Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast
Tuesday August 6th, 2024 - FULL SHOW
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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. 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. Lock out another research and supply, major league baseball tray parts used with permission. Fired up on a Tuesday morning. Welcome in. It is Ben and Woods, except for one more day, it's Ben and Paul Woods. He's vacation wrapping up momentarily. And they should be flying back to San Diego later today. And we will have the return of our co-host tomorrow morning at 6am. But it's been a fun six days without Woods. No, it's not exactly fun, Paul. Good morning, Paul Reindel is here, our executive producer and co-host extraordinaire for the week. How has it gone for you? Six days without Woods. Fun wouldn't be the first word I use. It's harder. It's been fun. We've had good shows. It's just I wouldn't go there first. Let's say it's been longer days and more work. It's been, you know what, I think it's gone mostly well over the last six days. We've had some good moments. We've had some decent shows. It's never going to be quite Ben and Woods without Woods here. And I would hope you'd feel the same way on days when I'm here. We certainly feel it the same way when you're not here, Paulie, which is going to be happening later this week. You've got a vacation planned as well. So we're going to have Adam and you just told me on Thursday and Friday. I didn't know. I thought maybe Italian Paul would be. Is it extra sweet because there's against the Dodgers? And we love Adam. He's great. But it's definitely a different vibe when he's sitting there. He loves pushing the buttons inappropriate times. Oh, God. He doesn't have your sense of timing when it comes to the drops. It's like a kid in a candy store, and he just comes in. All right. All right. All right. We're to doggy stuff. It's pretty much like when Bo Woods operated the board and just started. Just started pressing buttons. That's what Adam's like trying to controls for the show. Bo has actually a little bit better timing. Can you put like a password protect on some of them just so he doesn't have access to everything while you're gone? Ring ding dong. Ring a ding ding ding ding dong. You know what? So your drops make me sound sometimes friendlier than I am because honestly, and I felt bad about this this morning. Oh, boy. Did you have another run in with your coffee? No, no, I was fine. I just I got to our Odyssey studios and as you probably know, if you've heard, we have nice studios here. They're up on the sixth floor of a fairly modern building. We got windows. It's a it's a nice office space that we got. The studio is gorgeous. So you arrive and you let yourself into the building. And when I arrive, obviously and same with you, I'm sure Polly, it's very early in the morning. It's dark and you're usually just walking in by yourself big empty parking lot, big building. You don't see anyone in this morning. I start walking in and there's another guy who's walking in from the opposite direction to the same door that I am. Looks like he's probably normal guy just going to work early on one of the other floors. And you know, we get to the door at the same time and we he opens it with his key card. It holds the door for me, which is very nice and I walk in, but I know what's going to happen next. He's heading for the elevator and I don't want to have to make small talk in the morning. And I'm kind of embarrassed about this. So there's a bathroom down on the first floor. I fake as though I have to go to the bathroom just so I don't look like I'm getting into the elevator with him and then as soon as he gets in and the door closes, I turn around and head and get my own elevator because we have a bank of three elevators and I can take my own up and I don't have to make 11 seconds of small talk while he's going up to the third floor or the fourth floor, whatever in our building. Is that just horrible of me to do that? I don't, I just don't want to make small talk at, you know, five, 15 in the morning or whatever time it is. I think you're going to have to. It's probably no more than, hey, good morning, if anything, if that's, it's just, it's so hard. Oh, what number? Number four. Okay. I got you. It's so awful. And I totally faked like I had to walk over to the bathroom just to avoid getting in an elevator with the stranger that I didn't know for maybe 15 seconds tops like a new twist in the evolution of Ben Higgins. Oh, Carlos says I've done that. Sometimes I just don't want to talk to people L O L. I mean, I know, you know, I know he's not coming up to the sixth floor. Did you look chatty? Not really. I mean, how do you, what does a person look like that looks chatty? I don't know how to describe it. I just know. He looked a lot like our engineer Mike who's here, it wasn't Mike, I would have, I would have gone up with a colleague and a coworker, but this was a stranger and you know, he wasn't a colleague. Well, it's true. Yeah, I don't know how the people who work here, but usually I know most of the people who are here at 5 15 a.m. because there's four people here at 5 15 a.m. So I can recognize at least those people, even if I don't know all of their names, I know most of their names, but maybe not all of them. So well, I'm just glad you didn't like take out your phone and fake a phone call or something to avoid talking to this poor person. Like that would, yeah, I'd see that in the chat, you know, you take out your phone and pretend you're on the phone. That's not really an option at 5 20 a.m. Right. Oh, yeah, you got a bit. Yeah, I've got a busy phone call, he's on the east coast. This is this is 8 20 where I'm calling him. I had to had to get up early for an important phone meeting at this time. So can't really do that. I mean, has this happened before? Yeah, yeah, it's happened a couple of times before. Obviously it's rare. Next time. Next time will you do a social experiment and just get in the elevator. Master the strength and get on the elevator and see if he says any more words than. Hey, good morning. I'm sure he wouldn't have I really he might not have said anything we may have gone up in silence, but that also would have been somewhat and only takes a few seconds to get all the way up to the six for he's probably getting off on the third floor. I know the blink of an eye and he's already up there. I get it. I get it. Alyssa says airplane talkers are the worst have you ever sat next to a stranger on an airplane who wanted to talk your ear off for the whole flight probably, but I put my headphones on like I walk on to the plane with my headphones on and they don't really come off. What's what's there pretty much than me on an elevator except on an air. Except I'm not a I'm not faking going to the bathroom to avoid. The person. Yeah, I get it right. He opened the door for me and everything. He did. He did. Well, technically you're probably you're not supposed to do that because I could have been an intruder trying to get into the building waiting to time it to look like I was in an employee to watch in so proper protocol would have wanted him to slam the door in your face. It's true. I mean, isn't that pull out your key card? Isn't that technically how the building security is supposed to work? The proper protocol would be to be extremely rude and if I got there first, I would open the key card and I go, I'm sorry, I can't let you in and then close the door. So he has to then open it with his own key card. That's technically the proper procedure to go into an office building after hours. Correct. I don't know who he is. He doesn't know why brothers. I do too because if we live as George Costanza says in a society and you feel like if someone's there, you have to open the door for him. Even though technically, you know, JR would say, you're not supposed to open the door. Did you check his credentials? Did you show? Did you ask him? I'm not going to ask him to show me his key card and his credentials. He's walking in and I'd probably assume he's supposed to be here. That's why it's probably pretty easy to break into a building because you just prey on people's insecurities and let them in at 5, 15 in the morning, even though it's kind of suspicious to be going into a building this early, even though we're supposed to be here at this time. So here in the chat, Bean says he's an airplane talker. If you have headphones on, I will try and talk to you. Beans, you should be arrested. Do you have an airplane on Friday? I mean he tries to talk to me while my headphones are on and they do not work for the airline. Has anyone ever... They should be arrested. Tapped you on the shoulder just because they need to get your attention. You've got headphones on tap, tap, tap, tap. I think I would be defending myself if I'd punched them in the nose. Happy National Root Beer Float. We haven't gone through, you dutifully put in all the national days and Woods is a little bit better about kind of going through them and checking them and I don't and I'm sorry, Polly. But that one caught my eye this morning because I love the idea of a root beer float. I wish I liked root beer floats. I don't like root beer. I don't either. But the idea... It's okay. The idea of a frosty frothy root beer float with a scoop of vanilla ice cream sounds amazing and I'm sorry that I don't like it because I just have never liked root beer. I've done it with other sodas. Yeah. Coke, Coke or... Coke or something. Or soda is my favorite. Yeah. Like an orange sickle, a cream sickle. Absolutely. But the traditional is the root beer float and I feel like I'm missing out on something. Is there anything that you wish you liked but you don't like? I got yesterday... What about it, honestly? I will pretty much give anything a chance. No, I... Anything I wish... But you just don't... There's just things you don't like and you know, whether it's from childhood and you never got to like them. For instance, yesterday, I think it was my colleague Michael Chen had brought in these cookies from somewhere that really good like gourmet looking cookies but they had like nuts and stuff in them and I don't like nuts in my cookies. I wish... I wish I liked nuts in my cookies because that looks like a really good cookie but I don't so I'm not going to eat this and you can just give it to someone else and I feel bad but I just... You just don't like it but I wish I did but you can't make yourself like something you don't like. You can try. You can be open-minded. I'm very open-minded. I've tried all kinds of different foods and I've even, you know, started like things sometimes that I didn't like before but there's just a few things out there. You just... I don't think you're ever going to like and that's okay. What don't you like? Like what's a food you just don't like? I'm just a little bit taken aback still. About what? You know what? Nuts in your cookies. I don't like tomatoes or pickles. Okay tomatoes are like condiments and they come with salads, burgers, etc. Tomato seems like that would be a hard thing to not like. It's weird. Okay with tomato sauce though. Okay with tomato sauce. Okay with ketchup. Okay with... So it's a textural thing. Not necessarily a flavor. Like if I go to Jersey mics and I get it micsway, micsway no tomatoes, I don't know what it is. There have been a fan of pickles, I have to take them off but I don't wish that you like. It's not... It's like taking a tomato off something. I don't think it's a big deal. If you can eat Italian food and pizza with no problem, then I don't think you're missing out on tomatoes too much. Just sliced tomatoes aren't the... That's what it is. The greatest thing in life. I see like a good capracy salad but I mean if I didn't ever have another one the rest of my life I think I'd probably be fine. It's not the end of the world. If I didn't like tomato sauce I think that would be tough because a lot of really good food contains tomato sauce. Super spicy food and everybody that I know that likes it loves spicy food. Whether it's flamin' hot Cheetos to level whatever Thai food, anything like super spicy wings, I can't do it, give me the mild or the medium wings but everybody seems to go crazy for the spicy so I wish I had a better palate for spicy food. I can do the base level of spicy like a good, a buffalo wing but I'm never gonna do like double x. I'm never gonna give it to me extra spicy. I'm fine with the normal level of spiciness. Do you like nuts in your wings? Nuts in my wings. You don't like nuts in your cookies. I was just wondering what you do and don't like nuts on. Well, it's really the kind of nuts that they put in cookies. It's generally not peanuts. I like peanuts. I'm okay with maybe like some kind of almonds but like walnuts and pecans. The ones they usually chop up and put in cookies. I do not like those in anything, so. What's your favorite cookie? My favorite cookie is probably an oatmeal raisin cookie, to be honest. Great call Benjamin. Yeah. Woods would probably cause deviance but I'm right there with you. Thank you. I love a good oatmeal raisin cookie. Soft or texture. Yeah. I enjoy that. Now chocolate chip cookies are delicious, especially the ones that are really, I like kind of the crispier caramelized chocolate chip cookie as opposed to the soft one. You just kind of seems like not a give up. It's good. But it seems like the vanilla ice cream of cookies. A little bit. Yeah. It's the base. It's basic. It's good. It's the absolute base. And it's fine. Well, cookie talk. There we go. Another. Foreplay done. Last foreplay without Woods. We made it through. Now we've got to get the rest of the three hours and 45 minutes. No, we do actually have a really good show here for you on the final day of Woods' vacation. We'll tell you all about it. Set the menu coming up in our next segment. But I will warn everybody, Jesse Ackler is going to be with us a little bit early today from Pittsburgh three hours ahead. So that's about 15 minutes away. So stay tuned. Voice of the Padres coming up and then more with Ben and Paul. It is Tuesday morning. Chat. Good to see you. Glad to have everybody with us. Traffic with Kelly Danick on San Diego's number one sports station, 97.3. The fan. I know we have a lot of Padres season ticket members who are in the tier one audience. And we have other people who will only go to a handful of games and some who just watch on television, everyone consumes their Padres baseball in their own way. But if you are a season ticket member, you probably got a letter last night from Eric Groupner, the CEO of the Padres talking about renewals for the 2025 season. If you're not, I'd imagine you're still probably curious about what that letter had to say. And we did get a copy of the letter that season ticket members received announcing that in 2025, the Padres would be asking for what they're calling a small ticket price increase for season ticket member seats in 2025 that is, quote, "significantly less than prior year increases." What does that mean mathematically in your wallet? Well, we can certainly discuss, I saw a number of mixed reactions from Padres fans yesterday. We can discuss it this morning. I think the math that I saw was that the overall increase is 3% per season tickets from this season next season. But yeah, which means some may be a little bit more than 3% and actually according to the Padres, some tickets will be even down a little bit depending on where you're sitting and what your section is, individual mileage may vary. But obviously, this is kind of always a loaded subject for Padres fans and we're going to be talking about it this morning. Here on Ben & Woods, if you have season tickets, if you have some thoughts, we'll invite your phone calls coming up in our next hour, but I can tell you that at 8 o'clock this morning, we will be joined by Padres CEO Eric Gropner, who, you know, no coincidence that he's coming on today to promote the fact that season ticket renewals are now going out. What timing? And I'm sure he will have his own argument and I'm not going to say how you feel is right or wrong. You may be fine with a small increase. You may be outraged by a small increase. You know, Padres on the field, the product this year has been immensely better than last year's product. More enjoyable, more exciting wins, better place in the standings. They're currently tied for the top wildcard spot with both the Braves and the Diamondbacks who won last night and it's shaping up to be an exciting last couple of months of the season, which was not the case last year. However, they had a, they had a higher payroll, they were investing more into the team and clearly they scaled back on the payroll. So you could say, well, is it fair to pay more for a better product or is it fair to pay less because they're paying less for their players overall? No one can, no one can argue that the Padres haven't invested a huge amount more in salary over the last few years than ever before in franchise history. You know, gone all the way up to number three in baseball, I think last year, there's still right around the top half of baseball this year, even after cutting back on, on a little bit of salary in the off season. And I honestly, I don't think people care that much. If they're winning, you'd rather have the team with the lowest payroll that wins every year than the one with the highest payroll that misses the playoffs. I know that. Yeah. But ultimately, you know, I think that, that the cost to fans should also somewhat reflect the expenses to the team going into what they're paying. And Padres do a really good job of keeping up Pekko Park. There was a mention that they're going to continue to make additional impactful improvements to Pekko Park this coming off season, obviously huge investments last year and the new Gallagher Square and some of the things that they've done to try to improve the fan experience. So it's a complicated question and one that I'm happy to discuss with the tier ones, the season ticket numbers and anyone who has thoughts, which we will get to coming up later today if you want to join us and talk about that. But again, Eric Grouppner will be with us at eight o'clock this morning. And then after Eric Grouppner is done coming in studio with us around eight thirty five for the final 90 minutes or so, I'm going to get to know a little bit about one of my colleagues at Channel 10 while I all use our evening anchor along with Kimberly Hunt has been here. And about a year in the market, he worked last in Boston. But that's not where he's from. And honestly, I don't know everything about Wally's background. I just started, we just redid our newsroom and our desks are next to each other now. So I'm kind of getting to know him better. But he's really, he's personal. He's a nice guy. He's a sports fan. And I thought, why don't you come in? Woods is not here today. We'll just have a good time. Shoot the breeze. Get your, get your thoughts on some stuff. So we'll see what kind of energy he brings. Probably an evening work guy like me on television, but we're getting him up in the morning. I didn't make him get up before like, you know, like us and be here at six o'clock, but he's going to be here at eight thirty for the last 90 minutes. First half of the show, as I mentioned, though, we got Jesse Agler coming up in our next segment, joining us from Pittsburgh as the Padres open a six game road trip tonight against the Pittsburgh Pirates and we'll play the Incorporated, our new version of the Incorporated that started last week. Young lyric Incorporated, and we've got a special selection for Jesse that hopefully he'll be able to tackle in tonight's broadcast along with side Bob Scanlon, who is with him on the trip and will be doing radio as Tony takes the road trip off. So he's got Bob alongside of him, which always changes the dynamic a little bit because Bob's done the Incorporated before. So he may be aware, he's shown an awareness in the past of what's been going on. But when he's traveling, he's probably not, you know, paying attention as much. We'll see what goes on. So we got the new, we got the new version of the Incorporated. So maybe totally different slides right by exactly. So Jesse's next and then seven o'clock we'll have take on John one more time and we texted him. He's good for one more. He's been great. The whole time that woods has been gone. John Flint's come in and play take on John for a chance to qualify for our new trip to Las Vegas resorts world carry under wood tickets coming up at seven ten. Don't do this at seven twenty and then should be a good show today, but let's take a break so we