Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast

8am Hour - Bret Boone And Nick Hundley Join The Show

Ben & Woods start a guest-heavy 8am hour by chatting with our buddy Bret Boone, who joins the show most Wednesdays during the MLB season, and we learn that Boonie actually got to act in a movie when he was a young player?? Then at the bottom of the hour, it's an old friend alert as Texas Rangers Special Assistant to the GM Nick Hundley returns to the show with the Padres taking on the Rangers this week! Listen here!

Duration:: 1h 1m
Broadcast on:: 03 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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. Hey, fantasy football fans. Do you want to be the owner who was doing a crime session the night before the draft? I didn't think so. You need to start your prep now. This is Faraz from Upper Hand Fantasy. Zach and I are here to get you ready for your fantasy football drafts with insights and advice from sleepers to bust. We've got you covered. And give it the upper hand on your friends. Today is the day to start getting ready for the draft. So join us and stay ahead of the competition. Follow and listen to Upper Hand Fantasy on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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 ad. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right, my friends. Halfway home on a Wednesday. Ben & Woods, 97.3, the fan. Phenomenal to be here with you this morning. Looks like it's shaping up to be a very beautiful day outside. We are very, very lucky. We know that. I'm Woodsy. That's Paul Reindel, the executive producer, Ben Higgins. Your friendly neighborhood sports anchor joins us as well. And I've got a very special guest joining the program. Yeah, I got a busy hour coming up. Don't forget, 835 Nick Huntley is going to be with us. Former Padres catcher, now special assistant for the Texas Rangers. But right now, it is always a pleasure to welcome our Odyssey colleague, Odyssey MLB, inside of Brett Moon. Insider calls are presented by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Granger has the right product for you. Conclicgranger.com or just stop by, Brett. Also the host of the Brett Moon podcast, which we were just talking about, featuring notable names in MLB and more every single week. Now, I wonder if he gets grief like we get grief when we do the more, you know? Like how we like stooped to sports. Shut up, right? Does Brett Moon get the same stuff that they just want baseball content from you, Brett? This isn't Lou Penella? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like you just had on your podcast, dude, I love. John Ashton, he played tagred in Beverly Hills Copy. He's been in a bunch of stuff, and so many movies, long-storied Hollywood career. And I love that. I like to see you going outside the box there. You know, you got to do a once in a while, don't you? Yeah, I mean, go with tagred. Who knows who's going to be? Maybe the San Diego chicken tomorrow. You don't know. You do never know. How was John? I'm going to go listen to that podcast, because we were just all talking about how much we love the original Beverly Hills Copy. Got the new one coming out today on Netflix. I will 100% stop down and watch that at some point this weekend. Yeah, Johnny's great. I've known John for a lot of years. I remember I was a rookie in the big leagues, and we were in Minnesota, and they were shooting this movie. And I think Randy Johnson at the time, and Griffey had bit roles, and it was that, the movie Little Big League. Little Big League, excellent movie. Johnny was the bench coach. Yep. And I remember, you know, you know, I'm just a kid, and I'm just, you know, I'm trying. I don't know whether I'm coming or going, but we got this big Hollywood set, and I'm, you know, I see "Taggart," and I'm like, "Oh, that's "Taggart." So I started calling him "Taggart." He's like, "Well, no, my name's John." [LAUGHTER] Pretty good part she got there, "Taggart." We went out on the town, and then, you know, I got to know him a little bit. Years later, I was in San Diego. And I come into the-- we're coming to play the Padres. I'm with the Reds, and I walk through the bar. And, you know, the team bus just got there. I walked through the bar to get to my room. There's "Taggart," with all the boys, and they're shooting a movie. I said, "Listen, let me go put my stuff down. I'll come back down, you know, I'll have a drink, and we'll catch up." And I get down, and he's like, "Yeah, we're shooting a movie down to-- I think they were shooting at Mission Bay." And the producer wants to know, "Boon, if we get seven tickets tomorrow." "Seven." And I said, "Well, here's the deal. Let's negotiate a little bit." I said, "I need a role in this movie here, producing a new movie." And he said, "Well, what do you want to do?" I said, "I think they just want something stupid." I said, "But I need it-- and here's what they need." When I get to the set, I need a trailer. I don't care how small it is. I need my name outside the trailer. I need a star next to my name. And sure enough, next day, I go down to Mission Bay. I got this trailer. It's as big as a shoebox. It's got my name written in Sharpie, and there's a star on it. I said, "Hey, we negotiated. I got what I wanted." I played a cop. I had the vinyl unit that cops wear. And I had this terrible role, but it was fun. I got to see how it works. I drove this old cop car down the street, and Johnny was the star he got out. He was the undercover cop. He had the cool clothes on. I've got this linen 1976 cop outfit on, but that's where our relationship goes back to. Great guy. What movie? He's over the top excited about this. I think it's one of those went straight to video. It's called Fast Money. Fast Money. You love the money. You're starring Brett Boone. I am all over. I'm all over. And I'll tell you what. You'd have to-- It's streaming somewhere. It's got to be. Yeah, you'd have to rewind it and rewind it again to find out. That is booming in a cop car. That's unbelievable, man. Crazy. I just-- Hold it up. Yeah. When a car thief can't resist stealing one more car, it's kind of $2.7 million mob money and the mob's counterfeit printing plates. Brett Boone, the cop. 1996. Check it out. I'm in the clown-- there's a clown scene. Just Google clown scene and I'm the guy driving the cop car. The cop car. Oh, it's a clown. Crazy. I'm all over it. So as long as we're on the topic, what is your favorite baseball movie and-- Oh, yeah. Like, big leaguers. Yeah. What are they really like when it comes to baseball movies? Because we always have this discussion. Well, I don't know if I'm more cynical than your normal big leaguer, but movies, baseball movies drive me crazy. [LAUGHTER] So, yes, you are. I'm sensitive. I just look at it and go, that's not how it really is. How these producers, what do they do? Oh, let's just put tobacco in everybody's mouth and have them spit, you know, really awkwardly because they're actors and they've never had tobacco in their mouth. And that's what ball players do, right? Oh, it drives me nuts. The ghost don't come out of the corn. That's not how it works. Oh, it drives me. OK. If I'm going to be honest, the most accurate portrayal of a baseball movie I've seen, by far, is Bull Durham, as far as how the minor leagues actually are, with a few caveats. There's one scene where they pull in and then they-- he says, "Hey, you guys want to rain out tomorrow?" They go there in the evening and