Dodger's on the air on A five seventy today. So Rodney and I Aron
with a bonus content podcast, and we're doing it for you. Yes,
yes, that's why we're going for you. That's right. We know what
you think. We hear it all the time. We're killing it. We're
killing it. Since we're killing it, we thought we gotta we got to
be with you today at least for a little bit. Yeah, we do,
all right. Can I start with something here? Uh, I got
in trouble. I got in trouble. I got in trouble. No,
no, no, stop it, I got in trouble, trouble, I
got in trouble. Oh yeah, I really got in trouble, did you.
That's a that's a I feel for you because that's not a good feeling.
I've been there several times in you know, different situations and you feel
like I'm in trouble. Yeah, I got in trouble. I got in
trouble. Okay, tell me tell me how you got in trouble. Well,
it's the kind of trouble that you've gotten into. Oh, it's the
kind of trouble that you've experienced that you've shared. Okay, I know your
wife listens to the show all the time. Now, and I can raise
the curtain a little bit because sometimes we're in studios. Sometimes we're in different
places. Yeah, well we're in different places. We can see each other,
so people think we're in the studio together. Correct. I can also
see your wife come running in from the door over your shoulder, yes,
right, and I can and I can see her talking to you, or
I can see in a break where you turn your head right and you just
start nodding and acknowledging. I've seen that many times. Correct. All right,
So yesterday I am sitting in the house. I don't know, it's
about six o'clock, maybe a little earlier. My wife, Rachelle says,
hey, you know I heard the show today. I was in the car.
I said, oh, good, good, you know great. Now
she doesn't listen often, because back in the day she would listen all the
time, and she would call me and yell at me. I'm serious.
Today I was working at a ticket today, I said, Dodger Stadium is
a dump and we should blow it up. And then I did a segment
called blow or no Blow. She calls me in a break I pick up.
I think oh, she thinks this is funny. My ears were blistering
after that phone call, because she goes, that's where I grew up.
Those are my childhood memories. What the hell are you talking about? Don't
do that again? All right, no problem, So she says to me,
yeah, I was listening to you guys. I said, oh,
great, good, good good. She goes, what is your problem?
I said, what do you mean? What is my problem? She goes,
what is wrong with you? I said about what? Don't you ever
talk about the Kings like that again? Oh? Yeah, oh my god,
She goes, don't you ever talk about the Kings like that again?
I said, well, I was being honest. She goes, I don't
care. I don't care if you're being honest. I really don't care.
Don't you do it? She was serious. Don't you do it? She
says, I don't care what you say about anyone, anyone, because now
she's upset, right now, she's getting it. I don't even listen to
you, guys. I don't even listen to you, which of course she
does, right, you know, yes, yes, I don't even waste
time with you too. But if I do listen, I do want to
say you ever do that again, And she goes, I am serious,
Fred, and I won't. I won't. She's no, I'm not kidding.
I'm not kidding, and then she said this. She finished with this,
So I may not listen every day to you two, you know,
because now you're in it two. Yeah, of course right now. But
it's your fault too. We're one, we're one. Yes, I may
not listen to you too. But I tell you this, I have people
that to report to me. Uh huh, uh huh. Somebody's listening.
Somebody's listening. I will say, Fred, you know and we all know
that you you you love the Kings, you love hockey, and and we
see your family goes to a lot of the Yeah, they do. And
you've always been a hockey fan and and and a Kings fan. So I
would say yesterday because they you know, we talked about their exit interviews and
what they were talking about and the future of the Kings, and you were
not only verbally but visibly upset and irritated by what you were hearing from the
King's management. I was, And and so from from that standpoint, if
I'm on the other end and I'm a King's fan, and I love my
Kings, and I'm listening to you, especially if you're a family member,
kind of get where she's coming from. Let me trying to get where she's
coming from. Because you came at the Kings yesterday a little bit at him
a little bit, yeah, a little bit, A little bit. You
let him have it a little bit. They did not get a pass yesterday,
and you know what what? All right, let me just say this,
where do we cross the line the trip down the freeway when they were
torrents going to callabasses? Yes, all right, So I can't say another
word. I'm done. Don't you do it? I am You've already been
worn. I have You've been worn. So if you cross that line again
after you've been worn, I'm not doing it. That's a real problem.