can get to Jesse on the back end. And when we come back, we'll head out to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for a little Jesse Agler talk to start the road trip coming up next. Don't go away. Ben Woods continuing on San Diego's number one sports station, 97 through the fan. This hour 97 through the fan is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. If your supply chain demands a flexible workforce, hire with Express Employment Professionals with contract and full-time workers from Express Employment. You get the staff you need and manage contingent labor costs. Learn more at express prose.com. That's express prose.com thought this was kind of a pot raise show, but looking in our YouTube chat is more of a cookie show now with everybody sharing what cookies they like after we talked about it in foreplay this morning. Paulie and I both kind of oatmeal raising guy, nothing against chocolate chip, but Snicker doodles are good. People like the Biskoff cookies, the kind of like ginger snaps sort of that you get on the airplane sometimes. I always like when I get one of those white chip macadamia nuts again, like macadamia nuts fall in the category of nuts. I don't want in my cookies, Paul, so I don't know what you nuts you like and which nuts you don't like. I know I'm complicated. Now peanut butter cookie with peanuts. I will eat a peanut butter cookie every day of the week. We got Jesse standing by. Let's get to traffic. The voice of the Padres and the Incorporated joins us on the other side here on 97.3, the fam. Out we go to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania joined by Jesse Agler, the voice of the Padres and Jesse. Everybody wants to know, put you on the spot here. What's your favorite kind of cookie? Jesse. My favorite kind of cookie. Yeah. Oh, man. I know. Tough question, right? Yeah. And I hadn't spent a lot of that. But I'm not doing great right now, but generally in life, I try to avoid sweet. We know. I'm out of that. Yes, we know. We know. We know. We're so disciplined, responsible and healthy or especially on the road. Jesse, we get it. Yeah. But like, I'm a big sucker for Oreos, like I just think they're delicious and I assume you kind of meant like, oh, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, that kind of like snickerdoodles. I can tell you that. Fair. But I love Oreos, like ever since I was a kid, like it's just perfect. I freeze them and I especially like the mint filled Oreos in the freezer. Okay. That's you're very fancy. I am very fancy. We know this about Jesse has a house Pittsburgh. How was the travel the day off seeing yesterday? I would call it sightseeing, but you know, I walked around for a while. I love Pittsburgh. I always tell people, you know, if like a random fan asks me, hey, I want to do a road trip with the Padres this year. You know, where should I go? That's not obvious because like I always say, of course you want to try and get wiggly if you can or New York or, you know, whatever, San Francisco. And Pittsburgh and Milwaukee are like, always the two sleeper ones. I mentioned to people that, you know, if you can make the travel work and it works with your schedule, you know, it's a great ballpark. It's a great city. And the cool thing right now is really thanks very largely to Paul schemes who pitched on Sunday. So we won't see him here. Another really good thing is that they're into it right now. I mean, it's a great sports town. They love their bucko is obviously the Steelers are, you know, sort of the rulers of the roost here, but they have always, always shown up for the pirates when the pirates have given them a reason to show up. And sadly, for, you know, most of the last 25 years, they haven't given the fans a reason to show up. But this year, they're into it certainly on schemes day, but the team is right in that wild card mix, you know, along with three quarters of the national league, of course. And it seems like there's a real vibe around the pirates right now, which is great. Because, you know, again, it's a great fan base and, you know, you're happy for fan bases like this, that sort of get the opportunity to get back into it. And for the team to have sort of earned that from the fans, you know, and it's a smaller level, obviously, than what's going on in San Diego with all the sellouts. But it's starting to happen again here in Pittsburgh and hopefully they continue to have a little bit more success. And hopefully they're able to, you know, keep this thing going for, for quite some time because these are, these are definitely fans here who, who deserve more than what they've gotten. Now, Jesse, you mentioned Paul Skeens and you said in your answer there that we missed him this time around. That's probably a good thing. I'm curious. Do you think that's a good thing? Or maybe I'm asking if Jesse Agler were to put himself in a Padres uniform and you were on the team, would you, would you want to face a Paul Skeens? Like, you know what? I'm up for the challenge. What would this kid's got? Or are you like, hey, man, we're in a pennant race here, we're in a wildcard race, like, if we miss their ace, like that's, that's good for us. So I have three, it's a great question. I got three different answers for you from like three different personalities, right? So announcer Jesse is, of course, a little bit disappointed because it'd be great if he was pitching tonight and the place was packed and there was all that energy, like that'd be awesome. Like, I would love that. Okay. So that's announcer Jesse. Note to what you said, if I were like the starting, you know, right fielder or whatever, like, hell yeah, I'd want Paul Skeens starting tonight. I absolutely would. I would want to be able to, you know, I want to be the team that gets to him, you know, for the first time. I want to be the team that only strikes out twice in six innings or five innings or something like that. You know, I want to be the team that knocks him around, you know, so absolutely. But then like, yeah, the third one, which is, I guess at the moment, at least my sort of like overriding one is that perspective of, hey, man, it seems you got to win as many games as they can. Any time you miss somebody, that's a positive. So yeah, I mean, there's definitely like an entertainment and a competitive aspect that you would love to see the guy. But it's August now and, you know, every game matters, every game is important. Every game is sort of, you know, relevant to what could be in the postseason. So I'm not going to turn away something like that happening, not to say that they don't have other good pictures. They do. You know, by the way, the reason that we're a big reason that the buckles were okay trading Martine Perez away to the Padres was that, you know, they felt like they had enough starting pitching like they've got some really good started. So it isn't just Paul schemes. We shouldn't be fooled into thinking that, you know, it's kind of a one man rotation here for these guys. They've got some really good starting pitching. But again, for me, I guess right now my overriding feeling is that, you know what, not the worst thing in the world to not see their best picture. I think the most exciting starting pitcher in baseball right now will in fact be on the mound tonight though. And as Dylan sees Jesse and you get the chance to call now, I mean, after the first two starts of this run, it was like one of the best two start runs in baseball history with two one hitters, then he threw a no hitter in Washington, making it one of the best three start runs in history. And then he followed that up with three hits and one run, making it one of the best four start runs in major league baseball history. Can we go for five Jesse and how fun is it to call Dylan's cease games right now? It's really electric. I mean, you know, the last few years, we would always say, right, Blake Snell might have the nastiest stuff of any left hander in baseball and I stand by that. I think that's true. I mean, Dylan's cease might right now have the nastiest stuff, just stuff wise. That slider, the curve ball, the explosive fastball of any right handed pitcher in baseball and the way, you know, in a sense, and this is over simplifying it, I know, but almost like the way he has filled the snail role on the popular rotation is remarkable. You know, just like this guy who is capable of that every single time out and Blake obviously pulled it off the other day and Cincinnati and Dylan a few days before that, like it's pretty amazing. And I've said this a bunch of times on our broadcast and probably on your show too, you know, the way that AJ Preller has injected talent into this rotation time and time again, you know, it seems like every year for the last like four or five years right now is really remarkable because as we all know, starting pitching is at an absolute premium in the sport. It is really hard to find at times and, you know, in one off season, he added Musgrove Snell and Darvish. And then, you know, it was Waka and Lugo and those guys leave and you're like, Oh man, what's going to happen? And now you look at the years that Michael King and Dylan cease are having. That's just remarkable, like it's not supposed to happen that easily and I don't want to say it's easy because it's hard for the baseball ops guys, I'm sure, to make the right calls and for Ruben Nablitt to work with these guys and all that. But the strength that they have had from a starting pitching standpoint with the amount of turnover that they've had on a starting pitching standpoint is really remarkable. And you've got to put Dylan up at the top of the list right now, as you said, I mean, it's just so fun to watch. And the cool thing is about the run that you're talking about, right? Like the one hit, no runs, the one hit, no runs and then the no hitter feels like that never actually happened. That's like the guy who hits in one at bat too long like foul home runs, you know, as we say. And then he turns one around and actually hits it fair for a homer, feels like that never actually happens, right? And like that was sort of what happened with Dylan cease, you know, it was like, Oh man, he's got no hit stuff. Oh man, he's got no hit stuff and he actually threw the no hitter like it didn't come out of nowhere. It was almost a logical progression of the way he had been pitching. That's not usually the way this sport goes. Usually the sport is much dumber than that and much more hard to figure than that. And that's, that's just how good and dominant he's been. You know, as you were giving your answer, we're talking to Jesse Agler, voice of the pod race is in Pittsburgh. I couldn't help but think of the movie Moneyball, which, and no one's going to confuse the 2024 pod race to have, you know, had one of the top payrolls in baseball last few years with the 2000s, but the scene in which they're trying to replace Jason Giambi and they go through. Well, we got to replace him in the aggregate and you look, how do you replace a sigh young winner in Blake Snell and a talent like Juan Soto and, and really, Jesse, the bottlers have done it. I mean, you know, with Dylan Sees and, you know, Michael King, who also replaces, you know, his quirky interviews the day after with Don and Mudd like he does and then with jerks and pro far and Jackson Merrill producing in the outfield, they kind of have replaced all those numbers and, and then some in the aggregate from the guys that they lost last year. Yeah. And I mean, you got to throw in Donovan Salano and David Peralta too. I mean, I, I can't tell you how often I'm talking about this team with somebody, either somebody who works here or somebody from another team. And I start like raving about Donovan Salana. I know he's not playing a ton. First of all, though, just from like a how hard baseball is standpoint, the guy at one point, I had a written down the other day. I forget what it was, but like he had a seven game hitting streak. I think it was something like it went back like two and a half weeks, something like that, which is not supposed to happen because when you're playing infrequently, it's, it's hard to just sort of like, oh, I have a spot start. Oh, I have a pinch hit appearance. Oh, I'm coming off the bench in the sixth inning to play for a space, whatever. Like it's hard to get a hit doing all those things when you're not getting that consistent playing time. And he does like he is the, the, the perfect avatar to me for like what is different about the 20, 20, 14 as compared to, you know, the last couple of years is that you have a guy like that, you know, who could, you know, fill in when Xander was heard, he was playing a lot or if you need a big pinch hit appearance. And I mean, we throw that thing professional at bat out there probably more often than we should. But boy, is he the perfect example of it. And like, you know, you just, I'm not naming names, but like think about some of the guys who came off the bench, you know, in, in recent years. And he's just at a different level. He really is. And like great teams. And I do think this is a great team. Great teams have a guide or guys like Donovan Solano on the roster who have been there. They have done that. They understand the assignment. They don't let the ego get in the way, but they still have all the talent, ability and tenacity to come through in those situations. Like it's just, I can't stop thinking about how important he is to this thing. Even if he is, you know, at certain times only getting a handful of the bats over the course of a week. And like, so that, that goes to what you're saying, you know, it's this combination of all these guys put together. And you know, it's also a perfect fit. The kind of a bat that he takes fits in perfectly with sort of like what the Padres are at their best offensively. And there's some real intent, I think, that has been used to sort of put this roster together and it's working out really, really well. The only thing I've kind of wished, especially in the past, you know, month and a half since Tetis has been out is that Solano played the outfield and you could create a Donovan Solano David Pelta platoon of two veteran guys who just know what they're doing. Good guys, right-handed, left-handed. I mean, you could even combine their names together like, like Donovan Solarta or something into your great, you know, platoon right fielder. But alas, they don't play the same position, you can't, you can't always work it out that way. But you got to add David Peralta to the mix there and especially with what he did in that last game, Jesse, he is, he has brought some important at bats and games for the Padres as well. No doubt, no doubt. I put him right in that same conversation and I should have mentioned it more than I did. You know, again, and like, those are the kinds of guys the great teams have, you know, those are the kinds of producers you have off the bench. And yeah, I mean, you mentioned Fernando being out and like, this is a very good reminder that like, you know, this team is playing their best baseball of the year right now. They are and they're doing so without one of their most talented brilliant players out there, again, that goes to the depth, that goes to the team concept, it goes to just sort of the structure of this whole thing. I mean, it's so much fun right now, you know, kind of like getting into these situations and watching it unfold different ways, different nights and knowing like, all right, they got a shot here. They really do. I mean, that first Dodger game last week, you know, you're, you, you pecked away, gave up the early runs, pecked away, Manny Homer's, you're still down one in the ninth inning after the Machado home run, and like the confidence everybody seemed to have, they're like, oh, yeah, they're going to win this game. Like that's so different, you know, certainly than last year when, you know, those games all went terribly for them. It's just, it's so much fun right now. And I've said this a bunch and I'm not just, you know, saying it to like, throw it out there and float smoke, but like, I think it's so important that we regularly remind ourselves. This is no disrespect to the pennant winning teams because obviously they accomplished something on the field that this group has not done yet. But I have no doubt, it's not just my opinion. We are living right now in the best era of Padre baseball that has ever existed. And I don't know what is to come in September and October. I hope that we are playing deep into October. You know, I hope that Tony and I are dressed up for Halloween in the booth, you know, for game six of the World Series or something like that. But I mean, like this is, this is great right now. It's so much fun. I know there are boxes that need to be checked, but the fact that like we're having these kinds of conversations, you're in and you're out, I'm having so much fun right now and it's really, it's a special, special time. I heard you'll have Bob Scanlon by your side here on this road trip, which means that's who you're going to have to swing the Incorporated past today. And just like last week, we're going to keep with the theme and do song lyrics, Incorporated. And this week we've decided, Paul, a great idea. Since you're in Pittsburgh, let's pick an artist from Pittsburgh. And I had no idea that this, this musician grew up, went to high school, North Allegheny High School in Pittsburgh. But here is this week's song lyric, Incorporated. Christina Aguilera, I am beautiful in every single way, Jesse. And we want, we want the direct quote. If you can somehow work that in beautiful and every single way, every single way. Now Bob's just going to be sitting there like, Oh, somebody's full of themselves. Yeah, I mean, you can work it into some sort of story or quote, however you'd like it. But that's your Incorporated lyric for this week. I love it. It was either that or Wiz Khalifa, so yeah, there's, we had a stretch to find an artist from Pittsburgh. But yeah, she went to North Allegheny High School. So there you go. A little Christina Aguilera for you, Jesse, and have a good road trip. See you back in San Diego next week for a quick home stand and Woodsie will be back next Tuesday. We'll be back tomorrow, but you'll finally get to talk to him next Tuesday. Who's that? I'm not sure. Oh, you mean that he's, he's so out of sight. He's like a genie in a bottle. Oh, oh, oh, he's going to know it. And I even got that reference. He is going to. Thank you, Jesse. Love you. That's anybody. Jesse Aguiler, the voice of the Padres, and the Incorporated. He doesn't land along right there. He does not miss. You know, he's always says he's not really that musically inclined, but he didn't. He did not miss a beat genie in a bottle with the Christina Aguilera reference right there. So, yes, I am beautiful in every single way. Is that what we went with? I am beautiful in every single way. How do you work that into a baseball broadcast? We will find out tonight. I can't wait. Starting at actually 340, actually more of an afternoon game on the west coast, 240 Eco Water SoCal pregame show with Sammy Levitt. So your drive home, maybe make plans to try to get out of work early if you can, or secretly watch or listen on your phone this afternoon when the Padres get it going against Pittsburgh Pirates of 340 today to start a six game road trip. All right, we'll come back. Hopefully we'll play a little take on John, try to qualify someone for our new trip to Las Vegas to see Carrie Underwood at Resorts World all coming up next year on 97 through the fan. Don't go away. This season Instacart has your back to school. As in, they've got your back to school lunch favorites, like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back to school supplies, like backpacks, binders, and pencils. And they've got your back. When your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow. Let's face it, we were all that kid. So first, call your parents to say I'm sorry. And then download the Instacart app to get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes all school year long. Get a $0 delivery fee for your first three orders while supplies last, minimum $10 per order additional term supply. Now with the MLB app, you can get baseball your way. 