they flood the valley. It doesn't happen because you never get to a minor league city the night before because they're not going to whip out for the hotel room. So you're always getting there in the morning. You'll never get to a minor league. So that pissed me off, all right? So other than that, though, I thought it was pretty good. I thought-- you know what bothers me more, Nathan? It's the way that the actors move as athletes, it's not a real move. They don't move correctly. So that bothers me. Yeah. Tim Robbins. I mean, Tim Robbins can't throw a base. And he's supposed to throw it. And James Burt, as Serrano in Major League, had a pretty decent power swing. Well, and sheen looked like he knew how to pitch. Yeah, he did. He did. But you know what? You either got to go-- you got to look exactly the part or you got to go Tim Robbins on. You got to go Robbins on me, which is-- it's so unbelievable that it's funny because it's so far the other way. So I'm going to go with either or-- I thought Costner did a pretty good job. I thought he walked the-- all right, I thought he moved pretty good. Swing wasn't bad at all. So I'm going to give-- I'm going to give it a thumbs up. Bull Durham, I thought was well done. But if you're going to go my favorite movie, it's the Bad News Bears without a doubt. So good. Nothing's even close. Math out. And it's day. I love Bad News Bears and breaking training tips. So those are my top three. Oh, I love that. Talking to Brett Boone here on Ben & Woods this morning. You have been busy. I was just looking at your Twitter. So you were just on in Dallas talking about the Rangers last night with the fan there, RJ Choppy and his group. And now you're on talking about the Padres. I said this this morning, Booney, last night's game was kind of one of those where-- man, I was talking about that nobody likes a loss. If you're a fan of a team, you hate all losses. But there's some that you're like, all right, I'll wear that one, that's fine. This night was just, you know, I appreciate a good pitching performance as well as anybody. But man, just a two hit shutout. It's just so painful to watch. And the San Diego Padres just kind of looked like they never got off the plane, yeah, happened certainly, but definitely not a fun-- nah, it kind of-- we're not used to that from this team lately. No. And, you know, see that a rough night, but any time you get one of those number one stopper type starters in a Baldi, that can happen. And you just chalk it up to that was just one night, bat night, let's go get him tomorrow. I'm really impressed with this Padres team's doing, especially with-- they've been really banged up lately. I mean, Campasano, he's coming back, Bogart's, I heard, is doing a rehab this week. Tatisse is not going to be back till after the break, and the two huge ones are must grow up in Darvis. You know, Darvis out much longer than we thought he was going to be. He goes out with the leg injury, and now there's inflammation, his elbow must grow. You know, they're talking possibly August now. So the fact that you've held serve, and are really playing some of the best baseball they've played, one in seven out of the last 10, I think the Padres and the position they're in in the playoffs right now, as it stands, if it were over today. With all the injuries and everything going on with the Padres right now, be playing the way they are and be in the playoff line, I think is a testament to them and their resilience. You know, they're starting to trend up. Their top categories, all the offensive categories need to pitch a little bit better, but getting must grow in Darvis, that's huge. I think this Padres team, at the break, I think you're going to have to go out because of that, because of the must grow, but it's touchy, and now they're finding a bone chip. I think you're going to need another pitcher. I think you're going to have to go out there and get another pitcher. I love the bullpen. I love how it sets up to get to Suarez, but I think you're going to have to get a pitcher. I think this Padres team is a playoff team. I was just talking, you mentioned the Texas show I was just on, I've been thinking a lot about it in the game today, and the 162 and how it used to be versus 2024 where it's not that marathon it used to be, and we used to finish that 162, and if you won the division, it was a big sigh like, wow, what a grind, and we're standing right now. Today it's not like that. There are so many injuries in the game today, and injuries play such a big role in streaks that teams go on, or teams have a losing streak or a winning streak because a couple of their big guys are out. Injuries are playing a big role that they've ever played in our game, and I think what you do is it's all about positioning yourself, getting a seat at the table, not necessarily the division where it used to behave, we've got to win that division. Yeah, as a player, you're always going to have that mindset of, no, we're going to win the division and we're going to get home field advantage, but it's all about getting a seat at that table and trying to get your roster in the right spot going into the postseason because that's what's important now, and then there's so many landmines in the postseason. You've got to go through so many rounds just to get to the World Series, so I don't think it's about necessarily the best team you're going to see going forward when in that World Series. It's who positioned themselves at the right time, who stayed healthy and who got on a run is going to be your World Series champion going forward, and not the old days where that guy that was standing at the top of the hill at the end of 162 usually went on and won that World Series. I don't think that's going to be the case anymore. She was getting a seat at the table and getting the right time. Talking to Odyssey, MLB insider Brett Boone, again, insider calls presented by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry, Granger is the right product for you. Call clickgranger.com or just stop by. I wanted to ask you about Bruce Bocey, manager of the Rangers now, obviously you played for him. I know you love Boce because everybody loves Boce. I love Boce. I love covering him, everything about him. But what is it because Bruce Bocey has had a bunch of bad seasons in his managerial career. This one, I don't know how it's going to turn out, but obviously the Rangers have gotten off to a really slow start. But when he's had those chances with the giants, with the Rangers, even taking the Padres to the World Series, he always seems to get the most out of the teams that do have those opportunities, the ones that are there. What is it about Boce and about good managers that just that little bit extra that they get the most out of their best teams? It's true that everybody else, I hate Boce. No. He is. Okay. What I want to say at first is the manager can only do so much and that's obvious. You're in and you're out, I see, oh, that manager's not doing good, he doesn't make the right. That's nonsense. That's the national anthem ends. There's only so much you can do. You can get the left of you, get the right of you, whatever, handle the media, a computer can do that. The great managers, I think, are people, they manage people. They're like a great CEO. It doesn't mean everybody's got to love you, it doesn't mean everybody's got to hate. You have a knack, you have a way about you, get that it, in fact, where you get the best out of your players. You put your players in the