Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue Insider. Dick Gabrielle with you
Speaker 1: on a Friday edition of a program. It is a
Speaker 1: special edition because the Chain Gang is here. They are
Speaker 1: on deck waiting in the garage. They will join us
Speaker 1: after the next break. Doug Flynn, Keith Madison, the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame UK coach Doug of course, my broadcast partner
Speaker 1: on UK Baseball on the SEC Plus, and the radio
Speaker 1: voice of the Wildcats, Darren Hedrick, who may or may
Speaker 1: not be finished for the season. We'll find out Monday,
Speaker 1: starting at noon. That's when the Baseball Selection Show is.
Speaker 1: We'll find out if the Wildcats are going to be
Speaker 1: in the tournament. They could have helped themselves so much
Speaker 1: down the stretch, but instead, well, they lost, of course,
Speaker 1: all three against Vanderbilt. They lost their only game in
Speaker 1: the SEC tournament, so now they're back kind of teetering,
Speaker 1: although Darren has been pretty confident from everything he's heard
Speaker 1: and read that the Wildcats are not only not on
Speaker 1: the bubble, but they're safely in. So we'll get his
Speaker 1: opinion on net. But we'll find out for certain on
Speaker 1: Monday afternoon. But we will talk about a lot of
Speaker 1: other things other than UK baseball with the Chain Gang
Speaker 1: coming up, including music we always do. If you've heard
Speaker 1: the Chain Gang, you know that they select walk up
Speaker 1: music that I supply through my little equipment here in
Speaker 1: the garage. And then we talk some music, because all
Speaker 1: of these guys are music, especially Keith Madison, which might
Speaker 1: surprise you being a Hall of Fame baseball coach, but
Speaker 1: he is a real real music wonk of all kinds.
Speaker 1: Doug and Darren of course kind of straight toward country music.
Speaker 1: I'm all over the map myself, but coach is a
Speaker 1: big it has a very eclectic taste in music. So
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that tonight with all three of them
Speaker 1: and play some music. I will tell you this now.
Speaker 1: If you're listening via podcast, we appreciate that, but you're
Speaker 1: not going to hear the music because there are copyright
Speaker 1: laws in place. We can no longer play contemporary music.
Speaker 1: Whatever music you might via the podcast is generic. There
Speaker 1: are no rights fees involved. So if you're listening via
Speaker 1: Apple or Spotify, whatever, we cannot play the music. You'll
Speaker 1: get a separate, separately edited edition. But if you're listening
Speaker 1: on the radio, again, which we appreciate and we generally
Speaker 1: replay the Chain Gang shows on a best of situation
Speaker 1: which I will later on in the summer. You'll hear it.
Speaker 1: So I always think it's the entertaining one of the
Speaker 1: many entertaining parts of the Chain Gang and their contributions
Speaker 1: to the Big Blue Insider. A couple of news notes
Speaker 1: before we hit the break and listen to these guys.
Speaker 1: College football playoff. The folks in charge made a decision
Speaker 1: on Thursday. The conference commissioners voted to go to a
Speaker 1: straight seating format. Five spots still reserved for conference champions
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five. But it's not going to be
Speaker 1: like it was last year, when clearly the seating was off.
Speaker 1: There were blowouts, there were teams that got buys that,
Speaker 1: in terms of how good they were or not, didn't
Speaker 1: deserve it. But if you looked at last year's playoff
Speaker 1: seating with this year's new format, Penn State, Oregon, Texas,
Speaker 1: and Georgia would have gotten the buys. SMU would not,
Speaker 1: Indiana would not, Boise State would not have gotten a buy.
Speaker 1: So you kind of saw that coming, didn't You Have
Speaker 1: One other note, we're gonna talk SEC baseball coming up.
Speaker 1: One of the best pitchers ever in the SEC Paul
Speaker 1: Skeens now Pittsburgh Pirates, their GM says, no way are
Speaker 1: we gonna trade that guy? The chain gags next in
Speaker 1: six thirty w a p. Now we get together every
Speaker 1: night on text messaging. I think Darren Europe to where
Speaker 1: you're staying up the latest, I think.