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Welcome back to San Diego's number one cookie station. We are 97-3. The fan, our thanks again to Jesse Aguilar, Oreo fan joining us from Pittsburgh and getting ready for tonight's Christina Aguilera-themed Incorporated at 340 today when the Padres open a three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It'll be Dylan Cease on the mound looking to continue what's been a historic run. You know, Jesse was talking about a four incredible starts. His last four starts, the numbers, Paulie, 27-2/3 innings pitched, three hits. It's pretty good. Or five hits. I'm sorry. That's still good. Five hits. Not as good, but still. Still. Still. One earned run and 36 strikeouts. Wow. In 27 innings. In 27-2/3 innings, five hits a run and 36 strikeouts, including a no-hitter, of course, from July 25th in Washington. Yeah. He's on one right now, man. Keep it rolling. Bailey Falter, decent left-handers, had a pretty good season. He's getting air age just under four. But the way Dylan Cease has been pitching, and obviously, you know, all good things come to an end at some point, but you hope it's not today, you feel good. You get Dylan Cease, you know, three, three, four runs, you got to feel pretty good about your chances when Dylan Cease is on that mound with the bullpen that the Padres have put behind him after another off day ready to go. So that'll be today's series opener. Tomorrow, Michael King is scheduled to return after about 10 days off after he took that line drive in his last start. He will take on Marco Gonzalez in game two of the series. Michael King talked to the UT about that workload thing and how, you know, maybe the 10 days off is not the worst thing. It's the second time in this last month. He's had a 10-day break. They were able to give him a 10-day break around the all-star break because he pitched like three days before the all-star break and then not until like three days after it. So he was able to get one 10-day break in. Now here's another one. Just trying to stretch that arm and as many innings as possible as he continues to push, you know, past where he's ever been before, at least on the big league level. So Michael King been an important arm. He will pitch in tomorrow's series middle game and then still no word on who the Padres are throwing yet on Thursday remains a TBD for game three of the series. If you want to join us, I'm going to play take on John coming up here in a couple of minutes, chance to qualify for our new trip to Las Vegas, Kerry Underwood tickets at the resorts world, which is fantastic. I saw it when I was in Vegas a few months ago. Really cool place. Call now if you want to play our musical trivia challenge, 833-288-0973, a couple of minutes away, but you can get online first helps you have an advantage getting in 833-288-0973. Before we get to that though, Paul, you asked me an interesting question that there's no perfect answer for before the show regarding the Olympics. You remember your question? I do. Yeah. Every time I get an update on the Olympics, it's always the metal count and they show the gold medals, silver medals, bronze medal counts and then your total medals and I go, what's better? The overall metal count or having the most gold medals? Right now in the overall metal count, the United States is well ahead, 79 total medals. China is second with 53, host France is third with 48. But when it comes to gold medals, the United States is only tied for the most with China at 21. So I would say the United States is having a more successful Olympics run than China based on the fact that they're tied with gold medals and we have 20 more medals in general. I think if China had eight more gold medals than us, but we saw more overall medals, like who feels like they're winning? I don't even know if it is a competition, call me a softy, but ultimately, in the Olympics, finishing top three matters, unlike any other sport, you know, the Padres have, what, 50 52 silver medals this year for finishing second doesn't sound as good in baseball, you either win or you don't in most sports, but in the Olympics, you know, first, second or third are all great accomplishments, especially in events where you're taking on multiple competitors. There may be 30 or 40 qualifiers and you stand out by being one of the top three. That makes a difference. So I think the overall metal count is very important and having 79 of them certainly reflects well. Now we have inherent advantages and population size and just training and everything that goes into being part of Team USA, so you'd be pretty embarrassed if we weren't doing very well in, I mean, I guess China has better population size than we do, but we generally do win. I don't think that we've lost a metal count since like the Soviet Union was around in the 1980s. So that's, that's something you certainly expect from Team USA. It also kind of depends on like the event, like if, if the USA men's basketball team wins gold and they play in the quarterfinals today, 12 30, our time against Brazil, there's how many guys are on that team, you know, asked, does that count as 12? No, it only counts as one, just one single gold medal for winning whatever, six straight basketball games and everybody on that team that worked so hard, you know, putting together the best team on the planet, yet one gold medal for that, whereas someone like Katie Ledecky will win five or six of them because she swings the, you know, the, the 800, the 1600, the relays, the, you know, the medleys, whatever that they do, she's part of the team and they can win so many more in swimming. So it kind of depends on which events your country excels in, in, you know, China and there's different events, terms of like, there's like the shooting events and the judo with the different weight classes, then, and, you know, events that have multiple medals available, whereas some sports just have the one, the Olympic golf tournament, you got one for men, one for women, that's it, one gold, one, one silver, one bronze. So it's hard to really calculate what's, what's important. Honestly, I think what's truly important and this is that everybody has fun. Well, yeah, and they show off good sportsmanship and I think in the Olympics, it's, it's more important than anywhere else, but I thought one of the best moments of the Olympics happened yesterday and it actually came on Simone Biles's worst day at the Olympics, the, she had her final two individual events. She fell off the balance beam. Everyone was falling off. She ended up finishing fifth, not even meddling when she could have won a gold and then she got deducted a couple of points when she stepped out of bounds on her incredible floor exercise and ended up settling for silver instead of gold, which she was favored to win. So that's kind of a disappointing result, even though she's the goat had an incredible Olympics, kind of a disappointing way to end it. But I thought the incredible moment at the end, I don't know if anyone was watching or cares that much about gymnastics, but Biles got second and her teammate and friend Jordan Childs got third for the bronze, but the winner was this girl, Rebecca Andrade from Brazil. I think that's how they, they pronounce it in Portuguese. And she kind of grew up in the favelas, which are, you know, like the slums of, of Brazil to turn into this world class, really popular athlete that everybody loves. But she's always been competing in Biles's shadows. It's like being, you know, next to Tiger or Jordan or whatever, you can never be the best because you're competing in the era of the best. And she nailed her routine and won gold over Simone for, you know, the individual or first individual gold, I think. And on the podium, both Biles and Childs on the side did like the bow like to her, like, you know, to congratulate. It's such an amazing picture and such a great show of sportsmanship, not for a teammate, but for a competitor, but to show that kind of respect for someone from another country, getting together to do this is really what the Olympics are all about. And I know this is an after school special. The more, you know, Saturday morning cartoon kind of thing. But if not in the Olympics, then, then when, when are you going to do that? Because so often nowadays, and maybe you need to pull out the green boomer filter that that you say for woods a lot, it's easy to get attention for being outlandish and, you know, being Antonio Brown or T.O. or whatever and being all about, you know, me and social media and everything. And to see someone get attention for being a good sportsman and appreciating their competition. Like, can you imagine Michael Jordan losing in the NBA finals and bowing down to whoever beat him? Absolutely. Finally, absolutely, and that's not, it's not, it's not a good thing that necessarily that Michael Jordan was so ultra competitive that he was kind of a, a poor human on the basketball court, at least. I mean, he was. He was he was a lunatic and, you know, it's not like Simone Biles is any less competitive. She's the goat. She's proven that she's the best, but she could take that moment and show I can be a good sportsman as well. I love that. All right. We got some collars on the line. Let's take on John. It's time for take on woods, John Woods, what was, John's done very well in this game of take on John, which is brought to you by instant, uh, 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 SoCal oil change.com. That's SoCal oil change.com. Let's get right to it. Let's go to line three. Who's this? Who are you there? Hey, this Chad. Hi. Yeah. Chad, congratulations in for our contestant today for take on woods. You want to play, right? Yeah. All right. Let's see if you can do it. If you can beat or tie, John, you will qualify for our grand prize tonight's day resorts world tickets carry under wood. Tickets are on sale now at aexcess.com and R W Las Vegas.com get right to the category choices for today. We'll have the afterlife sitting there, five song titles and artists, including the word after hold, please. Five song titles to begin with the word hold and our new category, spreconcidoic, five bands or artists who made it big around the world from Germany or with German songs. So the afterlife, hold, please or spreconcidoic, Chad, what do you want to play? Um, let's try a hold, please. Hold, please. Okay. So we're looking for five song titles that begin with the word hold, you'll have 60 seconds. If you don't know one, you can pass. We'll come back to it. If there's time left on the clock. First question is our two second song, Paulie is getting ready to play you some music. You need to identify both that song title and the artist to score the point and get the full credit there. So Chad, are you ready to play? Let's do it. All right. Let's put 60 seconds on the clock again, the category hold, please. All your answers will start with the word hold. Your time begins when Paul plays the music. Good luck. Chad, let's take on John. Hold on by the cars. Oh, incorrect. Love is in always on time in which 1977 hit by Toto. Which 1994 debut single was a breakout hit for the band Hootie and the Blowfish. Hold my hand. Correct. The Thompson twins had their biggest hit with which 1983 new wave song. Hold on. Oh, not correct, 1966 and 1967 were good years for the R&B duo, Sam and Dave, who recorded their two biggest hit Soul Man and which other classic of the genre hold on, baby. Oh, not quite. Let's go back to love is in always on time in which 1977 hit by Toto time is up. That one was hold the line. Love is in always on time. Two second song was hold on loosely 38th special. You got hold my hand. Hold me now by the Thompson twins and hold on. I'm coming by Sam and Dave. Is he out there? You see him? You don't see him? No, he's here. Oh, he's here. Yeah. Where are you going? Oh, all right. Thank you. Paul, let's pull the chat down. Don't look at the chat because they put some of the answers up. All right. Chad, hang on. Chad's score is locked in. John has done very well and we appreciate it again. Last day with Woodsy out of town. So you guys got time for a quick story? Yeah, please. So I've been out of my house since last Saturday, not this past but the moment before, no gas leak. Ooh. Yeah. So potential for explosion. Right. Thank you, Ben. So I've been staying with my daughter and her boyfriend in Delmar and I get home last night. It's been great actually. I don't know how it's been for my daughter's boyfriend, but it's great to be able to hang out with my daughter more anyway. I get to last night here. I kept here last night and they're watching you guys on YouTube. Ah, they listen to my show ever. So congratulations. You got a couple of tier ones of Delmar and my daughter and boyfriend, we really appreciate it. Well, if you're listening right now, you can cheer dad on in today's game. The category is hold, please hold, please. Hold, please. Okay. All right. 60 seconds on the clock. Your time begins when Paul plays the music. Good luck. John, let's take on Chad. Hold on loosely. 38 special. Correct. It's time in which 1977 hit by Toto. Hold the line. Correct. Which 1994 debut single was a breakout hit for the band Hootie and the Blowfish. Hold my hand. Correct. The Thompson twins have the biggest hit with which... Hold me now. Correct. 1966 and 1967 were good years for the R&B duo Sam and Dave recorded their two biggest hits, Soul Man and which other classic of the genre. Take a time. You've already won the games. Okay. I will let you. Come on Dave. I know he did. 25 seconds I think. Oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh. You got it. Yeah. I know you can hear it. It's in your head. Cue it up for a second. You're a poly. That's a good song. Right? It's a great song. I don't know. It's escaping me. All right. I'm not going to get it. Hold on. I'm coming. There you go. You have... When you say cue it up. I thought you were going to cue up the music. Boy, that's going to be a drop later on the show, isn't it? Oh. That is the... Oh my god. I just looked. I have him saying it three other times. But now I have a couple different ways. John? Put that at the end of the like segment next time. I'm on on. I'm coming. Love this song. So how did I do? You wanted four to one. Oh, wow. Okay. Another win for John. Very well done. Thank you. I think you had one tie. But otherwise you held your own. Thank you. Always was gone. I've enjoyed myself very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good day, friend, for tuning in this morning. And that's it for Take on John, at least until Woods goes on vacation again. Alright, let's get to traffic. We'll come back. Don't do this, include some Ben Higgins like just funny, flub audio. Nothing. Major League broadcast. Nothing outrageous. Just a couple of ones that made us chuckle from a couple of broadcast last night. On San Diego's number one sports station 97 through 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 through the fan. Seeing some good suggestions from the tier ones. A John versus Woods. Like all star Take on Woods. He's something I would like to see happen as well. Celebrity, Jeopardy. Yeah, the two champs going head to head. And you know, John, I give the category. That may have to stop as well. Because he's getting pretty good at it as well. Yeah, he's close to Woods. I don't think he's quite there. Like Ken Jennings against James Holzauer and champions Jeopardy. But pretty good on both of them. And I would like to see it head to head. We've come down to probably some of the music in different categories on different days. We may need to do like a best of five or something for a week. And really to determine a true champion between the two of them. All right. Don't do this. It's brought to you by the Kraft Taco in Srennel Valley. Kraft 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. Thecrafttaco.com. And the streak rolls on, Polly. Last night, the Chicago White Sox trying to avoid some American League history were unable to do so. Losing their 21st consecutive game tying the American League record they fell on the road five to one to the second worst team in the American League, the Oakland Athletics. It was a 1-1 game until the fourth and a two run tie breaking single. White Sox never scored again. And they have now matched the 1988 Baltimore Orioles who started the year 0-21 and now have company in the American League record. They're still, still records to be had. The nationally record since 1900 held by the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies who lost 23 straight. Now there is even a further record beyond that. If you really want to dig way back into the baseball annals, the 1889 Louisville Colonels from the American Association, which was kind of the precursor to the American League in Major League Baseball, they lost 26 straight. Here they went 27 and 111. Could it get that far? I don't know. They don't beat the A's this series. And if they don't, they will tie the nationally record, the 23. Who knows when that next win is coming. A couple of quotes from after the game from Pedro Grafalle. We talk about it every day. Everybody knows what it is. It's 21 in a row. It sucks. It's painful. It hurts. You name it. Like I said, it's not lack of effort. And then Frank Thomas, who is on their post game show, White Sox Hall of Famer, said it's time to snap. The only way through the players right now, snap. I'm serious. I don't want to hear no more. We're trying no more. They're working hard every day. Nope. It's time to snap. It's time to kick over the spread. Change something up. But last time the White Sox won. I get it. They're not playing the same team 21 times in a row, but like you would think they got to win one. I mean, you would think. They haven't won since July 10th. So we are approaching a full month since their last win. And even on July 10th, they lost because that was a double header and they split it. I mean, if you're a White Sox fan, you've seen a loss pretty much the entire month. So they're now 27 and 88. I mentioned that the A's are the second worst team. They're 20 and a half games behind the A's who are the second worst team in the American league right now. They're 90 and a half behind the A's. The A's. And they are on pace to finish. 38 and 124, which would be the most losses since the 1899 Cleveland spiders went 20 and 134. I think that one is, no one's out of reach since they already have 27 wins. But other than that, it's going to be a history making season in a bad way for the Chicago White Sox. Well, speaking of the Oakland A's, that brings us to our next. Don't do this. And one of two MLB broadcaster flubs that we played them this morning before the show started. And they got a little chuckle out of me. They got the. Chortle. Chortle out of Ben. Chortle. So this one goes to the A's broadcast and. No, I'm sorry. This is actually the Chicago broadcast. The yeah, this is NBC Sports Chicago, but they're talking about the A's. Mason Miller and they have a sponsor read for their injury report. This time after our injury report presented by a well now urgent kill care and the all-star closer. Well now urgent care is the line. Well now urgent care. This time after our injury report presented by a well now urgent kill care and the all-star closer. That's a good flub right there. That's a funny innocuous good flub. And then another flood. This one coming from the Philadelphia Phillies broadcast and they were talking about Bryce Harper. And I guess he was wearing his pants. Well now urgent kill care and the all-star closer. That's a good flub right there. That's a funny innocuous good flub. And they were talking about Bryce Harper and I guess he was wearing his pants rolled up. Showing the stocks and the stir-ups. A little calf showing down there with the with the long socks. That one is in for a strike. It's three and one. Just as Bryce went with his pants up. I'm not sure I've seen Garrett with his pants down. That didn't sound right. It sure did not. Here's the three one. Oh you know sometimes things happen up here. What I mean by he doesn't have his pants folded up under the knee. Ah thank you for clarifying that really what you meant. Just as Bryce went with his pants up. I'm not sure I've seen Garrett with his pants down. That didn't sound right. He's having fun with it. That's a good one. I hope they have people who save those and like you. And just can bring them up whenever they want off a soundboard somewhere. Hey Dan remember that one time. Alright little do do this here. Dee Dee mega do do. Could save the Simone Biles Jordan Childs moment. Was a very much do do this moment. But how about this one. This is actually a follow up. Remember the story from earlier this year was figured prominently on don't do this when a Jackie Robinson the statue in Wichita Kansas was like vandalized stolen destroyed and you know huge investigation hate crime. They determined they were just trying to steal like the metal and melt it down and sell it whatever it was still horrible thing to do to wreck and steal a statue. But here's the do do this and the good news. Yesterday evening a replacement a new statue has been unveiled in the city park where it was stolen six months later. Bob Lutz who is the executive director of league 42 they were able to raise the funds get it replaced at McAdams park which is a local like youth league park where you know Jackie Robinson statue has been sitting there. So it's good ending to a story that was a pretty bad one earlier this year. And it's good to see that that Jackie Robinson statue back there. Yes. And that's don't and do do this for a Tuesday. That was don't do this with Ben and Woods a 97 3 the fan. All right. When we come back we're getting ready for Eric Groupner the CEO of the Padres to join us at the top of the hour. I know he's coming on because he wants to talk about season ticket renewals. The letter went out to season ticket members last night. If you've got some thoughts Padres fans have seen mixed reaction to the what the Padres say is the small increase in ticket prices for 2025 to keep your season seats. You can join us. We can also go through the action last night in Major League Baseball. We got we got a wild card race that is heating up in the National League. It is as close as it has been all season long. We'll get to that coming up. If you want to get them in the line 8 3 3 2 8 8 0 97 3. 