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Monday, August 12: The Sports Lunatics - Jed Roberts Waddell Smith Chi Chi Rodriguez
[ Sound Effects ] >> These guys are sports lunatic. [ Sound Effects ] This is the Sports Lunatic Show. [ Music ] >> Hi everybody and welcome to another edition of the Sports Lunatic Show. Who are the sports lunatics? Well, we're just two regular guys with sports and sports history. I'm Howie Mooney in Berry, Ontario, and I'm driving the bus today. Shawnee will be joining us a little later on. And I will have Jed Roberts along who played 13 years for the Edmonton Eskimos in the CFL. And we're going to talk about the passing of Waddell Smith. With Shawnee, we're going to talk about the passing of Chichi Rodriguez. And we're going to talk about what he meant, not just to golf, but to the world as well. Don't forget, folks, you can check out the sports lunatics on the fired-up network. We are also all over wherever you get your podcasts. We're on Amazon Music. We are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneInRadio, and a whole bunch of different platforms as well. Give us a like, share us with your friends and family. Check us out on Facebook. The Sports Lunatics Radio Show page is an interactive group page set up for you, the listeners. There's a lot going on in there all the time. So many members are posting things in there. Shawnee's in there too. And he's making sure that things are hopping as well. All right, I'm very pleased now to have my first guest on the show today. Jed Roberts is a guy who played 13 years in Edmonton, was a guy who played every position on the defense of Front 7, and a standout special teams player as well. Jed, thanks so much for coming on the show with me. I really appreciate you being here. I wish it was under better circumstances, by the way. Yeah, you know, but you know, not the last forever, right? And that's good to be back. It's nice to have the opportunity to chat with you about football and life and everything else underneath the sun. So thanks for having me. Oh, no problem. It's always great talking to you too. You're one of my favorite people out there in the whole, whatever we call this sphere that we're in. But what else Smith passed away on July 26th? And he was one of those guys that was a part of that dynasty team in Edmonton from '77 or '78, depending on whichever way, because they made it to the Grey Cup in '77. But they won the Grey Cup from '78 to '82 in every season. What did what else Smith mean in the City of Edmonton and to the football fans, especially of Edmonton? Well, I think what else was kind of like the quiet superstar, like him and Jim in Germany were both similar types of dynamic athletes. And I have to, I have to like full disclosure, like what else Smith was special to me because he was part of the Kansas Jayhawks football team. And I think he was on that last team to make it to a bowl there. I think they lost to Pittsburgh in '74 or '75, I think it was before he came on with the Eskimos in the mid to late '70s there. And he was the guy that, when he was scored touchdown, spiked the ball and do the crazy lake dance, and he was kind of a colorful guy, but he was the one that was in that offense. He had Brian Kelly, and before him, he had George McGowan, and he was also Kansas guy. While I was the guy that, you know, you couldn't sleep on him because he could run a nine and then take it to the house at any time. So he was the one that provided the vertical element, and he was a colorful character. You know, Marco Cincar, when I first came in with the Eskimos in 1990, was still playing, and Marco had played with Robert. And he used to tell me stories about like how dynamic the guy was as a player, and what a friendly man he was off the field, and how much he was one of those guys that kind of held the room together. And you know, those guys aren't, there's not many of those guys around anymore. You know, like it was just that the reunion that we had here about two months ago, you know, and a lot of those guys are getting up there. So, and I'm getting up there myself, so it's, anytime you see one of those guys from the five in a row, you know, Billy Stevenson and, you know, some of the other guys that have passed on, that's a memory, that's a collection of stories that's gone to us forever, right? So it's important for us, I think, to reach out to those guys and keep that brotherhood alive and, you know, kind of maintain contact and find out kind of what's going on. And, you know, when I heard that, why that passed away, I knew that a very big important part of that team was gone, you know, and it's sad, but it's also, like I said in the beginning, nothing lost forever, right? So, and that's why life is just so amazing, you know, you get the opportunity to play a game like football and do some amazing things when you're young and you're able to do it. And then when you get to be my age, you start to regret it a little bit, you know, I hear you there. I was a goalie for 40 plus years and I've, I have two fake hips now to show for it. Oh, man, the goalies are crazy, like they let people see about them. So I like you're tougher than I ever was. Well, I don't know about that, but at least you have