Streaming live on the iHeartRadio app. This is I on the Ball with Steve
Rivera and Jake and Salez on Fox Sports fourteenth fifty. Hey, welcome back
to Twining the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen. Cookie, I'm Steve,
He's Jay. Now we have Henry with breaking news. This is I on
the Ball Breaking news on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. The first story. Arizona
starting pitcher Cam Walty was named thirteen All American and he was the first Arizona
pitcher to be named an All Americans since twenty sixteen. In addition, him
and Mason Wipe were names of All Region team and the All American teams for
position players will be announced on five. So kenyai, no no mention?
Yes, well, Cam Walt had a better one loss record, right,
I mean he won like nine games, right or something like that. I
think he lost twenty one two maybe, Yeah, I think he was like
nine and two or something like that. And then again as eight, you
know, he was also way uh you know, a number three starter.
So yeah, I mean, you know it makes sense. I'm trying to
lead see what his record was, Yeah, it was like nine to two.
I'm like something like that, so, you know, you know,
good for him. I mean, that's it's kind of crazy that he was
your number three starter and he's the guy makes the All American Dan so U
you know, you know, interesting thing. Next breaking news, Hore Lopez
signed a minor league deal to the Cubs and he was the reliever that was
designated for assignment by the Mets when he was ejected and then threw his gloved
into the sand. Where's he going the Cubs minor league? Okay, he
talked a lot of crap about that. He shredded. He said there was
a misunderstanding because because yeah, right, I heard that conversation and I understand
Spanish and he he he said those things. He said. I was gonna
kind of smidic what he said to you, but then I'd be fire.
Next story, Joey Chestnut and Taruku Koba Yashi, the top dogs of the
competitive world, are going to be in the same arena for the first time
since two thousand and nine on Labor Day, and it's gonna be an event
that's streamed on Netflix. I don't care about that, no, I know,
and I know we we've had the what's her name? The woman from
Tucson who's been in the hot dog getting contest. Oh yeah, yeah,
yeah, I forget her name. I forget her name. You know,
this whole thing with Joey Chestnut though it's kind of like serious drama. It's
almost like he's doing that for the drama, right, you just kind of
draw attention to all of it. And then we talked about it at the
end of the previous hour. But Game three of the finals is tonight,
Porzingis is ruled out in the MAVs or what's just three point favorites? Yeah,
I would Uh, I wouldn't touch it. Don't I wouldn't touch I
don't really care. Well you are touching it. You got a whole thing
going with Chris. Yeah, but they're just games, just games. I
just need to win the series, that's all. But don't you have money
on each game? Yeah? But if he if I win the series,
it's you win money. Yeah. If it's just if it's a sweep,
I'm good, really good. If I lose one game. And then the
ACC and SEC announced a basketball Challenge and the matchups that are at the top.
We got Auburn Duke and Alabama UNC a rematch of last year's March Madness
also got cal against Missouri that you shall a game with Arizona. That's the
first one is in Vegas. In Vegas, Vegas? Did they in December?
December? Well, guess where we're going in December? That laught tells
you the things that will have just been there. We're going there early November.
That actually we had to really push that trip up to kind of early
November because of it's everything is screwed up because they have Las Vegas Greme pre
in there. Now. Oh yeah, you can't you can't get you can't
be there at that time. So that that that race is on the date
that we would normally go for our trip, it's the weekend before Thanksgiving.
So you can't go that weekend. You can go, but you you shouldn't
go because it's you're gonna right. Well no, I know that, I
know that. But normally the history of this trip that we take in November
has always been either Thanksgiving weekend or the weekend before Thanksgiving, depend on depending
on where Arizona Football is playing. So this year Arizona is on the road
at at TCU that weekend, but we can't go because we would go but
we can't because of the dam in Las Vegas Grand Prix. The weekend before
Arizona is at home, so we can't go that weekend. So now we're
going like November eighth, which is not really you know, we call a
rivalry weekend, but it's any really great rivalry is going on that week the
troubles of rich men who go to Vegas, right, first world problem?
Yes, definitely. Ja Dodgers acquired Cavin Visio and a trade the blue up
that will tell you how old you are. Yeah, his dad played here
for for a while. I covered him in the late eighties. Yeah,
good guy guy. Yeah yeah. I saw that. The Dodgers like,
oh cool, and then I looked at his numbers. He's terrible. He's
like a two hundred hitter. What do you want him for another guy,
some minor league guy, So you know, I don't. They'll put him
somewhere. See if he see, if he see, if he materializes,
they already got. I love keyk Hernandez. He's one of my favorite Dodgers
around. I saw the against the Yankees when they had him miked up and
he made the oh and he made an air while he was miked up what
it happened. Well, he was talking and then the play happened. He
didn't say much of me. He didn't say much of anything. We'll let
you make this play. And they're like after that, was that's a pretty
tough play eating custody. No, no, he didn't. He did not
cuss. I think he wanted to, but he did not. I think
that, you know, initially I thought, why are we doing this?