8 3 3 2 8 0 97 3. You can give us a call during the break. Come back with more Ben and Paul on San Diego's number one sports station. 97 3 the fan. This season Instacart has your back to school. As in they've got your back to school lunch favorites like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back to school supplies like backpacks binders and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow. Let's face it we were all that kid. So first call your parents to say I'm sorry. And then download the Instacart app to get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes all school year long. Get a $0 delivery fee for your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order additional term supply. 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Block out another research and supply major league baseball tray parts used with permission. Just saw what I thought was an intelligent take about the Padres season ticket renewal email that was sent out yesterday. Gonna talk about that here. Eric Grouppner, CEO of the Padres is going to join us at the top of the hour. But if you're a season ticket member and you want to join us and talk about what was announced last night the email that you got from the Padres you can call us 833-288-0973. Essentially though and you know I saw a copy of the email and the Padres announced I think it's the fourth straight season that ticket prices are going to go up in 2025. However unlike the last couple of years where there were more significant increases when the team added significant payroll this year's increase is a lot smaller. And the Padres say it's an average of three percent. Now your your tickets may vary. It may be a little bit more than that. It may be a little bit less than them. Padres even say some tickets will be a little bit less next year. But the average increase next season is three percent. And Padres fans you know have to do the calculus every single year and decide is it is it worth it to me to renew my season tickets at a slightly higher price for next year and I'm certainly not going to tell you how you want to spend your money. It's you know season tickets are a pricey commodity especially here in San Diego. I will I'll throw a little logic at you first and I'll say a three percent increase. If you compared it let's say you paying you know four dollars a gallon for gas. I know it's a little bit more than that. But just to keep it simple a three percent increase would then be about four dollars and twelve cents for a gallon of gas a year from now. Yeah a year from now. It's it's not not good sucks that you're paying more for gas but that's not shocking in any way. I wouldn't expect someone to go. I'm done. I'm not buying gas anymore. It's three percent higher than it was a year ago. So in that sense three percent doesn't seem overly outrageous. Now we're talking with season tickets especially if you get the gold kind of a necessity. Yeah and we're talking about the if you've got the full gold package. It's not dollars. You're paying you know several thousand dollars. So three percent can still be you know a couple hundred to more higher than you were paying last year. Now per game it may only be a dollar or so you know two three dollars more per game. But over the course of the season that may be another two hundred fifty four hundred dollars depending on how good your seats are and how much you're paying for individual tickets. So that's just kind of the math that goes through my head. But there was a take that I want to get to from someone in our chat that was pretty savvy and advanced I thought so let's take your phone calls and we'll get to that right after a check of traffic here on ninety seven three the fan. Now let's go out to the phones for a second here and see what some tier ones and season ticket members have to say or if you're not you can have an opinion on this subject as well. Just go right to the top of the board. Andrew welcome you're on ninety seven three the fan with Ben and Paul this morning. How are you? Doing good. Doing good. How are you doing man? Yeah but are you a season ticket member? Good. I don't. I have in the past my parents have in the past but they've all seen no way of the decision and there's currently not season ticket holders anymore. Said you know I definitely think it's just expected if you have tickets that you know prices will go up. So that's you know sure that's my thought on that but then and otherwise as far as how the Padres are doing right now. And forget forget about the wild card race. Just win the division. It's the best route. You know Padres dropped a half game to the Dodgers last night who won their game against the Phillies close game but pulled it out so they're five games behind. Certainly got three left against the Dodgers late in the season. We said this week might be a good week to catch up Dodgers get off to a good start. They got the Phillies this week. They got the Pirates and Paul Skeens later in the week so you want to make up at least two to three games I would say before the end of August. If you're going into September and you're still five six back that that's a huge mountain to climb. Then you pretty much have to have an unbelievable month of September but it's it's definitely doable. I even if you're a baseball traditionalist I love that there's both the division and the wild card route to the playoffs. I mean Padres essentially are in two playoff chases right now. One where they're trying to chase down the Dodgers which could come with even a buy in the first round of the playoffs. So that's a worthy aim. I mean go for it if you can because you may get to skip the wild card round entirely. Then there's of course the wild card which is tied with three teams for three spots and I think the Mets are a game and a half back but the Diamondbacks Braves and Padres are all tied atop the standings. It's going to be a really fun last month and a half of the season. Let's go to Darren. Darren your next up here on ninety seven three the fan. Good morning. Good morning guys. How are you this morning? Good Darren. Hey, so I am a season ticket holder. So I just want to lay out what it's like for us especially after this last increase. So we started getting tickets in twenty twenty one. Obviously the reason we did that is because of COVID so we wanted to get in. Immediately after that there was an increase. And then saying I bought tickets. That's when I bought my season tickets with woodsy. I think a lot of people did. So then obviously twenty twenty two was magical. You know we got to go to postseason games. So of course we renewed and there was an increase. And of course we expected there to be an increase. But then after last year you have a group there and I don't know if you came on this station or the other station but he virtually said two fans like hey if you don't buy these tickets someone else will. And that was kind of the marketing place. So to fans after twenty twenty three where the team I mean they gave up. Right. That's not even up for debating where that's what happened is the prices went up and fans were essentially told you know hey you are replaceable. So to me this increase means three things. Number one it does mean that the Padres are telling you the fans are replaceable. Number two it means that they're not guaranteeing that the money is going to stay on the field. Payroll came down this year and it's going to come down again next year. It's not linear with season ticket prices. Number three which I think is probably you know the most frustrating. It just seems like a lack of transparency and you know if we want the money to stay on the field and people are willing to do that. You know if they're willing to pay more for a premium product but last year we saw the opposite of a premium product but the price is still went up. This year we haven't yet seen if they're you know a playoff team. We certainly hope they are and it's been fun but they're not even waiting to see what the products have filled this year to you know charge us more money. So the fan that's just frustrating and it's starting to feel less like we're appreciated and more like we're kind of being milked right now. So frankly that's kind of how I feel and I think a lot of people agree. You know you bring up some good points Darren you know the Padres usually announce the season ticket renewals right around now and you don't know how the season is necessarily going to end but I will say and this isn't a defense of the pitchers are just it's just kind of an explanation. The Padres will plan you know they're not they didn't decide last night what the season ticket increase was. This is something this is part of like a five to ten year plan of where they think prices will be going and when they invested you know two hundred plus million dollar payroll last year they thought okay and then we're probably going to you know hopefully make a deep playoff run and that'll hopefully be able to sustain another ticket price increase to help pay for all these star players that well they they increased the payroll didn't have the really good season and then there was like what we had already decided we were going to increase prices now this year they've decreased the payroll and they're still increasing the prices now it's much smaller but they're also playing way better so you don't really know the one thing you can't plan for as a team is what the results on the field are you know what you can maybe invest in the team payroll wise but you don't know how it's going to perform on the field and you've already made a lot of those decisions about where you kind of think you might adjust a little bit like oh we're having a pretty down season maybe we should scale back the increase or wow he surprised you know like last year I don't know what the Arizona Diamondbacks did but if they sent out their season ticket renewals in August and they probably said yeah I don't think we can charge anymore this team's not going that well. Then went to the World Series now maybe individual ticket prices went up at that point but I would hope some season ticket members got a nice deal when they were locked in early and then all of a sudden went to the World Series but the comment I saw from a civil luthy in the chat which resonated with me and I think just logically I wonder if Padre's fans even season ticket members see this he said or she said prices are determined by demand okay that makes sense obviously supply and demand is economics 101 if the team undercuts itself resellers just get more money I'd rather the team get the money and I thought about that and I said okay the Padre's could be good citizens and go you know what this is more than just a business it's a this baseball team's part of our community let's say the average price right now is 50 bucks a ticket and they slashed it down to ten bucks we want everyone to get in for ten bucks average price what would happen everyone would go you're amazing Padre's this is fantastic you're selling all the tickets for ten dollars well yeah there'd be a lot of season ticket members but they're also gonna sell the season out there there are one games all 46000 seats in well let's say they still limit it though to you know twenty thousand season ticket members plus and then they still have the individual tickets in which people can then including ticket brokers could then go buy all those ten dollar seats and season ticket members could resell them on stub hub well if every game sold out what are you gonna pay for your padre's ticket on the resell market still eighty bucks a hundred bucks a hundred and twenty bucks so now all those resale tickets which my guess would be as a large percentage of every game whether it's season ticket members who aren't going or individual tickets that are bought through the various websites dude open up your phone right now and open up how many are available for the next game vivid seats whatever there's a stick pick there's so many different options now for the second there are thousands of tickets so all those tickets are still getting sold but then it's the ticket brokers who are making all the money and not the padre's who it's their product it's their payroll it's their players that they're paying and you know using your your ticket prices to pay their salaries i can see why you you can't just slash prices because you haven't been doing great if people are still filling pecko park then they're gonna fill pecko park regardless and and who should be getting who should be getting the cost of the ticket the padre's or the the secondary market i guess it's the padre's in my mind uh... let's go to see you would assume the money then goes back into the team in some capacity i mean and and they have been putting it back in the team more than they ever have before but again if they keep slashing payroll like they did this last year and there's there were competitive reasons to do it this last year but then if they go another you know forty million down yet i mean then you would have to definitely is there any indication that they will or won't do we don't really know we don't really know what's gonna happen next year they're gonna keep it at the same level if they're gonna go down or if they're gonna go back up there's been no indication of what that is for next year but what you're paying for is next year's team right now for those season tickets we don't know i mean if they keep dylan cease and they keep louisa rise we're both under contract next year they may want to extend the girl and do other things they could invest that money back in the team but i guess that remains to be seen i know the track record though with with a j preller and we'll see what happens in the post-peter side where are has been absolutely they've reinvested tons of money in the team so i guess let me just let me ask you do you view it as is a bad look or is it smart business or is it just the way things work in your opinion when you see payroll go down and season ticket prices go up i i don't know i mean you know i think what inflation this last year has been about three and a half percent over this last year yeah three and a half so essentially a three percent increase is is just kind of keeping pace with what's going on everywhere i mean i'm not trying to sell it but if if you could get by and you could have said we're not going to increase it all this year it's a big PR win at least right i mean you know is is it worth it for the three percent you know it's a business i don't run a business i'm not a CEO you know this is a big time company i don't know what economics work for the San Diego Padres but they're certainly going to face some criticism i saw people in my timeline going oh i can't do it anymore that's that's it i can't take another increase and i feel for those people and i i feel a little bit conflicted because i'm no longer a season ticket holder or partial season ticket holder anymore so it's kind of like you know should i even have an opinion on it but it does seem at its core to be a pretty simple supply and demand issue and on a smaller scale like i expect like you mentioned gas prices earlier gas you you need gas you need to buy gas uh you don't need to go to an amusement park but i would assume amusement park prices probably go up by about three percent or you've tried to go to Disneyland lately yeah i mean everything but if i'm going because you're going to the an elite well-run organizational place like if you're going to the worst amusement park it's probably going to cost cheaper but that go park is not the worst amusement park in fact it's one of the best i i do understand that but i also can totally 100% sympathize with somebody that's going i'm already spending a small fortune on my season tickets i've been a season ticket holder for 10 years you slash payroll you know we didn't resign uh or keep one soda blake snell josh hater etc we had let them go to payroll issues and yet the tickets are going up that sucks i understand that as well ultimately the fans actually have all the power here and if if the Padres truly are charging too much they will they will see it they will not see the renewals that they're hoping for they will not see the sellouts going forward but as uh adam cluke said in the chat they're selling out almost every game well over half the games of course they're raising prices what business that sells everything out doesn't then raise prices a little bit i mean that is that is not unique to the pod raise it's not unique to major league baseball it's not unique to sports it's it's unique to any venue if you get a popular concert i mean taylor swift when she sells out every stadium are those tickets you know she keeping them at fifteen dollars poly i haven't been but i'm pretty sure it's pretty pricey to go to a taylor swift concert somebody that bought tickets for his wife and him last year wasn't 15 bucks to play that and she's not a bad person because her ticket prices are expensive for her sold out concert she and she treats the you know she treats her employees or whoever you know the people who put on the concert or the crew really well we've seen those stories if the pod raise are doing that and that's what they're doing and they're treating their players well and and running the organization well that's one thing if they're doing it badly if they're like the oakland a's like one thing that i saw was that the oakland a's are jacking up ticket prices for the finale because it's the last game in oakland that's that really sucks because they're not treating their fans or anyone well and i think you see i don't like the dynamic racing but i get it i i think you get it oh yeah but i also feel like anyone who says the pod raise haven't at least been trying and trying to treat their fans well give them a good experience the a's have no grounds to raise ticket prices literally ever no like they they do not they have not earned the benefit of the doubt um i know the pod raise i'm pretty sure is a recent thing that they started doing like dynamic ticket pricing you know a friday night game against the dodgers is going to cost a little bit more on a single ticket price then uh wednesday afternoon against you know the the white socks and that's just because there's a higher demand and i get that all right well we will uh bring some of these questions and concerns to the ceo the pod race uh eric groupner is going to join us coming up here at the top of the hour and the timing is not you know surprising this is uh certainly something i'm sure he wanted to address uh when we schedule him to come on today so uh we will talk about some of these issues with the guy who's uh who's in charge coming up next don't go away more better woods on san diego's number one sport station 97 3 the fan this season insta cart has your back to school as in they've got your back to 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Poly says I should jump in and not let the entire jukebox hero play like we usually do on Tuesdays when we're just kind of casually coming back for the second half of the show because we have ponder a ceo eric groupner on the line maybe I should just ask ask eric groupner though do you want to hear eric all of jukebox hero here for our reopen or do you just want to start kind of just getting going with the interview love jukebox yeah let's get out let's get out all right we'll get at it