all your hair still. I mean, I've got nothing left up here, but, but I was looking, I was looking at that team and that group of guys from from 77, 78 to 82. And the consistency in the lineup over that period of time is something that, that is just incredible to think about in the Canadian Football League at any time that dynasty was probably the greatest dynasty of any, of any that there ever was in the Canadian Football League. And when you think about that team that the Edmonton Eskimo was in the Edmonton Elks, the Edmonton Eskimo's made the playoffs every year from 72 to 2005. Yeah. And I was part of that. You know, I guess you were like we were six and 12 one year and it hadn't been for Saskatchewan rock writers, we might have missed, you know, so yeah, it's just a testament to the ability of that management group back then to keep critical core groups of guys together. And you know, back then in those days and in what else time, you know, what I was one of those guys, when those guys would come up from the States, they would stick around, you know, they would become part of the community and they were important parts of the community. You know, they would do things off season, they would bar and storm around the province and play hockey or basketball or, you know, whatever. And there was a lot of engagement, you know, and people got to know these guys off the field and became very well aware of like who they were as people and I think that's something that kind of missing from today's game is that with the rollover and free agency is fine, but it's very difficult to keep that cohesion together. Like if you look at the blue bombers right now, they're one of the few teams that are able to keep their core group of guys and you see the success that they have. But with the way that the rosters are managed now and the import designation and you know, there's lots of variables right now that have been inspired to prevent that from happening anymore. And part of that is like, hey, you don't want the same team in the great cup winning every year. You know, I was a rough writer fan, an Ottawa rough writer fan and it used to make me so mad when Edmonton would win again. And I was like, just can we get another team in there? You know, and I broke my heart in 81 when they lost to Edmonton. I mean, too. Not in a franchise, are you kidding me? But you know, though, too, Jed, is that I think that having a juggernaut team like that is not a bad thing for the league as a whole because you look at what the attendance figures were at that time. People would go out if they weren't, if Edmonton was playing in another city, the people would go out to hate watch Edmonton. It was like when Toronto and Leo Cahill in 71 and all that, the swagger that that team had, people would go out and watch the Toronto Argonauts to hate watch them, even though the Argonauts were this powerful team, but everybody hated them because they were so damn good. And it was the same with Edmonton in their heyday. People would go out to the to the to the park wherever they were playing and they would hate watch the Edmonton Eskimos, even though they were just this fantastic, fantastic collection of players. And I was going through as well and I, I meet a list of all the guys that played together on those teams from 78 to 82 and we start off with Hugh Campbell as the coach and GM, but you got David Boone, you got Dave Cutler, Dave Fennell, Brian Fryer, Jim Germany, Larry Highbaugh, Joe Holloman, Hank Alesic, Ed Jones, Dan Kepley, Ted Millian, Warren Moon, Heck Potte, Dale Potter, whose father I played hockey with back in Ottawa when and Mr. Potter, Ross Potter was an old guy at the time, but he's, he was playing hockey was out there with us. Angelo Santucci, Tom Scott, what else Smith, Bill Stevenson, Tom Towns, Eric Upton and Tom Wilkinson. That right there. You've got a lot of guys that played together over a period of time and that they were and just produced excellence. You know, and the, and the thing that I really, when you read that list, I know every one of the guys. Yes. Right. And so that was one of the beautiful things about what my dad told me when he, when he found out I was coming to Edmonton, he told me, he says, you know what, like Edmonton, if you had to pick a team in the league at that time in 1990 to go to, he said Edmonton would be it, they had the strongest franchise, they had the best tradition. They are the team that everybody loves to be or play against anyway, because they're the kind of, and 89, they went 16 and two. So they were, you know, they had that little hip dip there after the 87 great cup. And then they were back and, you know, just just an expectation around here. And those guys set the template for that, right? And there was a history and a tradition that was passed along by those personalities onto the next generation. And I don't know if I said this in the last time we were talking, but I had a book of University of Alberta law towards that was passed down from one rules committee chairman to another. Wow. I think it was Frankie Morris had it first. And then it was passed down from personality to personality and ended up in my hands. And so I had to sign my name in it. And so what the rules committee