Then you're in real trouble. Yeah, well, you know what, so
were you? You didn't do anything. I'm aiding in a bed and I'm
allowing you to do it. You didn't even do anything, and you're in
trouble. Guilty by association, that's me, all right? So uh NBA
playoffs, let's just touch on this. Okay. See last night lou Dort
playing against Dallas Can I tell you quick Blue Dort story? Yeah, because
you know it. You're more intimate with it because he's he played it there
is on a State. Was there for a minute, Okay, So Jack
was there for a minute. And the year they were recruiting lou Dort,
the assistant coach at Rashan Bruno calls me and he says, Hey, we're
recruiting this kid out of Canada, lou Dort. Can you do me a
favor? And I said, what's that? Can you sit on the set
like at NBC in Los Angeles and just say something like, hey, big
news, lou Dort is coming to America and word is he's going to end
up at Arizona State. Okay, So I did it for him, right,
Okay, So they put that in their presentation tape and they get lou
Dort. Now when he gets here, everybody thinks this guy is a complete
stud. And Jack told me last night one time in practice once he had
to play against lou Dort. He said Dort flattened him like a pancake.
He said he was a kid in a man's body. And when I saw
him play at Arizona State, he was yeah, plays football on the basketball
court. Yeah he does. Yeah, you know, so, so anyway,
he plays this one year at a issue. Everybody's excited. They think
he's going to be drafted into the NBA and he's not. He doesn't get
picked. He goes to the draft, Bobby Hurley is there and you can
see the visible disappointment because they're sitting there waiting and he doesn't get picked.
Anyway, he signs a two way deal with Oklahoma City, right, or
he signs a free agent deal with Oklahoma City, and the rest is history.
Once they got a look at this guy and watch him play, and
you always say this, you know, you gotta have some dog in you.
He is the dog, yeah or everybody. Yeah, so once they
saw him, and now they signed him to like a ninety million dollar deal,
right, yeah, so he's the real deal. And going into that
game against Dallas, Lucas said, there's one guy you don't want to defend
you in the NBA one one, and that guy's Lou Dort because he brings
it every night. And boy did we see that last night in that game.
Yeah, you talk about being physical, and you mentioned it because you
gave a little history about what he was in college and a man's body.
He's still that in the NBA, and he plays an aggressive nineteen eighties and
nineties style basketball where he's not afraid to put his hands on he's not afraid
to be physical, he's not afraid to get in your face. And you
know, what he did and how he aggressively played Daunches last night was incredible
and it showed it ended up. I mean, Luca was frustrated, he
couldn't get good shots off. He was limping up and down the courts like
he had been in a heavyweight fight last night. And if going forward is
going to be like that, then Dallas is going to have their hands full.
But he plays so aggressively. And that being said, Fred a lot
of people have been talking about how the refs are swallowing their whistle in the
playoffs. Now, you know, like they've called it one way throughout the
regular season, and now you get to the postseason and they're letting things go
and we're seeing guys act out about it, Guys that normally get calls,
you know, getting frustrated about it. Luca was frustrated last night. A
lot of guys frustrated. Sjamal Murray was frustrated to the point where he threw
thousand heat pads on the court. I could not aren't calling anything. By
the way, I could not believe he was not suspended. I know they
gave him are hundred thousand dollars, Fine, no suspension, that's nothing.
Yeah, that's ridiculous. I was really surprised by that. I'm sorry,
go ahead, and I just had to say that. And I'm not you
know, no, on that topic. I'm not for guys getting suspended,
especially in the playoffs. You know, you want to be at full strength.
You want to see teams at their full strength. But that what he
did, throwing something on the court, that's unacceptable. That's unacceptable for the
danger of the guys playing for your own team. It was and it was
an own teammate, Casey p who picked it up and threw it off.
I imagine if he steps on it and rolls an anchor pulls a groin or
whatever may happen, cannot do that. So yeah, I was shocked that
he didn't get game or two. Here's the thing about the officiating in the
playoffs, and by the way, they're letting it go until they don't.
They're letting it happen until they don't look at the screen. At the end
of the Pacers Knicks game, they're letting everything go until they don't right,
which is a problem though, So how are you gonna call it? And
that's really the question. I like letting the players decide the game. And
honestly, the reason they cleaned it up is because guys are just getting cold
cocked and knocked all around. And I mean it could have turned into brawls
like back in the eighties when the Lakers and Celtics played. But you have
to be consistent in what you do. You have to be You can't sit
there and turn around in the playoffs and go all right, now we're gonna
let it go. We're gonna let you guys decide it. Well, what
does that mean for the regular season the officials decided it, not the players,
what does it mean? And also a problem in the playoffs. And
if you watch the NBA, you know they don't play any defense during the
regular season. Now in the playoffs, everybody plays defense, right, So
now it's going to get physical. Now it's going to get really hard because
they are up on you so and they're going to use their bodies. There's
got to be a consistent way to do it. The problem with the NBA
is the game is so fast and so physical. Where do you draw the
line. Where do you draw the line as an official? Where do you
draw the line as a league? Well? Do you think that there was
an official mandate coming down from Adam Silver or the head of officials saying,
hey, let's let them play a little bit more in the playoffs, So
it became a league wide situation in the playoffs? You think that happened.