But for baseball, I think it's really cool because there's you know, there's
time in between pitches and and you know, you got you hear them and
you kind of get a sense of what's on their mind, you know,
as they're getting ready to, you know, for the next pitch. I
guess fascinating. I always thought about like what would happen if what happened,
or just like if other teams a billion runs, but which the Dodgers did
last night, by the way, they hit four homers in an inning last
night. Richmond problems, you don't have to call. I got your I
got them talking. Remember remember when we have a grooder on the of the
day and I say, I said, what about the Rangers? He was
kind of like, the Rangers are having a tough year. I had no
idea they were sucking that bad. That just being a fifteen to two.
It was one of those games where they brought in a position player to come
pitch. He was throwing forty eight miles an hour pitches and then he was
getting guys out because then I used to that. Literally, the clock had
him at forty eight to fifty miles an hour on all his pitch His pitches
had arc. Yeah, yeah, it's funny. That's all you go.
That's all you got. All right, I had something. Let me look
it up here real quick. Oh where is it? Oh? Okay?
So on three Sports posted the top returning college football wide receivers from twenty twenty
three by twenty twenty three receiving yards. Where do you think t Mac is
on that list? I won't answer because I already saw this. Seven.
Nope, way higher three. Two. The only guy higher than him is
a I named Ricky White from you, and the one thing with him,
guess what he's gotta do. He's got to get healthy. Yeah, gotta
get healthy whatever his foot injury is, right, yeah, otherwise, and
you have two months, let's say June, June, July, August,
he's got two and a half months to get to get it going. He's
got time. If not, just get a shot, okay, North for
exactly exactly. People younger than me don't know what exactly. And then announcers
were were announcers were announced for the Olympic UH NBC's Olympic Swimming Track Gymnastics UH
coverage. And the reason that's significant to us is that twosonan and our old
friend Dan Hicks, he's going to be doing the swimming again with Roddy Gaines
and he's been doing that for for a number of years. Time. Yeah,
we're gonna try and get him on the show. We'll see what we
can do. Make fights, but you can make a contact with him for
us. But I mean, Dan was one of one of the friendliest guys
around when he was doing huh Channel four Sports here, I mean, I
don't know, you just felt like that that guy's going to go places and
he has Plus he's married to Hannah Storm. Okay. Then there was silence
here, Steve, what am I supposed to say? There's no supposed to
he's married Hannah Stor Okay, yeah, good, good good, that's efectually
correct. But now he's at He's had a great career, you know,
calling golf tournament's US Open, that kind of stuff. And now you know
he's done a bunch of Olympics and now you'll be doing swimming again. We
have a deal. I have news to Brian Peterson. Uh doing some n
cua A transfer portal stuff. Baseball players. Let's had a picture Josh Morana
or Morano five appearances, the freshman two starts is leaving catcher Cole Dylan junior
college transfer. He went one to one for three with an RBI and another
at your arcade. Uh Brigold, Uh who did not play is leaving?
Yeah, so three that's what? What? What do they all have in
common? Right? They just didn't get blame time. You know you look
in the dugout. You look at the dugouts of these college there's like fifty
guys in there. There's loads of the other load. It's like that,
Yeah, it's like fifty guys. I'm like like nine guys play, you
know, nine guys in a handful of pictures, right, you know it's
crazy. I mean really, I mean you know, there's a reason twenty
five is the number for Major League baseball teams, because that's all you need.
So so what's that? What's the roster size? And scolships? Scoffships
and baseball scholarships? They have like twelve and a half scholars Yeah, look
at this with the money and situation. And did you see Willer? Did
you see will there's a tweet earlier will you w realizing they're they're losing money.
They lost a lot of money, maybe thirty million down from one budget
and now they have to find ways to find it. And I said,
every school's doing it. You know what. We talked about this even with
the president when he was on and how everyone, every school is losing it.
Arizona's situation just became public and COVID screwed up everything. Now they got
to pay eventually, will have to pay that money. Where do you get
it when you don't have when you don't any money? Well, you saw
what you did, right. They've absorbed the debt into the overall debt of
the university and as you somebody said, has the second highest athletic department deficit
in the country, And like, why aren't they in trouble? The way
you know, Robbie Robbins got in trouble in Tucson. Yeah, you know,
and Dave Dave Hekey's gone, Yeah, no, it's a good question.