chairman was, is that anytime we had a social gathering, I would have to carry that book. And then if somebody committed a party file to make the ruling, you know, the final ruling, I had the final say so. And so whatever penalties or files, it's like a kangaroo court. Yeah. And, and so I gave it to sing or Mobley after that, you know, those guys went on to play in three, three great cups winning two. And so that was part of the fabric of the, of the, you know, and I remember talking to Frank Morris and he said that him, Raleigh Miles, Johnny Bright, and Jack Parker, and Normie Kwong would stand across from the empire hotel and throw the football through a four story window to see who could throw it through the window, but money and, and so they were, that was guys that they spent as much time together off the field as they did on the field. And that was just such a, you know, and you don't really see that as much anymore, right? Like, and that was the whole team. So you had the 50s teams with, which ran three games in a row there where they were like three times a row. And then there was a little bit of a pick up there in the 60s where they had some pretty tough and then the 70s, they started winning again. But those guys all collaborated, they all talked to each other and they talked about what the expectations were. And so when the ownership group, the board got their act together in the 70s here, you started to see that again. You started to see the teams doing well and, you know, unfortunately the pro, the franchise has kind of fallen on hard times. And I think we're kind of going through our own version of the 60s. But I'm optimistic with the right ownership group that we have enough of that tradition here in town that they could probably pick things up fairly quickly if, if the right end ownership group is in place. But man, what a, what a run though. Like I don't think we'll ever see that again, you know, that was like 30, what odd years of winning. Yes. Unprecedented. Just unprecedented. It was spectacular. Having grown up with that as even as an auto or rough rider fan, having grown up with the greatness that was the Edmonton Eskimos at the time. I think it's really important to the league that Edmonton have a strong team year after year after year. I agree. There was something I was going over in 1979. Dave Fennell was the outstanding Canadian. What else Smith was the runner up for MVP or MOP in the league? And each of them gave their checks that they got. Dave Fennell got $2,000 and what else Smith got, $1,500 I think for being the runner up. And they took that money and they gave it to the handicap kids in Edmonton. They had worked with them at Klondike Days previously. And as you said, you know, get involved with the fabric of the community and that's what these guys did. And I mean, to me that tells a lot about the people that what else Smith and Dave Fennell were. Yeah. And that's what you're talking about is the Monday morning magic. On Monday, the opening day of K days, they will close the park down a little bit of area so that they'll bring kids in with disabilities and the team comes out and then kind of rides the rides with them. And so there's nothing else there. It's just them and their families. And that's a tradition that's been carried over from that group all the way up until even now. And I think there was a dip there around COVID where they got away from it. I don't think Chris Jones was that big of a fan of it just because I think he thought it was a distraction. But, you know, those types of things, people remember that. People don't remember what you say, but remember how you made them feel, right? And so that group had just this uncanny ability to make people feel. And I think when you've got that kind of a relationship between a club and a community, you know, you see that with the Oilers, right? The Oilers do that, but they had their dark period there where they kind of got away from it. And we're being managed, right? And, you know, things weren't looking too good, but now they're back on the right path. And I think that, you know, with Edmonton, I think we're seeing in Edmonton here, a lot of what happened in Ottawa, you know, Ottawa had that impressive run there through the 60s, where it was them in Hamilton battling it out every year. Yes. And I carried into like all the way up to 76. And then after that, the wheels fell off and, you know, in 81, they made that improbable run. And if it wasn't for that stupid double interference call, we wouldn't be talking about that. But, you know, Ottawa, it was just such a great community. And they're really, really like a big sports. There's no better sports fans than there are in Ottawa, right? And I think that when you look at the Ottawa team now, you can just prove to that, like people come out, they want to see them play, right? And I think that if you have the right ownership group, you know, Edmonton is the same as Ottawa, right? There's once they get it right, they'll come back. But you've got to have that. You've got to have that off the field component where guys are going out, like you can't just show up and expect people to come out unless you're willing to give a little bit of yourself. Well, actually more of