best position to succeed. Boce is a little beyond that for me. He's a great manager, but he's got that factor where, you know, I always think as a manager, you've got to separate yourself from the players and usually that's via bench coach who is kind of the go-between between the manager and the players. I think as a bench coach, you're the players, everybody's your friend. You get intel. You go around. You're everybody's feeling okay. You can have that closer relationship with the players. As a manager, I always say you've got to distance yourself a little bit because he's going to be making big decisions. He's going to piss you off at some point in the season. Who knows? He might be the one that has to tell you you're going to AAA. He might have to be the one telling you we traded you. I think there's a buffer in between Boce different than anyone I ever played for. He had a real close relationship with the players, which I thought was kind of taboo, but it worked for him. He's just a special, special guy that, you know, you mentioned Ben that nobody has anything bad to say about Boce. There's only a handful of people I've come across in my career where that's the case and it is the case. I don't think everybody says nobody, everybody loves them. Well, truly everybody that has ever met Bruce Boce. I really haven't ever heard a negative word about him. He's got that. He's a great manager. He's a baseball man. He's a knowledgeable man. He was a backup catcher so he knows the grind of the season. It didn't come easy to him so he has that perspective. But he's also got a fatherly, best friend, grandfather type appeal to people where you just love him. He's kind of like a dusty baker. Everybody loves dust. He's just got that way about him and he has that ability to also be close with the players but still be their disciplinary guy and still be a guy. I think because everybody that comes in contact with him, they just have that level of respect kind of above and beyond. So he's that unicorn I think when it comes to managers. He's the last of that probably old school breed that we grew up watching and he's just a special, special man and I really can't put my finger on why he's able to do that. But he's been the one manager that I play for, that man I could play for. I could go 0 for 4 with a couple punch outs, make an error in a big situation and after the game, he was my buddy for some reason and he didn't make it an awkward feeling. It's a special thing that he was born with and not too many people have. Boney always appreciated it. We thank you so much for making time and so much that you have throughout the season. We will chat with you again coming up after the holidays. You got it. Redbone always our insider calls presented by Granger supplies and solutions for every industry Granger as the right product for you call clickgranger.com or just stop by. We've got to take a quick time out. Can we talk a little bit more about Boach when we come back just because I thought Brett Boone had some interesting insight there. Got Nick Hunley at the bottom of the hour as well so you don't want to miss any of that. Can I ask him about Boach too? Absolutely another guy who played for Boach, another catcher who played for Boach there as well. Works with him now. He's the Rangers at the moment so we'll get to all that after Kelly's traffic here at 97-3 the fan. 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. Own Nerd Wallet Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app. Hey, Fantasy Football fans. This is Zach from Upper Hand Fantasy. You don't want an embarrassing tattoo just because you lost a bet in your Fantasy Football League, right? If you do, I suggest I'm remade holding a football, but let's avoid that altogether. Bros and I are here to get you ready for your Fantasy Football Drafts with insights and advice from sleepers to busts we've got you covered to give you the Upper Hand on your friends. For your Fantasy Football prep now, join us and stay ahead of the competition. Follow and listen to Upper Hand Fantasy on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. What kind of programs does this school have? How are the test scores? How many kids do a classroom? Homes.com, those 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. Baseball coverage in '97 through the FAN is presented by T-Mobile. Switch to T-Mobile. You can get tons of benefits still save on every plan versus AT&T in Verizon, use their savings calculator to find out at T-Mobile.com/switch. Thanks again to Brett Bohn, our Odyssey Insider, and I was fascinated with him talking about what separates Bruce Boce. So question for you. Boce has 26 full seasons under his belt as a big league manager. This is his 27th year. Do you think Boce has more winning seasons or losing seasons as a manager? Because you're asking me, I'm going to say losing. You know me pretty well. I know. It's actually 13 and 13. You see that 13 winning seasons, 13 losing seasons, and an overall record. He's about 15 games under 500 in his entire career, like 2,130-something wins, 2,140-something losses. He was here for a while. But he also had a bunch of losing seasons in San Francisco. He won three World Series titles. He also had seven losing seasons in San Francisco. It's not just the time with the Padres. Boce is an undoubted Hall of Famer, right? Slam dunk. Slam dunk. When he retires, he is going to the Hall of Famer. He's a manager in baseball. No one has any question about that. None. He has a losing record. And if they don't turn it around this year, he's going to have more losing seasons than winning seasons. And this is the cream of the crop. This is the best, you know, of the best. This is a guy who will be talked about with Joe Torrey and some of the legendary managers of baseball. The guys who have done it better than anyone and even he can't overcome rosters that don't have enough talent, injuries, whatever. And you are always saying you put it on the players more than the manager. Is that not the perfect example that even Bruce Boce, the guy that everyone in baseball admires, respects, agrees as a Hall of Famer, has three World Series, four World Series rings now. He still doesn't even have a winning record in this game because it's that hard to do it, especially if you don't have the players. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, that's why, yeah, you're right. That's why I do always kind of put it on the players and really the GM, of course, takes, gets a lot of credit, takes a lot of the blame for the players that, you know, you can only get so much, so much out of guys and, you know, you look at a guy like Kevin Cash, and I think he's a really good manager as well. Never had a high payroll to work with. You wonder, you wonder would Kevin Cash, if you stuck him in New York, managing the Mets, would he, would he be as good? Would he be the same? Bob Melvin was so good with those young, talented Oakland A's teams. He gets here. The, the, the open, you know, a checkbook doesn't actually do that great. Gets us further than we've, we've gone in a while, but ran out of pitching then too. And, and, you know, how much credit should he get? How much blame should he get the, the, the person that's always quickest to blame the manager or the hitting coach. I just, I've always looked at that person and said, man, a hitting coach, it can only take you so far. A manager can only take you so far. You have to execute, you know, you do and, and, and personal responsibility is, is