And then the school took the took the hit for it, right right,
and school took the hit for it here. Yeah, same situation kind
of, isn't it. Yeah, no, it it would be. It
is, except it's US is way worse than Arizona's. Yeah, and yet
you don't hear the people screaming about that up there. Uh. Hell,
life is not fair. It's not fair, Steve, It's really not fair,
and your Dodgs won't win the series. He can I say that you
just did. You didn't even bleep it either. It's okay, Henry,
you can keep your job because I don't want to do it. Yes,
Ryan wanted you jump on the on the dumb button because because Brent Brannan said,
damn, oh you should. Yeah no, damn, it's okay.
Asked some other things just the case. So that was a good interview yesterday.
People said a lot of reactions. Just just another dude who sounded just
like a dude. Yeah, you know, he won't who you could tell
wants to be here? Yeah? Actually I got a friend of mine got
upset because he didn't know that Brandon was going to be on the show,
and he was upset he wasn't listening the podcast we have about I don't know
the numbers actually, and you you might know him or not. But as
many people who listen to us right now in life listen to us on the
podcast, you know, they do say no, yeah, no, they
do. They have to yeah, two and two, so we got four,
that's not true. The thousands they got help Yeah, yeah, it's
kind of nice. Yeah, and people listen to our that's cool. That's
cool. So Henry, you're done, right, we have you want to
go. We got about a minute, but we can get Cory A.
Butcher. We got Corey Williams four minutes, so that's a right. Yeah,
let's hit the road. We're going to come back and we'll have Corey
Williams and we'll pick around some of the basketball news of the day, so's
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This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports
fourteen fifty. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio WIP just Surgeon I
on the Bar. Hey, welcome back to our the Ball here on Fox
Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. He's Jacob Zaws. Now on the
phone. We have former UBAB basketball player Corey Williams. Corey, how you
doing. I'm doing pretty good. How about yourself? We're doing well.
We wanted to talk to you about a few things on in your camps that
they're going with our camp, but your league is going on right now.
We'll get to that in a second, but first up, let's talk about
the Hurdy situation. You cover college basketball for ESPN and a number of other
people. What were your thoughts that he was gonna leave and then decided not
to leave. Well, I felt like he shouldn't take that job. I
think anytime college coaches go to the pros, it's always the tricky situation.
It's to completely do for an animal. Success at one level does not guarantee
success at another. But I felt like the Laker offered the Laker job in
particular was a setup. I mean, Lebron's there, Ads there, Polinka
is there, Genie Buss is there. There's four people who outrank you walking
in the door. I don't think you leave Yukon for a situation like that.
I don't think the Lakers are going to perform any better than they did
this season, so you're just setting yourself up to be the scapegoat. In
my opinion, everything would be blamed on him. He's the first year coach
with zero years of experience. No matter what Lebron says, he's larger than
life in LA and you're just going to be part of the circus that is
the Los Angeles Lakers. And I didn't think coach Danny Hurley has had all
that success to become that type of situation didn't make sense. Yeah, well,
your thoughts on I want you to ask the question because you talked about
area we're talking about he's already coaching prob right, And this was an interesting
take. Geno Arima was on Dan Patrick Show the other day and you know,
talking to him. It was funny because there was that at the time
that the news came out that Hurley was, you know, talking to to
the Lakers, and he said he kind of was encouraging him, kind of
saying, look, we're not coaching amateurs anymore in college, We're coaching pros.
So why wouldn't you go coach pros who know how to be pros?
Because the pros that they're coaching are eighteen to twenty two years old, whereas
you know, these guys who are the Lakers or whoever you know, they're
pros who have kind of been around and know what it's like to be a
pro and how different it's become. He said, because make no mistake,
we're coaching pros now, is what he said. Well, I would ask
coaches, you know rim Or why he hasn't gone to the pro ranks,
And the reason that he hasn't is because he's lord and master in stores Connecticut.
He would never leave that job to go to the w NBA where players
can listen to you or are not listen to you, where player salaries dwarf
your own end, and they have all the leverage with the administration and the
front office. So while it's interesting that he would give that advice that he
hadn't followed himself, I would be in Coach Hurley's years saying, look,
don't go to the Lakers. If you want to become an NBA coach.
Fine, but that is a dumpster fire. You're not going to receive any
credit that the team plays well. You receive all the blame that the team
plays poorly. You're going from being in total control at Yukon to the media
capital of the world and being one of the most visible spots in a franchise
that has been I won't say chaotic, but they haven't exactly been stable.
Apart from the win and the championship in the Bubble, Lebron stay in LA
has not been great. So while that is good advice to go coach pros,
I think that situation, and especially the low ball offer from the Lakers
was pretty much a little bit above being disrespectful. To be honest with you
the money they tossed at him was not good enough for him to upflute and
pretty much burn down everything he built in Connecticut because you gotta magic. He
takes that job. Players want out of their commitments, everything comes crashing down.