that, you know, my dad told me that. He says, if you put your work into the community, that place, he says you'll never buy a drink again. That's true. It is true. But I remember Rick Sovieta telling me the same thing when the Ottawa Rough Riders had a basketball team in the winter, they'd go from place to place, and they'd play the police teams, or they'd play the media team, or whatever, and they'd have a crowd. And it would be a great way to kind of do off-season bonding with the fans. Yeah. You know, they had the hockey team. My dad played on the hockey team there, and that's how he learned how to skate. And those guys, that's what I think was separated to CFL from the NFL, is that it's so accessible, right? Yes. And you can touch the great cup. You can have a conversation, you can sit down over a beer and talk about life, you know, and the guys are just paying off their mortgages while they play it. They're not millionaires. Yeah. They make good money, but they're not like completely out of touch with reality, right? Yeah. I think that's something that, you know, when the teams like Saskatchewan does a really good job of that, like they bring their guys around the province, and that whole province claims that team. And I think the stamp heaters, if you look at them, they've done a really good job. BC is getting back to that. I think Bob Young's done a really good job with the pie-cats. So I think all things considered, the teams that are doing well understand that. That's what separates the CFL from even the NHL or the NFL, is that it's accessible, and it's relatable. And I think that they need to market that more as opposed to trying to keep up with the NFL and keep up with the NHL. It's just, it's different ball of wax, right? And we're not talking the same, it's like sense compared to millions, right? Yes. And one of the wonderful things that we see in Ottawa, I take my Sunday games when he was younger. When they came back in 2014, we went to the first game there, and we went to a bunch of games. Whenever we could get back to Ottawa, we could go to a game, and one of the wonderful things they have there is that after the games are over, they invite all the fans that are in the stands down onto the field, and everybody's able to talk to a player or just run around on the field. I remember when we were kids, when I was a kid, being able to go on that field, that was a privilege that we rarely ever got. Yeah. And that's something that that tradition was started by the Eskimos, they were the team that would do that. They would let the kids down on the field and run around. And we've seen other teams try it. I think BC tried it for a little while when they're in BC place. I remember we played in Halloween, and all the kids had their Halloween costumes on, and they made the mistake of letting the kids on early, and Gizmo returned to punt for a touchdown. And I think you ran over some poor kid on his way to the locker room. So I think they had to review their policy about letting people on the field, because a little liability issue there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, when you're a kid, my sons, they love that. That's actually the only reason they really want to go. They don't care about the game as much. They want to go down there and throw the football with their hat. So that's a memory that, that's a core memory. It absolutely is. I remember my, my, my brother was able to get Ronnie Lancaster's chin strap. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It was not amazing. You know, I think like that, like I remember J.R. LaRose, who ended up playing for BC Lions, and he played for Edmonton for a bit. He was telling me because him and I went first, because I coached him with the Edmonton Huskies when he played junior, but I didn't know this. We were doing presentations on the reserves up north. And he told the story, he goes, you know, Jed doesn't know this, but I used to come down over by where the Eskimos players would come out of the dressing room, and I had to ask them for gloves and Jed threw me his gloves. He was like, get that. He was like, I still have them. Oh, he'd never get rid of those. Yeah. You know, and so that's just when you have the ability to do things like that for a community and, you know, help people forget about life for a while and, you know, everybody's just kind of in there and together and they experience those things, even if you're not winning all the games. Yeah. It's about making people feel pretty good. You know, and that fellowship and the ability to provide an entertaining project product. I think that with the Edmonton club with trade board, you know, they've got a guy that keeps people like, you can't sit down when that guy's got the ball, you got it, and you can't talk because you might miss something. So his capability is incredible. Yeah. And you get a Canadian guy like, yes, you know, you want, you want that type, that type of thing sells itself, you know, like, you're, and that's something that Edmonton did really well was they always had the best Canadian players in the league, you know, and I think Ottawa used to do that. Like Wayne Giardino, guys like that, like, you know, we're going to get this guy from like Florida