really a, quite a thing in the game. I mean, I look at Boach's career and he's truly only had probably about seven really good teams. Yeah. And he turned four of those into World Series titles. He turned one of them into a World Series appearance with the Padres in 98. The other ones, I would say 96 Padres were really good. Obviously they lost right away in the playoffs. I think the 2006 Padres, his last season, they won 88 games, but lost that stupid series to St. Louis to start the playoffs. And they had another decent Giants team in 2016, but 87 wins. And then the Rangers one that he just had. Yeah. The rest of them, he's had tons of mediocre teams that just weren't that good. Yeah. But when he had the chance, he got the most out of him in October. So he's what? Four for five in the World Series? Is that right? He's four for five in the World Series. Yeah. He's only one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine playoff appearances in 26 years. Wow, man. But four of them ended in World Series titles. That's the dream right there. And yeah, I mean, if you asked him, if you gave him truth, sir, like, what do you do differently? He'd be like, I don't know. That money in San Francisco will boggle my mind, maybe forever. I was living, my college roommates were all from the Bay Area, massive Giants fans. And just the fact that they would win the World Series, miss the playoffs. Yes. It's a terrible year when the World's like, that's crazy. Yeah. It's crazy. It's kind of happening in Texas. That's exactly right. The exact same thing could happen. Might miss the playoffs. You know, I've always gotten the sense of, I've known a lot of, you know, a lot of people that played for him, know a lot of people that have worked with him, heard him, you know, met him a couple of times. I've heard a million stories about him. You get the sense though, he's not, when, when Boonie compared him to Dusty Baker, I don't think the comparison was like, they're the same type of manager. They have the same type of stature. But Dusty Baker is a high energy at the end, chewing on the toothpick, ready to go. Boonie's just like, all right, whatever, just says, and it's almost, you look at him and go, do you do, like, what do you do? He's just chill. Like he's just a chill guy. Like he's not a high energy pacing back and forth. Like, let's go. He's not a rah rah guy. Just guys for whatever reason, say you can go get him. So, yeah, yeah. He's just a guy you want to play for. Yes, he does what the greatest leaders do. He makes you feel disappointed if you don't come through for him. Yes, dude. Not through anything he really does, it's just like, I don't want to let Boach down. 100%. Because I like him so much. Yeah, yeah. And that's all he really has to do. It's exactly right. He's there and it's like, everyone else just decides. I've got to play well because Boach is here. I mean, bro, you think about, like, what could, what would he have done in the, with the Padres of the last couple of years? I don't know. And I thought Bob Melvin was the absolute solution, hands off, players manager, let them do brilliant psychologists. Probably nothing different. Yeah, nothing. I don't think so either. Oh, we got another guy who played for Boach and Nick Hundley is going to join us. He's also a special assistant to Chris Young, the GM of the Texas Rangers will catch up with Hundley when we return with Ben Woods, a 97-3 the fan. Said last night on channel 10 that the Texas Rangers haven't exactly looked like defending World Series champions this year until last night. Last night, they very much looked like the defending World Series champions. They did it without Corey Seager. They did it with a great pitching performance by Nathan Evaldi. And they just beat up on Dylan C. So we got Nick Hundley standing by. He's special assistant to Chris Young, former Padres catcher, going to join us right after this check of traffic on 97-3 the fan. Yeah, I've told you woods that in my now, what, 25, almost 30 years covering the Padres. There have been certain players that have always been kind of nervous about approaching per interviews and in the clubhouse. Our next guest is not one of them. I always enjoyed conversations with Nick Hundley. He just was really friendly. He was, he's just more approachable than most. And I want to say thank you to Nick and I appreciated that when he was a player. And now he's joining us right now here on Ben Woods, a 97-3 the fan. Hi, Nick. How are you? Hey, what's up guys? I hope I don't blow that, blow that credence with this interview. Oh, I have no worries, he's going to, you're going to be just fine. How about, when you were playing Nick, what was the worst thing that media did? Like what was the worst question that they asked you? Was it the, hey, what were you looking for on that pitch or was it the, tell us about your approach there? Because I watched those and it still happens like on a regular basis. And I'm just like, well, obviously he's looking for a pitch to hit, something to drive, you know, out of the ballpark and for a pitch to hit and drive something out of the ballpark, I guess, right? Yeah. Yeah, it'd be tough because there was times when you'd played, you know, early in the series, you'd be playing the Dodgers and you're playing the Dodgers next week. And then you're playing them 18 more times and like, hey, what were you looking for against Chad Billingsley? He's like, well, I'm going to face Chad Billingsley for four or five more times this year. So I'm not going to answer that, seriously. I'm not going to tell you anything. No, Ben, certainly we have gone through the, the people that Ben was scared of and he asked me, he was probably at the top of the list for some reason. He's like the nicest, like dude ever, but Ben was terrified of him. But he always said, yeah, you, you were really, really sneer after the games, it just kind of was off putting. I don't know. He's, he's great. Some guys, look, man, some guys get it, some guys don't. Some guys get the, get the, the job and some guys don't want to be bothered by, you know, puppies like us in there, it's part, it's definitely part of the job for sure. So you, you know what you're signing up for. So tell me about the job right now with the Texas Rangers and working with, with CY as general manager, obviously last year was just an unbelievably magical season. But what would you say? What, what are you kind of doing and what's your role right now with the Rangers? Yeah, right now it's a lot of draft stuff. I'll be with the team in Anaheim and then go back to Dallas for the draft and you know, just work through some of the catchers that we're looking at, some of the amateur guys have probably seen about eight to 10 guys live and just kind of in our, in our little pocket. And you know, I really enjoy that side of it now with, with how important the draft is. You look at, you know, you can look at what the, what the Padres are doing with Jackson Merrill and then that same draft class, they, they draft James Wood and now, and Gasser and all of a sudden you look up and you've, you know, got a guy's potentially rookie of the year and, and two guys he traded for, for generational talent. So it's pretty, it's pretty fun, fun month of month of July. So with the draft and the, and the trade deadline. So this is really, really busy for me and then just give my opinion and then, and then then head back to San Diego. Yeah. It's kind of the best of both worlds. I would imagine for, for an ex