It's e leaves Connecticut. So Greenberg tell them also about Greenberg because I
don't want to get this wrong either, where if he was going to go
to the world, Like, yeah, Mike Greenberg lost his mind talked about
he said something along the lines of if Dan Hurley goes to the Lakers,
it's the end of college athletics as we know it. And I'm like,
come on, no, I think that's a lot of hyperbole, and you
know, Greeney gets paid to be bombastic, but it does signal something.
I mean, when the big boys want to play where you're playing, they
simply come in and you have to move out. And that's the way it's
always been. When NBA teams come calling with NBA pay rolls, a lot
of college coaches can't resist. You've seen coaches flirt with the NBA and and
go back. So the amount of money that they can offer is alluring.
But I think for a lot of guys your personality matters. And if you're
a guy who doesn't mind being sitting at the big desk calling all the shots,
being in control, that comes at a price. And if somebody wants
you to go from being number one to number four, then they've got to
pay you an awful lot of money to come out to LA and be number
four and be the media punching bag. And they didn't offer him that much
money to make that type of decision. So, you know, is at
the end of college basketball? I don't think so. I think college basketball
will return to normalcy here in the fall of next year, when the schools
can bring Nil back in house, things will start to kind of realign.
But the problem that college basketball has and has nothing to do with Nil,
well actually does in a way. They have totally neutered and made irrelevant at
the college coach. They have weakened the position of the college coach to a
point where, to a certain degree, you're right, he is just standing
there on the sidelines. He doesn't have any authority. He doesn't he's not
allowed to coach and develop young men. And I hate to use a word
like leverage, but college coaches have been stripped of their leverage with this new
environment, and it's very difficult to coach young people if you don't have any
leverage or anything of substance that you can can hold to them to try to
get them to be the players that you need them to be. Totally agreed,
I didn't saying that forever, Corey. If you're the coach, how
are you going to tell ex player who's making quarter of a million, a
half a million, whatever number you want to give me, and say,
go work your butt off and work to hustle and all that when the coach,
I got this, Yeah, right, Well, well the formula is
right under our noses when you look at coach of thea Arms. She took
over the Arizona job and she had nothing. She had be covered with bear.
She didn't have she didn't have a great run a great she wasn't inheriting
a blue blood program, and within a couple of short years she was playing
for the national championship. And one of the things that she did is she
understood that she had to go out and sell a vision when she talked to
recruits. She didn't have stat she didn't have Final four rings, she didn't
have national championships. She went in delivery rooms and all across the country and
recruited off a vision and she told each girl how that girl fitted into the
vision that she had, and she was able to land some good recruits and
turn the program around in record time. And I think as a college coach
now, if you don't connect with players in a real way and really align
yourself with their dreams and their vision and sell them on their vision, which
includes playing for you, you're not going to be very successful. Because right
now it's the wild wild West. Whoever offers the most money gets the kid.
The relationships don't matter, and you're seeing the effects in the transport portal.
There's so many kids happen from school to school because there is no connection,
there is no joined cause between that coach and that player. A lot
of times you'll see kids tell their parents, tell their handlers, hey,
this is where I want to be. Work it out. I'm not leaving
coach. So and so that's the coach. That's the new challenge for coaches
is trying to make a connection despite all the money that's flying around out there.
No and that's and that's the that's the tough part as you mentioned,
you know, they hope you're hoping the corral this and it's maybe little by
little, you know, with this, you know, settlement of the of
the of the house lawsuit and all that kind of stuff. But we're still
a long ways from there from this thing being under control, don't you think.
Well, the thing about it when you use the word like control,
we got to be very careful because what we're really talking about is the return
of leverage to the side of the schools. Back then, the schools had
all the leverage. We offer you a four dyear deal. You're an amateur
where your only path to the pros, where your only path to money,
and the school had everything tilted their way. A lot of people like that
model emotionally they want to go back to that model. So now that players
can get paid, it is the most Unamerican thought in the world to try
to regulate the free market. If a guy can make money, then you
let him make money. If a player is if a quarterback or wide receiver
or a point guard can make some money, his value is going to be
based on his talent and how he plays. You can't put the genie back
in the bottle. But what I'm afraid will happen, and this is just
me thinking crazy. Down the line, when everything moves back in house,
you have to have some sort of unionization by the players so that the schools
can then contract with the players. The reason the NBA works is because players
have contracts that they have to honor. Yeah, they can be traded,
but their money is fixed their allegiance for however long a period of the contract.