State, right, you know, unbelievable football player. But that's what the good teams do. They find that talent and they find guys that the community can relate to. And that's why I think we should be doing the territorial exemptions and stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just keep shooting itself in the foot, you know, when they move away from these no brainers, you know, like getting these kids that are like, you know, Edmonton was so good at that they would grab the best players in the province and then they were, you know, nobody was able to touch them, but they would know who those guy can't go, let's say, man, show them. Yes. You know, like the story that, you know, you know, this golden leg that would pick the ball night 90, 80, 90 yards. Yeah. So I don't know. I could talk all day, you know, but when a guy like Waddell passes away from that time and hear it and, you know, there's so many people in this town that still remember him. Yes. And that just treasure the memories that he provided. He was such an, it's such an integral part, you know, for a guy that came out of KU and probably never had more than 300 years or 300 yards in any single season, he sure came right out of the woodwork there and provided a lot of excitement for a lot of fans and people will always be grateful for the memories that he provided. Well, I think everybody that is, that is a CFL fan that was around, like I was around and you were around. We'll always remember that Eskimo's team as being very, very special. Jed, thanks so much for coming on with me today. I really appreciate the conversation with you and I look forward to another one sometime down the road. Hey. Count on it. Thanks a lot. I've always got time for you. Thank you, Jed. All right. I really loved talking with Jed Roberts. He's one of the greatest people that I, that I've met in the sports world and I'm really happy that I had a chance to talk with him. But joining me now is my partner, my co-host, my buddy, Sean Levine is with us. Sean. Sean. How are you? How are you? How are you? Great to see you. Great to talk to you. And I think we have a lot to talk about here today. We certainly do. We certainly do. It's great to talk to you. I know the summer. It's been a little disjointed with our schedules for both of us. I don't know about you. Are you Olympic out yet? To be honest, my schedule hasn't given me the chance to watch a lot of it. I catch up when I have a few minutes here and there and I look at my phone and see what's been going on. The four by 100 men was the other day and it was spectacular. I was thrilled to see it. Didn't know that the Americans kind of flamed out, but they throw out their four fastest guys without having much consideration for the actual teamwork that's involved in the relay. But anyway. It was fascinating to watch. And you're right. It really has shown how important it is to be a team as opposed to the individual stars that make up that team. And it was thrilling. Like it came out of nowhere. I don't think a lot of people had Canada winning the gold medal this year. They all the four guys struggled individually. So that also put doubt in everybody, Andre de Graz, who of course is our Olympic superstar or has been. He's been suffering a hamstring injury. So it was amazing to watch. But I will say I've been the opposite howie because of my schedule and the way I work. I always turn it on in the morning and I'm getting the early coverage and I watch it right through the day. And if I miss something, I'll get the highlights on YouTube at night. So I've actually watched more Olympics than I have watched in the last maybe three or four. And I've really enjoyed it. And I think Paris has done a great job. I know we had a lot of Canadian controversies in the beginning of the Olympics, but just individual performances, even just watching some international stars of other events that I've never watched really or paid attention to. I've never watched so much badminton in my life. I have never watched so much rhythmic gymnastics because that is what my girlfriend loves. But the athleticism is just unbelievable. And howie, I'm not going to lie, I even watched a little bit of break dancing the other day. I was I was going to bring it up. I didn't want to. I was going to bring it up. The Australian breakdancer seems to be all over social media right now. I will say I will say this. And I said this as as we're watching the highlights, my girlfriend and I and I said, you know what? You know, when they created this form of dancing back in the Bronx and the 70s, do you think in their mind? They were thinking, Hey, we're going to make this in the Olympics sport one day. Seriously. Look, there's tons of athleticism. It's fun. They're trying to capture a younger crowd. I totally get it. I I felt old watching it, Howie. I'm not going to lie. I felt really old. Yeah, I I feel a lot of times, but yeah, I don't know what's so much pole vaulting in my life, Howie love the pole vaulting. There's so much of it. I mean, I was thinking about the the you'd asked me about the 76 Olympics on one of our previous shows and I was back to that in my mind and, you know, the high jump with Greg Joy in the battle with white stones and then Yachik