now welcome back it is a band poly we'll be back tomorrow but today we've got the ceo of the pod race eric groupner who is on and first of all eric I mean a lot of excitement especially here since the all-star break a no-hitter winning 11 every first 14 games since the break you got a wild card race you got a division race with the Dodgers I'd imagine it's a fun time to be there at the offices at Peko park it's a great time a lot of energy in the office a lot of energy in the ballpark all starts with our fans I mean they've just done willing a lot of this into existence all year long showing up continuing to just bring passionate support for this team and we've got an outstanding manager Mike shilt that from spring training on has preached you get better as the season goes you get better as the game goes and then we're starting to really see that play out over the course of the season I know you you sent out those season ticket renewal emails last night and we're going to talk about it but I first want to ask you because you just talked about the job Mike shilt is done and I remember back in spring training you were standing next to eric could send on talking about you know everybody has uh has goals and is going to be evaluated including a J preller and Mike shilt and everybody in your office and I get it there's still a couple of months left and those final evaluations won't come until after the season is over but just in the the view of the CEO the job that the uh first of all the uh the president of baseball operations aj preller has done this season in your mind that the kj is not an outstanding job it's you know aj over the first to tell you that uh it's more than just him you know he has an outstanding group of people around him but he is the leader on that side of of our operations and I think going back to earlier you know right before the season started to make the acquisition of Dylan cease to then acquire the lease arise you know those are arguably two of the biggest trade deadline acquisitions they were just made significantly earlier in the season so I think the sense to know uh when players might be available little off cycle go get them you know and get them opportunistically when when they're available and not have to compete against you know six seven eight other teams as we did at the deadline with a lot of the players that we were interested in I think was turns out to be a real stroke of genius this year and though a lot of the pieces that were added to this team to really complete and lengthen the lineup whether it be Donovan Solano or David Peralta I think it really performed at or above a level that we could have expected jerks and pro far um and then you know just really going back to the the Juan Soto trade and the pieces that we got back whether it was Michael King or adding controllable you know pieces to the starting rotation for years to come uh potentially in in Vasquez and Brio and and Kyle Diggashiyoka has you know really come through in some key moments for us so I think all the way up until the deadline and then through the deadline you know we just continue to improve this team and I think you're starting to see that on full display now that we're in the the stretch around here at the end of the season are you okay I mean aji again very aggressive at the trade deadline adding two of the top relievers in the game but obviously sending out a lot of those prospects out there I mean as an organization you're okay with that strategy I think it's always going to be a balance for us in this market as I've said previously I think we have to continue to develop the Jackson Merrill's players that we draft and develop and then bring to the major league level and for a number of years they have high impact at the major league level wall making a league minimum or through their arbitration years you know less money than big free agents we've made long-term commitments to a lot of big free agents and so we have to have that balance and you know you find that balance a few different ways you know hopefully more often than not you're finding it through homegrown talent players that you've drafted and developed in your system there's also times we're coming back in trades um you know I mentioned a moment ago the one soda trade I think even you know Jason Adam and others still have a number of years of control sometimes you get players back in trades and then you know you stack up good drafts year after year after year and you continually replenish that farm system and you know that is AJ's area of expertise with the group of advisors that he has around him and our baseball operations team and I think at the end of the day we trust that the assessments of who's going to have a long-term impact at the major league level are being done correctly and I believe to date you know nobody backs a thousand but I think there's been a lot of really good decisions made on long-term impact players that we've kept in our system how Leah DeVries, Ethan Salas, others that we already have in our system I think there's a lot of talent still left in the system that's going to come and you don't get established you know high leverage relievers in a trade market like we have this year without being willing to pay you know a price to get those players it's a competitive trade market and I think you know if anything that's just signals that we continue to be all in I'm trying to win a World Series Championship in San Diego Talking to Padre CEO Eric Groupner here on 97-3 the fan and as we mentioned the season ticket renewal email that went out yesterday and I think for fans for fans the most important thing is they they want to see winning and see the Padres go for a championship which you've definitely been trying to do but fans are also usually family members and for families usually the budget like is the most important thing and I know you guys take it seriously so what's uh you announced a small increase from last year about about three percent according to the email some will be a little bit more some will be less as the email said what's the what's the case and what goes into the decision-making process for you guys when it comes to deciding on uh you know season ticket renewals for next season yeah it's a great question so we put a tremendous amount of time and intentionality into that analysis and you know it begins first and foremost with the continued commitment that we've made to the ballpark you know even though we didn't have a year this year where we increased payroll year over year in fact we've gone in a different condition this year and we've had a sustained period extended period of years where we have really significantly increased payroll and that's all been an effort to field yearn and year out a competitive team that can compete for the playoffs in world series championship and that comes the reality of it is that comes at a cost and uh i've said this before but you know the outlook that we've had for years and continue to have is you know we are looking to put the very best team we can on the field and that may look uh the approach to doing that may look a little different one year versus another the band today that baseline commitment is there and uh we're not looking to make money off of running the operation of the team we're looking to put anything that we can generate by way of increased revenue completely back into the team and run it in a responsible way in a way that is hopefully continues to be competitive yearn and year out so the reality of that is you know inflation has you know for most of the year been running in excess of three percent but we felt like three percent was a fair and reasonable amount of increase this year reflecting the rising cost we have operating the business and maintaining the competitive team on the field it was definitely at the very low end of the range that we looked at and uh is meant to be a a message to the fan base that nobody ever likes prices going up even if it's only three percent but at the end of the day we're trying to be as as reasonable as we can and and acknowledge the fact that our fans are the best in baseball they continue to show up and support us in record numbers there's high demand to come see this team and uh we're just incredibly grateful for our fans and the response that we've had and their willingness you know they continue to come back and hopefully support us again next year Eric yeah you mentioned in that email the obviously the huge changes at at Gallagher Square which have been very well received and you also mentioned uh additional quote impactful improvements in this coming off season i don't know if there's anything uh you can share with us but what are what are some of the things that maybe you could just in terms of the future plans for Petco Park and keeping it the number one ballpark in baseball yeah so we're not quite ready yet to share publicly the details of what we plan to do this off season but we have a couple of projects that are going to be really impactful they're going to focus on the western metal building and so we're excited when the time is right to share those details with our fans and the public and that's really what i was referencing there and it's going to be a couple of projects all within the envelope of the western metal building and we try to really methodically continue on a multi-year phased approach to maintain and improve the ballpark in a way that keeps it looking no more than five years old that's our standard obviously the 20th anniversary of the ballpark this year we're really proud of the way that it looks and the way that it functions for our fans but every year we're looking at ways to continue to improve fan experience taking feedback from our fans through regular surveys and then ultimately continually making the investment into the ballpark every offseason to improve and maintain it i like that it's a little teaser get people speculating on what might happen but uh some excitement obviously the western metal building is a big part of the ballpark and uh one of the things that makes Panko Park a distinct now Gallagher square one of the improvements uh you know with better sight lines and the hillside and the bigger screen we've seen record crowds you guys have been able to get more people in in those seats or not seats but certainly in the in the area out there how has that gone from a kind of a management standpoint obviously you know you you have to you know the difference may seem small between forty five thousand and forty seven but you've gotten up over forty seven thousand just the last homestand uh with the new record against the dodgers yeah you know we learned a lot then in the first 19 years of operating the ballpark and in particular Gallagher square regarding just how we could we could optimize that space for fan experience you know first and foremost for 81 home potteries games and then secondarily to continue to fulfill the promise of more than a ballpark and all the other events concerts and otherwise that we host there in Gallagher square really has become a very vibrant part of the ballpark and we've used it more and more and more as the years have gone on so um you know I would just say to get that project done as we did in four months from start to finish is a testament to some really great leaders that we have in our area of ballpark operations and managing our construction projects because to get anything done in four months especially in the state of California which is not necessarily streamlined to get projects done from a permitting and other perspective you know it was really a Herculean feat and we're really pleased with the way that it came out I think he mentioned a few of the attributes that have been really well received by the fans first and foremost creating an all new sight line with the Tony Gwen Terrace elevating Mr. Padre by about 10 feet so he's now visible from more of the ballpark creating the Tony Gwen tunnel underneath the Terrace where a new generation of Padres fans can continue to learn about the great career and life both on and off the field of Tony Gwen and then to create um you know a new experience out there for families and kids with a all new playground with a ball field that's in a more optimal location and then the triple the size of the video board so now wherever you are in Gallagher Square you've got a view of the game not only a new sight line down to the field but also you still feel connected to the game so it's been really enjoyable for those of us that have put a ton of time and effort both into the planning and then the execution of that project to just walk out there and see our fans enjoy the space and that's the ultimate reward you know in what we do is to see fans come and have a great time with people that they love friends family kids to generations of Padres fans connecting sharing the team on and just having a good time at the ballpark and then lastly and and not trying to jinx anything but you guys have to plan no matter what how do season ticket renewals impact potential playoff tickets and home games that could you know possibly be happening at Panko Park in October yes great question so we're at a point now where we've continually grown what has become a every year a new record level of a season ticket number base and the reality of that is and hopefully it's it's a reality we lived this year in the post-season but it's never been more important to be a season ticket member because you know post-season tickets are increasingly scarce with the size of season ticket number base that we have right now so if you think about it it's a lot like opening day where we've got a lot of half season plans and if you have two half season plans you know inherently they don't have the same seat for every game so you essentially double the number of people that get access to tickets for one game and so we don't anticipate there being a ton of tickets available for public on sale during the post-season the vast majority of those tickets all be sold to our season ticket members through our pre-sale process so it's really a great way for us to be able to say do our season ticket members you know thank you you get continue to get priority for the post-season because of your long-standing commitment to the Padres and your support for this team and as we saw in 2022 and hopefully we'll see again this year our fans show up for the post-season like no other you know that NLDF series against the Dodgers was magical you know it was 98% Padres fans it was a true home field advantage and that matters most in the post-season so we're calling on our fans to really support us down the stretch here to continue to bring the energy night in night out which is just been outstanding this year the players feel it coaches feel it we feel it in front office we're so incredibly grateful for it and that if we do end up making the post-season just certainly our plan to then welcome all those fans in for just an electric environment in the post-season and one of the best home field advantages in all of her sports Erica appreciate the time good luck to the team going forward on this road trip and the rest of the season and hopefully we will see more playoff baseball in October at Peko Park thank you very much all right thanks guys appreciate it Padres CEO Eric Ropner with us and yes I understand I see you in the chat they're not in the playoffs yet don't talk about it you can't just wait until like the last day of the season when you clench a playoff spot and then go oh no we need to we need a plan for playoff series now we want to sell some tickets what do you want to do they have to start planning now that's how it works and it's interesting what he said because I hadn't thought about it in a long time but I remember back in nineteen like eighty four when I was growing up in my my dad and grandparents at season ticket they had four seats but there was half it was half season so they had the forty one game plan or whatever it was so every other game four tickets which was cool but then when the playoffs came around you could get two tickets because it was only a half season plan you couldn't get four because the other people who had the same tickets also wanted their tickets as well so you just had to do two so it was it was always the harder decision on who we're going to take to the game now you can't take the whole family you have to pick your favorite people who get to go to the game so that is part of the equation when you have you know half season ticket packages and stuff when you get to the post season it will be harder to to get those playoff tickets which means you could either listen on ninety seven three the fan or watch on tv but what if you're not there for a moment like jake kronow worth singling against the dodgers and the rain falling and everybody singing together and you go like oh I wanted to be there for that that's always the risk when you're not at the game that you don't get to experience that but hey to everybody their own everybody's budget you all have to make your own decisions eric groupner laid out the uh laid out how they do it how they plan it and uh i i thought explained it pretty well but anyway if you've got some thoughts you can join us eight three three two eight zero ninety seven three you can react to that continue our conversation and uh my colleague from abc 10 news while i'll use going to be in studio to carry us through for the rest of woods' vacation which is now only got about an hour and a half plus left and hopefully he'll be back tomorrow we'll check traffic in your ass back here return with more ben and woods next to ninety seven three the fam thanks again to pottery ceo eric groupner gave his case as to uh why you should renew your season tickets that's fine i appreciate that and i certainly understand the argument i again i went back to the um that civil luthio at the comments in our earlier segment about you know if they're selling out in the pottery's lower ticket prices you're just going to play higher on the resale and you're still going to get you know pay through the nose for tickets it's just not the pottery's we're going to get it i i think this is the same kind of dry humor that i i would employ he doesn't have an l o l though he says hopefully the pottery suck for the next few years and it lowers demand for tickets so the prices do go down that would be great i don't want that well exactly i mean you know what what's the alternative here yeah it's it's probably less expensive to go to a chicago white socks game right now you probably get in for next to nothing if you want to go see if they're going to lose a 20 second game in a row today or you know this is this is the alternative and i've been to plenty of pottery seasons where it's been empty and ticket prices have been low and you know i have have a good good time at the game and you go and you you don't really care if they win or not because it doesn't mean anything i prefer this i really do um now again cost is high it's it really is and you know you got other things that you need to spend your money on and it's very sad if there are fans out there who wish they could go to games and they simply can't afford it but that's always going to be a reality for some people and uh we'll see i mean if the pottery's charged too much they the fans will let them know you will you will see it the attendance will go down and ultimately they'll have to make a correction and they'll have to figure out well okay this isn't working for us and we need to figure out the right we need to figure out the right level of uh of what to charge where we still get people in the seats but you know aren't under selling our product as well so uh do appreciate eric groupner joining us and uh at least giving us their perspective again you know three three percent increase i know it's more for some people i saw people mentioning you know the uh there are member you know the member perks but they go i wish we had more or different ones that's kind of a personal preference thing as well uh into you were you were a member in 2021 i mean do you feel like the perks were beneficial to you as a member we have a ton we had a very basic for your game plan that me and wood split and um i you know kind of in a weird spot because i i just wasn't really pursuing a lot of the member like we had um we got discounts on merch right and early access or early entry into the set 10 10 percent off concessions i think that's pretty much all that we did i don't i didn't i didn't go to like a member photo day or anything like that um and i've heard i've seen people have great experiences that i've had other people go well my