You don't have to worry about a guy showing up for camp because he's
under contract. Once contract enter into college basketball, things will go back to
normal. But right now, every eight or nine months with the transfer portal,
it's going to be absolute upheaval and chaos because there's no contractual obligations for
these guys, and coaches are literally if even look at Arizona rebuilding the roster
from top to bottom every ten year, every ten months, so twelve months
is insane. So how do we get back to normal. We've got to
have some type of unionization of players that contract with the universities so that a
kid signs with the school that's where he plays if he's going to play Division
one basketball, and then you do have to adopt that kind of a pro
model to give the coaches and the schools some leverage back. But the problem
is that it's good old fashioned price fixing. I mean, what's to stop
ads from sitting around and saying, hey, if you play in this conference,
the most we're playing for a point guard is two hundred grand and they
all agree to that. And now you start to see price sticks in where
schools agree behind closed doors, this is what we're going to spend. And
as long as we all stay in line, we can drive these nil prices
back down to some reasonable numbers. That's my fear. Corey Williams for President
of the it's my vote. Let's just move on because you're depressing me.
You depressing me. I'm covered this a long time, so you must be
Your lifeblood is is doing what you do with the Crest and you and your
ESPN stuff. But one of the fun things you get to do is you
is your camp. You're kind of in the beginning middle stages right now.
How's it going. It's going great, man. I mean I'm spending the
weekend in the gym with middle school kids, boys and girls that love the
game, and it's such a great time in their lives because they like basketball
and they're starting to develop physically, so you start to see the passions meet
with the skill sets and they're learning something new about themselves every weekend, and
they're all positive. It's just you know, lots of high fives and smiles,
handshakes. So it's a great situation to be in. For me,
it's kind of selfish because I remember being that age and loving basketball and playing
as much as I could. So for me, it's just great because I
was I was a kid that grew up in the Midwest and the eighties.
I had a storybook childhood. Tons of adults in our community opened up gyms
and the parks, and there was we could go play anytime anywhere. And
I know that those days are long gone, but we try to create just
a little bit of that down at the TSPL for the kids, come in,
give them a jersey, let them play, and try to make sure
they have fun. Yeah, and how many kids you have, We got
about twelve teams of twelve, so about one hundred and forty one hundred and
forty five years and fluctuated given each weekend with some kids on vacation or going
to play in club tournaments and stuff. But on any given day we probably
got about one hundred and fifteen kids down there in the gym. So let
me say, and you could say, Steve, you're totally wrong, but
I'm assuming that you're having a good time in parts. The older kids are
no longer part of it. And I said this with all sincerity because I'm
sure they give you a lot of headaches. Well that's the thing. I
mean. You take a grown man who gives you money to play in the
league, all of a sudden, he wants to complain about the rest,
the jerseys too type and all of this other stuffcause you're dealing with a dope.
When you're dealing with kids, their mind is just focused on the game.
So they are much better customer to have than a grown man who,
you know, may think he's Michael Jordan, or may think he missed this
Shoine at the NBA and he's down there living in a fantasy world. So
we had some we The men's League was awesome. I loved it. We
had the U of A guys mixed with the overseas guys, mixed with the
local two signed guys. It was great. The basketball changed right before our
eyes, guys stopped playing summer hoops. College guys no longer really hoop in
the summer. I mean, the more serious, I should say, the
more money that's come into basketball, the more strategic guys are about how they
train and where they play and trying to avoid injury. So I remember being
in college playing pick up all the time at home. Yeah, I could
have blew my knee during the summer, but we all were playing no matter
what, no matter what school you went to, Doke, Arizona, the
Lenova, Michigan, everybody who pick up in the summer, it's just what
you did. But now guys have an established value coming out of high school.
They don't play pickup ball the summer, and they certainly don't play with
local guys from the city that they go to school in. So our business
model had to change. And really it really makes me sad sometimes because I
know there's a couple hundred guys in this town that really want to play summer
basketball. So we're going to try to work and get it back. But
you're one hundred percent right. The middle school kid is a much better customer
than the grown guys playing at La Fitness, right, right, right,
so we have about two minutes. Correct me. If I'm wrong, there
could be wrong. Back in ninety six, you were a senior. I
remember going to a Desert Classic watching you guys on all that stuff. Did
you meet Jerry West there first at all? And then did you know him?