Zola comes out to comes out of nowhere to win the gold. And I mean, we go back in 96, you know, we had the four by 100 championship there for Canada with not a Bailey, gone and Bailey Glenroy Gilbert. All those guys. Yeah, I mean, to me, it feels like the Olympics are different today than they were 20 years ago, 40 years ago, et cetera. And I mean, nothing nothing stays the same, nothing ever stays the same. Everything always changes and and I realized by watching commercials that nothing is aimed at me anymore. I was just going to say, I feel like we are not a part of the demographic anymore. You're right. And I say, I remember I remember my mom saying that, you know, all these commercials are named at me and I'd say mom, don't be so hard on yourself. You're a tremendous slouch, but but now I see I see what she's meant. And I, well, it's just even the presentation, like it's all now, it's also about sizzle. And if you think it's bad this year, wait, four years from now in LA. And that's why I was telling, you know, I was trying to explain to my girlfriend that you can see the evolution of really where this is going to go. This is now all about social media. This is all about branding, it is, you know, it's always had commercialism in it. You know, it's a money maker. It's a massive money maker. Yeah. And it will stay a money maker, but you can tell where and how everything is getting presented on television. It's a new, I don't want to call it a revolution, but it's a new, we're seeing a different level of where this is going to go. And the irony of this howie is actually a lot of countries aren't really wanting the Olympics anymore that they're actually that they're not that, you know, they're always used to be this competition of multiple cities vying for an Olympics, whether it be winter or summer, you're not seeing that anymore. They're actually now pinpointing, okay, we're going to go here in four years, we're going to go here and eight. And I think that's where it's going to head. And I actually also think that we're going to see multiple countries group together and hosting an Olympics, like it won't just be one city anymore. You know, like, look at Paris, they're in multiple areas or, you know, even in Canada, they would hold events in different parts of a province. If it's close to the host city, I think you're going to see that maybe a country actually hosts an Olympics, but it's multiple cities hosting events. I could see that happening. Well, look at the surfing. It's in Tahiti. Right. But that's not necessarily a new concept either in '76. No. The Olympics were in Montreal, but a lot of the water events, the rowing events were held in Kingston. Absolutely. But I think it's going to be even more, I think you could have hypothetically Toronto hosting an Olympics and having events across the country as well with all their venues. You know, like Spruce Meadows has a beautiful equestrian part, you know, that has international events. I'm just talking from a cost standpoint. Absolutely. I think, you know, because the cost of the Olympics is a rages and it's getting more outrageous, especially with all the security and what have you on top of that. And you know what, Lake Ontario may need $1.5 billion to get all the bacteria out of it. Well, you think too about the viability of venues after the Olympics are over. You look at Beijing and everything's grown over with weeds and stuff now. That was in 2008. I've become obsessed with those videos by the way, Athens is a debacle. Yeah. Athens, I'm very sad of what happened because that Olympics was actually very fun and entertaining to watch and they had some great venues and now it's just weeds, like it's just weeds growing. They've let all their facilities pretty much just deteriorate to the point where what's the point of fixing them up. It's incredibly sad actually to see that and you're right, China's had it. You know, there was the big uproar in Brazil as well. Like it's everywhere. And that's where I don't know. I don't know if it's the ego, just the host it right away, but then not have a plan afterwards. Look, Montreal's still paying for the for the big O, like it's crazy. Yeah, it's insane, but I know that's not where we wanted to go, but I wanted to bring up the Olympics because we're near the end as we're taping this. And I just thought, you know, if you've been watching, because it has been fun, it's been great for Canada, setting in a modern record in an envoy car Olympics, they've done really well. It didn't appear that they were going to get wonny medals as the week, week and a half were going. But in the last few days, we've had a huge push and the Americans have been a dominant as well. But it's it's been cool to see some of these other countries, smaller countries actually, you know, excel in certain sports, which is absolutely right. Yeah. St. Lucia want to want to go. Yeah. The first ever gold. Yeah. It's been wild. It's been it's been really fun to watch. So yeah. And Paris was a great venue to host it and it was really great. So one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you wasn't wasn't the Olympics, but I know this discussion. I love this conversation. But Chi Chi Rodriguez passed away and Chi Chi Rodriguez