i got my ticket or my photo day announcement but it was for a game that i didn't have tickets to like i had monday wednesday friday and member photo day was on a thursday or something like that so um yeah that's something i'm sure that can always be improved but uh ultimately i think yeah i can understand perks being like a high like that's that's something like simple and tangible that you can be like i as a season take a moment would like more of this uh we also uh he mentioned the post season coming up and i saw this note uh yesterday or the other day and i thought it was just worth mentioning the major league baseball has announced a small change to how they're going to do the post season this year and that is um a bit of flex scheduling so apparently how it works is the world series is scheduled to begin on october 25th and if it goes all the way to a game seven uh it goes into early november i think uh jesse had said hey hopefully we're still calling games in early november however they have decided and i think this is smart if both the alcs and the nlc is end in five games or less then they're going to start the world series on october 22nd and they're not just going to have an extra you know five or six days in between the the championship series and the world series and if that's the case even if it went seven games it would end in october and not november which is actually makes a lot of sense if you can do it there's no reason that you have to just wait date i prescribed when both the teams are done and they're just sitting around what you're losing all your momentum in the post season every year when there's like a sweep you're like second they just got to wait around for a week a week plus before the next series begins so and and it's possible if one series is sweep the other goes seven the team that swept will still have to wait around because uh you know you can't help that but there's no reason if both team both series get over quickly in four or five games you shouldn't just move on to the next series so that's uh one small change they're making uh for the post season coming up this year the wild card series will begin on october first which i believe is just two days after the last game of the regular season if the podrays make the playoffs obviously they could be at peckle park if they're either the um well it probably won't be the third seeded division champion they could catch the dodgers i'd assume if they do they would also catch the brewers as well i mean it's not a guarantee but if they're the number one wild card they could host that best of three series like they did in 2020 but if they're the two or three wild card like they were in 2022 they'd have to go on the road like they did to the New York Mets and those three games would start usually they're just three days in a row i think so it'd be uh the first second and third of october so major league baseball this week announcing some of their plans coming up for the post season this year and obviously fingers crossed that the podrays will be very much part of those plans i did see the espn came out yesterday they ranked their most likely wild card teams after the trade deadline and they had the podrays second in the national league behind only the Arizona Diamondbacks so they said is their most likely wild card winner then the podrays and then they went down from there um but the conference is pretty high what was your fan graph today with 75 percent podrays sitting in 75 um so you know they're right now in a three-way tie with the Braves and the Diamondbacks but there are still plenty of teams on that they could catch any of any of those three the New York Mets are first up there a game and a half back they won yesterday Sean Minaya has been lights out and i'm probably never going to get over the fact that Sean Minaya has found a new reinvigorated uh you know passion for you know working hard late in the season which seemed to be missing back in 2022 when he when he finished so poorly and had nothing left in the playoffs for the podrays but and then he's been pitching well he was lazy yeah yeah he's been pitching very well for the Mets all season long but especially of late and he pitched him to a shutout win yesterday so there are there's six games above 500 game and a half back now they beat the cardinals cardinals are now four out and the pirates are four out podrays do well this series they could they can pretty much take the pirates out you know the cardinals struggle for a week and you know the Giants are four and a half it would be nice if it was at least no more than a four team race for three spots that that makes everybody's little bit easier if you do it that so we'll be keeping a close eye it's time for scoreboard watching no doubt about it all right we're going to take time out when we come back gonna be fun i'm going to be joined by one of my other work colleagues abc 10 news anchor walleye all use in the building gonna sit down with us for the other remainder of the program today we'll learn about his career talk some sports and uh hopefully just have a good time stuff around the report coming up as well don't go away it's Ben and it is Paul finishing up woodsies vacation today on San Diego's number one sports station 97 3 the fan temp check what kind of summer are we having this year a family road trip summer a beach bum summer or awake me when the sun set summer with insta cart choose your own adventure and skip the shopping 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Baseball coverage at 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 is their savings calculator to find out how at T-Mobile dot com slash switch. Well this is a this is new territory for me coming up. I don't know that I have ever not had the deepest richest voice on a radio program that I have hosted. Good morning. But I mean you know now there's some competition here because joining me pleasure to see him is my colleague for the plot what about year now. But so it'll be two years in September. Two years in September. So year and a half plus now ABC 10 news anchor you can catch him on the evening news with Kimberly Hunt. Most evenings while I all you is sitting in with me for woodsy here for the rest of the show today while I thank you for getting up early and coming in. It is good to be here. Where is the sound effect round of applause like excitement. Come on I needed that. There we go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. San Diego. Good to be here. Good to see everybody. Oh it's good to have you. I'm gonna ask you a little bit. I mean you know even though you've been here for a year and a half you're still kind of a new guy in town. So I'm gonna ask you a little bit about your career and just get to know you a little bit more. In fact I need to get to know you a little bit more. We've been in the Channel 10 building remodeling for most of the time while he's been here. So we've all been kind of separated in temporary offices until the last couple of weeks when we moved into our new newsroom and now Wally and I are desk mates. We are sitting right next to each other. My desk buddy. So I'm starting to learn a little bit more about Wally. You got to smell my food yesterday. I did. You brought in something on menu. What do we have? It was like a pasta sort of thing. Well I bring in. What is that? I mean you know I'm hungry. We're just a normal office just like everybody. Everyone thinks out TV it's just glamorous. Now it's people microwaving stuff in the in the break room just like everybody everywhere else and you know like what did you bring in? That does not great. You know you fight over the the cookie. Who brought in the fish? Who was that? Who microwaved the fish in the break room? Got the same issues as everybody else. So we're going to check traffic and we're going to chat with Wally. All of you coming up here on 97 through the fan. So people sometimes ask me how did you get into TV and radio and my path into this life is very weird and unusual and it's not really something most people can duplicate. I have never left San Diego. I grew up here. I started working radio quickly switched over to TV and I've been at channel 10 for the past 20 years. You know the past 18 of them as the sports director. It's not how it usually works in TV. The normal the normal course of events is you get your first job become a smaller market and then if you do well there you move into a maybe a midsize market and then maybe a larger market you start as a reporter and move up to an anchor and Wally I think your I know your last stop you came from Boston right so but what what's kind of been tell me a little bit about I don't even know the the answer to this your whole kind of progression of how you got into TV and how you ended up as the the evening anchor on ABC 10 News. I actually love sharing this story because it gives hope to a lot of some of your kids out there who might be listening but I didn't know anything about journalism growing up. Like my parents would be watching the news and I'd be like uh-uh that's boring put on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Let's come on let's have some fun. And then when I was 14 years old my mom signed me up for like this two-year like summer program but the first year they put me in a hospital doing some secretarial work and I was bored out of my mind. I'm like get me out of here. I begged the program organizers like please please please next summer put me somewhere more fun and they're like I think we got just the thing for you. So they they put me at a TV station. I grew up in Columbia Missouri. It's a it's in halfway between St. Louis to Kansas City for anyone who's familiar with the Midwest. That's where Missouri Tigers are right? That's where Missouri Tigers are for the Tigers fan and shout out MIZ. So I'm already at a in a city with a prominent journalism school like Distralled School is one of the rank one of the best in the world. Just I just happen to be there. So they have their own TV station at the school. So it's an NBC affiliate and so when I was 15 years old they let me come and work in the newsroom then and I'm just like mind blown like this is so cool lights can reaction. Nothing about journalism and I started asking a million questions to everybody that works there and they told me what classes take where to go school and all these things and I just jumped right in. So I went to Mizzou. I worked in Columbia Missouri for a couple years. Got laid off in '08 during the craziness of recession. Substitute talked for a little bit got back in the business got a job in Dayton, Ohio. Used that to get a job in Cleveland, Ohio. I worked in New York City at a flagship station there, WNBC, it's a great market, top market. Then I want to heard of it, New York. Yeah, I've heard of that. I wanted to do some some anchoring. So I went to Boston and then used that to get a job here in San Diego. So how has your experience then been? I mean, you know, adjusting to San Diego is a different market than anywhere else. For at least from what from what I've been told and from what I can believe, not that I would know personally, but I've had enough people who kind of come in and just knowing, you know, even on a sports fan level, San Diego is different than everywhere else. I mean, everyone, I think there's a pride about where everybody lives and where you grow up and you have pride and where you're from. But here in San Diego, we're kind of nutty about it. I mean, it's like, if you're not San Diego, it's sometimes can be hard to adjust and adapt and be accepted. How has that gone for you so far? Well, I love San Diego's. First of all, okay, so when I would work into, I mean, I, you know, you're right everywhere you have this kind of ethnocentrism to where you are and you kind of represent. Hey, this is where I'm from. Every city I've lived and worked in has been great in its own way. But I first visited San Diego. Let me tell you in 2010 and I, you know, growing up in the Midwest, we didn't have palm trees or beaches, oceans, none of that. So I see the city and I'm like, this city is gorgeous. If I could ever live and work here, it's a wrap. So, so I've already had an affinity for San Diego. So then I got this job offer and I was like, heck yeah, and I freaking loved it, man. This place is amazing. Like, okay, so weather is important to me, right? San Diego's got one of the best weathers in the country. It's not the world, right? 60 to 80 degrees year round day, night, it's perfect. So that alone has been beautiful. The people here, everybody's like, you can't be mad. So I lived in New York City for a little bit and I always joke about how in New York City for anybody who's ever lived there or worked there, everyone, they kind of have the reputation to be no mean, right? Like, they walk down the street with the fist cleanse, like, I'm ready to fight whoever I got my mace ready. And they're not bad people in New York City. It's just your product of your environment, right? So you're just like, I missed the train of the family from work, somebody stepped in my jays. Of course, I have an attitude. But if you took those same people and you put them in San Diego, I promise you, they would be frolicking up and down the street near Peko. But like, they would just be happy to go left to people. Why? Because it's sunshine and rainbows here. And it's, you know, San Diego's, I adore it. I absolutely love it live here. Have you? Now I know you're a sports fan. Yes. How much have you adapted? Now, who are your kind of core teams growing up? Like your your favorite fandom? So I'm weird. So I never really adopt because so okay, I guess one growing up in Missouri, we had Missouri Tigers, obviously. So I had my college team, but then we had some St. Louis and KC teams, you guys, LA took one of the St. Louis team, the Rams. But so, you know, I would root for the royals and the Cardinals and the Rams and the Chiefs. But other than that, I'm a big NBA guy. And we didn't have an NBA team. This is the reason I brought him in, Paul. I can have some basketball conversations. Not basketball talking. That is my sport. I play it. I watch like I'm huge. We grew up. So the closest teams were the Bulls and the Pacers in Missouri. And and it was funny because everybody's a Jordan fan. I was a huge Reggie Miller fan, but that's like my all-time favorite guy, right? But yeah, so I so and I've always never really adopted teams, though. I've always like I root for players. So right now I have some favorite players. But I'll I'll root for any team that my favorite players on. So if my favorite players get traded, now I'm rooting for that team. You would. I don't know if you had a chance yet to go to San Diego State basketball game. It is. Yes. It's a lot of fun. Now the program didn't used to be what it is now. In fact, when I was growing up, this might surprise you. San Diego State basketball was maybe the worst college basketball program in America before Vieja Serena. Well, Paul, he went to San Diego State. Now he was there during the heyday when Kawai was there and like my first year was we're the same class. Kawai. So that was like their first year kind of on the map and the my sophomore year is the year they went 34 and three or whatever they did. The showdowns with BYU and they've been pretty much relevant ever since before before that. They so when I was young, they, you know, Tony Gwen was a star basketball player in, you know, late 70s, early 80s. I'll still have to all time assist leader and they had Michael Cage in the 80s. They played at the sports arena now. Pichanga arena, which still exists. It was, it was even kind of getting old back then. And that was 40 years ago. So when it's still there today, which is crazy, but the program just kept going downhill 90s. They were playing a little Peterson gym on campus, which is basically like a rec gym. They're like division one college basketball games in front of a few hundred people. And the program was like dead and buried and no one cared about it. No one showed up for it last place pretty much every year. And then they hired Steve Fisher and they built the Husarena and it took a few years, but say even his first few years. Yeah, they're bad. The first couple of years. He was walking around campus like handing out tickets, trying anybody. I'm Steve Fisher. I won a national championship in Michigan. Will you come to the game for free and watch our team play. Yeah. So, but it took a few years. But now it's one of the better sports watching experiences via serene is cool. The show, the fans who get into it, it is, you know, we lost our NBA team many, many years ago. I used to be a Clippers fan when I was a kid to go to games with my dad. And I always felt like we should get a team back at some point. They never lost the Rockets and the Clippers, both of them. Rockets are even before my time, but my dad and grandpa went to their games and went to the Clippers games. But San Diego State basketball is right up there with the top college basketball experiences. I mean, you know, Kansas and North Carolina and Duke. It's may not be quite as big as some of those arenas, but the intensity you go in there, it's a whole lot of fun. It's a really good basketball town actually. Well, that makes me happy because that was, that was like my one thing about San Diego. It's like, man, I wish we had an NBA team and I, you know, I've gone up to LA to watch some games and stuff like that. But I was like, man, if San Diego had an NBA team, this city would be, you know, the best for sure. It's already the best, but it would be even better. But we got to get you into the pod race now, because this is ultimately, it is a pod race town. It is a pod race town. And over the last few years, especially with the, you know, the Petco park has been great, but then the investing in the team and the playoff runs, the NLCS run of a couple of years ago, and all the moves that are made, you can see, you can see it, right? The passion for the pod race is pretty intense here. Well, remember, when I first got here, that was our first big story, me and you field anchoring from Petco Park, went that amazing 2022 run. And that was amazing. Then the, so much momentum last year, when they added all these trades, and then we would joke about in studio, how they have this amazing team, but they can't, they can't win any games. And then this year, they dialed it back, and then now, okay, they were starting to win some games. So no, yeah, the Padres are, for sure, San Diego's staple. How in Boston, obviously, there's a lot of passion for the Red Sox as well. Patriots though, I mean, what did you get the sense there? Like, who was dominant? Was it Patriots just because of all the wins and Tom Brady or? So Boston is, Boston's funny. It's Boston's probably, so I've worked on actually a lot of sports markets. So Cleveland was funny, because the Browns could literally go, oh, in 16, and it was still a Browns town. And even with LeBron James, but they were crazy about the Browns. And I will say a little plug for Cleveland, I was there for the best two years of Cleveland's life. I was there when LeBron announced he was coming back. And when he, when they won a championship, that was actually an amazing, probably one of the most fun times in my career, being there when LeBron, like, takes the city, you know, I'm coming home and then they win a championship. Kyrie hits the child, it was crazy. Um, I worked in New York. New York is funny because there's so much happening in New York that, uh, you can't care about the sports, because it's just like, there's so much. I was wondering, like, how did they even decide? Like, if I was doing this in New York, I wouldn't even decide what to put on. I mean, you have more games than you can cover on every single night. You live 18 nets, you know, Mets, Yankees, Giants, Jets, Rangers, uh, Islanders, and then college teams, St. John's, and I mean, up and down the list, how would you ever even decide what to cover? Yeah, the legend in New York City. Yeah. I mean, it's, the funny thing about sports in New York is, like, even the fans don't, I mean, like, I mean, obviously you have fans, but like, when you're watching Newscast, it's not like, yeah, this is a top sports market and we're going to give a lot of time to sports. It has to be a huge story for sports to get any time. Yankees in the world series, you know what I mean? Because it's just so much happening in New York City. It's just so crazy. So that was definitely an interesting experience. But yeah, you're right, I'll let, and I remember going to some games in New York, but yeah, the fan base is great, but like, as far as competition for everything