Well? I never met him. I did see him, and I
was kind of starstruck, and I kind of just try to play it cool,
because you know, at that age you want to you don't want to
be starstrucks. You want to keep a cool point. But I did see
him, but I never did get the chance to meet him. Yeah,
okay, just your thoughts, your reflections. Well, I think basketball players
you're lucky if you have you know, two lives. You have the life
of the player, and then if you're lucky, you can continue to be
involved in basketball after you hang them up. Jerry West had like four basketball
lives as a player, as a coach, as a GM, as an
icon, as on TV, a personality like he is if basketball was an
orange, he got all the juice out of it. He's like Bill Walton
every level of the game, as a player, as a coach, as
an analyst, as a personality, all of famer, like basketball sustained him
and he excelled at every phase of the game. Even when he stopped playing,
he was still an icon in those other areas, you know, And
that's why I do some of the things I do. I love it now,
think for ESPN because it keeps me close to the game. I love
working with the kids because it keeps me close to the game. Jerry West
is every every basketball player's dream is to have his career and his post career
if you're lucky, yeah, and being able to do that. I mean,
he had sixty years in the game, you know, in the NBA,
right, you know, from the mid sixties on to now and just
again, just one of those guys I was saying that, you know,
there's very few of the Jerry West in sports where you know, the their
icons across all sports. You know, whether you're a football fan or a
baseball fan or wherever you knew of and knew about Jerry West. I think
sports fans we all have a radar within us. It doesn't really matter what
what sport we'll watch, and if it's football, baseball, basketball, whatever
fans can sense and when you're talented, when you're tough, nose and you
bring it every night, and that goes for all sports. And he had
that it quality people knew when they watched him play. This guy is all
business. He's a professional from head to toe. He's a competitor, and
I think he garnered the respective people across all sports just off of his demeanor,
his personality, everything I've always seen. He was always a gentleman.
He spoke kind of everybody, from Michael Jordan to Kobe Bryant. He was
truly an ambassador for all sports, not only just the NBA. Right,
Yeah, Corey, thanks a bunch. Thanks appreciate you appreciate it, Corey.
You guys have a great one. Yeah you too, Corey Williams.
Great points on the NC double. We'll get to all that. Yeah,
on the other side, because we're a little there's so many takes, all
yeah, right, and it all makes sense, and a lot of them
makes sense. Well, they ain't gonna happen, honestly, how can it?
It just can't. It's something that happened, right, something that happened.
All right, let's take our last break. We're going to come back.
We'll take your calls. Five two zero, four, one six seventy
four forty any thoughts on Jerry West were any other stuff going on? There's
been lots of talk about to stick around. If you're an Arizona men's basketball
fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now. Take
a look back at the Ludolsen era. In my new book, Lessons from
Loot, it was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty five former
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team security dot net. Steve Rivera and Jacob Salas they have their eye on
the ball on Tucson's Sports Stage chef Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Hey, welcome
back to I'm the Ball Hero, Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. I'm Steve,
He's Jay Henry with us today. We got thirteen minutes if you want to
call us five to two zero four one six seventy four forty who have talked
a lot about a lot of things today, A lot of things to talk
about. Corey's always good feel starter and then I forget what that well,
you know, because he knows about that. It's kind of he does with
with uh uh cresh you know, you know, numbers, numbers, right,
he can tell he spends time, you know, kind of thinking and
analyzing, and you know, he does a good job with you know,
when he when he's doing college basketball. And it's because he does he does
the work, certainly more work than you or I do about any of this
stuff. If it was work, we wouldn't be doing that. But you
know, but he's, you know, just a smart guy with a I
mean, he talked about a lot of stuff that I've thought. Okay,
I hadn't thought of that, and I hadn't thought of that, and I
hadn't thought of that. Well, it's the what was he talking about the
play? The money changed cards? He did with the phrase he used,
uh price, the price? Yeah, yeah, we got he never would
have thought that. All right, let's take this call. Hi are on
the air and on the ball. Yeah, how you guys doing today?
What's going on? Rick? Hey? You know I was just it's it's
been crazy, but I just read word chat walker of his seventy six or
his way back in the sixth, right, he just passed the way.
And you know my age group remember all those guys. But I was talking
with somebody and you imagine of Jerry West if the three point line was in
play, yeah, except I mean it's something made the comment thought that he
was a mid range jumper kind of guy. But I guess he would have
said, yeah, I guess he would have established, you know, become
a three point shooter if he if it was around well, and you know,
we didn't get to watch the NBA was not like it is now or
you get to see it. I mean, everything was stafe, delayed or
not at all. And uh so, but I mean you talked about legends
of basketball, and you know he topped the lists. So let me ask
you Rick, just I don't know your age, although you're a friend of
mine, who would have who is the guy that maybe is still alive that
you saw growing up and you said, wow, you know who was the
guy who was? Well, I remember Jerry West growing up, I remember
wil Chamberlain, Bill Russell, I met you know, all those guys in
the John Hablete those were I mean, those were all staples of the basketball
Connie Hawkins, uh and the old A B A right, you know,
and uh doctor j of the A B A he was I think with the
Kentucky Colonels. I mean, you go back in all those years and now
I'm feeling my age, really, but uh, I was fortunate. I
got to see basketball history being made. And I don't think the kids today
really understand or appreciate what's really in front of them right now. No,
I agree, I agree. Okay, thanks, thanks guys, All right,
thanks? Yeah, good call anybody else want to call him with those
type of memories. Yeah, you know, and again, well, you
know, you know my guy growing up, and he's much older because he
was, you know, on the backside of his career at the same was
Johnny United's, right, you know, in the in the in the sixties.