was a golfer, a great golfer, a great showman and a great ambassador for the game of golf. And I mean, you think about his story and his history. He was seven years old and he was helping his dad trying to bring money into the house by carrying water, you know, for a dollar a day or cutting sugar cane or whatever. And then he saw a golf course not far from where he lived and he realized or he found out that caddies can make more money than what he was doing doing the hard work. So he became a caddy on this golf course as a kid. And you know, we tried to imitate the swings of some of the guys that he was carrying clubs for and he developed a different kind of a swing, not not your traditional golf swing. He did a lot of had a lot of herky jerky motion in his with his shoulders and but he could hit a ball and he was only five, seven and 150 pounds, but he could hit a ball as far as a lot of the other guys that could hit it a long way because he developed this kind of wider stance with his swing and dip the shoulder and and all this stuff. But he became a very proficient golfer. He won eight PGA tour events when he got under the champions tour. He won 22 events, but I think he was bigger than just the statistics that he put up in terms of victories on either tour. He was a kind of a cultural icon. Well, with his, I've been watching some highlights because again growing up, we didn't get to watch a lot of golf. And when the golf that we did get to watch, like he grew up in an era when you when when you said eight victories, I'm like, I cannot believe the only one eight times because he had such a big impact on golf. But that was also an era of golf when you had some heavy weights, yeah, golf like just professional heavy weights led by Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Wisecoff, Trevino like it's incredible that he didn't win more. But then in that type of situation and and the golf professional golf was so much different than what it is now. But to for him, he was an entertainer. Yeah. You know, we talk about this a lot and it's been brought up so much in the last couple of years with the live versus PGA, it's like, who is that person? Like, who's the next tiger? Everybody talks about who's the next tiger? Yes, tiger was dominant, but people wanted to watch tiger. You know, he wasn't a showman, like, like obviously Chichi was, but Chichi at that time, he made golf fun. Like everybody looked so damn serious on a golf course, but Chichi was like, the sword. Everybody did it. Everybody mocked it. We did it as kids, you know, like that was the cool thing to do. If you hit up a long putter, you hit a putt, you know, at a younger age, like everybody's doing Chichi. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's that motion. And he, and he does the sword and he puts it in the side pocket. Yeah. Right. But to me, the cultural point where he was a crossover star was this episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, and Les Nesman is reading the news. Turning to sports, winner of this week's golf coast, golf classic was Chai Chai Roger Guees. Chai Chai finished with a nine under car score. Chichi Rodriguez. Hopefully, Mr. Roger Guees will play up to power this next round. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Who could ever forget Chai Chai Roger Guees and hopefully next time he'll do better. Well, it was just, I'm like Chai Chai Roger Guees. And again, I don't remember seeing Chichi even golf, but I knew the name and I knew it was not Chai Chai. And I'm like, and then, and then of course, Johnny fever, how, you know, Howard Hasman who played Johnny fever, Les, it's Chichi Rodriguez and Chai Chai, because it's funny, I have worked with so many people in my life. And that happens is that you, you tell them, this is how it's pronounced. And then they'll still revert back to what they in their minds know. So from a broadcasting standpoint, I laugh a couple of times every time I hear that clip because I know people that have done that. I've done that. Yeah. It's, it's just a common thing. And it was just funny that it was on this national TV show. And I was only maybe 12 if that when I'm watching this. Remember when we were doing triple A games, you know, in Ottawa and you'd have names of guys that cut came up and they weren't necessarily household names at all. I mean, there was a guy that played for Syracuse named Huck Fledner. And we weren't sure if it was Fledner or Fledner or how you could get in a lot of trouble with that name. Yes, you could. Yes, you could. So we have, you know, Mark Sutcliffe and I would have to go and talk to the other teams broadcasters and make sure we got our pronunciations right before the game started for anything that we had a question about. That's funny. Yes. That episode. There's another thing with Chi Chi too though. If you remember the group Devo and their album, are we not men? We are Devo. Well, one of the little representations on that album, the album cover was Chi Chi Rodriguez, but they kind of altered it. So it wouldn't look like Chi Chi Rodriguez. So they could try to get away with using it on the album cover. And what ended up happening was Warner Brothers said, "No, you can't do that." But then they said, "Well, we'll