Girl? And maybe a little bit about golf and the Open Championship win. He's going to join us coming up in our next segment. Don't go anywhere. It has been a woods. Back after traffic was Andrew Shoffley on 97-3 the fan. I expect he has Andrew Shoffley open about two, three minutes. Just a couple other baseball notes here, woods. Saw that Mike Trout was on rehab assignment yesterday. He made it two innings and then had to come out of the game with soreness. They surgically repaired knee. They hope it's a minor setback, but you know, they just don't really know. And I mean, obviously, you know, it's just having a star player like Mike Trout. No longer be Mike Trout and not be able to play is tough. That angels organization may not be a very good baseball organization. But the bad luck that they've had is, I don't know what they did to deserve that amount of bad luck. That's a good point. They've made some terrible decisions in their day as a lot of organizations do. But the bad luck has been they have to feel as cursed as any team. Now they have a World Series Championship. They do and they'll always have that. But other than that, man, it's been one tragedy after another. That's the argument. It's been about 23 years like, you know, the deal with the devil. You win the World Series, but for the next 25 years, nothing's going to go right for your team. Nothing's going to go right. It's just going to be an unrelenting stream, stream of bad news and misery and injuries and bad luck and bad signings. And it's just going to be nothing but disappointment. Do you sign up for that at 49 at 49? Yes. No. Yeah. No. But see, Bo, my kids and kids, you know, young kids, that would suck for them because they're not even really signed up for that now for the Padres. They win the World Series here, but, you know, the next 25 years, it's just going to be awful. Pretty much the rest of your life, the Padres are just going to be bad and uncompetitive and just complete disappointments that could happen anyway. It could. At least I would have a World Series banner, you know? Really? Like, honestly, like, you've got to take the, take the dub when you can get it, always. You always take the dub when you can get it. I like the ride. I mean, I want to win a title, but what if you think every year is fun? I did. It's fine. That's not fine. I mean, it's not fine. I'd rather see them win it, but it's not me winning or losing it. It's my team. I just want, I like the ride. I like the competitiveness. Of course I hope they win it all. When you're laying on your death bed and they never won one, are you going to think to yourself, I should have been harder on the team. No. No. I think that would have helped. Maybe I'll think I should have picked a different team. No, man. I know it's, it's, I know that that it doesn't sound great, but holy smokes. I mean, they've had reasons to get excited at least. It's not like it's been horrendous. They've had, they had, they got to watch Ohayo Tani for a few years now. You lost him. That hurts, obviously, but they've had some, some good moments sprinkled in there too. So it hasn't been all bad, but they have had some really gnarly tragedies as well. All right. It has been a whirlwind last couple of months for our next guest. We got to talk to him after his PGA championship win and kind enough to join us for a few minutes following the open triumph at Royal Trune on Sunday champion golfer of the year. Zander Shoffley is back with us here on 97 three, the fan, Zander, congratulations again. I'd imagine it does not get old or tiresome to hear that. Ben and Woods, what's going on guys? How you doing? It's our pleasure, man. How you feeling? Yeah, I'm doing okay, better than usual I'd say. Nice. Nice. Well, let me start. I mean, I've never been to Scotland. It's like bucket list would love to go play. I mean, to grow up here in San Diego where, I mean, nothing is as old as like the newest things over there. You're playing on a course that was built probably when San Diego, there's no one even living here in California. And now you're the champion walking down that fairway and the history of it all. What was that like for you on Sunday? Yeah, it's a, it was a dream. You know, I think, I think it's a dream for any kid that's playing golf, just they kind of know, you know, if you watch majors, you watch Tiger growing up, you watch Jack Arnie, all the greats of the game. There's that sort of standing ovation, the yellow leaderboards, you know, that sort of corridor feeling with those coffin bunkers. And it was, it was so cool. It was so cool for me to have that moment with Austin going down the fairway, lucky to have sort of a two or three shot lead going in. So, you know, I try to enjoy it as much as I could. You know, I definitely, the job wasn't done with, you know, with what was 20 feet left. But, and I, you know, I saw on the board that was maybe two or three shots ahead, but I figured, you know, someone can make a hole in one like, you know, if you make this putt, it's for sure you're going to seal it. But for those, you know, 100 yards or so, I really try to take it in because it's pretty much a dream, you know, it's something my dad and I have talked about, Austin, I've talked about and to actually make it happen is, is, yeah, I mean, I'm obviously still over the moon about it. Talking to Sandra Shoffley here on Bed and Woods this morning and yeah, looking up, seeing that you're in the lead, having that experience to draw from, though, it was a, it was a different scenario. The putt that you had to make to win your first major was just incredible. One of the best, best moments of golf that we've seen in a long, long time, having that little bit of a cushion, though, standing there, how much did you draw on what you just went through in your first major when a lot people were asking me sort of, you know, do I feel different coming into the week after winning one major? Do I feel better? And, you know, I was kind of saying, I don't, I don't think so. I don't feel much different. You know, it's nice to have that one, but I think where it could make a difference is coming down that stretch, you know, if, if I am in contention, I think I can use that win at Valhalla to propel myself in the moment, and it helped, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to lie, it, it helped when I, when I turn onto that back nine, it is a terrifying back nine to play in a major championship. If you're up or close to the lead, you know, you are with, you know, 10 blind tee shot, 11, you know, guys are making doubles and triples on, and then 12 guys are making doubles and triples on, so you can, you can really lose your tournament with one bad swing on that Sunday. So sort of being able to walk through that fire there, birding 11, paring 12, and then, you know, being able, you know, getting to 13 and 14, birding both those holes, it wouldn't, I wouldn't have been able to do it if I didn't win at Valhalla and, you know, I really believe that. I'm nervous talking. I have anxiety. You won it. I'm ready. When you're going through it again, it makes me anxious. I hit the test in last week to try to fix my short game. I get nervous, you know, playing at the goats. So I can't even imagine. But I know you said the 65 on Sunday afterwards was the best round of your career tip top, you said. Am I crazy to say I'm more impressed with the 69 on Saturday in those conditions, someone growing up in San Diego, I can't play when it's like misty in the morning, and you're out there and it's just pouring and windy and guys who grew up in Ireland and England are falling apart and you're shooting too under that to me, that was even more incredible. What was that day like? Yeah, there's that's actually that's a really good point. That was what was supposed to be a, we were supposed to get like two millimeters of rain and it was supposed to be like six, five to end up being, I don't know, 10 or 12 millimeters of rain and we didn't get a break. It rained literally from my tee shot to the 18th hole. It may have stopped while we were on the 18th green, which is hilarious of course. But you know, one to 17 was in the rain and then the wind picked up me being and being able to sort of iron out a two under par and propel myself up the leaderboard is really what gave, you know, I moved on moving day in a fashion I didn't think was. What kind of programs does this school have? How are the test scores? How many kids do a classroom? Homes.com, those, these are all things you ask when you're home shopping as a parent. That's why each listing on homes.com includes extensive reports on local schools, including photos, parent reviews, test scores, student teacher ratio, school rankings and more. The information is from multiple trusted sources and curated by homes.com's dedicated in-house research team. It's also you can make the right decision for your family, homes.com. You've done your homework. Best in your next index fund makes smarter decisions in 2024. Follow Nerd Wallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app. Now with the MLB app, you can get baseball your way. Pick your favorite team, your favorite players and get customized highlights, stories and notifications can keep you connected to every pitch, every hit, every game, the MLB app, baseball your way. Download it now for free from the App Store or Google Play, block out another research and supply major league baseball trade bar to use with permission. Oh yeah, halfway home on a Wednesday, Ben and Woods 97.3, the fan, lovely to be here with all of you. Beloved tier ones out there and yeah, I always get the question, how do I become a tier one? Very easy. There's no form or anything. You got to fill out. There's no donation. Ben, Lois, you're $100 on your end. You're all the way here. Or easy payments. Oh yeah, there's listen and then tell your friends if you like the show. That's it. The word of mouth has been great for this show because we've never had one marketing nickel. So you guys are actually the ones responsible for our success, not us, not us at all. You guys telling your friends, hey, listen to Ben and Woods, it's great, it's great. If we ever did have a billboard or anything like that or a painting promoting us, I hope actually it doesn't look like the one that was hanging in the foyer, foyer, foyer, foyer, foyer, foyer of our old building. It's something that's like a tradition there and they've been doing it forever. And I was so honored to work at that station and have my own picture. It's in the Louvre now and then they painted Ben and he looks, he was a bigger guy back then. I look fat, let's just, let's just be clear. How did you gain all the weight? Oh my lord. And then there's our old, our old executive producer in the middle of us and then he looks great. He looks fantastic. Weird how that works. And then there's your old pal Woods who apparently, if it's not Paulie, no, apparently he just, I just went like four rounds with Conor McGregor who smashed my face in and I mean it is, it is a really bad representation of me and I had no offense to this person that painted it. Maybe you were in a hurry. That's the only thing I can think of because I look like fast, they go to the San Diego County Fair and have one of those guys, the caricature quick, strong, yeah. What happened to my nose? I don't have that. No, no, that's not your nose. That's a someone else's nose. So he says Ben looks very happy. Yeah, he's fat and happy, fat and happy back. Do you have a crustash there? What's going on? Yeah, there's a bit of the facial hairs. He got the double chin down. You would not let you massage your wife. No, no, no, no, no, no, that is, that is real, Paulie's not zooming in on it. I mean, it is just, it's the nose that really was, I mean, I'm tipping the scales at at least 370. I give that picture when their eyes are like really close together. They are beady, beady, yes, not what you look like. Beady eyes. No, you do not. That was a big glasses. Yeah, that was in the receptionist area when you walked into the station, a guest if you were there to pick up a prize and they had them all on the wall framed. They looked good. Yeah, there's Darren's. Jim Rome. Darren's got an IBR. Everybody looked great. I'm hanging with these legends up here. This is amazing for me. I can't believe then the unveiling happened and I felt like, was it Ronaldo when he saw his, was it Ronaldo's statue that does not. Right. Does not look at all like him. And that thing went on the wall and I went, Oh, oh, everyone's saying my hair looks good and it does. Here it does. Yeah. I, I just give the old blue Padres handle. Yeah. Uh, when that station went under, it's kind of a free for all everybody grabbed a bunch of stuff. Craig Elston literally walked out with like microphones and I remember he's like, Hey, look what I got. What is going on? I didn't know that we could just take stuff before all that went down. My girl Elaine was like the office manager. Love Elaine. She was a bad angel. She pulled me aside and said, Hey, I have something that you might want. You remember the guy that we replaced at the station and at this station? Yep. Maybe he can, can you get the like job at the number one station in like LA or New York or something? Like I don't want to move though, but he falls up and we can come in and replace him. True. She had his horrible caricature painting and I took it and you have it and I still have it. It's in storage. And my wife goes get rid of that. I said, absolutely not. Never. Never. Listen, it's you or him and it's a family heirloom. It really is. I can sell that for like four bucks. Yeah. Are you kidding me? I bought his autograph on eBay. It was three dollars, I think. We hung it here in the studio. Yeah. Yeah, that is a rough look before we move on and I do want to talk a little bit more about last night's Padres game. They always tell us in radio teasing is important. Yes. Like what's coming up next keep them keep them hanging on the edge of their seat. There's also something called horizontal teasing where you tease what's going to be happening tomorrow at the same time. Like yesterday, we told you about Xander Schoffle coming on. I'd like to tease that tomorrow at this time our show will be over. We will be off here because our show will only run until 8.05 tomorrow morning when we will turn things over to the eco water so Cal pregame show at 8.05 a.m. with Sam Levitt for a 9.05 first pitch in the series finale against the Washington National. So there's your T's for 24 hours from now. We'll be on our way home. How about that for a day that ends at 8.05 a.m. I'm all the way in. I'm all the way in on it. How does your coffee turn out this morning by the way? You go back? No, I actually I went to I went to the bigger chain and spent a little bit more to make sure it was actually coffee in my coffee. We missed it yesterday, got my McDonald's coffee, but the the guy who was filling it up and I watched him do it, put in, he started filling it up and then halfway through I hear him go, oops, and then he moves over to a different spigot and starts filling the rest of my iced coffee up and then just hands it to me. And I realized quickly that half of his iced tea and half of his iced coffee didn't start over. It's an awful combo. He gave it to me. And that's what I had yesterday. But I cannot go back this morning, so I will go back at some point, but I decided to treat myself today to actual iced espresso actually coffee and and you know, the first thing of the chat this morning, the very first comment was McDonald's guy one. Oh, look, it's that Ben Higgins guy, McDonald's guy to throw some cranberry juice in his coffee this morning. They're just going to get you every day. So I hey, listen, man, that's a that's a classic misstep. You know, they they made a customer unhappy and that customer then went to a, I guess, competitor the next morning for his coffee and actually spent a little bit more money on it. So I can see why you didn't want to go back. I want to talk about Mike Schilt just for a second here because we're definitely been learning the personality of the Padres manager, both yeah, both in our conversations, but also through the decisions that he makes. And one thing that has become very clear is that Mike Schilt, when he sees a win, you know, within his grasp, he's going to try to take it. That's correct. It doesn't matter if it's a safe situation or not. If he thinks that there's any chance of the other team coming back, he's going to step step on it and he used his top relievers yesterday for nothing game, did not have any qualms with going with, with, you know, Robert Suarez and I'm okay with that because you can't predict the future. You don't know if you'll need Robert Suarez today or tomorrow. You could have saved him and not pitched him at all. And then, you know, had him completely fresh for today, but with the difficulties that the Padres have had in the bullpen beyond their top, I'm going to say three guys, three Suarez, Estrada and Morihon, that's it, beyond that, there's really no lead that you feel is that safe. No. And you have this chance to win a third in a row, take the first game of the series, hitting a series. I'm okay with the decision to just step on their throat and put the best guy in and make sure you win that game. And then you take your chances with the next game tomorrow, today, you know, maybe you're up by seven this time and you can go with a different option, or maybe you're down by three and you're like, boy, I wish we'd use Suarez yesterday when we had a chance to get, get him some work with the lead. I'm all right with that, but that's clearly part of Mike Schilt's makeup. He sees a win. He does not want to take any chances in letting that win get away. He doesn't pussyfoot around with it at all. I got a DM last night from Steve and he said, his Vasquez on a pitch count, six innings, 68 pitches, they pull him or an innings limit and bring in Suarez in a non-safe situation. What if we need him the next two games, make these pitching decisions, make sense. As far as Vasquez goes, guys, I, he is such a, um, he is such a unknown commodity still and he gave up the double. I have no problem because what happens if the next guy yacks one out, that leads now cut in half. You know what I'm saying? Like, I had given up, I think two doubles, two doubles and last three batters. So yeah, like, hey, man, let's, let's, let's take this good fortune. Let's send him out on a high note of really doing a great job and, and hanging a zero on these guys and let's let the bullpen come in and continue to hand zeros. Keep in mind and again, the pitch count was low and if they needed him, I mean, if they were up eight nothing, they probably would have just let Vasquez go, but it is the seventh inning. It's the deepest he's ever pitched. And even though it's not that many pitches, it's still up and down is seven times to get out there and Vasquez does not get a lot of swing and miss. So you can, I think he only struck out one batter the entire game. So you know a runner on base. The next guy is probably making contact somewhere. Contact could then fall in. It could be soft contact, but you blew it in, bring in more at home. You've got a better chance. He gives up almost no heart contact. He gets a lot more swing and miss, ended up getting out of that inning really quickly. Got the force at third on the, on the base running mistake and the nice play by Kim and Manny and then quickly got a double play to end the inning. So you know, I'm sure he's available today if they needed Adrian Moray home again with how little he was used yesterday. And you got Randy Vasquez out with a really good feeling, another good start, a confidence builder for him, someone that you're probably going to need to rely on continually down the stretch here because at this point he's your fourth starter. Even if you get Musgrove back or even if you make a trade, he's still five, six at best. You're going to see him over the course of the rest of this season and that was a good outing for Randy Vasquez. Yeah. And I just, I just don't have a problem with that. What bugs me sometimes is, is again, it's not, it's not a Mike Schilt problem, right? It's not a Mike Schilt problem at all. It's a Yuki Matsui, Austin Davis, Sean Reynolds and Steven Collek problem. That's where the issue lies is that there is not a lot of trust to there. And I think for good reason. Now he can, he has given guys shots in high leverage. He gave Yuki one last Friday against Cleveland and Yuki got the job done. He gave Yuki another shot the next day and way less high leverage at all. It was very low leverage and he got the job done, gave Collek a shot in high leverage, didn't get the job done. So you're a little bit up against it when you don't, we don't have the, the Phillies bullpen. Ben, we don't have the Diamondbacks bullpen where you just like every guy comes in, throwing 98, you know, with movement, it's just, they have what they have for now. That's why the bullpen remains something that's very important to address. Phil says, yeah, no need to put Suarez in in a non-safe situation. Now he can't close if the next two games are tight. It, yeah, it's, there's the risk there that they'll have one run leads the next two days. I'm sure he'd be available for at least one of them. Absolutely. And then they had a day off on Monday. They just had the all-star break. If he had to go again today, he could. Now if he went today, he'd probably be down tomorrow morning. Yeah, but if he goes today, you feel like you're, you're winning that ball game. Right. And he's already won the series and you take your chances. And if he doesn't go today, then obviously he could go on right on Thursday. You need some things to break in your favor. You need to put up some numbers to wear an Austin Davis, a Sean Reynolds, a Stephen Colick is not going to hurt you tremendously. Last night, I didn't feel was one of those games. I didn't feel like this team's out of it. We had an eight run lead against these guys and they came back on us. Right? Does everybody remember that? So you don't five and they had the, the tying run of the plate. The tying run of the plate. Yes. One like, look like it was gone. Right. Yeah. So you don't think Mike Schilt remembers? We had an eight nothing lead against these guys. I'm not going to f around with a four run lead when I've got these guys rested and healthy and he won a ball game. Why are we complaining about winning a ball game? You know, he's not, I don't think he's going to put his pitchers in harm's way. Right? And if Robert Swartz says, I can't go, he's not going to make him go. So again, that eight, that eight run lead that they blew is definitely fresh in his mind as it should be. What a great turn all the way through the starting rotation though. Oh, four guys, I think I saw after the game, the stat was 0.69 ERA since the all star break for the starters. One run in 27 innings. The last 27. Uh, no. Well, cause they had the bad, they had the eighth inning on Friday, which was just for the starters though. Just starters. Yeah. And in what seven innings and then C set his gym and then King had a gym and now Vasquez with six shutout innings. Yeah. And then since that eighth inning, it was something like one and one hit on or one run on eight hits. I think in 26 innings or something ridiculous. Now I saw someone in the chat earlier, let's talk about the starting pitching. Yeah. It was really, really good. It's been really, really good. Do we need to continue? Do we think that it's going to continue? I hope so. Is there any reason to? Is there any reason to think that, okay, now they're good with their number one through four. They just need to find a five. Not yet. They, the one thing that they still have lacked all season long is consistency. So you don't want the tractor beam to show up today and back to the 500, you get back towards 500. And you got a really tough series in Baltimore. Really tough. And I get every starting pitcher is going to have clonkers throughout the course of the year. That's the one though that breaks the streak. Matt Waldron today is going to, and he is, he is really, really pitched well. Doesn't get any run support. Got another lefty on the bump today. That is that gone away now? The left-handers or the bugaboo and we scored four runs last night. It feels certainly a little better than it did for a while where they just could not be the left-hander. So, well, you know, I think Donovan Solano has helped getting Zander Bogart's back will help with the lefty. So it's a different lineup. Is Don, it was, he going to play? I think he'll play today would be my guess. Maybe even the next two days. We'll talk about that coming up. Let's take a quick time out. I got some Sebastian Maniscalco tickets to give away. Also, you know what, I'm not throwing you under the bus. I'm going to throw us both under the bus. Oh, this sounds great. Embarrassing Padre's things that you should probably know of your radio host and didn't know. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. I'm embarrassed. Ben and Woods edition. I'll wear it. I'll wear it. The only ones. I can't. You have to be honest with us. Yeah, you have to promise that we have to admit what we're going to admit that you're going to say. I also did not know that. Next, I'm 97.3 of fan. Ben and Woods confessions time. Not proud of this. I'm not either. I'm actually really embarrassed by it, but I'll. But I would like to know if you're in our chat and want to chime in on YouTube or you can tweet us at Ben and Woods. If you were unaware of this as well, because Woods texted and I had to nod in the same thing when the Padres put the lineup together yesterday and they had Bryce Johnson out in the outfield batting ninth and then he came up to the plate for the first time in what was that the third inning, I think? Yep. And he was batting from the right side of the plate, not the left side of the plate. Yeah. We were both kind of shocked. Did you know he was his switch hitter? I did. I thought he was a lefty. I thought he was just a lefty. I thought he was strictly a left handed bat. I was sure that he wasn't just doing some bit or something. I could have sworn that that guy was just a lefty. I have a there's a guy on my team that he's hitting really well and he'll just sometimes when we're up big, he'll go, I'm going to hit left handed and he does that. And I thought is Bryce Johnson doing a bit right now through a walk? I mean, didn't really have to swing the bat. I feel a little better. Okay. Some other people. Same thing. No, he doesn't. Actually, we don't even know if he's a hitter. That's a good point. Fair. I did not know that you guys don't you know this about me. My attention span is not great always. It's weird that I like baseball. Don't you think like doesn't it weird that that's my greatest love is baseball of all things when my attention span is what it is. And I'm oftentimes at home, you know, it's bedtime and everything else. And it's hard to sit and watch a ball game. And holy smokes, man, I, when he walked up there right hand, I go, who's this? Like, I think we even said on the air yesterday, well, Bryce Johnson won't be in the lineup. Who can play right field? Because obviously he's a left handed here. I had no earthly idea. I'm trying to call up his splits for the season as a versus lefty. Apparently he has 10 at bats this year versus left handed pitching when presumably he was batting from the right side of the plate. And yeah, I don't remember any of them. That's really. He doesn't have any hits from the, no, maybe that's why from the right side of the plate. He's he's an 0 for 0, 0, 0, 0, average doesn't have many hits from the left side. He has walked three times as a, including once last night as a right handed hitter, which, yeah, neither of us were, were aware of that. Yeah, I mean, as a, as a lefty, he's batting a robust 182, and as a righty, he's batting a not so robust 0, 0, 0, got some good defense, good, good wheels though, and you know, plays defense. Yeah, they need tattoos to get back. I mean, I know you can't rush it because then you're risking even longer term injury with the stress reaction, but man, that would be a major upgrade. And Peralta's done a nice job against righties, which is why we haven't seen Bryce Johnson as much lately since he's been out there, but defensively, you know, David Peralta is not the same player that he used to be, and Johnson does give you that speed in the outfield. Yeah, I, there's a, the latest in the rumor Mills, I believe this is from Dennis, Dennis Lynn's latest. It's the Padres League sources said continue to inquire about both hitters and pitchers ahead of the July 30th trade deadline. I, I can kind of assume baseball players, they're interested in baseball players. I had assumed it was going to be pitching only and I don't want to read the tea leaves. Hopefully it's just a big nothing burger, but says their interest in the former being the hitters might have something to do with Fernando Tuttis Jr's uncertain timeline and a possible desire for insurance in case a rise re aggravates his thumb injury, which I thought he did last night before hitting a home run. Their need for pitchers is well known. So AJ checking in on both the ball here. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you, you do need, you could upgrade with another bat that can play the outfield. Yes. But then if Tuttis does come back in a month, now you've got a couple of players that, but you also have a couple of players that are expendable at that point. Yeah. I mean, you don't even, you, you've had, you haven't even gotten Donovan Solano into a game yet. Right. Second half of the season, like a right handed hitting right fielder would be decent right now. But then, you know, when Tuttis comes back, you really have no spot for that person that you just acquired. Tottie can D H is a pinch hitter, yeah, but you already need your DH in the infield every single day. Yeah, potentially. If, if everyone's still here, you're sitting in a rise or you're sitting a Bogart's or you're sitting at Chrono worth. If everybody's healthy, yeah, you need your DH in the infield. So you can't really add another bat that you can get into the lineup, but you can. You can add a bat because a bench, as we know, is still very important in the playoffs. And if you make it to the playoffs, it's important down the stretch. And again, Tutti's coming off an injury. How much can he really play? Yeah. So there's, there's a lot of moving pieces to this, but I guess it doesn't surprise me that he's, he's actually certain is more important for the 162. Once you get to the playoffs, you don't really need much of a bench. I mean, I don't know about that. I do. You've got a designated hitter. You're going to keep your best hitters out there. Yeah. How many times do Bob Melvin uses backup catcher in the playoffs? That's an anomaly. He should have. He should have. I don't know what happened. You're absolutely. You're going to play your best for now. You're going to play your best players. Occasionally you've got a platoon guy where you're going to go right and left and in that sense, you'll use your bench, but once you get to the playoffs, it's very, very rare that you see bench players getting in that much. A pinch runner here or there. Important. Yeah. Well, they have plenty of pinch runners. That's not the issue right now. But in terms of the bats, it's just not a, there's not a need for pinch hitters without pitchers hitting anymore, just very rare that that happens. They're putting in more defensive replacements at the end of the game than offensive replacements. That's true. That's true. That's true. Let's take a timeout because Brett Boone is going to join us next. It's a big league Wednesday host of the Brett Boone podcast. Talk about everything going on with the trade deadline coming up on Tuesday next with Ben Woods on San Diego's number one sports station, 97 through the fan baseball coverage. A 97 through the fan is presented by T-Mobile switch to T-Mobile. You can get tons of benefits and still save on every plan versus AT&T and Verizon. Use their savings calculator to find out how a T-Mobile dot com slash switch and some of our best baseball coverage every week comes in the form of our conversations with Brett Boone host of the Brett Boone podcast. Did you see who he just had on? Was it Bo Jackson? Bo Jackson. I will ask him about that and more right after a check of traffic here on 97 through the fan. Boone knows baseball. We're joined by Odyssey MLB insider Brett Boone insider calls presented by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Granger has the right product for you. Call click Granger dot com or just stop by Brett also the host of the Brett Boone podcast featuring the most notable names in MLB and around sports every week. I'd say Bo Jackson qualifies as a notable name. Brett. Good morning. Good morning, guys. How you doing? Doing well, man. Bo Jackson. Oh my God. Oh my God. Never saw anything like that guy. Never saw. Never saw anything. I would never just kind of agree with you just for the radio drama, but you know what when I when I when I interviewed Bo and I knew him as a kid, played against him a little bit when he was rehabbing in the minor leagues. But when I just started thinking back to Bo and I was going over highlights and stuff, I kind of agree with you. I don't think we've seen anything like him. I mean, he was just a freak of all freaks and I say that in a very endearing way. But yeah, he was he was something that the arm the arm. I mean, the hoes that he had and he would he made some of the gnarliest shows the catch he made in Yankee Stadium where he ran up the freaking wall and ran around it like it's he was a magician. It's like a it's like a cyborg. Yeah. Here's the football. See that white line at the end. Don't get that extends go. That's good. If you if you go past that he was he was like a man he was he was unbelievable when he ran into the tunnel all the way through a touchdown, his presence on the field. It's almost like on the baseball field run on the base. It's almost like you heard him run by you. It's bizarre. It's bizarre. He was he was something pretty darn special. I asked him. Oh, yeah. I asked him how much money how much money he'd make in the in the NIL if he was at Auburn right now and he just started laughing and he said I would have never gone pro. Right. I mean, I heard we were talking about it. I was talking about with somebody yesterday at my son's baseball practice and I think the backup I think arch manning with all in this year as the backup at Texas is going to make millions of dollars like multiple millions of dollars as you know, the backup, the air apparent, the incumbent, but that's insane to think about guys like Reggie Bush, Bo Jackson, how great they were Vince Young, all those guys in college, what they would have made. It is beyond. Yeah, Dion. Oh my God, it is a brave, brave new world out there, booty. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It's awesome. Did you go? You went to the All-Star game. Yeah. I did not. Oh, you did not go. I thought you did go. Did you watch it? I was I was going. I wasn't going. Ended up not going. I ended up having an event in Seattle. So now I didn't do the other and you know, I caught bits and pieces. I'm a bit. I'm a bit. I'm a bit in pieces. I'm a bit. You know, the home run derby and you know, I'm a bitching pieces guy. I did find something I finally came clear. I said, well, how are these BP pitchers throwing such good strikes? They're throwing from like four feet. Yeah. It's like every hand soft toss with with, and I know those balls in the All-Star game. They're always pumped up pretty good. So I mean, they're like pinnacles, you know, so I know, you know, they want the show. I get it. I hit the home run derbies and those balls are just jumping. But it's like you're throwing from four feet. It seems like it's kind of easy and it turns into kind of a marathoner who's got the best cardio who ends up winning the home run derby. So I think we're at a time. I think it's run its course. It's been entertaining. It's been great. I think we got to change the rules up a little bit. What those rules are. I don't know. I'll lead that to the to the to the nerds. I'll lead the I'll leave that to you. Yeah. It's a bit. My idea for the All-Star game to change up the rules this week was now that the American and National League distinctions are kind of lost with interleague play and you don't really feel like you're playing that much for your league anymore. I thought it would be very interesting to divide the game by age and have like the young players under 28 against the older players over 28. And I thought that might ramp up the stakes a little bit because veterans would not want to get shown up by the young guys and the young guys would love to show up the swag and play against the vets in the All-Star game. Well, how about this? How about the unions? Let's talk about the unions. Oh. Well, that's everyone agrees on that, Brad. Everyone terrible. No, but but it's do you remember the old commercials, the less filling? Yeah. Yeah. Bob Euchar. Tastes great. Yeah. It's like, yeah, the Euchar or or Roddy Dangerfield. That's what those unions look like because I'm all, you know, I've got kids now. I'm not. I'm the traditional. I love the whites at home. I love the grays on the road. I didn't like the alternative uniforms. I didn't feel good at them. But I've come around a little bit. I like kind of some of the new unis I'm seeing, some of the new look for 2024. I think it's cool. The All-Star game, you're pushing the envelope guys, you got, you're losing me now. You're losing my progressiveness. I'm pulling back on you. Get rid of those. I know everybody doesn't like them, but I've been trying to, trying to roll with majorly baseball in their new way. I couldn't roll with that one. They make it difficult sometimes, Booniam, with you 100%, talking to Brett Boon here on Ben & Woods this morning. They can. They can make it. I kind of fall somewhere in the middle of traditionalist and I like a lot of the new stuff as well. But man, it, trade deadline is something that we can count on every single year. Being a part of, you know, the pod raise team, essentially, nobody is safe. You know, I mean, you got to be feeling, if you're a prospect right now, you're probably a little bit on pins and needles. If you are a couple of guys in that clubhouse, you're probably a little nervous about what could happen in a week or so. Agent Prowler is always super active. Your thoughts on, on the pod raise, what they need to do and what they will do. You got to go ahead and get some pitching, you know, you got to go with some pitch. And I don't worry that much, Tati, to me, you need to have him back. You have a healthy Tati, so I know he's starting to do baseball activities now, but you need a healthy Tati. You should get him, couple him with, with the veteran, Machado and the rest of that. I think the offense is fine. I wouldn't mind seeing him going out and adding a bullpen piece as well. You know, Suarez at the end of that, at the end of that line is pretty, pretty darn good. But I'd like to see him add a bullpen piece. I think there's a playoff team. I think this is a team that can go deep in the playoffs. And I think with that roster in place right now, you've got to go out and really add, you know, offensively, I think you're fine. I wouldn't, it wouldn't be a big deal to me if you didn't add anything offensive, but you got to go add maybe a starting pitcher and you got to add a piece in that bullpen with the, with the up in the era of Darvish and Musgrove. So I think you got to definitely add a piece there as far as the negation. No, you know, you know, the interesting thing around baseball, it's not just the Padres. It's every fan base, every team, are we going to add or are we buyers or resellers? If you look at the, if you look at the landscape, there's so many teams at this stage with them moving that, that trading deadline to two months versus one month, there are so many teams still, there's so much parity, there are so many teams still in it. There are very few that you can say, oh, we're sellers. We're out of it. Yeah, there's the bottom team that everybody kind of knows, hey, it's over for you, but never has there been so much parity. So many teams that possibly could be buyers at the deadline where the inventory is going to be down. Everybody wants Google, maybe a crochet from from the Chicago White Sox. But you know, if you look at the big offensive, the Vladimir Guerrero, that could be a viable piece that could be added. I look at him, but outside of that, who is a big difference maker, offensive guys that could possibly be available at the deadline? Maybe a Robert from Chicago, but how much do you trust his health? You know, he's been a guy that's proven he can't stay on the field. So maybe he looks great, he doesn't look so great because you don't know if you can count on him. So it's going to be interesting in this deadline. A lot of buyers, not that many sellers, and the guys that are sellers don't have that much to sell. I think you look to the Blue Jays though, from a perspective. They're talking about keeping that group intact for another year. I don't think so. I think when Push comes to the show of everybody's available on that team, Blatty being the shiniest object, but you got a gossum and you got a burials. You got a kukuchi and guys like that, a Bassett in that starting rotation, that could be a good fit for a lot of teams down the stretch. Our Odyssey Insider call with Brett Boone is brought to you by Granger and Brett, I wanted to ask what was your experience with the trade deadline like as a player? Whether your name, you know, up in rumors, you certainly teammates that you had that were dealt or new teammates coming in, any stories from the deadline you have to share with us? Well, I think as a player, you know, I was never really worried that I was going anywhere at the trade deadline, but it was always pins and needles for, I know we've got a really good team this year. You know, I'm doing a hike with that. I've really got a really good team and I wonder what ownership is going to do. It's amazing. The shot of adrenaline that could be pumped into that clubhouse. If that front office and your ownership group gets behind you and goes and makes a splash at the trade deadline, it can turn that clubhouse from what are we going to do here to wow. The big boys, the guys upstairs, they got our back. That could be a difference maker at the trade and deadline. I've been on three or four real contending playoff teams and the years that we went for it definitely gave us a rush in that clubhouse and a feeling like we're holding this together. I've also been on a really good team that at the deadline, we just kind of stood there and stood pat and it was almost like, oh well, you know, the 25 guys at the time, now I know the rosters are 26 and kind of look at each other in that clubhouse to go, guys, I guess we're on our own. You know, we're going to do it without management. So it can really be a difference maker from a psychological standpoint for the guys on that roster. There's 26 guys down there. If you make a move, whether you stand pat or you haven't forbid, if you sell at the trading deadline when you're still in the hunt, man, that's a real quandary where you go, wow, management, I guess they're telling us what they think of us right now. They don't believe in it. So it can be a psychological positive or a psychological negative that I don't think anybody really ever factors in. Well, we will definitely be keeping our eye on all the news over the next now six days until the trade deadline next Tuesday at 3 p.m. Pacific and Brett, I'm sure we'll catch up with you again maybe next week right after the trade deadline to get your reaction to all of it. Appreciate it as always. You got it, guys. Thanks, brother. There he is. Odyssey MLB insider Brett Boone insider calls presented by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Granger has the right product for you. Call clickgranger.com or just stop by, check out the Brett Boone podcast and the Odyssey app, his latest guest, of course, Bo Jackson this week. And yeah, I mean, we know that that's what they always say, you know, player comes in in trade deadline, shot of adrenaline, injection, we're really going for it. Padres have been there a couple of times and you see what happens. I mean, when Juan Soto arrived, one of the most electric days in podcast in Padres history, right? Yep. And then the first game when Brandon Drury hit the Grand Slam and I mean, I was like, we're never losing. There was really a thought that the Padres might go something like 58 and two down the stretch on their way to winning the World Series. So it was like, yeah, I'll never forget it as long as one of the most fun, like 36 hours ever, like the three of us that morning just refreshing every just silence, by the way, I mean, every insider pretty much had it at one point. Like it's done deal, but we're like, nope, nope, not until passing, not until passing, not until passing. But ultimately that that shot of adrenaline or even the disappointment, it wanes and you still have to then just go and play baseball down the stretch. The high was around for like three days. Yeah. And then we got the fatigue suspension. Yeah. Because that's the other part of it. We're like, oh, we just traded for Juan Soto and to teases coming back this week. Like it's over. It's over. It's over for all of you. What might have been is it's hard to lament. It's not hard to lament, but you know, nothing we can do about it now. You know, the, the, the pieces that AJ Preller goes out and tries to acquire. You know, look, man, it's, it's not rocket science. It's got to be there. It's got to be the right guys and the health of this team moving forward is what's ultimately going to propel them into a postseason birth or not. I mean, the guys got to stay healthy. They got to produce. They got some really tough games coming up. They have a stretch. I saw somebody made the point yesterday. There's a stretch in late August, Benny, that is just nasty as you could imagine. So it's going to be a tough road when today, when today you win a series, got open champion Zander Shoffley coming up in about 30 minutes. Before we get to the top of the hour, though, I still have those Sebastian Meniscalco tickets to give away. If you want to win them, let's do it right now. Comedian Sebastian Meniscalco coming to Viejas Arena on August 16th. Tickets are on sale now at ticketmaster.com, but you can win a pair by being the third caller right now, 833-288-0973, 833-288-0973, win a pair of tickets to Sebastian Meniscalco coming to Viejas Arena on August 16th next month, less than a month away. Yeah. Yours moving quickly. It is. How are you now? Less than 60 games remaining. Oh my God. Oh my God. Games left. Less than the shortened season. They have a season like they did in 2020. What do they go? I'll say 37 and 23. That'll get it done. That'll get it done. No problem. They do. Sprint time. They do 36 and 23. Let's say over the last 59 games. That would leave them 16 games above 500, which would be like 89 wins. Easy. You're in. You don't even probably need to be that good. That would be their pace, a little under their pace from the 2020 shortened season. It is right there in front of you. This season, by the way, last season was the most draggy season of all time. This season is flying by. I'd like to continue with this frenetic pace. It is. That mud saying doesn't feel like Korea was like six months ago? No, for me. You think it was just not that long ago. This season has flown by because you know why? Because it's been a pretty enjoyable product to watch. It really has. It's been a pretty enjoyable product filled with really good moments and so many more than last season. Last season was excruciating. And less excruciating moments. They've had a couple bad losses, but not like court, which I mean, not last year used to that. You know, you're totally. But it's just the abundance of one run losses and extra inning losses last year. I mean, they were. Oh, in what? Oh, in 10 at one point, an extra inning game. It was also part of it was I mean, so don't sell in Hader, you're like, you're supposed to be so much better. Yes. Yeah, it's definitely probably definitely a different feeling. All right. People calling in for Sebastian Maniscalco, Paulie's going to answer some phones and then come back with a rival report next year on 97 three the fan. Don't know I've ever talked to the champion golfer of the year, but that's the title bestowed on the winner of the open, which Zander Shoffley is and will join us in just over 20 minutes here on Ben and Woods looking forward to that woods. Hey, too. You nervous? Well, we just talked to him like a month and a half ago after we won the PGA championship. We talked to Mike Schilt every Friday. No, that's true. You know, I get nervous every time. Zander's a really nice. What am I doing? How you doing? Skip. Well, not that Mike Schilt isn't a nice guy, but Zander has no reason to be stressed or tense. I mean, he's not on top of the game right now. He's going to play in the Olympics, though, and defend that gold medal. We don't need to hold his feet to the fire at the moment. Well, there's no Zander Shoffley fan base that's demanding that we ask the tough question. Be curious. Zander in this interview, this guy, you know, his heart rate is so low. He has golfed in some of the most. He looks so calm conditions, but what kind of pressure does the Olympics have? I mean, you're still going up against very good golfers. A lot of the same guys that you see on the tour, but teeing it up in the Olympics, is it like, where's it rank as far as like the Masters? Yeah. I may open. He has a gold medal, though. He's got one. He doesn't. They don't take it away