You know, Johnny he played into the into the early early seventies,
and then I don't even remember when he passed away, but I do remember
thinking, man, that's a guy that you know was important to me,
you know as a kid. Uh you know. And then I mentioned Sandy
Kofax earlier. You know, I would listen. I loved listening to a
game that he pitched because you knew that it won, that it was going
to be, he was gonna be he was going to dominate a game.
And then you know, you just wondered, he's gonna throw another no hitter
today? He ended up throwing four. You bring that up. It's funny
because I don't give him my credentials and stuff like that. With with credentials,
I've only paid a ticket price for like one big dude. I think
we've talked about this, Noel Ryan when I paid fifty bucks for a ticket
back to that and I think I want to see him pitch again. Yeah,
so him in when I was my dad took me to to Anaheim Stadium
in the seventies and I went to He's in Texas obviously, and I,
yeah, my friend of mine said let's go, let's go watch him.
I mean, I don't spend I'm a cheap dude, you know that.
So I went and paid the ticket to see Yeah. And you know,
and then and there are very few guys I'm the same as you. There
are very few guys. I mean, I like going to baseball game and
stuff like that, but there are very few guys that I said, I've
got to go see this game because this guy is in right, well,
I was going to do it with Showy well, yeah, because we I
don't know if I have told this. It's actually a funny story. So
when the day that the day that show Hey got signed by the Dodgers,
you know, we were at a working to a basketball game and it happened
the signing hit social media during the national anthem of a game. Right,
my son testaments got show Hey. All the national anthem is playing. So
anyway, so then we at that at the table that day, we said,
hey, we got to go to one of the games when they come
and play the Diamondbacks, and we also got to go see him in La.
So we got tickets to the Wednesday night game. I remember that with
the with the having Backs. I got sick, so I couldn't go.
So my son Adam goes and he takes a friend of his and Show Hey
didn't play, So I would have been really upset, you know, had
I gone. And it was the first game he sat out for the entire
year. It was a Wednesday night game, you know, get a getaway
game, and he didn't play. So he still hasn't seen him play.
We did go see him as an Angel in Anaheim two seasons ago, and
uh, you know that that was cool. Show he's that guy right now,
right, you're gonna pay money to go go see show Hey play,
you know. For Christmas one a few years ago, I bought my daughter
and Adam tickets to go see Steph Curry up and uh, you know up
in Phoenix and crossed my fingers that he played that day and he did.
You know, he's one of those guys. And and Jerry West was one
of those guys. But there are you know, there are a few guys
like that that that that you would want to go see just to see them
play, right, So we went to see Cincinnati with till a cruise,
you know, yeah, yeah, uh, two three weeks ago. I
think it was but you you had something. You've showed me a picture before
the show started. It was Elie delablehead night in Cincinnati. And how long?
How deep was this? The line was out the door like people all
around Cincinnati. Yeah, yeah for a bubblehead. I don't know if I'd
go crazy for that, but because they're gonna be on sale two days.
Yeah, well I've told I've told George. Minus our showtime cards, guy
said, I, as soon as you can, you need to get me
a show Hey card. I just want a card, any card. Didn't
you have to be a valuable card, Just a show Hey card in a
little case. What say? And he said, to get me one.
And and I want to get one for my grandson. And I want to
put it in his in his room and have it be there until he grows
up and realizes would show hey man to the game. Yeah. So at
some point I got to get that card from George. But you know,
and you know again, a few guys like that. You know, you
you you know you wanted to see some of these places. You know you'd
want to see Aaron Judge, right, Uh, you know, I know
there were some people who wanted to see Barry Bonds, right, not me,
but there were you know, there were a lot of people who would
go to the game Bonds, and I saw him a few times during that
troubled time with some just go up and I don't know how this happened,
but I saw him a few times. And you just see how hard can
these ball guys hit the ball? Yeah, I mean, honestly, sitting
with Fox tickets and blah blah blah, these guys just crushed the ball.
And if you're a third basement your ticket, please don't. I don't want
to get in the way of that. Oh god, no, yeah,
I don't want to get in the way of that. But you know,
show he hit a homer last night, one hundred and fourteen miles an hour
off the bat. One hundred and fourteen miles an hour off the bat.