player with a family talking to Nick on Lee here on Ben Woods this morning. You know, I ran into you over at the play structure and we were, we were talking about that. And you know, I, I can't imagine like for Boach, I know it was hard for him. He wanted, he was like, I don't know if I'm ready to go back and, and do this every day grind. I can't imagine having to like be with the team every day when you got a, a young family at home. And I think this feels like for you, a really, really good fit. Yeah. I'm forcing it, you know what, and even, even the guys in Dallas do Chris does a really good job of fostering community and fostering the importance of family. I mean, he is three awesome kids. He loves his family, loves to be around them. You know, hires guys like Boach and Will Venable and, and things like that, that, that foster the love that they have for their families too and, and build that community that way. So to be able to, to be a dad and still be involved and, and have a voice and be able to, to give my opinion and connect with CY and the rest of our front office group, that's been amazing. So I'm very thankful the last two years to be able to do this for sure. Do you think this is Chris Young's calling as general manager? I always thought that he might be the next commissioner of baseball. Yeah, we all did. Some days. Well, after working in the office, he, he may be, he may be too, you know, even minded and, and for that job at this, this role. But tell me just a little more about CY and what you think of him and what, what his futures is in store. So I think CY can do whatever he wants to do, you know, I think he's, he's proven that in the short time, going from the league office to running a team to, you know, to win a world series in the short time. And obviously he's not the only one involved. There's a lot of foundation late by, by John Daniels and, and the group, um, of one of them, but, but Chris is just, uh, a different type of leader you can connect with, with people in a ball, you can connect with ownership, you can connect with, with, um, people doing ticket sales, uh, security guards. He just has a real respect for people and serves people really well and has high standards. So I mean, I can tell you stories for days about playing with Chris and, and the standards that he had and, and get himself ready, um, and the standards that he had for his teammates and getting them ready and, uh, and what he needed out of people around him, what he needed out of me catching him. I learned a lot. I was really, really fortunate coming up with guys like Trevor Hoffman and Greg Maddox and CY and David Eckstein and those types of guys that, that showed me how to prepare and actually be a big leader on what, what an actual day looked like in the big leagues before the game and after the game, um, and he was, he was the top of that, top of that list. So I learned more about preparing to play a major league baseball game from Chris Young than anybody, which is pretty, pretty interesting to say because as a starting pitcher, that's not usually the case. That's pretty incredible stuff talking to, uh, Nick Conley here on Bennet Woods this morning. And you know, the, the, I kind of at the beginning of the year, we do the normal sports radio thing. And all right, where do you think everybody's going to finish? And I, I had the Rangers, uh, you know, the hangover, the World Series hangover, certainly real and Ben was going over some of the numbers, uh, yesterday before the series started and said, I really can't put my finger on why they haven't played as well as maybe they should not get on base. It's not getting on base right now, but man, you got some good young talent, Wyatt Langford's one of my favorite players to watch him. I watched him hit for the cycle. The other night, I'm like, what an absolute beast he is. And, uh, Corey Seager, of course, I mean, gold standard type player. The World Series MVP, uh, an absolute for us at least Garcia. I love my kids. Love him. Like what a good team that you guys have put together just hasn't materialized yet in there. I think there's still plenty of time to turn it around, but what have you kind of seen? Yeah, I think, I think all of those things are true. I think, um, you know, we've been banged up. I think Josh Young has played three games for us, four games worth. And the way that he was, I mean, starting the, starting the all-star game last year, he would have, would have probably been, I would say, probably one of the, one the rookie of the year. If he didn't break his thumb last year, obviously Gunnar Henderson is an amazing player too. So nothing, uh, take away from him, but, um, I would have voted for him if he was able to stay healthy. So he's, uh, an absolute all-star, um, star in this game, having, not having him, not having Evan Carter, um, who burst on the scene. They're talking about draft coming up, the second round pick from the, from, uh, from the range a couple of years ago. And then, you know, having a little bit of under-performance at times, guys, fluctuating a little bit. There's, there's about a month, month period where kind of everybody wasn't hitting on all cylinders, which, you know, it happens sporadically through the year. But when it's a concentrated point where a lot of guys aren't, um, makes it a little tougher to win, but, you know, the way that we've been taking it back for the last couple of weeks has been a lot more in line with, with who we are. And that's really encouraging. Like you look at the, the game last night, you know, Dylan C throwing 98 with, with two really good breaking balls and we're able to, to not expand and take pitches at the margins and win those pitches and getting good counts and, and, uh, you know, thankfully we, we did some damage on some, on some mistakes, but the only do that if you take those, take those marginal pitches and for a guy who strikes out 200 guy of the year to take those marginal pitches against is really, really tough. So that was an encouraging, um, yeah, it was a lot of fun for us too. The first, not a super fun, that first marginal pitch to Nathaniel was strike three marginal pitch. Whatever. It's fine. He's still got a score to win though. I threw him that change up after that. Sorry. We don't need to relitigate yesterday's game. We're talking a timely, uh, Ranger Special Assistant former Padre and you mentioned doing some scouting now of, of the young catchers. You were obviously a, a top young catching prospect to second round draft pick when you came out and I, I don't know how much film you've seen, but I was wondering if you had any perspective from outside the Padre's organization on Ethan Salas, someone who we keep hearing about and you know, they, they just talk about what amazing skills he's got for a 17 year old kid, you know, playing in high, high A went to double A for a little while last year, but kind of struggling offensively, maybe expected. What's the talk around the league about Ethan Salas? Yeah. He's, he's impressive. You know, actually one of our, uh, Brett Boce is, uh, is working with the Rangers now the scout, um, and he covers a lot of, uh, the West Coast. So I talked to him a lot and then, um, you know, I know, I know Riley Westman for, for a long time, a couple of years now, um, talking to him about Ethan too, um, he can really, really catch and really throw and the thing that I love, you know, the, the thing that I love about catchers, I love, I love watching their pace and their heart rate. And