if you lose. So I feel like he's got to be feeling pretty good going into this one big time. He has not played that course, though. He didn't. He was not on that Ryder Cup team that was in Paris. Oh, is that five years ago or whenever they had the last one there? So I will be a new course to him coming up next week when they do the Olympic golf tournament. Something tells me he'll be fine. I agree. This was a new course to him. Yeah. And he did just fine. Just fine. So we'll talk to Zander coming up about 20 minutes before then, though, we can get some other headlines from Paulie in today's riddle report and get things started here with our addition today's edition of the round. I couldn't lose that. Now, tune it to them off. Greatest. Welcome to the Rindle Report with Paul Rindle. Hi, Paul. All right. Two stories from the world of sports that we haven't gotten to yet. We'll start off in Major League Baseball and one story that you didn't know you needed. Are you laughing, be hot? It's the Rindle Report. Hey, Paul. How are you doing? Okay. How are you? On 97.3, the fan. Are you ready to blast the mood? I need some help. Please. Ha ha. That was good. Can I get a hoe here? Yeah. All right. Boom. All right. How are we doing, gentlemen? Fantastic. All right. Let's start off a little football here, kind of. It's more of the football broadcast. So I was reading a story on awful announcing this morning that let me ask you first, have you guys ever used VR headsets? I've put one on my nephews had one, and they were over at my parents' house, and I put it on. Like a new reason? Yeah. I'm fairly new. I think we all at some point went to an arcade and used some crappy things back in the day. Did you play something? Some sort of game. I was incompetent at it, obviously. And you have to like, yeah, some sort of. I want video. I know. Next time I will make that happen, I think. Take a video of it. I don't have much experience with them, but they look pretty cool. I've seen, you know, Apple just came out with one that looks insane. And so Disney, which owns ESPN, they are working on a way to put VR headsets in the broadcast booths. So think Monday Night Football, you're watching Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. And they're working with this company called Status Pro, which a lot of athletes have used. It helps like with training and practice and stuff, like LeBron James, I think the whole Minnesota Vikings team, they all swear by it. So ESPN is working with this company, Status Pro, and basically the way they're explaining it is imagine Troy Aikman, Hall of Famer, former quarterback in the booth, and he's able to put on a VR headset in the booth while calling the game. And he will be able to see exactly what Patrick Mahomes is looking at and what he sees. There'll be a camera, a chip in his helmet, the face mask there. And so Aikman would be able to then put on the VR headset and he's able to see, okay, he saw that linebacker move. And so that's why he called this in real time, in real time, and it would enhance their broadcast. And you know, this is like Tony Romo works for CBS. I don't know if this would be an NFL thing eventually, but right now it's Disney leading the charge and they're working on getting this going pretty soon. And I think that sounds pretty awesome. I think that it will look funny when they show him wearing the goggles and stuff. That will be funny. Just looking around. But I, do we, do we need more analysis of what's happening on the field or do they already do a pretty good job with the camera angles and what not? Could this make it better? Could this make it better? I mean, we've said it before, the catcher's cam and the ump cam. And they show that you really get a sense when you're watching it last night, you're watching Randy Vasquez pitch and he's throwing 94 and dotting the zone. How easy does it look on television? Looks moronically easy. Guy hangs a curve ball. You're like, Oh, of course he hit that out. It's so much incredible. It's so much faster than it looks when they show that ump cam and that catcher cam. You're like, yeah, it just gets on you like that. It's 94, which those guys see all the time. I think the NFL does a really good job already, but if it makes it better and cooler and you get a different perspective, I'm into it. Yeah. I mean, if I could, if I could put on the VR helmet and just soil yourself like I'm a quarterback between that, it actually was what I was playing. It was like a football game in the VR helmet, but that would be interesting. I just do we need Troy Eggman once again going, Oh, well, he didn't see this guy was open on the right. I would have seen that. I'm not sure I need that at some point. It's an overload. I mean, it's still you only have the same amount of time between plays to do the analysis of what's going on. There has to be a limit to what analysts and broadcasters can do at some point. Yeah. Human brain limit. I mean, how much information they can like come out of the gates when he first started and I was like, this is awesome. And then it kind of kind of wore down on me a little bit. It was a little, it was like too much X's and O's, but I think it could be cool. I mean, if they can figure out a way to patch that video into the broadcast and you're literally seeing like what my homes is seeing as he's walking up to line, I think that would be pretty cool. Yeah, that'd be pretty solid. They've had cams on quarterbacks and stuff before, haven't they? I feel like I've seen that before, but I'm, Hey, I'm into it, man. I like that kind of stuff and yeah, VR is training. Like there's a baseball simulator that uses VR and look, I mean, again, it looks funny as hell. If you just watch sitting on a couch watching, you know, your son up there take hacks with a VR mask on. I wonder how much it can help. I'm assuming that it does. I'd like to try that at some point. That'd be pretty cool. Interesting. Yeah. All right. Next up, we'll switch over to baseball. Maybe it could have been a don't do this from earlier yesterday's TBS game of the week or whatever was the subway series, the Mets and the Yankees. Come on Yankees. No, no kidding. What do they do? A little help here. Someone needs to beat the Mets every once in a while. Tell Brett Boone to give his brother a call and say, what are you doing? His brother is getting hurt right now. I mean, just getting trounced on Twitter, trounced. The lineup they put out yesterday was so weird. It was a weird, weird lineup. I saw it when they released it and all these Yankee fans were like, what is going on with this? What are they doing? Judge. And then it's someone's brother in law, someone's cousin. It's dead after that. I mean, they just, they got nothing. Well, peanut vendor. Yeah. So yesterday was the national broadcast on TBS. Brian Anderson was on the call. Okay. And so Luis Hill of the Yankees was pitching and he was on the heel. He was on the heel. He was on the heel. And at the same time, as that game was going on, Paul Skeens was pitching against the Cardinals. Took a awful loss yesterday. First loss of the year. First loss of the year. What do you get? One run and eight innings or something? But they left him in for the ninth at a 1-1 game. We did give up the winning run. I mean, bold. He was only at like 91 pitches but didn't work out for the Pirates. You know, some would say that Paul Skeens is the front runner for Rookie of the Year. I would say Jackson Merrill will get it. But we'll see. Anyways, just listen to the broadcast here because Brian Anderson might have forgotten one key thing here. Skeens, the all-star starter. He's on the mound tonight, by the way. He's making his first start since starting the all-star game. You could make a strong case for Luis Heel in the Rookie of the Year race if not for Paul Skeens. Well, he's going to be a runaway. There we go. Anyways, yeah. So Luis Heel plays for the Yankees. That is in the American League. They're in the American League. Paul Skeens. He pitches for Pittsburgh, I believe, they're in the National League. There's two of them. But at this point, should there really even be? Multiple? Should there just be one MVP for all of baseball, one Rookie of the Year? For all of baseball, not if they all play each other all year long. I like to do so. I do too. Makes it easier, I think. Yeah. More accolades for more people. The discourse over one singular MVP would make my head explore. I do think it's one Rookie of the Year. I do think it's interesting, let's say, who's the front runner, Aaron Judge MVP in the American League? Yes. If he were to be traded this week, Bobby Winyers is making a push for sure. Just front runner MVP gets traded to the National League. Is he the National League MVP at the end of the year? Or is he the American League? I think it's happened once or twice before where we've had that kind of dilemma. Yeah. And it may have even cost someone an MVP. Probably saw young awards and can see a star pitcher get traded. Didn't, didn't, had great seasons in both leagues, but didn't have good enough numbers in either league to win the award. Yeah. That makes sense. Makes sense. Look, for sure. But it makes sense. Yeah. That's it. Look, at the end of the day, nobody's perfect. Ben and I didn't know that Bryce Johnson was a switch hitter. I am predicting that Aaron Judge will not be traded at the day. I will. I will also predict that as well. Show Hayo Tani probably staying with the Dodgers. Yes. For $2 million a year. Right. How nice for them. Wow. Well, a year for him. And then finally here, one more note. You guys know the name Hayley Welch. Hayley Welch is a figure skater. No, I don't think so. Hayley Welch, maybe Welch, but I think it's Welch. She's a TikTok star. Olympic singer. You're closer. Closer. She is. Oh, you've got to give him that hook. Oh, that's her. Oh, that's her. She has a name. She's not just a two of her. Feel bad now. Hayley. She has some real feelings. Somebody tweeted yesterday. When are these 15 minutes up? She's going to mention the 15 minutes. I've seen some clips of her. She's doing like little, you know, mini real documentaries or whatever on TikTok, Instagram. And she's like, everyone keeps saying, my 15 minutes are going to be up soon. I'm going to make the most of it. And she's cashing in. And we talked about her merch sales, her, the hats and the shirts and all of that. Or 15 minutes aren't quite up just yet from that viral clip. It's been what? Yeah. Probably on the Haktua. Haktua. Saw that she is selling trading cards like a baseball card with her autographs on there. And they've already sold out. They sold out for $100. I think this came out like yesterday and they sold out immediately. You can get Haktua autographed trading cards. And she's got a few different ones out there and personal inscription on there and she autographs it. She just signs her name though. She doesn't say it. She says, I heart Pookie. She says that in the video. I love Pookie. Did you get yours? She spells her name in a very odd way because it's Haley, which I think, maybe like, H-A-L-E-Y. Or H-A-I-L-E-Y, but no, she's H-A-L-I-E-Y. She's Holly. Holly is. Holly is. Holly is. There's her. She's got a cowboy hat on and it says, I love Pookie. Haley Welch. Pookie. She's a big fan. I like her. She seems nice. Fun. Fun. Not taking it herself too seriously. No. Yeah. I don't think I'm going to spend the $100. I'm not surprised. Taylor. Training. Tyler says, burn it down. Some people are very upset with their 15 minutes. It happens. Jeter says, go away please. It was. That she's a delight. I was fascinating. Like a study on humans in 2024. No. Just this one short video clip went so viral that it literally changed her life at least temporarily. Like, they were, I was seeing stories like, oh, she's got an agent. They're talking to Hollywood about a reality TV show now. What is our agent doing? If we put in a lot of work, aren't you that Nick Castellanos guy? I saw a TikTok. Yes. He's got me now. Holy cow. Bro. By the way. How many? That went up over a quarter of a million views. Come on, man. Like Sammy gets like two million views of his TikTok. Wow. Like, it's insane. But for us, I was like, that's kind of weird to be on the other end of that now. Like, a quarter of a million people watch that stupid, just reading a list. Edgard says, stop promoting that nonsense. Ever. Um, no. No. Not going to. Fuck! What you don't know is we get 6% of every sale. Of every sale. Yeah. We'll have to talk to a... No, we don't. No. We don't get anything. We don't even... If you get your chance at the 15 minutes... We don't even get that much on our own merchandise. No. No. What do we get that says? You got a 6% or something? You got to milk it. You got to milk your 15 minutes. I couldn't agree more. Could not agree more. Good for her. She's a good kid. She's a good kid. No. We'll ask Andrew Shoffley all about... What do you think of Hawke to a girl? And maybe a little bit about golf and the Open Championship win. He's going to join us coming up in our next segment. Don't go anywhere. It has been a woods. Back after traffic was Andrew Shoffley on 97-3 the fan. I expect he has Andrew Shoffley open about 2-3 minutes. Just a couple other baseball notes here woods. Saw that Mike Trout was on rehab assignment yesterday. He made it two innings and then had to come out of the game with soreness and surgically repaired knee. They hope it's a minor setback, but they just don't really know. Obviously, having a star player like Mike Trout no longer be Mike Trout and not being able to play is tough. That angels organization may not be a very good baseball organization, but the bad luck that they've had is... It's bad. I don't know what they did to deserve that amount of bad luck. That's a really good point. They've made some terrible decisions in their day as a lot of organizations do, but the bad luck has been they have to feel as cursed as any team. Now they have a World Series Championship. They do. They'll always have that, but other than that man, it's been one tragedy after another. That's the argument. They've been about 23 years, like the deal with the devil. You win the World Series, but for the next 25 years, nothing's going to go right for your team. Nothing's going to go your way. It's just going to be an unrelenting stream of bad news and misery and injuries and bad luck and bad signings. It's just going to be nothing but disappointment. Do you sign up for that for a quarter century? At 49? Yes. No. Yeah. Let's see, Bo, my kids and kids, young kids, that would suck for them because they're not even really open up to it. You sign up for that now for the Padres. They win the World Series here, but you know, the next 25 years is just going to be awful. Pretty much the rest of your life, the Padres are just going to be bad and uncompetitive and just complete disappointments that could happen anyway. It could. At least I would have a World Series banner, you know, really, like honestly, you've got to take the, take the dub when you can get it, always, you always take the dub when you can get it. I like the ride. I mean, I want to win a title, but what did you think every year is fun? I never did it. It's fine. It's not fine. I mean, it's not fine. I'd rather see them win it, but it's not me winning or losing it. It's my team. I just want, I, I like the, I like the ride. I like the competitiveness. Of course I hope they win it all, but when you're laying on your deathbed and they never won one, are you going to think to yourself, I should have been harder on the team. No. No. I think that would have helped. Maybe I'll think I should have picked a different team. No, man, I, I, I know it's, it's, I know that that it, it doesn't sound great, but holy smokes. I mean, they've had reasons to get excited at least. It's not like it's been horrendous. They've had, they had, they got to watch Ohayo Tani for a few years now. You lost him. That hurts. Obviously. But they've had some, some good moments sprinkled in there too. So it hasn't been all bad, but they have had some really gnarly tragedies as well. All right. It has been a whirlwind last couple of months for our next guest. We got to talk to him after his PGA championship win and kind enough to join us for a few minutes following the open triumph at Royal Troon on Sunday champion golfer of the year. Xander Schofly is back with us here on 97 three, the fan, Xander, congratulations again. I'd imagine it does not get old or tiresome to hear that Ben and what's going on guys. How are you doing? It's our pleasure, man. How you feeling? Yeah, I'm, I'm doing okay. Better than usual. I'd say nice. Nice. Well, let me start. I mean, I've never been to Scotland. It's like bucket list would love to go play. I mean, to grow up here in San Diego where, I mean, nothing is as old as like the, the newest things over there. You're playing on a course that was built probably when San Diego, there's no one even living here in California. And now you're the champion walking down that fairway and the history of it all. What was that like for you on Sunday? Yeah, it's a, it was a dream. You know, I think, I think it's a dream for any kid that's playing golf just, they kind of know, you know, if you watch majors, you watch Tiger growing up, you watch Jack Arnie, all the greats of the game. There's that sort of standing ovation, the yellow leaderboards, you know, that sort of corridor feeling with those coffin bunkers. And it was, it was so cool, it was so cool for me to have that moment with Austin going down the fairway, lucky to have sort of a two or three shot lead going in. So, you know, I try to enjoy it as much as I could, you know, I, I definitely, the job wasn't done with, you know, with what was 20 feet left, but, and I, you know, I saw on the board that was maybe two or three shots ahead, but I figured, you know, someone can make a hole in one. Like, you know, if you make this putts for sure, you're going to seal it. But for those, you know, 100 yards or so, I really try to take it in because it's pretty much a dream, you know, it's something my dad and I have talked about, Austin, I've talked about and to actually make it happen is, is, yeah, I mean, I'm obviously still over the moon about it. Talking to Sandra Shoffley here on Beda Woods this morning and yeah, looking up, seeing that you're in the lead, having that experience to draw from though, it was a, it was a different scenario. The putt that you had to make to win your first major was just incredible. One of the best, best moments of golf that we've seen in a long, long time, having that little bit of a cushion, though, standing there, how much did you draw on what you just went through in your first major win a lot? People were asking me sort of, you know, do I feel different coming into the week after winning one major? Do I feel better? And you know, I was kind of saying, I don't, I don't think so. I don't feel much different, you know, it's nice to have that one, but I think where it could make a difference is coming down that stretch. You know, if, if I am in contention, I think I can use that win at Valhalla to propel myself in the moment and it helps, you know, I'm not going to lie, it, it helps when I, when I turn onto that back nine, it is a terrifying back nine to play in a major championship. If you're up or close to the lead, you know, you are with, you know, 10 blind T shot, 11, you know, guys are making doubles and triples on, and then 12 guys are making doubles and triples on. So you can, you can really lose your tournament with one bad swing on that Sunday. So sort of being able to walk through that fire there, birding 11, paring 12, and then, you know, being able to, then getting to 13 and 14, birding both those holes, it wouldn't, I wouldn't have been able to do it if I didn't win at Valhalla and, you know, I really believe that. I'm nervous talking. I have anxiety. You won it. I'm ready. When you're going through it again, it makes me anxious. We had a hypnotist in last week to try to fix my short game. I get nervous, you know, playing at the goats. So I can't even imagine, but I know you said the 65 on Sunday afterwards was best round of your career. Tip top, you said. Am I crazy to say I'm more impressed with the 69 on Saturday in those conditions, someone growing up in San Diego, I can't play when it's like misty in the morning and you're out there and it's just pouring and windy and guys who grew up in Ireland and England are falling apart and you're shooting too under that to me. That was even more incredible. What was that daylight? Yeah, there's, that's actually, that's a really good point. That was what was supposed to be a, we were supposed to get like two millimeters of rain and it was supposed to be like six, five to send it up being, I don't know, 10 or 12 millimeters of rain. We didn't get a break, it rained literally from my tee shot to the 18th hole. It may have stopped while we were on the 18th green, which is hilarious, of course. But you know, one to 17 was in the rain and then the wind picked up me being and being able to sort of iron out a two under par and propel myself up the leaderboard is really what gave, you know, I moved on moving day in a fashion I didn't think was possible. And that definitely helped me. I got to ask you about this. So, so you and Justin Rose are on 18 and you got a couple shot lead on him and you but you guys both hit your tee shots and then he goes to the, to the bathroom. Did he, was he trying to ice you there or were you mad or were you like, bro, I want to get this thing over with, I got a lead, I know I can, I know I can finish strong. Can't you wait like 10 minutes still after he let me have my moment and you go to the bathroom, I would have been living honestly, I was so zoned out. I couldn't even, I had no clue that he went to the bathroom, like that's a really good use that strategy next time. If maybe you're the one chasing on 18, you just pop into the bathroom and and ice him a little bit. But I was, it was. The icing of the kick. Yeah. I had no clue. I don't, I can't recall, you know, to be fair, there, there weren't enough bathrooms out there. So I think the pre, the first bathroom was on like the last bathroom was on 14. So 15, 16, 17, and then 18 T was the next toilet. So if you have to do it, one of the days I missed 14, and I think I ran all the way from 16 T to like the third toilet, which is like 250 yards the wrong way, just because I was going to piss myself. He said a shuffle with the inside story of the open championship with us. And I, I was thinking, Xander, this morning, you actually now own like three of the coolest prizes in sports, a gold medal at the Olympics, which you're about to defend in Paris, the watermaker trophy for the PGA Championship, which was just like the coolest giant trophy cup. And now the claret jug, the old, one of the oldest, most historic coolest trophies. And they're all yours right now. I mean, that's, that's amazing. Yeah, it's, I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It's sick, you know, it's a dream and it's, you know, I know I'm only going to have them on me for a little, you know, I got the claret jug with me, but you know, as soon as we get backstage side, you know, my dad and my mom, they're going to, they're my, my caretakers of everything. Nice that I have. And so they're going to take it off of me and I'm sure my dad will be back to parading around town with a claret jug. So we'll see you here in San Diego at something, a lot of pressure for them too to have to like, I got to take this thing home. I mean, oh my God, Xander, what have you consumed out of it already? Yeah. Anything? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Red wine was the first thing. Yeah. And then you, my dad's a little traditional. He wanted red wine. He said it is a claret jug. So you drink wine out of it. He said nothing else should be poured into it. He is not with me right now. And it can not deny or say, but I, some tequila may have been poured into it last night. Mountain Dew code red or anything, little, little coffee in the morning out of the claret jug wouldn't be a bad, wouldn't be a bad idea either. All right. So every golfer obviously dreams of winning all four, you know, you, you want to, you want to win all four, but I'm going to put you to the test here. You can only win one of the remaining two, which one is it? I think I know the answer, but I want to hear it from you. You can only win one of the next two, even though I have full confidence so you can win multiples of each, but you got to pick one today here on the Bed and Woods program. My man, I am not picky. I've said this over and over again. I am not picky, made a major is a major and it is what all of us strive to win. And I'm not going to sit here and be picky about which one I'm trying to win here. Having the green jacket and the water maker and the claret jug on your neck with another a second gold medal hanging around your neck would be pretty awesome. Just before you go quickly, any thoughts on coming up on Paris and the tournament and defending your title and and heading there. I'm sure in the next couple of days, yeah, we'll be heading. I just golf for the first time today with a few of my USA teammates and, you know, I lost to both of them. So we'll get a kick in the ass, but I'm going to have to get back on the horse here and gear myself up, you know, and enjoyed, enjoyed this last one as much as I could. It's a quick turnaround. You know, we have the Olympics, which I'm super fired up for in Paris. And then we have one week off and then we have that sprint with the FedEx Cup playoff. So we're in full sprint mode here on our golfing circuit and but our next stop will be will be in Paris. And yeah, I mean, I'm fired up. Awesome, man. So great. Thanks so much for jumping on. And we're all rooting for you made San Diego so, so very proud this last weekend and before and always. So thank you for all that. We'll talk to you in mid April. Yeah. We'll talk to you in April. Exactly. Sounds good. Boys. Thank you. Tanner Schoffley, champion golfer of the year, little tequila in the claret jug. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Nor do I. And we're going to take a final time out. I want to react to that a little bit and we'll wrap things up before Annie and Elston with Beno Woods on San Diego's number one sports station, 97 three the fan. Thanks again. That was awesome. That was so much fun. So much fun. All right. Sorry. Sorry about the bathroom. I said it at the break. We've talked to Xander. It's probably the third or four time we've the confidence and the ease of conversation. But I'm talking not at all. Not even a little. Even told us when I'm played yesterday got beat. He also said he blacked out. You know, no, I didn't even notice he went to the bathroom because I was just zoned out. If you've ever had to do the only thing that I've even come close to feeling that way was doing stand up comedy and the black out you fully you can't you're out of your body and you're up there and you're trying to tell jokes and make people laugh. You leave your your body. It's the only I've done. We've done stuff. We did the first pitch. That was a little bit of black out there. But some of the cool stuff we got to do. I'm like, it was awesome. Great. That feeling of just not even knowing what planet you're on because you're so locked in or nervous or whatever. He was telling us about the 11th, 12th, 13th, I was getting sick to my stomach and he'd already won it. You know, and it was just he was incredible today. He also kind of called me out for my Chris Farley moment. Remember that time when you have a little bell and you want to bring your show to me and the Claret juggle? Same time. That was. That was cool. She'll got me on that a couple of weeks ago. I don't know how to answer that question. I'm like, oh, just talk about it then. Yeah. It's really cool then. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. Very much. Yes, I do have them and they look great. He, so the only thing that's left, obviously, I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It's cool. I love it. Yeah, it's. I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. I know. It's sick. It's sick. There you go. There. That's all you need to say. That's all you need to say. He couldn't just answer. It's so sick. It's just the sickest thing ever. But so yeah, he's got the Olympics and then he said right back for the FedEx Cup playoffs. If he wins again here and there's an argument to be made that he and not Scotty Scheffler should be the player of the year. Scotty has six wins. Six. A major, the Masters and all of his wins are like the elevated events. The players championship. He's really chosen. I love Zander. I'd still probably pick Scotty just because of the quality and the quantity of all those wins. Zander wins another one, gets to three or even four. He's really good at that Eastlake Tour Championship course at the end of the year. Wins the FedEx Cup with like four wins. I'd switch my vote then to Zander Scheffler is the player of the year. So he's got stuff to play for still here in this final month of the PGA Tour season. Yeah, no question about it, man. No question about it. He was spectacular. I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as we did to brilliant. All right. We got a Padres game coming up later today. We'll take a look ahead at today's matchup going for four in a row. Against the Washington Nationals right after our last check of traffic here on 97 through the fan. If you've been following the Padres closely all season, you'd know they've had like three or four of these stretches where they've had a good run of starting pitching pretty much all the way through their rotation like like looks like they've got like the best starting staff in the league for a week at times. Yeah. And then it all goes away. Well, it's time to already turn over back to the beginning again. Matt Waldron is going to make his second start since the all-star break today going with the four man rotation for now with the off day. So he will get the start today against Mitchell Parker of the Washington Nationals, another left-hander at 3.45 and, you know, Waldron's the only one who didn't get a win, but he pitched really well against the Guardians in that first game out of the all-star break last Friday. So can the Padres now, now that they've put together, you know, three wins in a row and good pitching, can they now do that? And just keep going with some solid pitching for more than five or six days. Can they do it for a two-week span? I know. I know someone's going to have a bad start at some point. It's baseball, but can they have some consistency going forward over these last 60 games of the season? You know, and I do think looking at Mitchell Parker, Benny, he's in the zone a lot and, you know, he's a four-pitch pitcher. He doesn't walk a ton of guys. So you're going to have your opportunities to do some damage off of me. He's had a really, really good year. I mean, he's sitting right now for the Nats. He's got 390 ERA, he's five and five. He's got absolutely rocked in his last start before the all-star break. Yeah, coming off that. I mean, you never know. It's been a while. I needed the rest, whatever, but no, he gets some swing and miss and he doesn't walk a lot of guys. So for me, yes, while Matt Waldron is very, very important tonight, and as much as I'd love a blowout win, you know, score six, seven, eight runs in the first three or four innings, I get the sense it's going to be another one of those grind it out, grind it out victories. And Matt Waldron needs some offense. Matt Waldron needs his offense today to step up for him like they haven't really done. And, you know, that's what I'm looking for today. I want the guys to come out swinging again. Guys is going to be in the zone. He's not going to walk you. So take your hacks up there, man, and try to string something together and get on the board early for Matt Waldron. And the key for him is to not give up, you know, the early run. And if he can do that, man, yeah, let's, let's win a series today. Based on Mike Schiltz comments yesterday, I would expect to see Donovan Solano, maybe both of these two days, at least one of them against more lefties because it's Corbin. Patrick Corbin is going to pitch tomorrow morning in the series finale. But I had too much more than who we follow on Twitter had a good, good point. He said, Luis arises the only guy who has faced Mitchell Parker and he's gotten some hits off of him. So put a rise in the lineup today. Maybe give Jake a day off and get Solano into the lineup and then a reverse. Jake has pretty good numbers against Corbin. Yeah. You give a rise the day off tomorrow and give Solano a couple in a row to get a little bit of a rhythm against two more straight left-handers after he has not played at all in the first four games since the all-star break. I mean, it makes so much sense that it absolutely will not happen. You know what I mean? Next time we try to predict what's going to happen, you know, we really don't know with the lineup there. He'll mix it up on you. He'll throw Bryce Johnson out there and he'll be a switch hitter, apparently, at the drop of that. He'll obviously switch hitter Bryce Johnson, very valuable. So you just never know what you're going to see out there. But the Nats are no dummies. I mean, they know the potteries have, they're, they're hitting a little better now against left-handers and way better than they were a month or so ago. But again, you throw a right-hander out there, the potteries have hit them much, much better. And so they're stacking it with three lefties. Speaking of dangerous lefties, maybe a mild surprise if you're a Padres fan that they kept James Wood in check yesterday with the 0 for 4, Robert Torres actually struck him out to end the game. He'd say that one early. Yeah, they had a line drive out, but usually those X Padres tend to get some damage on their old team. Series didn't over yet. No, it's not. I think, and that's what my point was going to be. One of the keys going forward is, you know, keep, keep Abrams and Wood from getting hot like they sometimes seem to tend to do against their old team because they don't have that deep of a lineup. It's not, not as scary even as the Guardians lineup, certainly not as scary as the Orioles lineup you're going to be facing. Keep the bigger guys in check, feel felt like there was kind of some softer spots at the bottom of the order that, that Waldron and Cease tomorrow are going to be able to, to hopefully control and give yourself a chance to win another series. Again, I'm okay. I'm okay with two out of three. Oh, yeah. It's so rare to actually sweep an entire season series from a team. So awesome. Padres are two days away from potentially doing it. Give, win today, give yourself that chance tomorrow to go six and oh against the Washington Nationals this year. Won't be any room for chirping on the Washington National side if they go, oh, and six against the San Diego Padres. You give yourself a chance to at least do that. Win the series. You're, you're in a good spot on this road trip. Even if you take one of these next two, you're four and two, you've guaranteed that you're going to be above 500, I think, or at least 500 when you come back at the very worst, even if you lost all three games in Baltimore, you've probably avoided the worst possible scenario of your road trip already. Yeah. If you get one of these next two, you get them both, you're playing with house money in Baltimore. You win the series, you've had one of the best road trips any team has had all year. Even if you take one of three, you've had a winning road trip, you're coming home better than you were when you left. It's all good news. So, you know, good, good stuff potentially for the San Diego Padres, but they need to take care of business opportunity games today and tomorrow. No question about it. No question about it. I did feel a little bad. I know that, you know, there was the bad blood and everything that went on. I saw that the Nationals actually tried to rally their fan base to come out and boo the Padres over the weekend and they were, you know, sending out tweets and let's pack the park and it was, it was pretty dead, man. And, you know, listen, I can't really blame them. There's a couple guys there. You want to go watch every day. I think if you're a hardcore Nazi fan, you want to see James Wood every day and win the Kenzie gourd pitches, sure, you know, but there's, it's really a franchise that they're, they're teetering on the brink right now. Well, yeah. Probably going to end up pro far being a, just a thorn in their side, another home run. They're just kind of starting to be a dividing line in the nationally wildcard race. Not that a little, not that they're, because they're kind of at the bottom. They're five and a half games out, which is not insurmountable, but between the pirates and the Cubs is kind of the pirates are 51 and 50. Then you go all the way down to 49 and 54 where the Cubs are four and a half. So now you have six teams that are all, I mean, even the pirates who are a game and a half out of the third spot are only four games out of the Braves who are the first spot right now. And you know, these plays are only three games behind the Braves for the number one wildcard spot, but they're still half a game behind the Mets for the third. So it is really bunched up now down to kind of six teams. Maybe the Giants or the, you know, someone tries to still make a run, but right now it's looking like three spots for six teams and throw them all in a hat right now, whoever has the last good two months is going to take those three spots. Braves have lost three in a row. The Dodgers have actually done us a favor and, and beaten the Giants the last two nights. So I want that I guess to continue under now. Yeah, we want that to continue right before the, right before the trading deadline as well. Alden Gonzalez is writing about that. I mean, how different would it look if it was the Padres who had lost three or four or all four and the Giants who had won three or four right now? They might be more aggressive and Padres might be more conservative. Now you expect the Padres to be a little more aggressive than Giants probably to be more conservative at the trading deadline just based on the results of the last, you know, few days. Yeah, it's pretty shocking to see and yeah, it's it with as far as the Giants, I've seen some of their fans to their, their, their after Bo Mel pretty good right now pretty pretty good losing two in a row to your alleged biggest rival will do that to you from time to time. All right. That will do it for us. A reminder again, programming note, we will be on tomorrow morning, six AM, but only until eight oh five and Sammy's eco water so Cal pregame show, so we got a lot to get to cram it all in in two hours. When we talk to you tomorrow morning, Annie and else did they're coming up next for Stephen Woods and Paul Reidel. I'm Ben Higgins. Have a great rest of your Wednesday from all of us here at San Diego's number one sports station. You can get your favorite team, your favorite players and get customized highlights stories and breaking news right on your home feed. Follow the action with game 10 where 3D replays add another dimension plus notifications can keep you connected to every pitch every hit every game the MLB at baseball your way download it now for free from the app store or Google play block out another research and supply major league baseball trade parts used with permission. Today's episode is sponsored by nerd wallets smart money podcast. Get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. Nerd wallets experts will set future you up for success with dependable fact based insights. No financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation. Find your next credit card or loan for a big purchase and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow nerd wallets smart money podcast on your favorite podcast app. You don't just live in your home you live in your neighborhood as well. 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Luckily homes.com has got you covered each listing features a comprehensive neighborhood guide from local experts everything you'd ever want to know about a neighborhood including the number of homes for sale transportation local amenities cultural attractions unique qualities and even things like median lot size and a noise score homes.com we've done your homework baseball coverage on ninety seven three the fan is presented by T mobile switch to T mobile you can get tons of benefits and still save on every plan versus AT&T and Verizon use their savings calculator to find out how a T mobile dot com slash switch and some of our best baseball coverage every week comes in the form of our conversations with Brett Boone host of the Brett Boone podcast did you see who he just had on was Bo Jackson Bo Jackson I will ask him about that and more right after a check traffic here on ninety seven three the fan Boone knows baseball were joined by Odyssey MLB insider Brett Boone insider calls presented by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry Granger has the right product for you call click Granger dot com or just stop by Brett also the host of the Brett Boone podcast featuring the most notable names in MLB and around sports every week and say Bo Jackson qualifies as a notable name Brett good morning. Good morning guys how you doing doing well man but Bo Jackson oh my god never saw anything like that guy never saw never never saw anything would be I would never just kind of agree with you just for the radio radio drama sure but you know what I would when I when I interviewed Bo and I knew him as a kid played against him a little bit when he was rehabbing in the minor league but when I just started thinking back to Bo and and I was going over highlights and stuff I kind of agree with you I don't think we've seen anything like him I mean he was just a freak of all freaks and I say that in a very endearing way but yeah he was he was something that the arm the arm I mean the every day the hose every piece that he had and he would he made some of the gnarliest shows the the catch he made in Yankee Stadium where he ran up the freakin wall and ran around it like it's he was a magician it's like a he was like a cyborg yeah like here's the football see that white line at the end go get that extends go that's good if you if you go past that he was he was like a man he was he was unbelievable when he ran into the tunnel all the way through on the touchdown I don't know his press his presence on the field it's almost like on the baseball field run on the base it's almost like you heard him run by you it's at bizarre it's bizarre he was he was something pretty darn special I asked him oh yeah I asked him how much money how much money he'd make in the end in the NIL if he was at Auburn right now and he just started laughing he said I would have never gone pro right I mean I heard we were talking about it I was talking about with somebody yesterday at my son's baseball practice and I think the backup I think arch manning with all in this year is the backup at Texas is going to make millions of dollars like multiple millions of dollars as you know the backup the air apparently incumbent but that's insane to think about guys like Reggie Bush Bo Jackson how great they were Vince Young all those guys in college what they would have made it is Dion yeah Dion oh my god it is a brave brave new world out there booney yes it is yes it is it's awesome yeah did you go you went to the All-Star game yeah I did not oh you did not go I thought you did go did you watch it I was I was going I wasn't going I ended up not going I ended up having in the bed in Seattle so now I didn't do the other and you know I caught bits and pieces I'm a bit I'm a bit in pieces I'm a bit you know the home run derby and you know I'm a bit in pieces guy I did find something I finally then finally came clear I said well how would these BP pitchers throwing such good strikes they're throwing from like four feet yeah it's like over hand soft toss with with and I know those balls and then the All-Star game they're always pumped up pretty good so I mean they're like pinnacles you know so I so I know you know they want the show I get it I hit the home run derby and those balls are just jumping but it's like you're throwing from four feet it seems like it's kind of easy it turns into kind of a marathon or who's got the best cardio yeah who ends up winning the home run derby so I think we're at a time I think it's run its course it's it's been entertaining it's been great I think we got to change the rules up a little bit what those rules are I don't know I'll leave that to the to the nerds I'll leave that to you yeah to Ben well I had my idea for the All-Star game to change up the rules this week was now that the American and National League distinctions are kind of lost with inter league play and you don't really feel like you're playing that much for your league anymore I thought it would be very interesting to divide the game by age and have like the young players under 28 against the older players over 28 and I thought that might ramp up the stakes a little bit because veterans would not want to get shown up by the young guys and the young guys would love to show up the swag and play against the vets in the All-Star game well how about this how about the uni let's talk about no well that's everyone agrees on that everyone terrible no but but it's do you remember the old commercials the less filling yeah yeah Bob Euchar tastes great yeah it's like yeah the Euchar or or Rodney Dangerfield that's what those uni's look like because I'm all you know I'm I got kids now I'm not I'm the traditional I love the whites at home I love the grays on the road I didn't like the alternative uniforms I didn't feel good at them but I've come around a little bit I like kind of some of the new unis I'm seeing some of the new look for 2024 I think it's cool the All-Star game you're pushing the envelope guys you got you're losing me now you're losing my progressiveness I'm pulling back on you get rid of those I know everybody doesn't like them but I've been trying them trying to roll with major league baseball in their new way I couldn't roll with that one they make it difficult sometimes Booniam with you a hundred percent talking to Brett Boon here on Ben and Woods this morning and they can they can make it I'm I kind of fall somewhere in the middle of traditional list and and I like a lot of the new stuff as well but man it's a trade deadline is something that we can count on every single year being a part of you know the the pod raise team essentially nobody is safe you know I mean you got to be feeling if you're a prospect right now you're probably a little bit on pins and needles if you are a couple of guys in that clubhouse you're probably a little nervous about what could happen in a week or so aging parlors always super active your thoughts on on the pod raise what they need to do what they will do you got to go and get some pitching you know you got to go with some pitch and I don't worry that much tauties to me you need to have him back yes have a healthy tauties I know he's starting to do baseball activities now but you need a healthy tauties you get him couple him with with the veteran Machado and the rest of that too I think the offense is fine I wouldn't mind seeing them going out and adding a bullpen piece as well yep you know Suarez at the end of that at the end of that line is pretty pretty darn good but I'd like to see him add a bullpen piece I think there's a playoff team I think this is a team that can go deep in the playoffs and I think with that roster in place right now you got to go out and really add you know offensively I think you're fine I wouldn't I wouldn't it wouldn't be a big deal to me if you didn't add anything offensive but you got to go at it maybe a starting pitcher you got to add a piece in that bullpen with the up in the air of Darvish and Musgrove so I think you got to definitely add a piece there as far as the negation now you know you know the interesting thing around baseball it's not just the Padres it's every fan base every team are we gonna add are we gonna are we buyers are we sellers if you look at this if you look at the landscape there's so many teams at this stage with them moving that that trading deadline to two months versus one month there are so many teams still there's so much parity there's so many teams still in it there are very few that you can say oh we're sellers we're out of it yeah there's the bottom team that everybody kind of knows a it's over for you but never has it there have been so much parity so many teams that possibly could be buyers at the deadline where the inventory is gonna be down you know everybody wants Google maybe a crochet from from the Chicago White Sox but you know if you look at a big offensive he had the Vladimir Guerrero that could be a viable piece that could be added I look at him but outside of that who is a big difference maker offensive guys that could possibly be available at the deadline maybe a Robert from Chicago but how much do you trust his help you know he's been a guy that's proven he can't stay on the field so maybe he looks great he doesn't look so great because you don't know if you can count on him so it's gonna be interesting in this deadline a lot of buyers not that many sellers and the guys that are sellers don't have that much to sell I think you look to the Blue Jays though from our perspective they're talking about keeping that that group in tact for another year I don't think so I think when push comes to the show everybody's available on that team Blatty being the shiniest object but you got a gossum and you got a burials you got a kukuchi and the guys like guys like that a basket in that starting rotation that could be a good fit for