else going on, yeah, it's hard to like, fight for time in the newscast. But Boston, Boston is literally the number one sports market in the country. And I don't even think it's close. So every team, when they're doing well, we put it at the top of the newscast because it was, it's just a sports market. Like that's, it is city of champions. Everybody is cocky about it. Everybody's prideful about it. When I was there, I mean, it was fun. We, you know, the Red Sox, they had a couple, uh, good runs, obviously the Celtics went to the finals. The Patriots, I was there for some of the Patriots craziness of the Tom Brady, Antonio Brown kind of craziness. That was funny. And even the Bruins, Bruins were doing well too. So no, Boston is a city of champions and everybody's just like so proud of every single team. All right, you're gonna stick around. I got some questions for you. Think about this. I want to know the craziest story you've ever covered. I want to ask you about working with the queen of San Diego television, Kimberly Hunt, every single night, like I do. Paul, he's got around the report as well. It is all coming up more Ben and Woods on the way on 97 three, the family will be right back. Final hour of Ben and Woods here on a Tuesday. Woods, he is flying back from his Hawaiian vacation today and should be back in his chair tomorrow, but sitting in his chair right now for the final hour is my colleague, ABC 10 news. Walley, all of you. That's your comfortable chair too, man. You got an MLB hat on. Where'd you get that? I, uh, this actually got on the, uh, Padres when they'll, uh, announce Gallagher Square opening and all that fun. I was walking down there. You're gonna have to be sad. So you're wearing it at a cool kind of a ski angle that I would not be able to pull off my head either has to be straight or it's just not going to be on my head. Hello, but yes, I am you're a little more loose and casual, I think. Have you ever done pro hug with this man? No, you can't do it. I am physically incapable of it. Well, I make fun. I make funny like spasms and he just doesn't know what to do. No, Ben, Ben is cool. I make fun of him in the studio because, uh, I, I laugh the way he stands when he's reading and he just kind of stands with like the first dance. Yeah. Also, and why he gave me a good trick actually, just a few, uh, a couple of months ago, I've been trying to put, probably putting one foot in front of the other as opposed to kind of standing on the side, like you're an offensive lineman ready to absorb a block. And I was laying the why behind there. You can see me on YouTube. Okay. My camera. So if I'm coming to you, like, here's the news, come into my, you know, welcome into my house. I want to tell you everything that's going on. I'm kind of, yeah, you're right. It's like an offensive lineman. I'm about to tackle you. But if I do, if I just kind of angle myself and like have one foot in front of the other, it's just more welcoming. Like, Hey, come on. Come on. You've received some coaching on this, haven't you? See, no, I've had to fill in on the anchor desk a couple of times. And I haven't gotten a lot of coaching on that. I remember once, so an old news director said, try putting your hands apart on the desk a little bit. It's it's more friendly. It looks a little bit more welcoming. But they do a lot of that is the news. They do a lot of that coaching for us, you know, like, oh, in ways you can relate through the camera. I don't even know if it's effective or not. I think you just kind of have to be yourself. You're very good at being yourself. I've tried being other people and it does not work. Trust me. So I wanted to ask you before we get to the Ronald report, how it's been working with the great Kimberly Hunt, who has obviously been in this market. I watched her and I was growing up. And then I've gotten to work with her the last 20 years. She's fantastic. I did find her at the beginning, though, a little intimidating to work with Kimberly Hunt. And I can tell you, I don't know if you felt the same way at all, but that wears off after, you know, 10 years. And then I've been very comfortable with her for the last decade. Kimberly is a sweetheart. She's just so professional. She's so good at what she does. She is. But I'll tell you, we have a lot of fun. Kimberly and I, Kimberly and I, we, the first time I met her, we instantly hit it off. Like I just came in to interview and Kimberly and I instantly hit it off. And we're like, yeah, we could work together because she's just, she's a, and yes, she's a hundred percent. She's the queen of San Diego, first of all, right? She always looks great on TV. Like even, like, even like, you know, I have people in town watching. She looks amazing. Like she, so first and foremost, stunning. She's a queen. She always looks dressed in the night and she's, she's a queen. But she's a lot of fun. So you guys might, if you guys were ever paying really close attention to the real 10 news viewers, why just when we come back from a commercial break? Because we might still be laughing about something that we were talking about during the commercial. Because we were just, we were clowns, some commercial come on TV. There's a, there's a commercial that, right, that's on right now. And it's like, I can't remember. It's some car commercial, but it's, it's a guy having a horrible first aid experience where he's like making the girl pay for the meal. He's that car. Oh, with an automatic car pulls up. Yeah, I've seen that one. We joke about that commercial all the time. I'm like, him, she can mama. Like we just, we're just having like, so you'll see us. Here's a picture of me lifting at the gym with my shirt off. Yeah, I see that commercial. Yeah. Oh, so yeah, Kimberly and I, we have a ton of fun together. And she, no, she's, she's an absolute legend. She's very welcoming. She, I lean on her a lot. Like I said, she's been here for 30 years. So I can, if there's anything that I don't know about Tandy, oh, she's the first one I'm calling. All right. Think about what your craziest story is. We'll get to that in a little bit right now though. Paulie's got some other headlines for us with a very long intro to what we call the Rinald reports. And get things started here with our addition today's edition of the Rinald report. Welcome to the Rinald report with Paul Rinald. 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 beyond? It's the Rinald 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 over here? Oh yeah. All right. All right. All righty, Paulie. Before I forget, that reminds me of hearing all the, the drops from the open. We need to play for Wally. He probably has seen it somewhere though. One of our favorite clips ever is the anchor, the reporter in South Carolina, is it doing those? That's a great one. Hang on. We have multiple news. Yeah, we should bring up all of our news anchor clips that we like to play on the show. I love those. Sorry about it. You'll be fine. All right. Well, we'll start off in major league baseball. Jackson Holiday has had a lot of eyeballs on him throughout his young major league career. He was called up early in the season. Struggled pretty well or pretty badly and then was sent down to the minors. I think after like, yeah, the Orioles, like 9 or 10 games, they have so many options. They were like, all right, if you're not, if you're not playing well, we don't need to keep you up here. I wonder what would have happened if Jackson Merrill had struggled like that. He fortunately for the Padres, he never did. He like right away, even as a rookie was just basically productive and never, never really was threatened to take out of the lineup or even went, I mean, there was some slums, but nothing like you'd ever worry about him. Jackson Holiday that was really struggling, I thought, all right, we need to send him back, which is a tough decision. Well, he's been playing much better since they called him up. He's hitting well over 300 now with Baltimore and saw this report the other day that he is crediting or maybe it's being accredited for him. The video game Golden T is what has calmed him down and gotten him back on track. Guy writes, Orioles top prospect, Jackson Holiday played the Golden T golf arcade game in the visiting clubhouse today said he started to hit in Norfolk when he began playing Golden T. He said he had a hole in one on a par five today, which meant a guaranteed two hits and then he went out and got two hits. I can almost see if you were playing MLB, the show, like, and you're doing well, that's but I don't know how golden T. Other than taking your mind entirely. Yeah, Wally, you video games at all. I'm not a huge video game fan, but when you first said Golden T, I'm thinking maybe he's like, it's not like a T like a golf tee. It's like kind of like a T like herbs and he's got a golden T that's what he said. It's playing his mind. I'm going to think about some other kind of golden T that he might be taking. No, no, I used to play that. You find it still, you know, like in bars and stuff. It's it was always a popular game that you could play. Obviously it feels a little dated compared to some of the new fangled games, which I can't quite grasp. I mean, video games have passed. I used to be such a great, I mean, I'm a legend of Zelda champion. When I was a kid, they the kids would like junior high, like call me up like, how do I get past this? How do I get past? I was the guy, but it's good to just kind of take your mind off of it. I do understand from Sam point of like, I nothing to do with baseball right now. I mean, just kind of do my own thing. Take my mind off it and just relieve the pressure. All right. Well, it's working for him and it's not not as though the Orioles are, I mean, another weapon in that Orioles lineup, which is already pretty devastating. It's just just getting better now. I think that story's a little tongue tongue and cheek as well. I'm sure it was a lot of hard work and time in the batting cages, but actually helps him out. But you know, the rally roach is what turned the Padres around. That's not telling him the cheek at all. Oh, that's a, that's a, we get a kiss before the, Paul, you give it a kiss before the end of the show, because they start a new series today in Pittsburgh show. See if the magic of the rally roach continues. And then when the Padres win the World Series, there'll be pieces written on the rally roaches, though it actually had something to do with it, like golden tea had anything to do with Jackson holiday. 100%. Let's go to the Olympics. We'll wrap it up here. Did you guys see the video of the, the French pole vaulter? I have not seen this yet. I saw the, so there's a Swedish pole vaulter who won and set the world record, but he's not really Swedish. He went to LSU. He grew up in Louisiana, but his dad or his mom competed for Sweden when she was a kid. So he was able to, he's on the Swedish team, but he won the, we have the world record of the thing, but no, I had not seen the French pole vaulter. A couple of days ago, pole vaulter by the name of Anthony Amirati, he was going up and over the pole, the bar, the bar, and a body part of his may have crazed the bar and, and he was disqualified or he didn't count me. Okay, I actually did see this. He lost. It got caught on his, the big unit, essentially. Is that how their kids are calling it? Well, I mean, Randy Johnson, you know, that's, you can, it really, it did. I mean, I saw it slowed down. Yeah. And it's, yeah, it's pretty clear exactly what happened there. Yeah. What part of his body hit the bar as he was trying to go up and over, and, uh, well, that's why I couldn't be a pole vaulter right there. Right there. I couldn't do it. And, uh, the, that's just a stereotype wall, right? That's just a stereo time radio. Don't play into those stereotypes unless, of course, they're beneficial to you personally, and then go ahead and play into all the stereotypes you want, right? Well, he didn't win at the Olympics, but there's an adult's website that's offered him six figures, 250,000 dollars for a 60 minutes, a webcam show where he would show everything. He did us on purpose. He's got the biggest stage. He's got the Olympics. This was genius. This was freaking, I don't know. I mean, they're up, like, you know what, how many feet in the air, they're up like, I don't know how to beat up in the air that go over that pole. I don't think you could actually plan that, right? He was up all night practicing. Like, I got to make it so I barely graze it with this, and then it'll blow up, and I will have my own show on a different website. I mean, if you really though, I mean, most of those Olympic athletes take nothing to chance, like every detail is accounted for. So, wouldn't that be like one of the details that you'd have to have it? That's a good point. Well, talk just to make sure that last little tiny inch because, you know, track and field is can be like millimeters. You saw the hundred meter final. It was like five thousandth of a second. I mean, the difference between where... As the make is going to take his torso, like hit. It's like the other guy's foot got there first, but it's not measured by what like the first body part that gets to the line. It's where the torso gets. That's how close it was. And in pole vaulting, you just, you know, if you get by a fraction of a centimeter over, it's the difference of between knocking it down and not and clearing the bar. Football is a game of inches, track and field is game of hairs. When I ran track and field, they would tell us... What was your event? So, I actually, I did, I tried all the events, but my main one was hurdles, and I will tell people to this day, the hardest event in track and field is that some states have the 300, some states have the 400, but the 400, 300, 400 meter hurdles is the hardest event there is because you are sprinting and jumping for four or 300 meters, and you are exhausted afterward. But I did it. That's like a quarter of a mile, right? Yeah. Basically, exactly. And you're just exhausted. But yeah, my coaches will tell me you got to shave the hair on your alarms and let... Because it's literally even the hair on your body makes drag. It makes a drag for a swimmer. Swimmers obviously do the same thing. They're well, well shaved, obviously. You never see a hairy Olympic swimmer, that's for sure. And obviously, some of those guys do have body hair. They just naturally all born hairless and made them great swimmers. There's like meticulous, you know, depilatory creams and shaving that goes as part of the sport. 100%. I didn't attract it as well though. You know, it is a game of hairs and you're any advantage you can get from the start to the finish. You see how they... There's a method to every millisecond of that race. And even with pole vaulting, you're right. For four years, you're training on every bit of the takeoff, how I put the stick, how I execute the jump, how I execute the landing, how I make sure all my body for it's day wave. Well, like that is all practice. You're 100% right. So either he did it on purpose or his coach missed a... Or maybe he had a female coach. I don't know. But they missed something. You're absolutely right. Paulie, thank you very much. Happy to help. All right. We're going to take a quick time out, check traffic. When we come back, Wally's going to share some of his crazy TV stores. We all have them. And then I want to play Wally some of our our news, local news clips that we've amassed over the years. And I might even tell you some of my news bloopers in an early in my career too. Oh, you've got some too. I got some. I'm not the only one with a bloopers too. I didn't get my car, but I have some fun. And we can't all be mean to run over by a car on live television. Back after traffic here with Ben and Wally on 97 through the fan. I got a substitute W here instead of Ben and Woods. It's Ben and Wally in with me and Paul Rondell for the all the W's out there. Double your name. So Wally is my colleague at ABC 10 News. He's our evening anchor with Kimberly Hunt. And I have been teasing it. So he's promised to tell me a couple of the crazy stories he's covered and some of the mistakes mishaps that have happened on television as well in your career. Where do we want to start? Let's start with your crazy stories and we'll get into the fun stuff. I have good crazy and bad crazy. I'm not gonna you know, I have some like really just like sad downer stores. I don't bring I don't I don't bring downers. I mean like I was you know there in Cleveland like when Sumia Rice was shot as like the first guy to like interview his mom and like some I have some like really sad story like but I'm gonna keep it like fun and light. I think for me just like the I mean I teased I alluded to it earlier but the still the most memorable of my career is LeBron's first game back in Cleveland after in 2016 they were playing the Knicks mellow and Phil Jackson all these guys you know and I if you watch that TNT broadcast that night it was everybody was waiting for the powder toss and all that stuff LeBron's first game back it was it was a most electric atmosphere. I think I've probably ever been in my life. It was insane and if you go back and watch that TNT broadcast there's LeBron throwing the powder and there's like a little itty bitty you know black guy right in the back there was a bone filming and I was literally right there. I mean it was it was insane. I mean it was so you know I'm thinking about that obviously you know with getting drafted the native Ohio and then they started getting good and they came close and then the decision and I mean it must have gutted that city so to get him back. Cleveland is literally and I it is literally two different cities with him without LeBron without LeBron. Yeah I hear people say mistake by the lake but when LeBron was there the just the energy of that city was it was totally different. I got the sense though when he left the second time it wasn't nearly as painful because he got the championship like what else do you want like big fish in a small pond out there where in LA he's a big fish in a big pond with a lot of other big fishes but he's still one of the biggest fishes still but it's not yeah it's so you got to cover him and Paul you know he Paul and I were talking about this I think off the year yesterday about LeBron and in the spotlight for as long as he has been and he gets a lot of criticism I mean from the talking hands you know skip and everybody and yet he has handled himself incredibly well considering that level of scrutiny that he's been under I mean the worst misstep was probably the decision. I tell people all the time based just based on the two years I lived in Cleveland I will never ever ever say a bad thing about LeBron. I just won't I mean I hear you know the floppy and the complaining okay that's why the man is it's it's literally one of the greatest sports stories well time it really and then now what he's doing with the son are you kidding me the guy I mean I would cover so many stories in Cleveland like he I remember one specific when he built a huge playground in Akron for the kids and just just being there with the kids and interacting I mean the man you know the doesn't even mention like the schools that he's building LeBron Family Foundation but just lifting an entire city I mean even the crime was down when I mean he literally one man can change an entire city franchise but look how we look the landscape of the NBA even the decision is say what you want about that but he kind of orchestrated player empowerment like the guy everything he touches and then for him to come into the league with that much pressure I mean look at Caitlin Clark now look at when Biyama look at all these people to come in with this much pressure and we'll see how they do time will tell but the man hasn't really had he mentioned the decision but other than that hasn't really had a misstep and everybody else especially this day in social media would have been caught up with something right but the man I just won't say a bad thing about him the man is is some people are just special I look at like Tiger Woods who seemed like he was flawless for so long but growing up with that kind of scrutiny with those kind of expectations got it got to take a toll but at this point I'd be very surprised if LeBron's not the LeBron that we see Tiger surprised me a little bit when we found out about him but that he was still about what 32 or so when we finally kind of learned the real Tiger I mean LeBron's LeBron and and he is done I think playing the majority of his career with social media too is yeah like you imagine if Michael Jordan's era had social media and somebody was