when there's big situations, I was fortunate to play with Buster Posey for two years. I feel like I saw the game speed up him up on him one time in two years. Like he's just heart rate and he just plays with this pace where he just dominated the game because it's, it's such a tough game and it'll speed up on everybody. But when you have a catcher who's in a leadership position, who, uh, who's in, in big spots and they're, their heart rate is low, it's such a, such an incredible trait to have. And I think that's what Jonah Heim has are catcher in Texas, Gold Glover and, you know, started the all-star game last year. His pace and his heart rate is so good that when you're in the World Series and the bases are loaded and the role this Chapman's doing in two, they're like, if I'm catching that situation, my heart rate is really high and I might be chasing it back to the back stop. But Jonah's not, Buster's not, and it looks like the pace Ethan Salas plays at. It looks like for me is watching him, like he's not going to be chasing that ball either. Like he's going to control that game. So all the skills and all that stuff aside, all the youth playing at the high, higher level above his, above his age, all that stuff aside, I just really like the pace that he plays with. That's such good information. Talking to Nick Conley here. Last one for me. I mean, you see it a lot on Twitter and you see it a lot. You hear it a lot and people are, I don't understand why these catchers now, you know, the catching position has changed certainly and there's a new, there's a new way that's being taught. You know, the glove down, the kind of steel one and we watched Ethan do it brilliantly when we were at spring training. I could have watched him do catching drills all day, but the position has changed Nick. It changed from when I was a kid, you know what I mean? And how have you as a catcher, former catcher adapted to maybe teaching a little bit way, a different way to do it? Yeah, how much time do you have? We've got about five minutes left. Yeah, I mean, so we'll start out when umpires weren't graded as hard. Right now with the Z system, like these umpires are graded so, difficulty, they get every single pitch. And a lot of them, I mean, we can go into a tangent on ABS and all that stuff too. But umpires have gotten so good at calling balls and strikes with the system that they're graded. You guys are shooting 98, 99, 100%. So, they can't, when I came up, if you would move the ball, umpires would ding you like crazes. Like, hey, don't do that. It makes me look bad. Catch the ball, hold it so I can see it. Like if you would move the ball at all, you'd get crushed by umpires. And when I came up, like Greg Maddox told me when I came up, don't move. Like if you set the target up and you move it, it's like me standing over a ball ready to, like, on a tee and ready to tee off. And like in my backswing, you yelling at me. So don't, like, literally don't move. So I was like a statue. I was like, oh my gosh, can I even breathe? Like, this is a Hall of Famer, but I don't want to get sent down tomorrow. Like, please, like, throwing to me, you know? So now that the umpires are graded so heavily, like, you can move the ball as much as you want, and they can't hold that against you, right? So your goal as a catcher is to make the ball that's two inches below the zone, look exactly the same as the ball that's one inch above the zone. So I'm going to catch it the exact same way. I'm going to pull it up the, I'm going to try to pull it up the exact same way. So these small margins, when Dylan ceases to own 89 mile an hour sliders and 98 mile an hour fastballs, like these small, marginal pitches, I want to make those look exactly the same. And then probably talking through one knee down, stances like that, guys are throwing so hard now that the sliders, the splits, like Evo, made of all the last night was throwing 89 mile an hour splits, 93 mile an hour cutters, like, if I'm in a traditional stance where I don't have one knee down, I'm playing higher, the level that I play at is a lot higher than if I have one knee down. So it's a lot easier to block all the blocking metrics. When it first came out, it's like, well, how are you going to block in these, in a one knee down stance? And all the blocking metrics and pass ball metrics are so much better now than they were when most guys want traditional stances. Just because you're playing lower to the ground, you're playing, you don't have to exert as much effort to block that ball, to receive the low pitch, things like that. And we have an amazing catching coach, and Bobby Wilson, who is one of the leaders at that, teaching the one knee down stance. So one, I'm firing two, velocity, and then three, just longevity and health. I think it's a lot easier on your body to be in that position, as opposed to being in a traditional squat for such a long period of time throughout the season. So there's a lot of positive things about it. Like any revolution that takes place, there's going to be a lot of pushback and a lot of traditional lifts will say, oh, that doesn't look right, that's not the way to do it. But at the end of the day, I like flat screen TVs, I like replay, I like planes, I like all those things. Let's continue to advance. Yeah, I like advancements as well. That was amazing. Great stop. We could probably continue on if we had more time, we don't. But I promise you'll come and do this again with this real soon, maybe in studio at some point if you're when you're in town. Yeah, I'll think it will all pop in there with you guys. That'd be awesome, man. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks guys. All right, Nick Humbly. I got some stuff to react to on that when we come back, final hour of Ben & Woods, get around the report ahead as well. Don't go away, more on the way here on San Diego's number one sports station, 97-3 the fan. Said last night on channel 10 that the Texas Rangers haven't exactly looked like defending World Series champions this year until last night. Last night, they very much looked like the defending World Series champions. They did it without Corey Seager. They did it with a great pitching performance by Nathan Evaldi, and they just beat up on Dylan C. So we got Nick Humbly standing by. He's special assistant to Chris Young, former Padres catcher, going to join us right after this check of traffic on 97-3 the fan. Yeah, I've told you, Woods, that in mind now, what, 25, almost 30 years covering the Padres. We've been certain players that have always been kind of nervous about approaching per interviews and in the clubhouse. Our next guest is not one of them. I always enjoyed conversations with Nick Humbly. He just was really friendly. He was just more approachable than most, and I want to say thank you to Nick, and I appreciated that when he was a player, and now he's joining us right now here on Ben & Woods, a 97-3 the fan. Hi, Nick. How are you? Hey, what's up, guys? I hope I don't blow that credit, but this interview is great. I have no worries. You're going to be just fine. How, when you were playing Nick, what was the worst thing that media did? What was the worst question that they asked you? Was it the, hey, what were you looking for on that pitch, or was it the, tell us about your approach there? Because I watched those, and it still happens, like on a regular basis. And I'm just like, well, obviously he's looking for a pitch to hit, something to drive out of the ballpark, and for a pitch