a lot of teams down the stretch our Odyssey insider call with Brett Boone is brought to you by Granger and Brett I wanted to ask what was your experience with the trade deadline like as a player whether your name you know up in rumors you certainly teammates that you had that were dealt or new teammates coming in any stories from the deadline you have to share with us well I think as a player you know I was never really worried that I was going anywhere at the trade deadline but it was always pins and needles for I know we've got a really good team this year you know I'm doing a hypothetical you got a really good team and I wonder what ownership is going to do it's amazing this shot of adrenaline that could be pumped into that clubhouse if there was if that front office in your ownership group gets behind you and goes and makes a splash at the trading deadline it can it can it can turn that clubhouse from a what are we going to do here to wow the big boys the guys upstairs they got our back that could be a difference maker of the trading deadline I've been on three or four real real contending playoff teams and the years that we went for it definitely gave us a rush in that clubhouse and and a feeling like we're holding this together I've also been on really good teams that at the deadline we just kind of stood there and stood pat and it was almost like oh well you know in 25 guys at the time now I know the rosters are 26 and kind of look at each other in that clubhouse to go guys I guess we're on our own you know we're going to do it without management so it can really be a difference maker from a psychological standpoint for the guys on that roster there's 26 guys down there you make a move whether you stand pat or or heaven forbid if you if you sell at the trading deadline when you're still in the hunt man that that's that's a real quandary where you go wow management that I guess they're telling us what they think of us right now they don't believe in it so it can be a psychological positive or a psychological negative that I don't think anybody really ever factors in well we will definitely be keeping our eye on all the news over the next now six days until the trade deadline next Tuesday at 3 p.m. Pacific and Brett I'm sure we'll catch up with you again maybe next week right after the trade deadline to get your reaction to all of it appreciated as always you got it guys thanks brother there is Odyssey MLB insider bread bone insider calls presented by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry Granger has the right product for you call click Granger.com or just stop by check out the bread boom podcast in the Odyssey app his latest guest of course Bo Jackson this week and yeah I mean we know that that's what they always say you know player comes in trade deadline shot of adrenaline injection we're really going for it pot raise have been there a couple of times and you see what happens I mean when wants so to arrive one of the most electric days and never stood pot raise history right yeah and then the first game when Brandon jury Brandon jury hit the grand slam and I mean I was like we're never losing it there was really a thought that the pot raise might go something like 58 and two down the stretch on their way to winning the world series it was like yeah I'll never forget it as long as one of the most fun like 36 hours yeah ever like the the three of us that morning just refreshing every just silence silence by the way I mean every insider pretty much had it at one point like it's done deal but we're like nope nope not until passing not until passing not until passing leave but ultimately that that shot of adrenaline or even the disappointment it it wanes and you still have to then just go and play baseball down the stretch the high was around for like three days yeah and then we got the t-s suspension news yeah because that was the other part of it we're like oh we just traded for one soda and t-s is coming back this week like it's over it's over it's over for all of you what might have been is uh it's hard to lament it's not hard to lament but you know nothing we can do about it now you know the the pieces that AJ Preller goes out and tries to acquire you know look man it's it's not rocket science it's got to be there it's got to be the right guys and and the health of this team moving forward is what's ultimately going to propel them into a postseason birth or not I mean the guys got to stay healthy they got to produce they got some really tough games coming up they have a stretch I saw somebody made the point yesterday there's a stretch in late august Benny that is just nasty as you could imagine so it's it's going to be a tough road when today when today you win a series got open champion Zander Shoffley coming up in about 30 minutes before we get to the top of the hour though I still have those Sebastian Maniscalco tickets to give away if you want to win them let's do it right now uh comedian Sebastian Maniscalco coming to vajas arena on august 16th tickets are on sale now at ticketmaster.com but you can win a pair by being the third caller right now 8 3 3 2 8 8 0 97 3 8 3 3 2 8 8 0 97 3 win a pair of tickets to Sebastian Maniscalco coming to vajas arena on august 16th next month less than a month away yeah you're is moving quickly it is probably not less than 60 games remaining 59 oh my god games left less less than the shortened season they have a season like they did in 2020 what do they go uh let's say 37 and 23 that'll get it done that'll get it done no no problem they do they do they do 36 and 23 let's say over the last uh 59 games that would leave them uh 16 games above 500 which would be like 89 wins easy and to play us there you don't even you probably need to be that that good right that that would be their pace a little under their pace from the 2020 shortened season is right there in front of you this season by the way last season was the most draggy season of all time this season is flying by i'd like to continue with this frenetic pace it is but i heard mud saying doesn't feel like korea was like six months ago no for me you think it was not that long ago this season has flown by because you know why because it's been a pretty enjoyable product to watch it really has it's been a pretty enjoyable product filled with really good moments uh and so many more than last season last season was excruciating and less excruciating moments they've had a couple bad losses but not like court which i mean not last year you're used to that you know you're totally i mean the just the abundance of one run losses and extra inning losses last year i mean they were oh and what oh in 10 at one point an extra inning games it was also part of it was I and Tony Soto and Snell and Hayter you're like you're supposed to be so much better yes yeah it's definitely problems definitely a different feeling all right people calling in for Sebastian Maniscalco Pauli's gonna answer some phones of then come back with a riled report next year on 97.3 the fan don't know that i've ever talked to the champion golfer of the year but that's the title bestowed on the winner of the open which uh zander shoffley is and will join us uh in just over 20 minutes here on bed and woods looking forward to that woods hey too you nervous well we just talked to him like a month and a half ago after we won the p.g.a. championship we talk to mike shilt every friday now it's true you know i get nervous every time zander's a really nice what's up my dude how you doing hey how you doing skip not that mike shill isn't a nice guy but zander has no reason to be stressed or tense yeah i mean he's not what he's on top of the game right now he's gonna play the olympic so and defend that gold medal we don't need to hold his feet to the fire no the moment there's no zander shoffley fan base that's demanding that we ask the tough questions curious zander in this interview this guy is you know he has his heart rate is so low he has golfed in some of the most he looks so calm conditions but what kind of pressure does the olympics have i mean you're still going up against very good golfers a lot of the same guys that you see on the tour but teeing it up in the olympics is it like where's it ranked as far as like the master yeah i may open he has a gold medal though like he doesn't they don't take it away if you lose so i feel like he's got to be feeling pretty good going into this one big time he has not played that course though he didn't he was not on that writer cup team that was in paris oh is that five years ago or whenever they had the last one there so it will be a new course to him coming up next week when they do the olympic golf tournament something tells me he'll be fine i agree this was uh it's true and was a new course to him yeah and he did just fine just fine uh there so we'll talk to zander coming up about 20 minutes before then though we can get some other headlines from pauly in today's rattle report and get things started here with our addition today's edition of the rinder couldn't lose that open yeah i tuned it to them off greatest welcome to the rindel report with paul rindel hi paul right two stories from the world of sports that we haven't gotten to yet we'll start off in major league baseball and one story that you didn't know you needed are you laughing beyond it's the rindel report hey paul how you doing okay how are you on 97-3 the fan are you ready to blast the mood i need some help please that was good can i get a whole year all right boom all right how are we doing jam on fantastic all right let's start off uh a little football here kind of it's more of the football broadcast so i was reading a story on awful announcing this morning that uh let me ask you first have you guys ever used vr headsets i've put one on my my nephews had one and they were over at my parents house and i i put it on like a newer reason yeah i'm fairly never really so on yeah at some point went to an arcade and used some crappy books that was cool back what did you play something uh some sort of game i was incompetent at it obviously and you have to like video of it yeah some sort of i want video i don't get next time i will make that happen i think take a video i don't have much experience with them but they look pretty cool i've seen you know apple just came out with one that looks insane and uh so disney which owns espn yep they are working on a way to put vr headsets in the broadcast booths so think monday night football you're watching joe buck and troy aikman and they're working with this company called status pro which a lot of athletes have used like it helps like with training and practice and stuff uh like labron james i think the whole minnesota vikings team they all swear by it so espn is working with this company status pro and basically the the way they're explaining it is imagine troy aikman hall of famer former quarterback in the booth and he's able to put on a vr headset in the booth while calling the game and he will be able to see exactly what patrick mohomes is looking at and what he sees they'll be you know camera of the ship he is helmet yeah the face mask there and so aikman would be able to then put on the vr headset and he's able to be like okay see he saw that linebacker move and so that's why he called this in real time in real time and it would enhance their broadcast and you know this is like tony rumble work for cbs i don't know if this would be an nfl thing eventually but right now it's disney leading the charge and they're working on getting this going pretty soon and i think that sounds pretty awesome i think that it will look funny when they show him wearing the goggles and stuff that will be funny just looking around but i do we do we need more analysis of what's happening on the field or do they already do a pretty good job with the camera angles and what not could this make it better i mean i we've said it before the catcher's cam and the ump cam when they show that you really get a sense when you're watching it last night you're watching randy vasquez pitch and he's throwing 94 and dotting the zone how easy does it look on television looks moronically easy guy hangs a curve ball you're like oh of course he hit that out it's so much incredible it's so much faster than it looks when they show that ump cam and that catcher cam you're like yeah it just gets on you like that it's 94 which those guys see all the time i think the nfl does a really good job already but if it makes it it better and cooler and you get a different perspective i'm i'm into it yeah i mean if i could if i could put on the vr helmet and just soil you feel like i'm a quarterback i think that actually was what i was playing it was like a football game oh god in the vr helmet so bad but that would be interesting back to pass stuff do we need triageman once again going oh well he didn't see this guy was open on the right i would have seen that you know he should try it this way i i'm not sure i need that it's at some point it's an overload i mean it's still you only have the same amount of time between plays to do the analysis of what's going on there has to be a limit to what analysts and broadcasters can do at some point yeah human brain limit i mean how much information making like pop them out of the gates when he first started i was like this is awesome and then it kind of kind of wore down on me a little bit it was a little it was like too much x's and o's but i i think it could be cool i mean if they can figure out a way to patch that video into the broadcast and you're literally seeing like what mohomes is seeing as he's walking up to line i think that would be pretty cool yeah that'd be pretty solid they've had cams on quarterbacks and stuff before haven't they i feel like i've seen that before but i'm hey i'm into it man i like that kind of stuff and um yeah vr is training like uh there's there's a baseball simulator that uses vr and it look i mean again it looks funny as hell if you're just watch sitting on a couch watching you know your son up there take hacks with a vr mask on i wonder how much it can help i'm assuming that it does um i'd like to try that at some point that'd be pretty cool interesting yeah all right next up we'll switch over to baseball maybe could have been a don't do this from earlier uh yesterday's tbs game of the week or whatever it was the subway series the Mets and the Yankees come on Yankees let's go no kidding what do they need a little help here someone needs to beat the Mets every once in a while tell Brett Boone to give his brother a concert oh his brother is getting burger right now i mean just getting trounced on twitter trounced the lineup they put out yesterday was so weird it was a weird weird lineup i saw it when they were leasing all these Yankee fans were like what is going on with this what does it always judge and then it's someone's brother in law someone's cousin it's it's dead after that i mean they just they got nothing well uh peanut vendor yeah so yesterday was national broadcasts on tbs brian anderson was on the call okay and uh so louise hill of the Yankees was pitching and he was on the heel he was on the heel he was on the heel and at the same time uh as that game was going on paul skeins was pitching against cardinals took a awful loss yesterday first loss of the year what do you get one run and eight innings i think two runs but they left him in for the ninth at a 1-1 game we did give up the winning run i mean bold he was only like 91 pitches but didn't work out for the pirates you know some would say that paul skeins is the front runner for rookie of the year i would say jackson meryl we'll get it but we'll see anyways uh just listen to the broadcast here because uh brian anderson might have forgotten one key thing here skeins the all-star starter he's on the mound tonight by the way he's making his first start since starting the all-star game you could make a strong case for louise hill in the rookie of the year race if not for paul skeins well he's going to be a runner away there we go anyways uh yeah so louise hill plays for the Yankees that is in the american league or the american paul skeins he pitches for pitzburg i believe they're in the national league there's two but at this point should there really even be multiple should there just be one mvp for all of baseball one rookie of the year for all of baseball not if they all play each other no i like all year long i like to do so i i do too makes it easier i think yeah more more accolades for more people the the discourse over one singular mvp would make my head is i do think it's one rookie of the year i do think it's interesting uh let's say who's the front runner uh erin judge mvp in the american league yes if he if if he were to be traded this will probably win you're making a push yeah for sure just right the front runner mvp gets traded to the national league is he the national league mvp at the end of the year or is he the american league i think it's happened once or twice before where we've had that kind of dilemma yeah and it may have even cost someone an mvp like young awards it can see a star pitcher gets traded didn't didn't had great seasons in both leagues but didn't have good enough numbers in either league to win the award yeah that makes sense makes sense it's a it's tough luck for sure but it makes sense yeah that's a that's a lick at the end of the day nobody's perfect Ben and i didn't know the breast johnson was a switch hitter so i am predicting that erin judge will not be traded at the day i will i will also predict that as well shohio tani probably staying with the dodgers yes for two million dollars a year right how nice for them wow well you're for him and then finally here one more note um you guys know the name haley welch haley welch is a figure skater no i don't think so haley welch maybe welch but i think it's welch she's a tick-tock star olympic sinder you're closer closer she is oh you gotta give him that hook oh that's her oh that's her she has a name she's not just hawk two of her feel bad now haley she's a real person with real feelings somebody tweeted yesterday what are these 15 minutes up she's gonna mention the 15 minutes yeah uh i've seen some clips of her she's doing like little you know mini real documentaries or whatever on tiktok yeah instagram and she's like everyone keeps saying my 15 minutes are gonna be up soon i'm gonna make the most of it and she's cashing in and we talked about her merch sales her the hats and the shirts all of that uh or 15 minutes aren't quite up just yet from that viral clip it's been what like a month now probably on the hoktua hoktua uh saw that she is selling trading cards okay like a baseball card with her autographs on there and uh they've already sold out they sold out for a hundred dollars i think this came out like yesterday and they sold out immediately you can get hawk to a autographed trading cards and she's got a few different ones out there a personal inscription on there and she autographs it she just signs her name though she doesn't say one says one says i heart pookey because she says that i love pookey did you get yours she spent she spells her name in a very odd way because it's haley which i think maybe like H-A-L-E-Y or H-I-L-E-Y, but no she's H-A-L-I-E-Y. She's Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly. Holly She's Holly, Holly, Holly, Holly, Holly. There's her, she's got a cowboy hat on and it says I love Pookie, Haley Welch. Fuck! It's been all that night. You're giving me? She's a big fan. I like her. She seems nice. Fun. But not taking it herself too seriously. No. I don't think I'm gonna spend the hundred dollars. I'm not surprised. Taylor. Traders just burn it down. Some people are very upset with her 15 minutes. It happens. Jeter says. Go away please. It was. Tim says she's a delight. I was fascinating. Like a study on humans in 2024, just this one short video clip went so viral that it literally changed her life at least temporarily. Like they were, I was seeing stories like, oh she's got an agent. We're talking to Hollywood about a reality TV show now. What is our agent doing? If we put in a lot of work. Aren't you that Nick Testianos guy saw in TikTok? Yes. He's got me now. Holy cow. Bro, by the way. How many? That went up over a quarter of a million views. Come on man. Sammy gets like 2 million views of his TikToks. Like it's insane. But for us, I was like, that's kind of weird to be on the other end of that now. Quarter of a million people watch that stupid, just reading a list. Edgard says, stop promoting that nonsense. No. No, not going to. So quit ass. What you don't know is we get 6% of every sale of every sale. Yeah. Talk to a. No, we don't. We don't get anything. We got it. If you get your chance at the 15 minutes on our own merchandise, you got a milk, your 15 minutes. I couldn't agree more. Could not agree more. Good for her. She's a good kid. She's a good kid. No, we'll ask Andrew Shoffley all about. What do you think of Hawke to a girl? And maybe a little bit about golf and the Open Championship win. He's going to join us coming up in our next segment. Don't go anywhere. It has been a woods back after traffic was Andrew Shoffley on 97 3 the fan. I'm expecting to have Andrew Shoffley open about 2, 3 minutes. Just a couple other baseball notes here woods saw that Mike Trout was on rehab assignment yesterday. He made it to innings and then had to come out of the game with signals surgically repaired knee. They hope it's a minor setback, but you know, it's they just don't really know. And I mean, obviously, you know, it's just having a star player like Mike Trout. No longer be my trout and not be able to play is tough. That angels organization. Shambles, man. It may not be a very good baseball organization, but the bad luck that they've had is it's bad. I don't know what they did to deserve that amount of bad luck. That's a really good point. They've made some terrible decisions in their day as a lot of organizations do, but the bad luck has been they have to feel as cursed as any team. Now they have a World Series Championship. They do. And they will always have that. But other than that, man, it's been it's been one tragedy after another. That's the argument. It's been about what 23 years like, you know, the deal with the devil. You win the World Series, but for the next 25 years, nothing's going to go right for your team. Nothing's going to go. It's just going to be an unrelenting stream stream of bad news and misery and injuries and bad luck and bad signings. And it's just going to be nothing but disappointment. Do you sign up for that? At 49? At 49? Yes. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. But see, Bo, my kids and kids, you know, young kids, that would suck for them because they're not even really. You signed up for that now for the Padres. They win the World Series here, but you know, the next 25 years is just going to be awful. Pretty much the rest of your life, the Padres are just going to be bad and uncompetitive and just complete disappointments that could happen anyway. It could. At least I would have a World Series banner, you know, really. Like, honestly, like, you got to take the, take the dub when you can get it. Always. You always take the dub when you can get it. I like the ride. I mean, I want to win a title, but if you think every year is fun, it's fine. Is it fine? I mean, it's not fine. I'd rather see them win it, but it's not me winning or losing it. It's my team. I just want I like the ride. I like the competitive. I hope they win it all. When you're laying on your death bed and they never won one, are you going to think to yourself, I should have been harder on the team? No. No. I think that would have helped. Maybe I'll think I should have picked a different team. No, man. I know it's, it's, I know that that it doesn't sound great, but holy smokes. I mean, they've had reasons to get excited, at least. It's not like it's been horrendous. They've had, they had, they got to watch Ohayo Tani for a few years now. You lost him. That hurts, obviously, but they've had some, some good moments sprinkled in there, too. So it hasn't been all bad, but they have had some really gnarly tragedies as well. All right. It has been a whirlwind last couple of months for our next guest. We got to talk to him after his PGA championship win and kind enough to join us for a few minutes following the open triumph at Royal Trune on Sunday champion golfer of the year. Xander Schofly is back with us here on 97 three, the fan. Xander, congratulations again. I'd imagine it does not get old or tiresome to hear that. Ben and Woods, what's going on, guys? How you doing, man? It's our pleasure, man. How you feeling? Yeah, I'm, I'm doing okay. Better than usual, I'd say. Nice. Nice. Well, let me start. I mean, I've never been to Scotland. It's like bucket list would love to go play. I mean, to grow up here in San Diego, where, I mean, nothing is as old as like the, the newest things over there. You're playing on a course that was built probably when San Diego, there's no one even living here in California. And now you're the champion walking down that fairway and the history of it all. What was that like for you on Sunday? Yeah, it's a, it was a dream. You know, I think, I think it's a dream for any kid that's playing golf. Just they kind of know, you know, if you watch majors, you watch Tiger growing up. You watch Jack Arnie, all the greats of the game. There's that sort of standing ovation, the yellow leaderboards, you know, that sort of corridor feeling with those coffin bunkers. And it was, it was so cool. It was so cool for me to have that moment with Austin going down the fairway. Lucky to have sort of a two or three shot lead going in. So, you know, I try to enjoy it as much as I could. You know, I definitely, the job wasn't done with, you know, with what was 20 feet left, but. And I, you know, I saw on the board that was maybe two or three shots ahead, but I figured, you know, someone can make a home one. Like, you know, if you make this putt, it's for sure going to seal it, but for those, you know, hundred yards or so, I really try to take it in because it's pretty much a dream. You know, it's something my dad and I have talked about. Austin, I have talked about and to actually make it happen is, is, yeah, I mean, I'm obviously still over the moon about it. I'm talking to Sandra Shoffley here on Bed and Woods this morning. And yeah, looking up seeing that you're in the lead, having that experience to draw from, though, it was a, it was a different scenario. The putt that you had to make to win your first major was just incredible. One of the best, best moments at golf. We've seen in a long, long time having that little bit of a cushion, though, standing there. How much did you draw on what you just went through in your first major win? A lot. People were asking me sort of, you know, do I feel different coming into the week after winning one major? Do I feel better? And, you know, I was kind of saying, I don't think so. I don't feel much different. You know, it's nice to have that one, but I think where it could make a difference is coming down that stretch. You know, if I am in contention, I think I can use that win at Valhalla to propel myself in the moment. And it helped, you know, I'm not going to lie, it helped. When I turn onto that back nine, it is a terrifying back nine to play in a major championship. If you're up or close to the lead, you know, you are with, you know, 10 blind tee shot, 11, you know, guys are making doubles and triples on, and then 12 guys are making doubles and triples on. So you can, you can really lose your tournament with one bad swing on that Sunday. So sort of being able to walk through that fire there, birding 11, paring 12, and then, you know, getting to 13 and 14, birding both those holes. It wouldn't, I wouldn't have been able to do it if I didn't win at Valhalla. And, you know, I really believe that. I'm nervous talking. I have anxiety. You won it. I'm ready. When you're going through it again, it makes me anxious. We had a hypnotist in last week to try to fix my short game. I get nervous, you know, playing at the goats show. I can't even imagine. But I know you said the 65 on Sunday afterwards was the best round of your career tip top you said. Am I crazy to say, I'm more impressed with the 69 on Saturday in those conditions. Someone growing up in San Diego. I can't play when it's like Misty in the morning and you're out there and it's just pouring and windy and guys who grew up in Ireland and England are falling apart. You're shooting too under. To me, that was even more incredible. What was that day like? Yeah, that's actually, that's a really good point. That was what was supposed to be a, we were supposed to get like two millimeters of rain and it was supposed to be like six, five just ended up being, I don't know, 10 or 12 millimeters of rain. We didn't get a break. It rained literally from my tee shot to the 18th hole. It may have stopped while we were on the 18th green, which is hilarious, of course. But, you know, one to 17 was in the rain and then the wind picked up me being and being able to sort of iron out a two under par and propel myself up the leaderboard is really what gave, you know, moved, I moved on moving day in a fashion I didn't think was possible. And that definitely helped me. I got to ask you about this. So, so you and Justin Rose are on 18 and you got a couple shot lead on him and you guys both hit your tee shots and then he goes to the, to the bathroom. Did he, was he trying to ice you there or were you mad? Were you like, bro, I want to get this thing over with. I got a lead. I know I can, I know I can finish strong. Can't you wait like 10 minutes still after you let me in my moment and you goes to the bathroom. I would have been living. Honestly, I was so zoned out. I couldn't even. I had no clue that he went to the bathroom. I'd like that's a really good use that strategy next time. If maybe you're the one chasing on 18 you just pop into the bathroom and ice him a little bit. But I was it was an icing of the kick. Yeah, I had no clue. I can't recall, you know, to be fair there. There weren't enough bathrooms out there. So. I think the pre the first bathroom was on like the last bathroom was on 14. So 15 16 17 and then 18 T was the next toilet. So. If you have to do it. One of the days I missed 14. I think I ran all the way from 16 P to like the third toilet, which is like 250 yards the wrong way just because I was going to piss myself. I was thinking Zander this morning. You actually now own like three of the coolest prizes in sports, a gold medal at the Olympics, which you're about to defend in Paris. The watermaker trophy for the PGA Championship, which is just like the coolest giant trophy cup and now the claret jug, the old one of the oldest, most historic coolest trophies and they're all yours right now. I mean, that's, that's amazing. Yeah, it's. I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It's sick. You know, I don't. It's a dream and it's, you know, I know I'm only going to have them on me for a little. I, you know, I got the claret jug with me but, you know, as soon as we get backstage side, you know, my dad and my mom, they're going to, they're my. My caretakers of everything nice that I have. And so they're going to take it off of me. And I'm sure my dad will lead back to parading around town with the claret jug. So we'll see you here in San Diego at something like a lot of pressure for them to have to like, I got to take this thing home. I mean, oh my God, Zander, what have you consumed out of it already? Yeah, anything. Yeah. Yeah, red wine was the first thing. Yeah. And then you know, my dad's a little traditional. You wanted red wine. He said it is a claret jug. So you drink wine out of it. He said nothing else should be poured into it. He is not with me right now. And it can not deny or say, but I met some tequila may have been poured into it last night. Mountain Dew code red or anything. Little, little coffee in the morning out of the claret jug wouldn't be a bad, wouldn't be a bad idea either. All right. So every golfer obviously dreams of winning all four. You know, you, you want to, you want to win all four, but I'm going to put you to the test here. You can only win one of the remaining two. Oh, no, which one is it? I think I know the answer, but I want to hear it from you. You can only win one of the next two, even though I have full confidence that you can win multiples of each, but you got to pick one today here on the bed and woods program. My man, I am not picky. I've said this over and over again. I am not picky made a major is a major. And it is what all of us strive to win. And I'm not going to sit here and be picky about which one I'm trying to win here. I'm having a green jacket and the Wanamaker and the claret jug on your neck. Yeah, with another, a second gold medal hanging around your neck would be pretty awesome. Just before you go quickly. Any thoughts on coming up on Paris and the tournament and defending your title and heading there. I'm sure in the next couple of days. Yeah, we'll be heading. I just called for the first time today with a few of my USA teammates and you know, I lost to both of them. So we'll get a kick in the ass. I'm going to have to get back on the horse here and gear myself up. You know, I enjoyed enjoyed this last win as much as I could. It's a quick turnaround. You know, we have the Olympics, which I'm super fired up for in Paris. And then we have one week off and then we have that sprint with the FedEx Cup playoff. So we're we're in full sprint mode here on our golfing circuit and but our next stop will be will be in Paris. And yeah, I mean, I'm fired up. Awesome man. That's so great. Thanks so much for jumping on. And we're all rooting for you made San Diego so so very proud. This last weekend and before and always so thank you for all that. I guess we'll talk to you in mid April. Yeah, we'll talk to you in April. Exactly. Sounds good, boys. Thank you. There is Andrew Shockley, champion golfer of the year. Little tequila in the claret jug. I have no problem with that whatsoever. And we're going to take a final timeout. I want to react to that a little bit and we'll wrap things up before Annie and Elston with Beno Woods on San Diego's number one sports station 97 three the fan. Thanks again. That was awesome. That was so much fun. So much fun. I started story about the bathroom. I said it at the break. We've talked to Xander. It's probably the third or fourth time we've the confidence and the ease of conversation. Not at all. Not even a little. Even told us when I played yesterday got beat. He also said he blacked out. You know, I didn't even notice he went to the bathroom because I was just zoned out. I if you've ever had to do. The only thing that I've even come close to feeling that way was was doing stand up comedy and you black out. You fully you can't you're out of your body and you're up there and you're trying to tell jokes and make people laugh. You leave your your body. It's the only I've done. We've done stuff. We did the first pitch. That was a little bit of black out there. But some of the cool stuff we've got to do. I'm like, that was awesome. Great. That feeling of just not even knowing what planet you're on because you're so locked in or nervous or whatever. He was telling us about the 11th 1213. I was getting sick to my stomach and he'd already won it. You know, and it was just he was incredible today. He also kind of called me out for my Chris Farley moment. Remember that time when you had the whole battle and you wanted to make yourself be in a clarinet juggle at the same time? That was. That was cool. She'll got me on that a couple weeks ago. I don't know how to answer that question. I'm like, oh, just talk about it then. Yeah, it's really cool then. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thank you. Really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Yes, I do have them and they look great. So the only thing that's left, obviously, I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It's cool. Yeah, it's uh, I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It's sick. It's sick. That's all you need to say. He could have just answered. It's so sick. It's just the sickest thing ever. But, um, so yeah, he's got the Olympics and then he said right back for the FedEx Cup playoffs. If he wins again here and there's an argument to be made that he and not Scottie Scheffler should be the player of the year. Scottie has six wins, a major, the Masters and all of his wins are like the elevated events, the players championship. He's really chosen. I love Xander. I'd still probably pick Scottie just because of the quality and the quantity of all those wins. But Xander wins. Another one gets to three or even four. He's really good at that Eastlake Tour Championship course at the end of the year wins the FedEx Cup with like four wins. I'd switch my vote then to Xander Scheffler is the the player of the year. So he's got, he's got stuff to play for still here in this final month of the PGA Tour season. Yeah, no question about it, man. No question about it. He was spectacular. I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as we did. Brilliant. All right, we got a Padres game coming up later today. We'll take a look ahead at today's matchup going for four in a row against the Washington Nationals right after our last check of traffic here on 97 through the fan. If you've been following the Padres closely all season, you'd know they've had like three or four of these stretches where they've had a good run of starting pitching pretty much all the way through their rotation. Like, like looks like they've got like the best starting staff in the league for a week at times. Yep. And then it all goes away. Well, it's time to already turn over back to the beginning again. Matt Waldron is going to make his second start since the All-Star break today, going with the four man rotation for now with the off day. So he will get the start today against Mitchell Parker of the Washington Nationals, another left-hander at 345. And you know, Waldron's the only one who didn't get a win, but he pitched really well against the Guardians in that first game out of the All-Star break last Friday. So can the Padres now, now that they've put together, you know, three wins in a row and good pitching, can they now do that and just keep going with some solid pitching for more than five or six days? Can they do it for a two-week span? I know someone's going to have a bad start at some point. It's baseball, but can they have some consistency going forward over these last 60 games of the season? You know, and I do think looking at Mitchell Parker, Benny, he's in the zone a lot and, you know, he's a four-pitch pitcher. He doesn't walk a ton of guys. So you're going to have your opportunities to do some damage off of me. He's had a really, really good year. I mean, he's sitting right now for the Nats. He's got 390 ERA. He's five and five. Got absolutely rocked in his last start before the All-Star break. Yeah, coming off that. I mean, you never know, like, I needed the rest, whatever, but no, he gets some swing and miss and he doesn't walk a lot of guys. So for me, yes, while Matt Waldron is very, very important tonight and as much as I'd love a blowout win, you know, score six, seven, eight runs in the first three or four innings, I just, I get the sense it's going to be another one of those grinded out, grinded out victories. And Matt Waldron needs some offense. Matt Waldron needs his offense today to step up for him like they haven't really done. And, you know, that's what I'm looking for today. I want the guys to come out swinging again. Guys are going to be in the zone. He's not going to walk you. So take your hacks up there, man, and try to string something together and get on the board early for Matt Waldron. And the key for him is to not give up, you know, the early run. And if he can do that, man, yeah, let's win a series today. Based on Mike Schiltz's comments yesterday, I would expect to see Donovan Solano, maybe both of these two days, at least one of them against more lefties because it's Corbin, Patrick Corbin, who's going to pitch tomorrow morning in the series finale. But too much Morton's who we follow on Twitter had a good, good point. He said, Luis arises the only guy who has faced Mitchell Parker and he's gotten some hits off of him. So put a rise in the lineup today. Maybe give Jake a day off and get Solano into the lineup. And then a reverse. Jake has pretty good numbers against Corbin. You give a rise the day off tomorrow and give Solano a couple in a row to get a little bit of a rhythm against two more straight left-handers after he has not played at all in the first four games since the all-star break. I mean, it makes so much sense that it absolutely will not happen. You know what I mean? So anytime we try to predict what's going to happen, you know, we really don't know with the lineup there. He'll mix it up on you. He'll throw Bryce Johnson out there and he'll be a switch hitter, apparently. You just never know what you're going to see out there. But the Nats are no dummies. I mean, they know the Padres have, they're hitting a little better now against left-handers way better than they were a month or so ago. But again, you throw a right-hander out there. The Padres have hit them much, much better. And so they're stacking it with three lefties. Speaking of dangerous lefties, maybe a mild surprise if you're a Padres fan that they kept James Wood in check yesterday with the 0-4. Robert Torres actually struck him out to end the game. They did one early. Yeah, they had a line drive out. But usually those X Padres tend to get serious damage on their old team. No, it's not. But I think that's what my point was going to be. One of the keys going forward is, you know, keep, keep Abrams and Wood from getting hot like they sometimes seem to tend to do against their old team because they don't have that deep of a lineup. It's not, it's not as scary even as the Guardians lineup. Certainly not as scary as the Orioles lineup you're going to be facing. Keep the bigger guys in check. It felt like there was kind of some softer spots at the bottom of the order that Waldron and Cease tomorrow are going to be able to hopefully control and give yourself a chance to win another series. Again, I'm okay. I'm okay with two out of three. It's so rare to actually sweep an entire season series from a team. So, Padres are two days away from potentially doing it. When today, give yourself that chance tomorrow to go six and oh against the Washington Nationals this year. Won't be any room for chirping on the Washington National side. If they go in six against the San Diego Padres, you give yourself a chance to at least do that. Win the series. You're in a good spot on this road trip. Even if you take one of these next two, your four and two, you've guaranteed that you're going to be above 500, I think, or at least 500 when you come back. At the very worst, even if you lost all three games in Baltimore, you've probably avoided the worst possible scenario of your road trip already. If you get one of these next two, you get them both. You're playing with house money in Baltimore. You win the series. You've had one of the best road trips any team has had all year. Even if you take one of three, you've had a winning road trip. You're coming home better than you were when you left. It's all good news. So good stuff potentially for the San Diego Padres, but they need to take care of business opportunity games today and tomorrow. No question about it. No question about it. I did feel a little bad. I know that there was the bad blood and everything that went on. I saw that the Nationals actually tried to rally their fan base to come out and boo the Padres over the weekend. They were sending out tweets and let's pack the park. It was pretty dead, man. And listen, I can't really blame them. There's a couple of guys there you want to go watch every day. I think if you're a hardcore Nats fan, you want to see James Wood every day and win the Kenzie Gord Pictures, sure. But it's really a franchise that they're teetering on the brink right now. Probably going to end up pro far being just a thorn in their side again. Another home run. They're kind of starting to be a dividing line in the National League wildcard race. They're kind of at the bottom. They're five and a half games out, which is not insurmountable, but between the Pirates and the Cubs is kind of the Pirates are 51 and 50. Then you go all the way down to 49 and 54 where the Cubs are four and a half. So now you have six teams that are all. I mean, even the Pirates who are a game and a half out of the third spot are only four games out of the Braves who are the first spot right now. And the Padres are only three games behind the Braves for the number one wildcard spot, but they're still half a game behind the Mets for the third. So it is really bunched up now down to kind of six teams. Maybe the Giants or the, you know, someone tries to still make a run, but right now it's looking like three spots for six teams and throw them all in a hat right now. Whoever has the last good two months is going to take those three spots. Braves have lost three in a row. The Dodgers have actually done us a favor and beaten the Giants the last two nights. So I want that, I guess, to continue. We want that to continue right before the trading deadline as well. Alden Gonzalez is writing about that. I mean, how different would it look if it was the Padres who had lost three or four or all four and the Giants who had won three or four right now. They might be more aggressive and Padres might be more conservative. Now you expect the Padres to be a little more aggressive than Giants probably to be more conservative at the trading deadline, just based on the results of last, you know, few days. Yeah, it's pretty shocking to see. And yeah, with as far as the Giants, I've seen some of their fans, too. They're there. They're after Beaumel. Pretty good right now. Pretty, pretty good. Losing two in a row to your alleged biggest rival will do that to you from time to time. All right, that will do it for us. A reminder again, programming note. We will be on tomorrow morning, 6 a.m., but only until 8.05 in Sammy's Ecowater SoCal pregame show. So we've got a lot to get to cram it all in in two hours when we talk to you tomorrow morning. Andy and else did see them. They are coming up next for Stephen Woods and Paul Reidel. I'm Ben Higgins. Have a great rest of your Wednesday from all of us here at San Diego's number one sports station, 97 three the fans. How long, everybody? Don't know that I've ever talked to the champion golfer of the year, but that's the title bestowed on the winner of the Open, which Zander Shoffley is and will join us in just over 20 minutes here on Ben and Woods looking forward to that. Hey, too. You nervous? Well, we just talked to him like a month and a half ago after we won the PGA Championship. We talk to Mike Schilt every Friday. No, it's true. You know, I get nervous every time. Zander is a really nice. Hey, how you doing? Skip. Not that Michael isn't a nice guy, but Zander has no reason to be stressed or tense. I mean, he's on top of the game right now. He's going to play the Olympics. So defend that gold medal. We don't need to hold his feet to the fire at the moment. There's no Zander Shoffley fan base that's demanding that we ask the tough questions. Be curious, Zander in this interview. This guy, you know, his heart rate is so low. He has golfed in some of the most. He looks so calm. I mean, what kind of pressure does the Olympics have? I mean, you're still going up against very good golfers. A lot of the same guys that you see on the tour, but teeing it up in the Olympics. Is it like, where's it rank as far as like the Masters? I may open. He has a gold medal though. He doesn't take it away if you lose. So I feel like he's got to be feeling pretty good going into this one big time. He has not played that course though. He was not on that Ryder Cup team that was in Paris. Oh, is that five years ago or whenever they had the last one there? So it will be a new course to him coming up next week when they do the Olympic golf tournament. Something tells me he'll be fine. I agree. This was a new course to him. Yeah. And he did just fine. Just fine. So we'll talk to Zander coming up about 20 minutes before then, though. We can get some other headlines from Paulie in today's Ronald Report. And get things started here with our edition today's edition of The Rindel Report. Welcome to The Rindel Report with Paul Rindel. Hi, Paul. Right. Two stories from the world of sports that we haven't gotten to yet. We'll start off in Major League Baseball. And one story that you didn't know you needed. Are you laughing? Be hot. It's The Rindel Report. Hey, Paul. How you doing? Okay. How are you? On 97. Three, the fan. Are you ready to blast the mood? I need some help, please. That was good. Can I get over here? Yeah. All right. Boom. All right. How are we doing, gentlemen? Fantastic. All right. Let's start off a little football here, kind of. It's more of the football broadcast. So I was reading a story on awful announcing this morning that let me ask you first. Have you guys ever used VR headsets? I've put one on my nephew's had one, and they were over at my parents' house, and I put it on. Like a newer reason. Yeah. I'm fairly new. Yeah. At some point, went to an arcade and used some crappy books back. Did you play something? Some sort of game. I was incompetent at it, obviously. And you have to like video of it. Yeah. Some sort of. I want video. I don't. Next time I will make sure they take a video of it. I don't have much experience with them, but they look pretty cool. I've seen, you know, Apple just came out with one that looks insane. And so Disney, which owns ESPN, they are