I just think that's how they call it in the playoffs. Is an unwritten
rule? You think it's just individual individual groups or individual referee teams got together
and just did their own things that we're going to call it a little bit,
We're not going to call it so tight. I think it's I think
it's the unwritten rule. In the Clipper series against Dallas, in that insanity,
I mean, somebody should have been arrested for what was going on in
that series. Guys are flying all over the place, ramming into each other,
and Kyrie Irving has called for a foul, a foul he committed,
I might add, and he looks up and I remember watching this, he
goes, come on, man, it's the playoffs. Here's the NBA playoffs.
You can't call that now, you can't. You either call it or
you don't call it. Yeah. The flip side of that, though,
is is he may have said that, but they're guys getting away with certain
things. Certain guys play a certain way. James Harden played a certain way,
right, he would get calls, he would force the official to make
calls and force fowls. Luca plays that way. So if you play that
way all season long and you're getting those little tiki tach fowls that you draw
a guy in and you're you know, you're getting a charge or you're getting
a you know, and one, and then those things are not called in
the postseason, then then they become very frustrating to you because like, Okay,
this is the way I played all season long, and now I'm not
getting that call, and it's not always easy for that player to adjust on
the fly in one series, and that seems to be a problem with some
of these guys. I agree with one hundred percent. Yeah, I agree
the playoffs are a different animal, but there needs to be a consistent way
to officiate NBA basketball. You know what, if you're gonna if you're gonna
let it go into playoffs, let it go in the regular season, right,
let it go, let's mix it up a little bit. But if
you're gonna call it during the regular season, you gotta call it the playoffs
too. Yeah, which is better? You think if you had to choose
calling it tight in the regular season and then letting it go in the playoffs
or calling it loose in the regular season and tightening it up in the playoffs,
I know what's easier. The easiest thing to do is call it tight
all the way through. You don't have that option. I'm giving you two
options, because they're they're doing it now. They're calling it loose, looser
in the in the playoffs than they did in the regular season. Would you
rather them call it loose all season long and then when the playoffs hit,
let's call it tight. Or we're calling it tight all season long and then
the playoffs we're gonna let you play. All right. So if those are
my only two options, yes, all right, I'm gonna take the second
one. Let them play in the playoffs. Yeah, if those are my
only two options. The reality is you gotta call it the same way all
the time. So it's how you adjusted the regular season, That's what this
is. How are we gonna call the regular season? We're gonna let them
go, then we're gonna let them go. If you let them go,
it's so much more difficult to officiate the game because all the lines are blurred.
What is a foul? What isn't a foul? Right? You know?
And then it really comes down to how hard you hit somebody? Yeah?
Right, yeah it does. It's like are you calling baseball? Are
you calling the outside pitch or you're not calling the outside pitch? What are
we doing? And then you get to the playoffs and then I giving it
to you, right, you know, it's it's similar. You gotta be
consistent. But that's the hard part. And I don't know, and I
like you said, it's unwritten rule, but I think there's in conversations in
back alleys and before games, officials get together and say, hey, we're
gonna let him play to night. We're gonna let him play to night.
Let's let's see if it's closed, let it go, you know, And
guys are going into the game thinking I'm gonna get this call I'm gonna draw
four fouls on so and so and get him fouled out and that doesn't happen.
You know, that made me think I know an NFL official. I
know a couple, but I was talking to one. I cannot use his
name, all right, because that would be bad. Yeah, all right,
yeah, don't do it. A referee, a referee. And he
was telling me that when he sits down with his crew, he basically tells
him this is not going to be flagg day out here. Yeah, let
him know, let him play, Let him play. If it's egregious,
go for it. If not, I don't want to see a hundred flags
out here, everybody turning around on throwing your flag. Let these guys play.
And he told me he has that meeting with his crew. He's a
veteran. He has that meeting with his crew before every game. Does he
ever go the other way? I mean he says every time, hey,
let them play. I don't want to see a hundred flag? Got there?