to hit, and drive something out of the ballpark, I guess, right? Yeah, it would be tough, because there were times when you'd played, you know, early in the series, you'd be playing the Dodgers, and you'd be playing the Dodgers next week, and then you're playing them 18 more times, and they're like, hey, what were you looking for against Chad Billingsley? He's like, well, I'm going to face Chad Billingsley, four or five more times this year, so I'm not going to answer that truth. I'm not going to tell you anything. No, Ben, certainly we have gone through the people that Ben was scared of, and he asked me, he was probably at the top of the list for some reason, he's like the nicest like dude ever, but Ben was terrified of him, but he always said, yeah, you were really really sneer after the games, it just kind of was off-putting. I don't know. He's great. Some guys, look, man, some guys get it, some guys don't. Some guys get the job, and some guys don't want to be bothered by, you know, slappies like us in there, it's definitely part of the job for sure, so you know what you're signing up for. So tell me about the job right now with the Texas Rangers and working with CY as general manager, obviously, last year was just an unbelievably magical season, but what would you say? What are you kind of doing and what's your role right now with the Rangers? Yeah, right now it's a lot of draft stuff. I'll be with the team in Anaheim and then go back to Dallas for the draft and just work through some of the catchers that we're looking at, some of the amateur guys, I've probably seen about eight to ten guys live and just kind of in our little pocket, and I really enjoy that side of it now with how important the draft is. You can look at what the Padres are doing with Jackson Merrill and that same draft class. They draft James Wood and Gasser and all of a sudden you look up and you've got a guy's potentially rookie of the year and two guys you traded for generational talent, so it's pretty fun month of July with the draft and the trade deadline, so this is really, really busy for me and then just give my opinion and then head back to San Diego. Yeah, it's kind of the best of both worlds. I would imagine for an ex player with a family talking to Nick Hundley here on Ben & Woods this morning. I ran into you over at the play structure and we were talking about that and I can't imagine for both. I know it was hard for him. He wanted, he was like I don't know if I'm ready to go back and do this every day grind. I can't imagine having to be with the team every day when you got a young family at home and I think this feels like for you a really, really good fit. Yeah, I'm fortunate, and even the guys in Dallas do Chris does a really good job of fostering community and fostering the importance of family. I mean he is three awesome kids. He loves his family, loves to be around them, hires guys like Boats and Will Venable and things like that that foster the love that they have for their families too and build that community that way. So to be able to be a dad and still be involved and have a voice and be able to give my opinion and connect with COI and the rest of our front office group, that's been amazing. So I'm very thankful the last two years to be able to do this for sure. Do you think this is Chris Young's calling as general manager? I always thought he might be the next commissioner of baseball. Yeah we all did. Some days after working in the office he may be, he may be too even minded and for that job at this role. But tell me just a little more about CY and what you think of him and what his futures is in store. So I think to see what I can do, whatever he wants to do, he's proven that in the short time going from the league office to running a team to win a World Series in the short time. And obviously he's not the only one involved. There's a lot of foundation laid by John Daniels and the group of one of him, but Chris is just a different type of leader. You can connect with people in A-ball, you can connect with ownership, you can connect with people doing ticket sales, security guards. He just has a real respect for people and serves people really well and has high standards. So I mean I can tell you stories for days about playing with Chris and the standards that he had and getting himself ready and the standards that he had for his teammates and getting them ready and what he needed out of people around him, what he needed out of me, catching him. I learned a lot. I was really really fortunate coming up with guys like Trevor Hoffman and Greg Maddox and CY and David Eckstein and those types of guys that showed me how to prepare and actually be a big leader on what an actual day looked like in the big leagues before the game and after the game and he was the top of that list. So I learned more about preparing to play a major league baseball game from Chris Young than anybody, which is pretty instant to say because as a starting pitcher, that's not usually the case. That's pretty incredible stuff. Talking to Nick Conley here on Ben & Woods this morning and at the beginning of the year we do the normal sports radio thing and all right where do you think everybody's going to finish? I had the Rangers hangover, the World Series hangover, certainly real and Ben was going over some of the numbers yesterday before the series started and said I really can't put my finger on why they haven't played as well as maybe they should have. It's not getting on base right now but man you got some good young talent. Wyatt Langford is one of my favorite players to watch him. I watched him hit for the cycle the other night and I'm like what an absolute beast he is and Corey Seager of course, I mean gold standard type player, World Series MVP, an absolute force. Adelis Garcia, I love, my kids love him like what a good team that you guys have put together just hasn't materialized yet and I think there's still plenty of time to turn it around but what have you kind of seen? Yeah I think all of those things are true. I think you know we've been banged up. I think Josh Young has played three games for us, four games for us and the way that he was, I mean starting the all-star game last year he would have probably been, I would say he probably won the rookie of the year if he didn't break his thumb last year obviously Gunnar Henderson is an amazing player too so nothing take away from him but I would have voted for him if he was able to stay healthy so he's an absolute all-star star in this game, not having him, not having Evan Carter who burst on the scene, another talking about draft coming up, the second round pick from the Rangers a couple years ago and then you know having a little bit of under-performance at times, guys fluctuating a little bit, there's about a month period where kind of everybody wasn't hitting on all cylinders which you know it happens sporadically through the year but when it's a concentrated point where a lot of guys aren't, makes it a little tougher to win but you know the way that we've been taking a bat the last couple weeks has been a lot more in line with who we are and that's really encouraging. Like you look at the game last night, you know Dylan C throwing 98 with two really good breaking balls and we're able to not expand and take pitches at the margins and win those pitches and getting good counts and thankfully we did some damage on some mistakes but you only do that if you take those marginal pitches and for a guy who strikes out 200 guys a