do some alterations." So Warner Brothers ended up sending $2,500 to Chi Chi for using his likeness on the album cover, but this was kind of, at the same time, he was giving his permission, but they'd already sent the money. So that, you know, he was a person that was in the public eye and in the, we don't call it the sphere, we didn't call it the Twitter sphere or anything like that at that time, but he would have been definitely been in the Twitter sphere and in the social media sphere, as it is today. His brand would be unbelievable. He would have a lifetime sponsorship or any hat company you could think of because he always rocked the hat when he was playing golf, and he was just so fun to watch. It's been a treat actually, and you tend to forget this anytime someone passes, especially an older gentleman, Chi Chi was 88 when he passed away, but you go back to those highlights and you, and you realize, man, that was only, when I say only, because I'm 55. And I'm like, you know, I, I would have been 10 when all these highlights happened. Yeah. You know, and we didn't get coverage of the, we didn't regard coverage of the senior BGA back when it first started. And, and to think that he has 22 victories on that tour, it's pretty impressive. Yeah. Because really you're, you know, what would you say is senior golfer? I know Bernard Longer is a complete and he's a different level, but most guys still, you're looking, they competed 50. So what? 62 63 really is there probably 15 years maybe at the most? Yeah. So, you know, to get 22 victories on that tour, it's pretty impressive. And those heavy hitters that he golfed against on, you know, in his prime, they were on the senior tour as well. Yes. Well, I don't know, I don't know if you've encountered any of the little videos that he used to do that were kind of like, they weren't commercials, but they were kind of like PSAs for golf to get people involved in golf, but he would do these little things. And he says, if your ball is up against a tree like this, what you do is your take your wedge and you chippy, chippy, chippy, chippy, that thing away from the tree, then you can hit the ball. And then he'd finish his little things by always saying, always remember the best wood into our bag should always be our pencil. And I'll never forget those and we used to do that. We'd be behind a tree or we'd be behind a bush or something like that. We'd say, chippy, chippy, chippy, chippy. And you know, that's what we do. And we'd imitate Chi Chi, well, he was very, he was, like I said, he was everybody's favorite. Yeah. You know, him and Lee Firmino seemed to have the most fun on a golf course. They had personality. They had something that just stood out to the average viewer. And it was more than just what he did on the golf course. It was his personality. It was the person that he was. And he had a unique way of saying things as well. He said something like, how far does John Daley hit a ball? He says, I've gone on vacations that were shorter than that. You know, he's hot, you know, hotter than my first wristwatch stuff like that. He'd just come out with these things. He had a different way of looking at life and looking at things and, and he had just that this, this thing about him that made everybody love him while he was beloved. And you could tell just in the last few days, since the news came down that he had passed just all the accolades about Chi Chi and what he's done and helped so many of the younger guys, you know, in the PGA and whatnot and in his homeland as well, Puerto Rico. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Great memories. And any time you can reference WKRP in an episode, it's always a good thing. I knew it was only a matter of time and if you weren't going to reference it, I was going to reference it. But that was one of the first things that all came up when I posted a thing about Chi Chi Rodriguez. You know, I found out he passed because I had some friends who posted, I think three, three of my Facebook friends posted that he, yeah, the reference and I'm like, oh, he's gone. Hey, yep. No, it's too bad. Chi Chi Rodge with these. Yeah. Not, not the greatest, not the greatest occasion to, to be, to be laughing. But at least we were smiling because teaching gave us the reason to smile. I was going to say and he would, I think he'd love it. I think he would love it. I think he loved it then and he loved, he would love it today. So absolutely. That's a great one. And that is the perfect way to finish this edition of the sports lunatic show. Shawnee, thanks so much for coming on and joining me. Thanks. I know that your time is my, and my time is, is both a very, very scarce right now. So I'm glad we had the opportunity to do this. Absolutely. Take care. Don't forget folks. Don't forget folks. You can find the sports lunatic show wherever you find your podcasts. Find us on YouTube as well. Don't forget to like and subscribe. It'll help everybody after you to find where we are as well. On Sundays at noon, you can, you can listen to us if you're in Ottawa on CKDJ FM107.9. If you're not in Ottawa, you can catch us ckdj.net on your internet machine. Have a great sports day everybody. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]