Or does he say these two teams are very aggressive, they don't like
each other. Let's say let's tighten it up. They send a message early
on. You know, he never said he did that. But he works
a lot of playoff games. I mean, he's a big time and he
said it was working a game. And you know that's an all star crew.
That's not his crew, right, it's the highest graded people. So
it's a new crew. So he has the conversation before the game and he
says, all right, guys, you know, here's how we kind of
like to do it. Let's do our jobs today. Let's get out there.
But I don't want to see this be flag day. He told me
one guy and the crew probably threw five flags in the first half. He
told me, so, one guy, I think five flags on the first
half. They sit down at halftime, he walked up to the guy,
goes, what are you doing? What are you doing? What is this?
Why do you keep throwing flags? I mean, if it happens,
call it, But if I mean, this is ridiculous, stop let them
play. And I thought that was really interesting that that was. And this
one guy, every time he turned around was throwing his flag. I mean,
it's like he's in the playoffs and this is big for him. Yeah,
I'm doing I'm gonna make my name today. And he throws the flag.
So he had to talk him to at halftime. Did he change his
tune a little bit in the second half or no, he said there weren't
as many flags. I'll put it like that. No, I bet I'm
gonna have to talk to this guy. I bet going into halftime it's like,
and didn't I just have that conversation with these mother you know what I
mean? And now the guy's throwing twenty flags. He thinks he's on TV
because his grandma's gonna see him or somebody's gonna see him. Come on,
I have a conversation with that guy. The other reps are looking at him,
going, what are you doing? Can you imagine? Yeah, you
know, it's like the guy in the NBA game, and I love in
the NBA, where you know somebody will obviously miss one, obviously, and
the way they officiate, they look at zones of the court right, you
look left, you look right, I'll look over here, you know,
So if something happens in the zone you're you're not watching, maybe you didn't
see it. I gotta tell you, I think about sixty percent of the
time you do, but you don't call it. You don't call it because
it's not your zone. And I know those guys, you know, they
see it. They see it. Yeah, I mean sometimes wait, they're
waiting for the other person to call it, and if he doesn't call it,
he's that's exactly right, you know on your toes. But man,
you call that right, You got to call that. And the NBA.
The other thing is they really don't ask for help. They only ask for
help with the balls out of bounds. That's it, that's right. You
know you would think that that that with three officials and so much going on,
that they would ask for help more. But you're right. The only
time you see them look at each other is when the balls out of bounds?
Which ways are going? Who's got it right? And they teach you
in these referee clinics, because I saw one one time with guys that wanted
to go to Division one college basketball. So they they send them out there
in groups and they start working these games. You know, there are scrimmage
games and stuff. Do you know if you and and somebody got downgraded and
lost a chance to work Division one because of this? Do you know if
you see a call that the guy misses or he makes, and you know
it's wrong, and you show any kind of expression like you know, just
your face the slightest thing. Yeah, you're downgraded, Really, you're downgraded.
Yeah, I saw a guy hill the other guy up. Don't show
the other guy up. You can't do it. You're like a mummy.
You can't do anything. Wow. That is one thing to be, you
know, talk to afterwards, but to be downgraded because you make a gesture
I have an expression on your face. Wow, that's a little much.
And the guy that got downgraded flinched the slightest bit. If you weren't staring
directly at him, you would have never seen it. But they were staring
directly at him, right, And I heard the conversation and cameras going on,
Yeah, it's like, so you can't do that, all right?
Max Munsey Grand Slam last night, still on a tear boy. He is
on fire. He is on fire and Grand slamming the first. This team
We're gonna find ourselves saying this very often this whole season. Fred is that
this team And we've said this before, they got so many ways to beat
you, but man, it is you don't know where it's coming from.
That's the thing. You don't know where it's coming from. Who's gonna be
hot tonight, and it's because it's gonna be somebody. Somebody's gonna have a
hot hand, if not more than one. Scary. This lineup very scary.
And then you got Yamamoto pitching like he did well. He's still not
at his best. See here's the thing about Yamamoto, and it's really interesting
in my mind. I don't know how Dodger fans feel about it. And
we talked about it a little bit on the show the other day. Oh
Tani, he's not a look at me guy. He's just not mm hmm.