Speaker 2: That probably yeh.
Speaker 3: By the way, at the time I got, I'm up
Speaker 3: there and I'm working on my little iPad and looking
Speaker 3: all right, it's time to go to sleep. Put that
Speaker 3: thing down. I've been a good sleeps. Lights go on
Speaker 3: and everything, and Darren's words go on, Well the pad
Speaker 3: come okay, cifications at night?
Speaker 2: So I need help. You need to help me do that?
Speaker 4: Well, I need help on I have two chain gang groups.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you need to do that.
Speaker 4: I don't know. But somebody's got any fixed fault, isn't
Speaker 4: it probably? Or is it Key's faulty?
Speaker 1: Find a twelve year old. They'll fix your phone for you.
Speaker 4: So some of some of y'all's messages I get. Some
Speaker 4: of the I don't get.
Speaker 3: I mean, we don't send you a lot of them too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one we're talking about you, we leave you
Speaker 1: out and we're talking about you. You don't get on yeah,
Speaker 1: but uh yeah, so we we decide we get together
Speaker 1: in the garage. Many of you have heard it. I've
Speaker 1: gotten a lot of comments, which we appreciate. People enjoy
Speaker 1: the chain gang, and we talk as much music as
Speaker 1: we do sports, and and we talk about of course
Speaker 1: personal experiences and and Doug. I was thinking about you. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm always thinking about Doug. But earlier today my broadcast
Speaker 1: partner on TV. But I saw a couple of guys
Speaker 1: talking on the interweb telling stories about gloves, and apparently
Speaker 1: Nick Allen of the Pirates breaks in and uses one
Speaker 1: new glovey year. Did you do that or did you
Speaker 1: keep you kept yours going? I thought you told me
Speaker 1: about that the last one. I used it for the
Speaker 1: last seven years.
Speaker 3: Wow ye. And I mean it's got tape on it
Speaker 3: and I had to have it stitched up and everything.
Speaker 3: Once you get a glove, I mean, I wasn't gonna
Speaker 3: make any money with my bat, so I better take
Speaker 3: care of my glove. So once you get that fix
Speaker 3: the way you want it, you don't want to And
Speaker 3: you know what always gets me pictures. I feel like
Speaker 3: they got to take around balls like you would come
Speaker 3: over and grab my glove. And now that you put
Speaker 3: that big paw of theirs in there, it's all stretched
Speaker 3: down a whack. But yeah, I would get four gloves
Speaker 3: a year from back in those days. They'd give me four,
Speaker 3: and i'd give them. I'd have my spare glove. You
Speaker 3: got four, You're not gonna let me borrow one night. No,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna give it. I've given you a new one.
Speaker 3: But don't be messing with my gamer.
Speaker 1: It's not bad form, bad baseball form to grab somebody else's.
Speaker 2: Grab somebody else's bad. Oh.
Speaker 3: But you know, back in the day when we were
Speaker 3: coming up, I mean you didn't have your selection of
Speaker 3: bats and gloves. You had a glove and a bat,
Speaker 3: and so you were if you saw something loose, you're
Speaker 3: gonna grab it, right.
Speaker 2: Keith, That's right? Yeah, and I grab yours.
Speaker 3: So anyway, but I do to give those four away
Speaker 3: to the minor league kids, and then i'd keep I
Speaker 3: had my spare I take in field with, and I
Speaker 3: had my game glove.
Speaker 4: Well did you do you still have that glove? They
Speaker 4: still have it? Last seven years?
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: Got they said that.
Speaker 3: I retired en after the gold glove, and then I
Speaker 3: used another one my last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Well, see, and you told me that before, and I
Speaker 1: would have thought you might have kept that because it
Speaker 1: was the gold glove glove.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was. It was a little nappy, it
Speaker 3: was dip it.