working on a way to put VR headsets in the broadcast booths. So think Monday Night Football, you're watching Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. And they're working with this company called Status Pro, which a lot of athletes have used. Like, it helps like with training and practice and stuff. Like LeBron James, I think the whole Minnesota Vikings team, they all swear by it. So ESPN is working with this company, Status Pro, and basically the way they're explaining it is imagine Troy Aikman, Hall of Famer, former quarterback in the booth, and he's able to put on a VR headset in the booth while calling the game. And he will be able to see exactly what Patrick Mahomes is looking at and what he sees. There'll be, you know, a camera, a chip, his helmet, the face mask there. And so Aikman would be able to then put on the VR headset. And he's able to be like, okay, see, he saw that linebacker move. And so that's why he called this in real time, in real time, and it would enhance their broadcast. And, you know, this is like Tony Romo works for CBS. So I don't know if this would be an NFL thing eventually. But right now it's Disney leading the charge, and they're working on getting this going pretty soon. And I think that sounds pretty awesome. I think that it will look funny when they show him wearing the goggles and stuff. That will be funny. But do we need more analysis of what's happening on the field? Or do they already do a pretty good job with the camera angles and what? Could this make it better? Could this make it better? I mean, we've said it before, the catcher's cam and the ump cam. When they show that, you really get a sense. When you're watching, last night you're watching Randy Vasquez pitch. And he's throwing 94 and dotting the zone. How easy does it look on television? Looks moronically easy. Guy hangs a curve ball. You're like, "Oh, of course he hit that out." It's so much incredible. It's so much faster than it looks. When they show that ump cam and that catcher cam, you're like, "Yeah!" It just gets on you like that. It's 94. Which those guys see all the time. I think the NFL does a really good job already. But if it makes it better and cooler and you get a different perspective, I'm into it. Yeah, I mean, if I could put on the VR helmet and feel like I'm a quarterback, that actually was what I was playing. It was like a football game in the VR helmet. That would be interesting. Do we need Troy Eggman once again going, "Oh, well, he didn't see." This guy was open on the right. I would have seen that. I'm not sure I need that. At some point, it's an overload. I mean, it's still, you only have the same amount of time between plays to do the analysis of what's going on. There has to be a limit to what analysts and broadcasters can do at some point. A human brain limit. How much information they can properly hit. It came out of the gates when he first started. This is awesome. And then it kind of wore down on me a little bit. It was like too much X's and O's. But I think it could be cool. I mean, if they can figure out a way to patch that video into the broadcast and you're literally seeing what Mahomes is seeing as he's walking up to line, I think that would be pretty cool. Yeah, that'd be pretty solid. They've had cams on quarterbacks and stuff before, haven't they? I feel like I've seen that before. But hey, I'm into it, man. I like that kind of stuff. Yeah, VR is training. There's a baseball simulator that uses VR. And again, it looks funny as hell. If you're just sitting on a couch watching your son up there take hacks with a VR mask on. I wonder how much it can help. I'm assuming that it does. I'd like to try that at some point. That'd be pretty cool. It's kind of interesting. Yeah. All right. Next up, we'll switch over to baseball. Maybe it could have been a don't do this from earlier yesterday's TBS game of the week or whatever. It was the subway series, the Mets and the Yankees. Come on Yankees. Let's go. No kidding. What do they need? A little help here. Someone needs to beat the Mets every once in a while. Tell Brett Boone to give his brother a concert. Oh, his brother is getting murdered right now. I mean, just getting trounced on Twitter. Troughts. The lineup they put out yesterday was so weird. It was a weird, weird lineup. I saw it when they released it and all these Yankee fans were like, what is going on with this? What does it always judge? And then it's someone's brother in law, someone's cousin. It's dead after that. I mean, they just, they got nothing. Well, peanut vendor. Yeah. So yesterday was the national broadcast on TBS. Brian Anderson was on the call. Okay. And so Luis Hill of the Yankees was pitching and he was on the heel. And at the same time as that game was going on, Paul Skeens was pitching against the Cardinals. Took an awful loss yesterday. First loss of the year. What do you get? One run and eight innings. I think two runs. But they left him in for the ninth at a 1-1 game. We did give up the winning run. I mean, bold. He was only like 91 pitches, but didn't work out for the Pirates. You know, some would say that Paul Skeens is the front runner for Rookie of the Year. I would say Jackson Merrill will get it, but we'll see. Anyways, just listen to the broadcast here because Brian Anderson might have forgotten one key thing here. Skeens, the all-star starter. He's on the mound tonight, by the way. He's making his first start. Since starting the all-star game, you could make a strong case for Luis Hill in the Rookie of the Year race if not for Paul Skeens. Who's going to be a runaway? There we go. Anyways, yeah, so Luis Hill plays for the Yankees. That is in the American League. Paul Skeens. He pitches for Pittsburgh. I believe they're in the National League. There's two of them. But at this point, should there really even be multiple? Should there just be one MVP for all of baseball? One Rookie of the Year. For all of baseball, not if they all play each other. All year long. I like to do so. I do too. Makes it easier, I think. Yeah. More accolades for more people. The discourse over one singular MVP would make my head explain. I do think it's one Rookie of the Year. I do think it's interesting, let's say, who's the front runner Aaron Judge MVP in the American League? Yes. If he were to be traded this week, Bobby Williams is making a push for sure. Just front runner MVP gets traded to the National League. Is he the National League MVP at the end of the year? Or is he the American League? I think it's happened once or twice before where we've had that kind of dilemma. Yeah. And it may have even cost someone an MVP. Probably some young awards that can see a star pitcher get traded. Didn't, didn't, had great seasons in both leagues but didn't have good enough numbers in either league to win the award. Yeah. That makes sense. Makes sense. It's a, it's a tough luck for sure. But it makes sense. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Look, at the end of the day, nobody's perfect. Ben and I didn't know that Bryce Johnson was a switch hitter. So I am predicting that Aaron Judge will not be traded at the day. I will. I will also predict that as well. Show Hayo Tani probably staying with the Dodgers. Yes. For two million dollars a year. Right. That's how nice for them. Wow. Well, you're for him. And then finally here one more note. You guys know the name Hayley Welch. Hayley Welch is a figure skater. No, no, I don't think so. Hayley Welch. Maybe Welch, but I think it's Welch. She's a TikTok star. Olympic singer. You're closer. Closer. She is. Oh, you got to give him that hook. Oh, that's her. She has a name. She's not just Hawk to a girl. Feel bad now. Hayley. She's a real person with real feelings. Somebody tweeted yesterday. When are these 15 minutes up? She's going to mention the 15 minutes. I've seen some clips of her. She's doing like little, you know, mini real documentaries or whatever on TikTok. Instagram. And she's like, everyone keeps saying, my 15 minutes are going to be up soon. I'm going to make the most of it. And she's cashing in. And we talked about her merch sales, her, the hats and the shirts. Yeah, the hot to a hat. All of that. Or 15 minutes aren't quite up just yet from that viral clip. It's been what? Like a month now? Probably on the hot to a hot to a saw that she is selling trading cards. Okay. Like a baseball card with her autographs on there. And they've already sold out. They sold out for a hundred dollars. I think this came out like yesterday and they sold out immediately. You can get Hock to a autographed trading cards. And she's got a few different ones out there. A personal inscription on there. And she autographs it. She just signs her name though. She doesn't say it. One says I heart Pookie. Cause she says that. I love Pookie. Did you get yours? She spells her name in a very odd way. Cause it's Haley, which I think maybe like H-A-L-E-Y. Or H-A-I-L-E-Y. But no, she's H-A-L-I-E-Y. She's Holly. Holly. Holly A. Bitch. There's her. She's got a cowboy hat on and it says I love Pookie. Haley Welch. Hock to a spit on that thing. She's a big fan. I like her. She seems nice. Fun. Fun. Not taking it herself too seriously. No. I don't think I'm going to spend the hundred dollars. I'm not surprised. Taylor trading. Tyler says burn it down. Some people are very upset with their 15 minutes. It happens. Jeter says. Go away please. It was. Tim says she's a delight. I was fascinating. Like a study on humans in 2024. No, just this one short video clip went so viral that it literally changed her life at least temporarily. Like they were, I was seeing stories like, oh, she's got an agent. They're talking to Hollywood about a reality TV show now. What is our agent doing? If she, if we put in a lot of work. Aren't you that Nick Testianos guy? I saw him tick tock the evidence. He's got me now? Holy cow. Bro, by the way. How many? I went up over a quarter of a million views. Come on, man. Sammy gets like two million views of his tick tock. It's insane. But for us, I was like, that's kind of weird to be on the other end of that now. Like quarter of a million people watch that stupid, just reading a list. Edgard says, stop promoting that nonsense. Um, no. No, not going to. Fuck. So quit ass. What you don't know is we get 6% of every sale of every sale. Yeah. Talk to a, no, we don't. We don't get anything. We've got to, if you get your chance at the 15 minutes on our own merchandise. No, Chris says you got him 6% or something. You got to milk. You got to milk your 15 minutes. I couldn't agree more. Could not agree more. Good for her. She's a good kid. She's a good kid. No, we'll ask Anders Shoffley all about. What do you think of Hawke to a girl? And maybe a little bit about golf and the open championship win. He's going to join us coming up in our next segment. Don't go anywhere. It has been a woods back after traffic was Anders Shoffley on 97 3, the fan. I expect he has Anders Shoffley open about two, three minutes. Just a couple other baseball notes here woods saw that Mike Trout was on rehab assignment yesterday. He made it two innings and then had to come out of the game with swimmers surgically repaired knee. They hope it's a minor setback, but you know, it's, they just don't really know. And I mean, obviously, you know, it's just having a star player like Mike Trout, no longer be Mike Trout and not be able to play is tough. That angel's organization. Chambals, man. It may not be a very good baseball organization, but the bad luck that they've had is, I don't know what they did to deserve that amount of bad luck. That's a really good point. They've made some terrible decisions in their day as a lot of organizations do, but the bad luck has been, they have to feel as cursed as any team. Now they have a World Series Championship. They do. And they will always have that. But other than that, man, it's been, it's been one tragedy after another. That's the argument. It was, it's been about 23 years, like, you know, the deal with the devil. You win the World Series, but for the next 25 years, nothing's going to go right for your team. Nothing's going to go right. It's just going to be an unrelenting stream of bad news and misery and injuries and bad luck and bad signings and it's just going to be nothing but disappointment. Sign up for that. At 49? At 49? Yes. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. But see, Bo, my kids and kids, you know, young kids, that would suck for them because they're not even really... You signed up for that now for the Padres. They win the World Series here, but you know, the next 25 years is just going to be awful. Pretty much the rest of your life, the Padres are just going to be bad and uncompetitive and just complete disappointments that could happen anyway. It could. At least I would have a World Series banner, you know, really. Like, honestly, like, you've got to take the, take the dub when you can get it. Always. You always take the dub when you can get it. I like the ride. I mean, I want to win a title, but what if you think every year is fun? It's fine. Is it fine? I mean, it's not fine. I'd rather see them win it, but it's not me winning or losing it. It's my team. I just want... I like the ride. I like the competitiveness. Of course I hope they win it all. When you're laying on your death bed and they never won one, are you going to think to yourself, "I should have been harder on the team." No. No. I think that would have helped. Maybe I'll think. I should have picked a different team. No, man. I know it's... I know that that... It doesn't sound great, but holy smokes. I mean, they've had reasons to get excited at least. It's not like it's been horrendous. They've had... They got to watch Joe Heotani for a few years now. You lost him. That hurts, obviously. But they've had some good moments sprinkled in there, too. So it hasn't been all bad, but they have had some really gnarly tragedies as well. All right. It has been a whirlwind last couple of months for our next guest. We got to talk to him after his PGA Championship win. Kind enough to join us for a few minutes following the open triumph at Royal Trune on Sunday, champion golfer of the year. Xander Schofly is back with us here on 97-3, the fan. Xander, congratulations again. I'd imagine it does not get old or tiresome to hear that. Ben and Woods, what's going on, guys? How you doing, man? It's our pleasure, man. How are you feeling? Yeah, I'm doing okay. Better than usual, I'd say. Nice. Nice. Well, let me start. I mean, I've never been to Scotland. It's like bucket list. Would love to go play. I mean, to grow up here in San Diego, where, I mean, nothing is as old as like the newest things over there. You're playing on a course that was built probably when San Diego, there's no one even living here in California. And now you're the champion walking down that fairway and the history of it all. What was that like for you on Sunday? Yeah, it was a dream. You know, I think it's a dream for any kid that's playing golf. Just they kind of know, you know, if you watch majors, you watch Tiger growing up, you watch Jack Arnie, all the greats of the game. There's that sort of standing ovation, the yellow leaderboards, you know, that sort of corridor feeling with those coffin bunkers. And it was so cool. It was so cool for me to have that moment with Austin going down the fairway. Lucky to have sort of a two or three shot lead going in. So, you know, I try to enjoy it as much as I could. You know, I definitely, the job wasn't done with, you know, with what was 20 feet left, but. And I, you know, I saw on the board that was maybe two or three shots ahead, but I figured, you know, someone can make a home one, like, you know, if you make this putts for sure, you're going to seal it. But for those, you know, 100 yards or so, I really try to take it in because it's pretty much a dream, you know, it's something my dad and I have talked about Austin and I have talked about and to actually make it happen. It's, is, yeah, I mean, I'm obviously still over the moon about it. I'm talking to Sandra Shoffley here on Bette Woods this morning. And yeah, looking up seeing that you're in the lead, having that experience to draw from, though, it was, it was a different scenario, the putt that you had to make to win your first major was just incredible. One of the best, best moments of golf that we've seen in a long, long time, having that little bit of a cushion, though, standing there, how much did you draw on what you just went through in your first major win? A lot. People were asking me sort of, you know, do I feel different coming into the week after winning one major? Do I feel better? And, you know, I was kind of saying, I don't think so. I don't feel much different. You know, it's nice to have that one, but I think where it could make a difference is coming down that stretch. You know, if I am in contention, I think I can use that win at Valhalla to propel myself in the moment. And it helped, you know, I'm not going to lie, it helped. When I, when I turn onto that back nine, it is a terrifying back nine to play in a major championship. If you're up or close to the lead, you know, you are with, you know, tens of blind tee shot, 11, you know, guys are making doubles and triples on, and then 12 guys are making doubles and triples on. So you can, you can really lose your tournament with one bad swing on that Sunday. So sort of being able to walk through that fire there, birding 11, paring 12, and then, you know, being able to get into 13 and 14, birding both those holes. It wouldn't, I wouldn't have been able to do it if I didn't win at Valhalla. And, you know, I really believe that I'm nervous talking. I have anxiety. You won it. I'm ready. When you're going through it again, it makes me anxious. We had a hypnotist in last week to try to fix my short game. I get nervous, you know, playing at the goats show. I can't even imagine. But I know you said the 65 on Sunday afterwards was best round of your career tip top you said. Am I crazy to say I'm more impressed with the 69 on Saturday in those conditions, someone growing up in San Diego. I can't play when it's like Misty in the morning. And you're out there and it's just pouring and windy and guys who grew up in Ireland and England are falling apart. You're shooting too under that to me. That was even more incredible. What was that day like? Yeah, that's actually, that's a really good point. That was what was supposed to be a, we were supposed to get like two millimeters of rain and it was supposed to be like six, five to end up being, I don't know, 10 or 12 millimeters of rain. It didn't get a break. It rained literally from my tee shot to the 18th hole. It may have stopped while we were on the 18th green, which is hilarious, of course. But, you know, one to 17 was in the rain and then the wind picked up me being and being able to sort of iron out a two under par and propel myself up the leaderboard is really what gave, you know, moved, I moved on moving day and in a fashion I didn't think was possible. And that definitely helped me. I got to ask you about this. So, so you and Justin Rose are on 18 and you got a couple shot lead on him and you but you guys both hit your tee shots and then he goes to the, to the bathroom. Did he, was he trying to ice you there or were you mad? Were you like, bro, I want to get this thing over with. I got a lead. I know I can, I know I can finish strong. Can't you wait like 10 minutes still after he let me have my moment and you goes to the bathroom. I would have been living. I didn't, honestly, I was so zoned out. I couldn't even, I had no clue that he went to the bathroom. I'd like that's a really good use that strategy next time. If maybe you're the one chasing on 18 you just pop into the bathroom and, and ice him a little bit but I was, it was icing on the kick. Yeah, I had no clue. I don't, I can't recall, you know, to be fair there, there weren't enough bathrooms out there. So, I think the pre, the first bathroom was on like the last bathroom was on 14 so 15 16 17 and then 18 t was the next toilet. So if you have to do it. One of the days I missed 14 and I think I ran all the way from 16 to like the third toilet, which is like 250 yards the wrong way, just because I was going to piss myself. Zeta Shoffely with the inside story of the open championship with us and I, I was thinking Zander this morning, you actually now own like three of the coolest prizes in sports, a gold medal at the Olympics which you're about to defend in Paris, the watermaker trophy for the PGA Championship, which is just like the coolest giant trophy cup and now the Claret Jug, the old one of the oldest, most historic coolest trophies and they're all yours right now. I mean, that's, that's amazing. Yeah, it's, I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It's sick. You know, it's a dream and it's, you know, I know, I'm only going to have them on me for a little, you know, I got the Claret Jug with me but, you know, as soon as we get backstage side, you know, my dad and my mom, they're going to, they're my, my caretakers of everything nice that I have. And so they're going to take it off of me. And I'm sure my dad will lead back to parading around town with the Claret Jug. So we'll see you here in San Diego at something. It's a lot of pressure for them too to have to like, I got to take this thing home. I mean, oh my God, Zander, what have you consumed out of it already? Yeah. Anything? Yeah. Yeah. Red wine was the first thing you put into it. And then you, my dad's a little traditional. You wanted red wine. He said it was a Claret Jug, so you drink wine out of it. He said nothing else should be poured into it. He is not with me right now. And it can not deny or say, but I met some tequila may have been poured into it last night. Mountain Dew code red or anything. Little, little coffee in the morning out of the Claret Jug wouldn't be a bad, wouldn't be a bad idea either. All right. So every golfer obviously dreams of winning all four. You know, you, you want to, you want to win all four, but I'm going to put you to the test here. You can only win one of the remaining two, which one is it? I think I know the answer, but I want to hear it from you. You can only win one of the next two, even though I have full confidence. So you can win multiples of each, but you got to pick one today here on the Bed and Woods program. My man, I am not picky. I've said this over and over again. I am not picky. Major is a major. And it is what all of us strive to win. And I'm not going to sit here and be picky about which one I'm trying to win here. And having a green jacket and the Wanamaker and the Claret Jug on your neck with another, a second gold medal hanging around your neck would be pretty awesome. Just before you go quickly. Any thoughts on coming up on Paris and the tournament and defending your title and heading there, I'm sure in the next couple of days. Yeah, we'll be heading. I just called for the first time today with a few of my USA teammates and, you know, I lost to both of them. So we'll get a kick in the ass. I'm going to have to get back on the horse here and gear myself up. You know, I enjoyed enjoyed this last one as much as I could. It's a quick turnaround. You know, we have the Olympics, which I'm super fired up for in Paris. And then we have one week off and then we have that sprint with the FedEx Cup playoff. So we're in full sprint mode here on our golfing circuit and, but our next stop will be will be in Paris. And yeah, I mean, I'm fired up. Awesome, man. That's so great. Thanks so much for jumping on. And we're all rooting for you made San Diego so, so very proud this last weekend and before and always. So thank you for all that. I guess we'll talk to you in mid-April. Yeah, we'll talk to you in April. Exactly. Sounds good, boys. Thank you. There he is. Tanner Shockley, champion golfer of the year. Little tequila in the Claret jug. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Nor do I. And we're going to take a final timeout. I want to react to that a little bit. And we'll wrap things up before Annie and Elston with Beno Woods on San Diego's number one sports station, 97-3, the fan. All right, thanks again. That was awesome. That was so much fun. So much fun. I mean, story about the bathroom. I said it at the break. We talked to Xander. It's probably the third or fourth time we've the confidence and the ease of conversation. Not at all. Not even a little. He even told us when I played yesterday got beat. He also said he blacked out. You know, I didn't even notice he went to the bathroom because I was just zoned out. If you've ever had to do the only thing that I've even come close to feeling that way was doing stand-up comedy and you black out. You fully, you can't, you're out of your body and you're up there and you're trying to tell jokes and make people laugh. You leave your body. It's the only I've done. We've done stuff. We did the first pitch. That was a little bit of black out there. But some of the cool stuff we've got to do. I'm like, yeah, that was awesome. Great. That feeling of just not even knowing what planet you're on because you're so locked in or nervous or whatever. He was telling us about the 11th, 12th, 13th. I was getting sick to my stomach and he'd already won it. You know, and it was just, he was incredible today. He also kind of called me out for my Chris Farley moment. Remember that time when you had the gold medal and won a bigger show? We had a Claret juggle. At the same time, that was, that was cool. She'll, she'll got me on that a couple weeks ago. I don't know how to answer that question. I'm like, oh, just talk about it then. Yeah, it's really cool then. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Yes, I do have them and they look great. So the only thing that's left, obviously, I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It's cool. I love it. Yeah, it's, I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It's sick. Yeah, it's sick. There you go. That's all you need to say. That's all you need to say. He could have just answered. It's so sick. It's just the sickest thing ever. But so yeah, he's got the Olympics and then he said right back for the FedEx Cup playoffs. If he wins again here and there's an argument to be made that he and not Scotty Scheffler should be the player of the year. Scotty has six wins. A major, the Masters, and all of his wins are like the elevated events, the players championship. He's really chosen. I love Zander. I'd still probably pick Scotty just because of the quality and the quantity of all those wins. But Zander wins another one, gets to three or even four. He's really good at that Eastlake Tour championship course at the end of the year. wins the FedEx Cup with like four wins. I'd switch my vote then to Zander Scheffler is the player of the year. So he's got, he's got stuff to play for still here in this final month of the PGA Tour season. Yeah, no question about it, man. No question about it. He was spectacular. I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as we did. It's brilliant. All right, we got a Padres game coming up later today. We'll take a look ahead at today's matchup going for four in a row against the Washington Nationals right after our last check of traffic here on 97 through the fan. If you've been following the Padres closely all season, you'd know they've had like three or four of these stretches where they've had a good run of starting pitching pretty much all the way through their rotation. Like, like looks like they've got like the best starting staff in the league for a week at times. Yep. And then it all goes away. Well, it's time to already turn over back to the beginning again. Matt Waldron is going to make his second start since the all-star break today going with the four man rotation for now with the off day. So he will get the start today against Mitchell Parker of the Washington Nationals, another left-hander at 3.45. And, you know, Waldron's the only one who didn't get a win, but he pitched really well against the Guardians in that first game out of the all-star break last Friday. So can the Padres now, now that they've put together, you know, three wins in a row and good pitching, can they now do that and just keep going with some solid pitching for more than five or six days? Can they do it for a two-week span? I know. I know someone's going to have a bad start at some point. It's baseball, but can they have some consistency going forward over these last 60 games of the season? You know, and I do think looking at Mitchell Parker, Benny, he's in the zone a lot. And, you know, he's a four-pitch pitcher. He doesn't walk a ton of guys. So you're going to have your opportunities to do some damage off of me. He's had a really, really good year. I mean, he's sitting right now for the Nats. He's got 390 ERA. He's five and five. Got absolutely rocked in his last start before the all-star break. Yeah, coming off that. I mean, you never know. I needed the rest, whatever. But no, he gets some swing and miss, and he doesn't walk a lot of guys. So for me, yes, while Matt Waldron is very, very important tonight, and as much as I'd love a blowout win, you know, score six, seven, eight runs in the first three or four innings, I just, I get the sense it's going to be another one of those grinded out, grinded out victories. And Matt Waldron needs some offense. Matt Waldron needs his offense today to step up for him like they haven't really done. And, you know, that's what I'm looking for today. I want the guys to come out swinging again. Guys is going to be in the zone. He's not going to walk you. So take your hacks up there, man, and try to string something together and get on the board early for Matt Waldron. And the key for him is to not give up, you know, the early run. And if he can do that, man, yeah, let's win a series today. Based on Mike Schiltz comments yesterday, I would expect to see Donovan Solano, maybe both of these two days, at least one of them against more lefties because it's Corbin, Patrick Corbin, who's going to pitch tomorrow morning in the series finale. But too much more than who we follow on Twitter had a good point. He said, Luis arises the only guy who has faced Mitchell Parker and he's gotten some hits off of him. So put a rise in the lineup today, maybe give Jake a day off and get Solano into the lineup. And then a reverse. Jake has pretty good numbers against Corbin. You give a rise the day off tomorrow and give Solano a couple in a row to get a little bit of a rhythm against two more straight left-handers after he has not played at all in the first four games since the All-Star break. I mean, it makes so much sense that it absolutely will not happen. You know what I mean? So anytime we try to predict what's going to happen, you know, we really don't know with the lineup there. He'll he'll mix it up on you. He'll throw Bryce Johnson out there and he'll be a switch hitter. Apparently. You just never obviously switch hitter Bryce Johnson. Very valuable. She just never know what you're going to see out there. But the Nats are no dummies. I mean, they know the Padres have they're they're hitting a little better now against left-handers way better than they were a month or so ago. But again, you throw a right-hander out there. The Padres have hit them much, much better. And so they're stacking it with three lefties. Speaking of dangerous lefties, maybe a mild surprise if you're a Padres fan that they kept James Woolen. They kept James Wood in check yesterday with the 0 for 4. Robert Torres actually struck him out to end the game. They had one early. Yeah, they had a line drive out. But usually those ex Padres tend to damage on their old team. No, it's not. But I think that's what my point was going to be. One of the keys going forward is, you know, keep keep Abrams and Wood from getting hot like they sometimes seem to tend to do against their old team because they don't have that deep of a lineup. It's not not as scary even as the Guardians lineup. Certainly not as scary as the Orioles lineup. You're going to be facing. Keep the bigger guys in check. Feel felt like there was kind of some softer spots at the bottom of the order that Waldron and Cease tomorrow are going to be able to to hopefully control and give yourself a chance to win another series. Again, I'm OK. I'm OK with two out of three. It's so rare to actually sweep an entire season series from a team. So Padres are two days away from potentially doing it. When today, give yourself that chance tomorrow to go 6 and 0 against the Washington Nationals this year. Won't be any room for chirping on the Washington National side. They go in six against the San Diego Padres. You give yourself a chance to at least do that. Win the series. You're you're in a good spot on this road trip. Even if you take one of these next two, your four and two, you've guaranteed that you're going to be above 500. I think or at least 500 when you come back at the very worst, even if you lost all three games in Baltimore, you've probably avoided the worst possible scenario of your road trip already. Yeah. If you get one of these next two, you get them both. You're playing with house money in Baltimore. You win the series. You've had one of the best road trips any team has had all year. Even if you take one of three, you've had a winning road trip. You're coming home better than you were when you left. It's all good news. So, you know, good, good stuff potentially for the San Diego Padres, but they need to take care of business opportunity games today and tomorrow. No question about it. No question about it. I did feel a little bad. I know that, you know, there was the bad blood and everything that went on. I saw that the Nationals actually tried to rally their fan base to come out and boo the Padres over the weekend. And they were, you know, sending out tweets and let's pack the park. And it was, it was pretty dead, man. And, you know, listen, I can't really blame them. There's a couple guys there. You want to go watch every day. I think if you're a hardcore nats fan, you want to see James Wood every day and win the Kenzie gourd pitches. Sure. You know, but there's, it's really a franchise that they're teetering on the brink right now. Probably gonna end up pro far being a just a thorn in their side. Yeah. Another home run. They're kind of starting to be a dividing line in the National League wildcard race. Not that a little bit. Yeah. Because they're kind of at the bottom. They're five and a half games out, which is not insurmountable, but between the Pirates and the Cubs is kind of the Pirates are 51 and 50. Then you go all the way down to 49 and 54 where the Cubs are four and a half. So now you have six teams that are all. I mean, even the Pirates who are a game and a half out of the third spot are only four games out of the Braves who are the first spot right now. And the Padres are only three games behind the Braves for the number one wildcard spot, but they're still half a game behind the Mets for the third. So it is really bunched up now down to kind of six teams. Maybe the Giants or the, you know, someone tries to still make a run, but right now it's looking like three spots for six teams and throw them all in a hat right now, whoever has the last good two months is going to take those three spots. Braves have lost three in a row. The Dodgers have actually done us a favor and beaten the Giants the last two nights. So I want that, I guess, to continue thunder now. Yeah, we want that to continue right before the, right before the trading deadline as well. Alden Gonzalez is writing about that. I mean, how different would it look if it was the Padres who had lost three or four or all four and the Giants who had won three or four right now, they might be more aggressive and Padres might be more conservative. Now you expect the Padres to be a little more aggressive than Giants probably to be more conservative at the trading deadline just based on the results of last, you know, few days. Yeah, it's pretty shocking to see. And yeah, it's it with as far as the Giants, I've seen some of their fans too. They're there. They're after Bo Mel pretty good right now. Pretty, pretty good. Losing two in a row to your alleged biggest rival will do that to you from time to time. All right, that will do it for us, a reminder again, programming note, we will be on tomorrow morning, 6 a.m., but only until 8.05 in Sammy's Ecowater Soquel pregame show. So we got a lot to get to cram it all in in two hours when we talk to you tomorrow morning. Andy and else did see them there coming up next for Stephen Woods and Paul Reidel. I'm Ben Higgins. Have a great rest of your Wednesday from all of us here at San Diego's number one sports station. 97 three the fans. So long, everybody. Thanks again. That was awesome. That was so much fun. So much fun. I mean, I started a story about the bathroom. I said it at the break. We talked to Xander, probably the third or fourth time we've the confidence and the ease of conversation. Not at all. Not even a little. He even told us when I played yesterday got beat. He also said he blacked out. You know, I didn't even notice he went to the bathroom because I was just zoned out. If you've ever had to do the only thing that I've even come close to feeling that way was doing stand up comedy and you black out. You fully you can't you're out of your body and you're up there and you're trying to tell jokes and make people laugh. You leave your your body. It's the only I've done. We've done stuff. We did the first pitch. That was a little bit of black out there. But some of the cool stuff we got to do. I'm like, that's awesome. Great. That feeling of just not even knowing what planet you're on because you're so locked in or nervous or whatever. He was telling us about the 11th 12th 13th. I was getting sick to my stomach and he'd already won it. You know, and it was just he was incredible today. He also kind of called me out for my Chris Farley moment. Remember that time we had the whole battle and we wanted to make a joke. We had the Clarit juggle at the same time. That was. That was cool. She'll she'll got me on that a couple weeks ago. I don't know how to answer that question. I'm like, oh, just talk about it then. Yeah, it's really cool then. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Yes, I do have them and they look great. So the only thing that's left, obviously, I mean, I know what I'm supposed to say. It's cool. I love it. Yeah, it's. I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It's sick. It's sick. There you go. That's all you need to say. He could have just answered. It's so sick. It's just the sickest thing ever. But so, yeah, he's got the Olympics and then he said right back for the FedEx Cup playoffs. If he wins again here and there's an argument to be made that he and not Scotty Scheffler should be the player of the year. Scotty has six wins, a major, the Masters and all of his wins are like the elevated events, the players championship. He's really chosen. I love Zander. I'd still probably pick Scotty just because of the quality and the quantity of all those wins. But Zander wins another one, gets to three or even four. He's really good at that Eastlake Tour Championship course at the end of the year, wins the FedEx Cup with like four wins. I'd switch my vote then to Zander Scheffler is the player of the year. So he's got stuff to play for still here in this final month of the PGA Tour season. Yeah, no question about it, man. No question about it. He was spectacular. I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as we did. It's brilliant. All right, we got a Padres game coming up later today. We'll take a look ahead at today's matchup going for four in a row against the Washington Nationals right after our last check of traffic here on 97 through the fan. If you've been following the Padres closely all season, you'd know they've had like three or four of these stretches where they've had a good run of starting pitching pretty much all the way through their rotation. It looks like they've got like the best starting staff in the league for a week at times. Yep. And then it all goes away. Well, it's time to already turn over back to the beginning again. Matt Waldron is going to make his second start since the all-star break today, going with the four-man rotation for now with the off day. So he will get the start today against Mitchell Parker of the Washington Nationals, another left-hander at 3.45. You know, Waldron's the only one who didn't get a win, but he pitched really well against the Guardians in that first game out of the all-star break last Friday. So can the Padres now, now that they've put together, you know, three wins in a row and good pitching, can they now do that and just keep going with some solid pitching for more than five or six days? Can they do it for a two-week span? I know someone's going to have a bad start at some point. It's baseball, but can they have some consistency going forward over these last 60 games of the season? You know, and I do think looking at Mitchell Parker, Benny, he's in the zone a lot and, you know, he's a four-pitch pitcher. He doesn't walk a ton of guys. So you're going to have your opportunities to do some damage off of me. He's had a really, really good year. I mean, he's sitting right now for the Nats. He's got 390 ERA. He's five and five. He's got absolutely rocked in his last start before the all-star break. Yeah, coming off that. I mean, you never know. It's been a while. I needed the rest, whatever. But no, he gets some swing and miss and he doesn't walk a lot of guys. So for me, yes, while Matt Waldron is very, very important tonight and as much as I'd love a blowout win, you know, score six, seven, eight runs in the first three or four innings, I just, I get the sense. It's going to be another one of those grind it out, grind it out victories. And Matt Waldron needs some offense. Matt Waldron needs his offense today to step up for him like they haven't really done. And, you know, that's what I'm looking for today. I want the guys to come out swinging again. Guys are going to be in the zone. He's not going to walk you. So take your hacks up there, man, and try to string something together and get on the board early for Matt Waldron. And the key for him is to not give up, you know, the early run. And if he can do that, man, yeah, let's win a series today. Based on Mike Schiltz comments yesterday, I would expect to see Donovan Solano. Maybe both of these two days, at least one of them against more lefties because it's Corbin, Patrick Corbin is going to pitch tomorrow morning in the series finale. But too much Morton's who we follow on Twitter had a good point. He said, Luis arises the only guy who has faced Mitchell Parker and he's gotten some hits off of him. So put a rise in the lineup today. Maybe give Jake a day off and get Solano into the lineup and then a reverse. Jake has pretty good numbers against Corbin. Yeah. You give a rise the day off tomorrow and give Solano a couple in a row to get a little bit of a rhythm against two more straight left-handers after he has not played at all in the first four games since he all started. I mean, it makes so much sense that it absolutely will not happen. You know what I mean? So anytime we try to predict what's going to happen, you know, we really don't know with the lineup there. He'll mix it up on you. He'll throw Bryce Johnson out there and he'll be a switch hitter apparently at the drop back. You just never, obviously switch hitter Bryce Johnson, very valuable. So you just never know what you're going to see out there. But the Nats are no dummies. I mean, they know the Padres have -- they're hitting a little better now against left-handers way better than they were a month or so ago. But again, you throw a right-hander out there. The Padres have hit them much, much better. And so they're stacking it with three lefties. Speaking of dangerous lefties, maybe a mild surprise if you're a Padres fan that they kept James Wood in check yesterday with the "O" for four. Robert Torres actually struck him out to end the game. They've got one early. Yeah, they had a line drive out. But usually those ex-Pods raised tend to damage on their old team. No, it's not, but I think that's what my point was going to be. One of the keys going forward is, you know, keep Abrams and Wood from getting hot like they sometimes seem to tend to do against their old team because they don't have that deep of a lineup. It's not -- it's not as scary even as the Guardians lineup. Certainly not as scary as the Orioles lineup you're going to be facing. Keep the bigger guys in check, felt like there was kind of some softer spots at the bottom of the order that Waldron and Cease tomorrow are going to be able to hopefully control and give yourself a chance to win another series. Again, I'm okay. I'm okay with two out of three. It's so rare to actually sweep an entire season series from a team. So awesome. Padres are two days away from potentially doing it. Give -- win today. Give yourself that chance tomorrow to go 6-0 against the Washington Nationals this year. Won't be any room for chirping on the Washington Nationals side if they go in six against the San Diego Padres. You give yourself a chance to at least do that. Win the series. You're in a good spot on this road trip. Even if you take one of these next two, you're four and two. You've guaranteed that you're going to be above 500, I think, or at least 500 when you come back at the very worst, even if you lost all three games in Baltimore. You've probably avoided the worst possible scenario of your road trip already. If you get one of these next two, you get them both. You're playing with house money in Baltimore. You win the series. You've had one of the best road trips any team has had all year, even if you take one of three. You've had a winning road trip. You're coming home better than you were when you left. It's all good news. So good stuff potentially for the San Diego Padres, but they need to take care of business opportunity games today and tomorrow. No question about it. No question about it. I did feel a little bad. I know that there was the bad blood and everything that went on. I saw that the Nationals actually tried to rally their fan base to come out and boo the Padres over the weekend. They were sending out tweets and let's pack the park. It was pretty dead, man. Listen, I can't really blame them. There's a couple of guys there that you want to go watch every day. I think if you're a hardcore Nats fan, you want to see James Wood every day and win the Kenzie Gordon Pictures, sure. But it's really a franchise that they're teetering on the brink right now. Probably going to end up pro far being just a thorn in their side again. Another home run. They're just kind of starting to be a dividing line in the National League wildcard race. Not because they're kind of at the bottom. They're five and a half games out, which is not insurmountable. But between the Pirates and the Cubs is kind of the Pirates are 51 and 50. Then you go all the way down to 49 and 54 where the Cubs are four and a half. So now you have six teams that are all. I mean, even the Pirates who are a game and a half out of the third spot are only four games out of the Braves who are the first spot right now. And the Padres are only three games behind the Braves for the number one wildcard spot, but they're still half a game behind the Mets for the third. So it is really bunched up now down to kind of six teams. Maybe the Giants or the, you know, someone tries to still make a run, but right now it's looking like three spots for six teams and throw them all in a hat right now. Whoever has the last good two months is going to take those three spots. Braves have lost three in a row. The Dodgers have actually done us a favor and beaten the Giants the last two nights. So I want that I guess to continue under now. Yeah, we want that to continue right before the trading deadline as well. Alden Gonzalez is writing about that. I mean, how different would it look if it was the Padres who had lost three or four or all four and the Giants who had won three or four right now. They might be more aggressive and Padres might be more conservative. Now you expect the Padres to be a little more aggressive than Giants probably to be more conservative at the trading deadline just based on the results of last, you know, few days. Yeah, it's pretty shocking to see and yeah, it's with as far as the Giants. I've seen some of their fans too. They're there. They're after Beaumel. Pretty good right now. Pretty, pretty good. Losing two in a row to your alleged biggest rival. We'll do that to you from time to time. All right, that will do it for us. A reminder again, programming note. We will be on tomorrow morning. 6 a.m. but only until 8.05 and Sammy's eco water so Cal pregame show. So we got a lot to get to cram it all in in two hours when we talk to you tomorrow morning. Annie and else did see them. They're coming up next. For Stephen Woods and Paul Reidel. I'm Ben Higgins. Have a great rest of your Wednesday from all of us here at San Diego's number one sports station. 97 three the fans. How long everybody? You don't just live in your home. You live in your neighborhood as well. So when you're shopping for a home, you want to know as much about the area around it as possible. Luckily, homes.com has got you covered. Each listing features a comprehensive neighborhood guide from local experts. Everything you'd ever want to know about a neighborhood including the number of homes for sale, transportation, local amenities, cultural attractions, unique qualities and even things like median lot size and a noise score. Homes.com. We've done your homework. Now with the MLB app, you can get baseball your way. Pick your favorite team, your favorite players and get customized highlights, stories and breaking news right on your home fee. 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