Yeah, I mean, they they, they they're they're doing a great thing
with baseball. The homeplate umpires wearing cameras on the top of their mask,
and so they showed the angle the pitch coming and then how fast how fast
it left it left O'tanni's bat. I mean, it was just gone in
a heartbeat. And you go and you a human beings do that, you
know right away to Yeah, Like do you like when they show the arm
camp during the game or like when they go to the camp during the game.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's cool. I think it's cool because
if you've ever watched up close a major league pitcher warming up throwing a pitch,
because it's even hard to tell from the seats how hard they throw.
But I remember being at a spring training game where the bullpen was, you
know, just up the first base line, and I just went and stood
at the fence to see how hard. And this was years ago before they
were not throwing a hundred miles an hour, And I'm thinking how fast that
was and how incredible and how how does anybody hit that? But they do,
you know, And I mean, what's his name the guy that throw?
Oh, he played for the Yankees, and yes, or one hundred
and three miles. He threw one hundred and three miles in our pitch.
Yeah, and somebody you hit it a mile? Yeah, that's funny.
How do you do that? I'd be like me waiting for Randy Johnson to
throw. I'd be more scared about being hitting the head than anything else than
getting the ball. These guys throw crazy. Yeah I don't, yeah exactly.
I mean if you stood in the box and that picture is coming at
you, you got no chance. Well, the thing about it, they're
not you or me. They're just not you. We're not They're they're who
they are for a reason. They're getting paid millions for a reason. But
it's like, what was that was that? Uh? Who? Yeah?
I was asking about how do guys? How have guys become hard throwers like
that? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah it was the Francona or who
we're talking to? Yeah, I think so, I remember who we're talking
about. How you're just an average college pitcher now is throwing in the mid
nineties, right right? You know when it when before a great major league
baseball pitcher, Nolan Ryan, he threw high nineties and people were like,
holy hell, you know Nolan Ryan would be average now these days? Yeah,
you know what, And that's crazy to think about that. Yeah,
but their careers are going quickly too, because they're burning out, their arms
are blowing out in in a hurry. Yeah. But nonetheless, you know,
it's it's amazing. You know, I remember somebody, so I heard
a rant. This was years ago, a rant from by Tommy Lesorda when
somebody in the media or I don't know if it was a golfer or whatever,
tried to say that hitting a golf ball was harder than hitting a baseball,
and Tommy went on a rant like, you're out of here exactly.
The ball's not moving, you set it on the tee, you take this
big, big hammer and you just whack it. And they try to hit
a baseball. So you're telling me there's no more Kent to Kolbe's anymore pitching.
Yeah seriously, Yeah, yeah, I mean, but that's not true
though. The walks their Buwer Walker Buwer looks like he weighs about one hundred
and forty pounds and they got there one hundred miles an hour. Huh Okay,
Now he's blowing his arm out twice doing it. But you know the
Dodgers picture, right, Walker Buller. He's a little guy, right.
You know the other guy, the guy looks like Carra top Dustin May right
with the with the with their big red hair. Again, he's all from
Yeah, well, he's bowing his arm out twice too. But you know
some of these guys that they're not that big, and you see them now
the picture of the Dodgers have now Tyler Glass. Now he's six foot six.
He's letting the ball go right on top of you. You know it.
It's and he's throwing one hundred miles an hour. It's crazy. Yeah.
No, these guys are huge, too huge. Like I said,
they're big. Dudes. Are all legs upper body. Can you imagine what
have been like to see Randy Johnson coming at you. Nope, especially if
you're a bird. I couldn't imagine going up to him and saying, can
I give two minutes of your time and insince sorry Son, because that happens
a few times. It was the nice guy. No, it wasn't like
him. He was an old guy. He was no longer in baseball.
Oh yeah, he still playing well because you were on the baseball field,
you were, we were on the golf course. We were at the time
in circumstance, time and circumstances. Hey, he's a pretty good golfer too,
But again, six eleven guy to you know hitting a two iron and
like that couldn't be all that easy. No he is. He's a big
time photographer. Yeah. Yeah, he's actually become quite a personality. Yeah,
he's like talkative and you know, he does interviews and stuff, and
he's like before it was like he's all graduate. He was remembering peanut in
New York. He nailed the photographers taking a picture of it. And I
remember he got very pissed off when he was when when he killed a bird.
He got very pissed off that people are laughing about it. And yeah,
because thought it was cool because I killed a bird. What the hell
it wasn't funny. There's nothing funny about that at all. Funny? Are
you laughing at me? Or? Thanks? Good show today again we pulled
one out. Yeah, a lot of fun. Thank you to Corey Williams
uh for for jumping on and Mark Wicker, legendary sports writer. Uh still,
you know, go look for him on on what's it called Substack Substack
because he's a great writer. I'm sure he's got some cool stuff to say,
and I'm gonna go look him up. I didn't know he was doing
that, so I'll go look him up as well. So hey, thanks
everybody for being here, right Steve, see tomorrow, all right, see
you all tomorrow.