Speaker 4: And I still have my little league glove no way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have like a mitten. It's like it's got
Speaker 2: a big thumb. I remember.
Speaker 3: So, hey, this is true. I went to a baseball
Speaker 3: camp one night and these little kids were there, and
Speaker 3: some of them didn't have gloves, and so I took mine,
Speaker 3: and I told this little kid, where's your glove. I
Speaker 3: don't have one here. He used mine. He looked me too,
Speaker 3: little nine year old kid.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got my my little league glove, my high
Speaker 4: school glove. I've got one of the gloves I used
Speaker 4: when I played in the miners.
Speaker 2: And and then.
Speaker 4: I've got a UK glove that was given to me
Speaker 4: because I threw batting practice a lot back in the Yeah,
Speaker 4: I remember, but I just saved it by the way.
Speaker 3: He threw lousy batt and he couldn't throw the ball
Speaker 3: straight right. He throws sinkers, clutters and everybody's going to
Speaker 3: tea just we just went bad practice, trying to get
Speaker 3: guys out. But what I mean, what are they gonna
Speaker 3: see in the game. That's why it's not pitching practice.
Speaker 3: It's batting practice. I know, but you don't.
Speaker 1: But then they go into a game with bad confidence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I couldn't hit and bat in practice. I can't in
Speaker 1: the game.
Speaker 3: We can't hit that old guy out there.
Speaker 1: We go let these young guys out here doing Darren,
Speaker 1: what's your glove story.
Speaker 2: I don't really have one. I mean, I had a
Speaker 2: glove when I was little, but I still have it somewhere,
Speaker 2: but I didn't play you know, any high level organized baseball.
Speaker 2: I've still got it laying around. Yeah, yees, sometay. I
Speaker 2: want to be like Doug when I grow up.
Speaker 1: So I had I had a glove that I loved
Speaker 1: thirty years. It was, you know, just what I need,
Speaker 1: and I wore it out, literally, I mean the pocket itself.
Speaker 1: So I go to go to buy a new glove
Speaker 1: and you know, you save your money, your paper out
Speaker 1: money or whatever, and I just could not make it.
Speaker 1: Finally bought it and didn't like it. I couldn't get
Speaker 1: it broken in, couldn't stand it. I guess that was
Speaker 1: I was probably thirteen fourteen, and I came home one
Speaker 1: day and my dog gets showed it up. Oh no,
Speaker 1: the dog thought I'd you mad. The dog was cowering
Speaker 1: in the corner and seeing I had spent this money,
Speaker 1: and I could not justify not using the glove because
Speaker 1: I spent my money. When the dog shooted up like
Speaker 1: good boy, I get to go buy a new one.
Speaker 1: And I kept that one for twenty years. So, uh,
Speaker 1: Nick Allen, According to the story, Sorry, I've got to
Speaker 1: hang on.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I know Nick Allen.
Speaker 4: Is that Dick Allen's brother, got it? It's Mel Allen's brother, Richard.
Speaker 4: Don't call me Dick Allen. Yeah, Dick, don't call me Richard.
Speaker 1: All Right, here we go. Not only does does he
Speaker 1: get a new one every year, but he won't use
Speaker 1: it in BP and warm ups and things.
Speaker 2: Were you the same way?
Speaker 1: It was game only.
Speaker 3: H after so many years? Yeah, yeah, so you had
Speaker 3: to you had one. You go out from VPN and
Speaker 3: you were still trying to break that one in as
Speaker 3: much as you could. And the the leather was pretty
Speaker 3: good back then. You know, it lasted a long time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I still have it. I got it. It's and it's
Speaker 3: amazing how it looks. But I looked at guys. I
Speaker 3: remember Bill Mazeroski. I got a chance to see his
Speaker 3: glove one time. He'd walk out through the field. He'd
Speaker 3: have it rolled up like a paper towel in his
Speaker 3: back pocket and bring that thing out. It was so flat,
Speaker 3: and you it's very rarely. Will you put on somebody
Speaker 3: else's glove for me? Yeah? And say what that feels good?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Because you had your own hands and everything. You broke
Speaker 3: it in the way you wanted and so yeah, just
Speaker 3: I mean, I still love the smell of it too.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, you know. Uh. George H. W. Bush's
Speaker 2: baseball glove is on display at his presidential library, the
Speaker 2: one that he used at Yale.