year to take those marginal pitches against is really really tough so that was an encouraging job. Yeah it was a lot of fun for us too. That first marginal pitch to Nathaniel was strike three marginal pitch, whatever it's still got a score to win though why I threw him that change up after that sorry we don't need to relitigate yesterday's game we're talking about currently Ranger Special Assistant former Padre and you mentioned doing some scouting now of the young catchers. You are obviously a top young catching prospect to second round draft pick when you came out and I don't know how much film you've seen but I was wondering if you had any perspective from outside the Padre's organization on Ethan Salas someone who we keep hearing about and you know they just talk about what amazing skills he's got for a 17 year old kid you know plan in high high A went to double A for a little while last year but kind of struggling offensively maybe expected what's the talk around the league about Ethan Salas. Yeah he's he's impressive you know actually one of our bread bogey is is working with the Rangers now the scout and he covers a lot of the west coast so I talked to him a lot and then you know I know Riley Westman for a long time a couple years now I'm talking to him about Ethan too he can really really catch and really throw and the thing that I love you know the the thing that I love about catchers I love watching their pace and their heart rate and when there's big situations I was fortunate to play with Buster Posey for two years I feel like I saw the game speed up him up on him one time in two years like he's just heart rate and he just played with this pace where he just dominated the game because it's such a tough game and it'll speed up on everybody but when you have a catcher who's in a leadership position who who's in big spots and they're their heart rate is low it's such a such an incredible trait to have and I think that's what Jonah Heim has are catcher in Texas gold Glover and you know started the all star game last year his pace and his heart rate is so good that when you're in the World Series and the bases are loaded and they're all the Chapman's doing too like if I'm catching that situation my heart rate is really high and I might be chasing it back to the back stop but Jonah's not Buster's not and it looks like the pace Ethan Salas plays at it looks like for me is watching him like he's not going to be chasing that ball either like he's going to control that game so all the skills and all that stuff aside all the youth playing at the high higher level above his above his age all that stuff aside I just really like the pace that he plays with that's such good information talking to Nick Conley here last one for me I mean you see it a lot on Twitter and you see a lot you hear it a lot and you know people are I don't understand why these catchers now you know the catching position has changed certainly and there's a new there's a new way that's being taught you know the glove down the kind of steal one and we watched Ethan do it brilliantly when we were at spring training I could have watched him do catching drills all day but the position has changed Nick it changed from when I was a kid you know what I mean and how if you as a catcher former catcher adapted to maybe teaching a little bit way a different way to do it yeah how much time do you have we got about five minutes left yeah I mean so we'll start of when when umpires weren't graded as as hard right now with the Z system like these umpires are graded so difficulty they they get every single pitch they and a lot of them I mean we can go into a tangent on ABS and all that stuff too but umpires have gotten so good at calling balls and strikes with the system that they're graded some guys are shoot 98 99 hundred percent so you can't they can't when I came up if you would move the ball umpires would ding you like crazies like hey don't do that it makes me look bad catch the ball hold it so I can see it like if you move the ball at all like you get crushed by umpires and when I came up like Greg Maddox told me when I came up don't move like if you set the target up and you move it it's like me standing over ball ready to like on a tee and ready to tee off and like in my backswing you yelling at me so don't like literally don't move so I was like a statue I was like oh my gosh can I even breathe like this is a Hall of Famer but I don't want to get sent down tomorrow like please like growing to me you know so now that the umpires are graded so heavily like you can move the ball as much as you want and they can't hold that against you right so your goal as a catcher is to make the ball that's two inches below the zone look exactly the same as ball that's one inch above the zone so I'm going to catch it the exact same way I'm going to pull it up the exact I'm going to try to pull it up the exact same way so these small margins when Dylan ceases on 89 mile an hour sliders and 98 mile an hour fastballs like these small marginal pitches I want to make those look exactly the same and then probably talking through one knee down stances like that guys are throwing so hard now that the sliders the splits like Evo made of all the last night was throwing 89 mile an hour split 93 mile an hour cutters like if I'm in a traditional stance where I don't have one knee down I'm playing higher the level that I play at is a lot higher than if I have one knee down so it's a lot easier to block all the blocking metrics when it first came out it's like well how are you going to block in these in a one knee down stance and all the blocking metrics and pass ball metrics are so much better now than they were when most guys want traditional stances just because you're playing lower to the ground you're playing you don't have to exert as much effort to block that ball to receive the low pitch things like that and we have an amazing catching coach and Bobby Wilson who is one of the one of the leaders that that teaching the one knee down stance so one I'm firing to velocity and then three just longevity and health I think it's a lot easier on your body to be in that position as opposed to being in a traditional squat for such a long period of time throughout the season so there's a lot of a lot of positive things about it like any revolution that takes place there's going to be a lot of pushback and a lot of traditional traditional list will say oh that doesn't look right that's not the way to do it but at the end of the day like I like flat screen TVs I like replay I like playing like I like all those things like continue to advance you know yeah I like advancements as well that was amazing great stop we could probably continue on if we had more time we don't but promise you'll you'll come and do this again with this real soon maybe in studio at some point if you're when you're in town yeah I'll think yeah we will all pop into it that'd be awesome man thank you so much yeah thanks guys all right Nick Conley I got some stuff to react to on that when we come back final hour of Ben and Woods get around the report ahead as well don't go away more on the way here on San Diego's number one sports station 97 three the fan 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 ad Hey fantasy football fans do you want to be the owner who was doing a crime session the night before the draft I didn't think so you need to start your prep now this is for us from upper hand 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