I mean he is having a spectacular start to his season in the most
unassuming, don't look at me way. And we said at the beginning that
there's an expectation who's gonna play well. I mean, the guy's playing out
of his mind. But that's how he plays. If you watch him with
the Angels, you knew that that's how he plays. So so he is
having this unassuming monster start to a season. Ya, I'm a Moto is
the exact same way. Yeah. Yeah, he got beat up in Korea
and he got slapped around in spring training. Now look at him just quietly
moving along, just keeps going. No look at me. I mean last
night, now granted he was pitching against Miami, Yeah, but still eight
he went eight, He went eight innings. Yeah, I mean, he's
just just motoring along solid. Only two mistakes, you know, lead off
hitter and then you know what happened in the third or whatever, another home
run. But other than that, he was lights out. He was lights
out, and he's pitching with so much confident But you're right, it's not
a a look what I'm doing. It's like, this is what I'm supposed
to do. I'm gonna do it, do my job. I just show
up and go to work, show up, go to where he's the Dodgers.
They all get to the office at nine, nine am with their briefcases.
They sit out, they just do their thing, and they're out at
five. Yeah, see you tomorrow, everybody. I'm I'm talking in the
morning exactly, and they all fall fall in line. You know. I
think it's you know, look, we we we we get to know these
guys and we're we're happy for him. We were sad for him when they're
in slumps. You know, we were talking about James Outman and then him
breaking out. Hitting the home run was a big deal. Gavin Lux hit
one yesterday was a big deal because he had a slow start to the season.
He's starting to pick it up a little bit, but you're rooting for
him, and you just know that up and down this lineup, no matter
who they put in there, it's a scary lineup for the opponents because you're
never you can never relax if you're the opposing team, especially if you're an
opposing pitcher. Mm hmm. You cannot roll under any circumstance. No,
yeah, you relax. It's a grand Slam to Max Muntsey, Yeah you
relax. And Tiasca Hernandez is hitting a three run home run. You know,
you can't ever relax against this lineup. I look up and they got
runners on and Gavin Lux is doing this thing, and oh wait, Mookie's
on deck again. It doesn't feel like Mookie Betts is on deck like twenty
five times a game, I know. And how about lu shetting Hallways on
deck? And how about like shitting home run last night? Yes, yes,
it's big, big. You know, like I said, we root
for these guys that are struggling early. Now they're starting to come around.
And seven eighth nights, which we talked a lot about early in the season
in April six seven, eighth ninth hitters were not pulling their weight. Well,
they start getting going. Man is nowhere to hide in this lineup.
Long season earlier, we saw the bottom of the order not hitting, and
you know, you're like, oh God, what's going to happen. Well,
here's what's going to happen there. Everybody's going to go through cycles.
Hopefully the top three cycle up most of the time, but everybody's going to
go through cycles and peaks and valleys. And what you're hoping is with nine
guys, six of them are good at some point or another in that lineup,
because then you got it. So the bottom half struggled. Now the
bottom half is good. You put pie Has in there, picked it right
up. Jason Hayward will be back soon. Yep, yeah it is.
There's no weaknesses, no weakness because you know you like you said you normally
and a lot of teams like, okay, I get those you know through
three hitters, and these are the three bad boys on that team. I
can I'm safe for the next six Yep. Here you're not, yep,
I mean, and we another quiet guy then not a me. Guys.
Will Smith, he's sitting there hitting number four, right, and you can't
really say top three anymore because you got to really say top four because he's
the best hitting catcher in the league and he's got so much offense and potential
that you can't you can't fall asleep on him, and so you can't get
through the top three of the line up and go, Okay, we're good,
now, I can I can kind of rest a little bit. No,
you still got Will Smith, you got Max Munsey, you got Anders,
you know, you got Gavin Lexis on now you got Paz. I
mean, there's nowhere to hide in this lineup. No, And you know,
Dodger fans whole they keep it going. They'll wrap it up against the
Marlins and then they'll they'll move on and Rodney. As we wrap up today,
may I please share a fun fact? Yes, just as we wrap
up the Bonus Content podcast. Theodore Roosevelt had a pet hyena named Bill.
He also had other pets, a one legged rooster, a badger, a
pony, and a small bear m hyena. He did that named Bill,
name Bill, and then then attacked the rooster, not to my knowledge.
Okay, not to my knowledge. There's your fun fact of the day,
Theodore Roosevelt. I had no idea. Well, that's why we're here.
I'm pondering that thought. That's why we kill it. Yeah, we have
stuff that other people don't. Right off, Freddy, all right, that's
it for the Bonus Content podcast. We appreciate you listening, and we'll talk
to you again tomorrow.