Speaker 3: Really you can see it. I offered mind to the
Speaker 3: Reds and the Met's Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: They went, no, thank you, And your name is.
Speaker 2: What.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite writers still is Dave Kind and
Speaker 1: Kendred wrote a book called Glove Stories, and it was
Speaker 1: just a collection of great baseball stories. And he's the
Speaker 1: guy who in retirement started covering a middle school girls
Speaker 1: basketball team up in his hometown in Illinois. And on
Speaker 1: Facebook post stories. But he was such a great baseball
Speaker 1: in golf. I mean he's a great writer, yes, But
Speaker 1: he keeps his high school myth. He played high school
Speaker 1: baseball second base, and he keeps his mitt with a
Speaker 1: ball in it next to his computer. He used to
Speaker 1: be his typewriter. And when he needed to think about
Speaker 1: you know, what's what was he going to say if
Speaker 1: he was, you know, locked up on something, he get up,
Speaker 1: put the glove on, walk around. That's right, coach, and
Speaker 1: just take a baseball and just you know, slam it
Speaker 1: into his glove. I mean, what what better therapy? Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah. The way they make gloves now is really good
Speaker 3: because when we got them around the hill, there would
Speaker 3: be a lot of padding in the heel of the glove, yes,
Speaker 3: and so you'd have to take a bat and sit
Speaker 3: there and pound it and pound it and pound it
Speaker 3: and pound it down because we weren't smart enough to
Speaker 3: unlace it and take it out. Today they just don't
Speaker 3: put it in there anymore. It's so it's flat, which
Speaker 3: is good because a lot of balls hit off of
Speaker 3: that part of the glove. Now it's all flat, and
Speaker 3: glu gloves are really nice now, Oh, they certainly are.
Speaker 1: Where did I read that Bill Mazeroski's glove. Really it
Speaker 1: was about the size of his hand.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit it was flat though. Oh really, Yeah,
Speaker 3: he just he'd wind that thing up like a paper towel,
Speaker 3: put it in his back pocket and go out. And uh.
Speaker 3: Then you look at his video because when he played,
Speaker 3: a lot of guys will form their gloves, you know,
Speaker 3: certain ways. It was almost like flat and uh.
Speaker 1: But he just gave more control.
Speaker 3: I guess, well, it's good for a double play, because
Speaker 3: we know a double play. You just the ball didn't
Speaker 3: really touch the very long but he had a way
Speaker 3: he folded and catch the ball that was off to
Speaker 3: the side.
Speaker 1: But I saw Ozzy Smith explaining as an old clip
Speaker 1: from I guess the Baseball Bunch or something like that.
Speaker 1: But Johnny Bench how he saw another player do this
Speaker 1: and developed that knack for not even holding the ball
Speaker 1: in his MIT when the buck he would just sort
Speaker 1: of accept the ball with his MIT and almost instantaneously
Speaker 1: switch it over to his throwing hand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you practice, I mean when you're just passing, and
Speaker 3: you tell young kids today, if you're just throwing work
Speaker 3: on that, work on really exchange. That's where you learn
Speaker 3: to do it. You know, you get your exchange while
Speaker 3: you're out there just playing them when the game comes.
Speaker 3: Ozzie Smith had the greatest pregame workout routine that I
Speaker 3: ever saw of any baseball player. Yeah, and I'm talking
Speaker 3: about ground balls. I mean it was short hops, backhand,
Speaker 3: short hops to the glove side. He'd back up and
Speaker 3: take some he turned double plays and when you watched him,
Speaker 3: you're going, that's pretty special.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had a plan.
Speaker 3: He had a plan.