like yo I'm at a craps table right now and Michael Jordan just dropped two million dollars yeah you know what I mean like that he wouldn't be able to have lived that lifestyle and and LeBron's been under that spotlight his entire career and I mean seems like a pretty good dad social justice issues speaking out I'm probably gonna say what you want to get political or whatever but it's just like the the man special and just the impact that he's been able to make and then I brought it up Ron I mean the fact that you're in the NBA 20 years later in playing with people's fathers and three generations of players and now you bring your own son in I mean it's next level and not only is he still in the NBA but he's on the team USA right now and arguably has been the best player on team USA with all of those stars on the team and he's still been the best player on the team to be the supposed to be the best player he's the most recent MVP right you have Anthony Edwards coming up yeah he's been pathetic Jason Tatum just won the finals MVP Seth Corey who's you know Seth Corey but it's LeBron yeah it's pretty amazing Kevin Durant it's still LeBron so all right so now share us what what's gone wrong on television okay so and I was gonna wait till you guys did the bloopers but so my first I love tellers I don't love but I tell the story sometimes of my first big blooper on TV and it was one of my first live shots ever and for those you know live shots when you're standing out there in the middle of God knows we're trying to explain what's happening around you and when you're first getting this industry you know you're terrified you're sweating bullets like I'm live TV I gotta go live and it's like they come out to you and you you just got to be ready so it was a huge thing especially and it still kind of is where they want you to kind of be active and demonstrative in your live shots like show with something don't just you know don't just sit there and stand there and tell us show with something so they would encourage you to use props so I don't remember what the story was about something about seven seconds so I brought out a stopwatch and I was gonna be like and I practiced it a thousand times before they came to me and I was like I'm gonna click the stopwatch I'm gonna say what I need to say I'm gonna stop it at the seven second mark I'm gonna hold the seven the hold the stopwatch up to show seven and just kind of really honing the point of seven seconds boom this is gonna be the greatest live shot in television history I've practiced it I'm ready all right let's go and then what happened they come out to me all right well hey blah blah blah what do you know all right so go move a moon start the stopwatch everything's going according to plan this is gonna be great it's gonna be great man it's gonna be amazing all right start the stopwatch blah blah blah blah and seven seconds and I look at the stopwatch and I realize I forgot to clear it out oh no so instead of being at seven now it's at 14 what am I supposed to do what would you do I don't know I panicked and I threw the stopwatch over my shoulder and I pretended I never had it in my hand first stop like there all right that's not too bad that's that's not the worst thing now what I love about walleye and poly get get that clip ready because walleye as you hear the same kind of guy when you watch him on television you bring you you don't really change your delivery you don't change anything about you but there are television reporters and anchors who have their anchor voice and then their speaking voice it's totally different and uh we loved this clip from me probably seen it virally unusual but this is old from us South Carolina wasn't think so yeah what really happened on that Thursday here at Augusta High School that led to Chris Wood's death you've seen it quiet in my mouth i can't see pala i can't get the fuck out this country motherf*ck i can't see me here's okay i met this guy oh my god i met this guy so he's doing well he's doing well that's correct he was like he was on the Houston text or something last time i talked to him but if this is a class i actually think i've tried to track him down he's a great guy he gets the question all the time about it and i remember showing that you brought up Kimberly i mentioned i remember showing this to Kimberly one time she was just dying but no the guys are good it's a real like especially earlier career you're out in the middle of nowhere and and you know okay when you do a live shot especially at night what happens you got to turn on lights you know so the the bugs start flying near you i think this clip he was in the middle of the day but still like there's you're in the i think it was like a middle of cornfield somewhere or something there's like bugs and you're right you're like talking and then you got bugs flying in your i heard somewhere that like bugs like are attracted to like oxygen so they'll like literally fly in your nose when you're breathing your mouth and it's like i'm trying to talk get the heck away from you stupid but so that was really usually like you get in your sweating you're in a suit you're like i totally get it totally good but the guy's he's great he he still laughs about it to this day so that'll be advances career honestly that's the hazards being out in the field but there are also hazards in studio when you're anchoring and just reading the prompter oh gosh and i know we all try to you know practice and you get the the tough names that sometimes can be difficult and it's a cool simple yeah uh this one was always one of our favorites this woman do you remember where she was from uh i'm trying to look it up it is wpsd i don't know where that's from but uh yeah she was doing a story about a police officer and here's how it sounded final goodbyes to this fall in luval police officer dd mega doo doo i'm sorry man goo doo also not accurate mega doo doo mega doo doo i got that from because i keep hearing it yeah that's that's we do doo doo this every day in honor of dd mega doo doo which it sounds like it was a sad story it's i mean you're trying to be solemn you know and and i get it and there are real you know tv newscasters actually do have real emotions from time to time but you also have to present you have to present final goodbyes to this fall in luval police officers dd mega doo doo doo doo i'm sorry man goo doo not also not it it looks like deidra mengadow it looks like yeah you know what it is you just you know you're you're reading and it's been a long day you just did seven shows you're like i mean you can't make an emotional connection with every single story you just can't some are just you're just reading it and you just got to keep and move on to the next one but dd mega doo doo come on dd mega doo doo it was an it was another funny one i remember um during the uh crazy 2020 election um and then they would they would always talk about uh a voter dump right like a new dump of ballots and then and i remember a reporter saying they're about to go take you know they're about to drop off a mega dump here so that one got clipped and highlighted just like mega doo doo paul you would never clip me out of context oh of course not and uh and play something i said and make it sound dirty oh my god i'm high pooter research did you imagine if they were doing that at channel 10 do you every single day clipping you out of context i have i had one a year ago and i think i was doing a story about kids or something like that and they had i know that it was a brand new school i can't remember which school it was but they had the brand new playground you know it was cute and they had set up like these balls these balls for kids like jumping play on outside and i was like look at these big balls and it was just like and you know it came out and then i you know my producers are laughing i'm like oh yeah that just happened do you still have uh don't do this from today the clip from the uh from the game about uh Bryce Harper and his pants that was a good one i mean you know just as Bryce went with his pants up i'm not sure i've seen Garrett with his pants down that didn't sound right it would only been worse if he said i i've actually seen him with this background before i was down before yeah i'm sorry what what all right uh one more time out final segment coming off we're gonna look ahead pod raise and Pittsburgh Pirates opening a three game series later this afternoon got wall a in for one more segment than any and elston join you at the top of the hour do not go anywhere unless you have to yeah make it do thank you next on uh 97-3 the fan will be right back now to the story of a pig that is inspiring others one pod one pod belly pig has certainly endured his share of problems chris p bacon was born without the use the chuckle it's the chuckle for me yeah like pig in a wheelchair you have to read this story it's and when it's off the rail it's so hard to bring it back i gotta tell you it's so hard you know it's funny we did not oh my god crispy bacon i've never i've never lost it on television but i lose it in i lose it here all the time maybe what's is you guys are just funnier i'm my goal tonight if you guys watch ABC 10 news is to make Ben lose it you can try i mean we call it breaking yeah we have a whole name for it he plays the breaking the breaking bad little uh sounder because when i lose it i fall out of my share of chut here's one here's one and this is live your life from article sound system released five years ago otherwise known as ass article sound system he's gone you just let him go he's still going did you feel it was true you guys ever see the clip of the i'm not done yet oh it's another 45 times not him we got him this may be number one he still occurs that's where the stomach starts to tighten oh god that's good he kills me you guys ever see the clip of the guy you know i always tell my producers i was like please do not ever put the word pantry in a newscast just don't do it it's not worth it it's not worth it because you'll end up like the guy who goes please check your panties i i meant pantries and uh yeah i was like can't do it do you have any words you just don't like saying like they're tough for you you know it's funny what's hates when i say moist it just bothers him yeah yeah there's a lot of things i've heard a lot of women's edit yeah the word i hate is february it's just it just be it's just like am i supposed to pronounce the or february february or sebruary i'd say i don't have the rest of the r i think the r is silent isn't it february some people say february february it's right in between that is tough i don't i don't think about it i don't mess with it i don't have to worry about until spring training we got some time or or the funny one kimmily and i always joke about this is like and we've talked about it too back you know last guitar cutter cutter it changed on it it did so i'm like i don't know what to do with that one but i just you know some because the locals will say no it's good try to pronounce it the way we do but then you end up sounding dumb because you don't make the same what's not i've always had trouble with that because if you want to pronounce something the way it's pronounced like in another country right then you have to start putting on an accent oh like if you pronounce something like how the australians say it yeah you're going to sound like a door like you're trying to do an australian accent how to speak australian so that he is mates yeah Paul he's got he's ready to go everything everything all right let's check one more traffic check out there with kelly and then want to look at what the bloody hell was that attempt at an ozzy accent uh we'll check traffic and then uh look ahead pot raise game this afternoon here on 97 three the fan hang on the chat also reminding me that i cannot roll my arse and i've been trying and practicing you can do it while they can do it he's got to turn on his microphone on your microphone now you've got it i can't they gave me a trick they said try saying potty potty potty potty potty potty and and use that as a way to roll your arse but then i try to say a word like but yeah but but yeah i can't i still can't do it i just i actually i don't love the arse and mention february i have to say this word every single day meteorologist meteorologist megan perry yeah i have to say it every day and i'm like i gotta like slow down and pronounce the or rologist and it's like yeah ours aren't my favorite and then bees and bees can be funny sometimes you know but yeah hazards of being a television newscaster with walleye all of you there you go all right pot raise this afternoon it's a 340 start there in pitchburg so first game of the three game series uh 240 pre-game show eco water so cal pre-game show with sam leavitt getting ready for another dylan c start boy he has been beyond outstanding since the all-star break and even before his last four starts 27 and two-thirds innings five hits one-earned run 36 strikeouts including that no hitter against the washington nationals on july 25th he's going up against pirates left-hander bailey falter who's been uh he's been solid pirates are a decent team they're a game above 500 though they're four games out of a playoff spot and while this is of course an immensely important series for the pot raise and an important road trip pretty much make a break now for the pirates if they lose any more ground they're gonna kind of be in the in the boat where you're not gonna really feel like unless you do something like roll off a 20-game winning streak it's gonna be really hard to come from behind so expect the Pittsburgh pirates to play like their season is on the line because in some ways even though it's even though it's early august it is in some ways on the line for the Pittsburgh pirates here they get uh four or five teams ahead of them in the standings and they need this is a chance for them to directly make up ground i guarantee you the pirates fans are going at least in their minds hey we could sweep this series pick up three games right here we're right back in this thing so last thing the pot raise they're gonna do i'm sure is is take the pirates lightly but uh the best way to start it would be to get another great start from Dylan cease today get the win in the first game of the series and then have two chances the next two days to to get the series victory and then on to Miami over the weekend and hopefully you'll have a good chance against a marlin's team that obviously sold off a lot at the break they've won a couple of games since then they're not they're not as bad as the white Sox certainly but hopefully an opportunity to have a winning road trip tomorrow's Michael King against Marco Gonzalez uh and the pot raise still have not named a starter for the Thursday game in the series i'm guessing you know martine perez might get that on normal rest could be randy Vasquez still waiting to hear how joe musgrove uh did in his or at least recovered from his rehab start yesterday i imagine mike shill will have a bit of an update for you on sammy's pre-game show on how joe did and how he felt especially because he was supposed to be joining the team in pittsburgh and then they were going to decide whether he's going to have another rehab starter just rejoin the starting rotation so uh that's this series coming up against the pittsburgh pirates couple other baseball notes just quickly i saw yesterday poly on uh the foul territory podcast that blake snell did you see this i was surprised and he said i was doing the rounds i didn't see this yeah so he said that he never called from the seattle mariners in the off season he was a free agent not even a single call and he immediately said i was kind of surprised by that and he said but you know and not i know you know what they are as a franchise and you know his price tag was high but given the fact that he's a seattle native one the sai young and they were a team that was expected to kind of be going for it and investing in you know in the club right the fact that there wasn't even a discussion about that is a little surprising to me yeah that is surprising because that's where everyone was like oh that's that's the lock that's a no-brainer that's exactly what's going to happen and tonight and i didn't even get a call and i also saw that he said that the reporting on what the Yankees offered him six years one fifty was very much not what they actually offered him he also and i heard tony gwen jr talking about this yesterday on gwen and chris he told tony he still watches when they don't have a game he still watches don and mud and watches the pateres games and keeps pretty close tabs because he heard like something tony had said about it well during well watching the game and he definitely said he is not uh he is not abandoned his uh his love for the pateres still feels very connected and close to the organization and i just bring it up because there's a good chance he's gonna opt out as a free agent we have no idea what the pateres would do i don't i don't imagine a reunion with blake snell i mean if it didn't happen to the trade deadline i don't want i really could have possibly seen because no one he's gonna opt out the trade deadline would have made a little bit of sense yep but but if the seattle mariners aren't interested and you know he wants to go somewhere where he's comfortable definitely comfortable in san diego probably getting more comfortable in san francisco start after start no hitter is not gonna uh not gonna make him feel uncomfortable uh in san francisco to be sure so and there are a team that's still on the fringes of the wild card race as well so lots of baseball this week um got football preseason starting this week full-time walleye so you know we got we got a lot of sports coming up here ball is here yeah uh san diego state football is underway they've got their fan fest on saturday i saw and a new coach and we'll see what they do uh you know it's obviously been a you haven't i mean san diego state football has never been a powerhouse but they've been better than the last couple of years when you were here they've been better than that it's been a pretty bad couple of years and they got the new coach so they're gonna try to turn things around this season to get a different culture try to get some ones another bow let's see what happens not easy to do especially in college sports nowadays you said you went to mzuri yeah so with all the like the realignment and everything in college sports and mzuri's still in the big 12 right do they move but they went to the SEC they're the SEC it's can't even keep track with everything so the SEC now 16 teams texas and oklahoma mr there as well you have power house like osu i mean it's good to be obviously not you know san diego state got locked out of the pack 12 and they're still in the mountain west mzuri didn't get locked out they got in but they're definitely one of the have-nots of the SEC i would say it's funny because mzuri is uh i would our team felt a little bit like the Padres where you always just like okay we have a lot of excitement this year and you expect something to go wrong like the primary story i will tell is michael porter jr who you know is now a champion with the denver nuggets it was like the number one prospect coming out of high school that year and it's like mzuri lands for the first time ever the number one prospect the man plays two minutes and then his bag goes out i'm like like you can't win i mean you can't you can't get lucky at all well while i really appreciate you coming in and spending some time in studio getting to know you a little bit more i will see you later this evening back at our other place of employment adc 10 news but i mean you got a trip coming up that's exciting so very fun so anyway i appreciate you sitting down with us and uh we'll have to do it again sometime i'd love to be back all right that is it for us and that should be it for woods' vacation uh tomorrow morning at six a.m we'll get all the stories rind how it went travel with woods he always comes pretty strong out of vacation and pauly and i are probably just going to sit back and listen to him for four hours and we're not doing anything tomorrow and he and elston are up next for paul rondo for walleye allie you i'm ben higgins have a great rest of your tuesday from all of us here at san diego's number one sport station 97 three the fans so long everybody 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 follow the action with game ten where 3d replays add another dimension plus notifications can keep you connected to every pitch every hit 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