Speaker 1: Well, we are talking to the chain gang here in
Speaker 1: the garage, and when we come back, we'll talk more baseball,
Speaker 1: specifically Kentucky baseball. Up next. Hearing the Big Blue and
Speaker 1: Sider six thirty WLAP.
Speaker 2: I was ready to get up and walk around the
Speaker 2: room like Mick Jagger with you.
Speaker 3: Oh you've got let me get my phone ready for the.
Speaker 1: Satisfaction was number thirty one on the Rolling Stones five
Speaker 1: hundred Greatest Songs of All Time. And it was kind
Speaker 1: of controversy. You remember that came out. Yeah, you guys
Speaker 1: are a little bit older, Yeah, but uh yeah.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: It was part of the movement.
Speaker 2: You know, the Stones were igy, Yeah back in those days.
Speaker 4: Now they're just like another rock band, another eighty.
Speaker 1: Still going strong brother. Yeah. Uh, we were talking about,
Speaker 1: of course, of course baseball as always, but Darren, you
Speaker 1: you kind of suggested that song as it reflected UK
Speaker 1: baseball this year. Everything. It was just not as satisfying
Speaker 1: last year, obviously, right, But that's kind of unfair to
Speaker 1: try to see if it could live up to last
Speaker 1: year given.
Speaker 2: All the personnel loss doubt.
Speaker 1: Still, it just seemed like they were and they still
Speaker 1: are alive as we speak, but always on the verge.
Speaker 1: They didn't quite break through. We thought they did a Tennessee,
Speaker 1: we thought they did with Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing is so many opportunities for this team,
Speaker 2: so many one run games where they just kind of
Speaker 2: came up short. You look at the Vanderbilt series they
Speaker 2: got swept, could have easily won that series, maybe even
Speaker 2: swept it with the way Ben Cleever was pitching on
Speaker 2: the Saturday before. Just one of those seasons where it
Speaker 2: feels like, when you look at the year before, everything
Speaker 2: that went right kind of went reverse this year for
Speaker 2: this team, and they've dealt with more injuries this year,
Speaker 2: and I think this is the thing that can't be underscored,
Speaker 2: even though I know the program will never use it
Speaker 2: as an excuse. The injuries this year were probably the
Speaker 2: worst it's been since twenty eighteen, when they lost their
Speaker 2: entire weekend rotation and their closer and had some close
Speaker 2: losses like that, got swept at Vanderbilt and got left
Speaker 2: out of the tournament. But the lineup this year, coach
Speaker 2: Minchiona's had to do a patchwork lineup at times this year.
Speaker 2: They were down to their fourth or fifth third basemen,
Speaker 2: They've had to retool the bullpen. They finally settled into
Speaker 2: a week in rotation that I thought was effective in
Speaker 2: SEC play. But that lineup is missing its starting center fielder,
Speaker 2: it's missing its starting d H slash utility guy and
Speaker 2: Ethan Hndle, and they've just had some other key injuries.
Speaker 2: And on top of that, you're relying on some freshmen
Speaker 2: this year to produce in big spots. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just one of those seasons where it's like it
Speaker 2: could have been more. But kind of credit this team
Speaker 2: for at least being in the conversation and right now
Speaker 2: as we sit here, it looks like they're going to
Speaker 2: be in the field of sixty four.
Speaker 1: Well, and as we said, and coach you and Iris
Speaker 1: swapping tex I've seen Kentucky teams with more wins not
Speaker 1: get in, but the strength to schedule, strength at the
Speaker 1: SEC that's huge. But as Darren said, I mean, Hinda
Speaker 1: was playing so well when he got hurt, and you know,
Speaker 1: the guy they had lost so much of their pitching
Speaker 1: staff from last year, and but one of the guys
Speaker 1: they were truly counting on out of the pen was Hogan.
Speaker 1: He was so good down the stretch. Never right this year,
Speaker 1: it was never right.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: I was just thinking about him, and really, I mean
Speaker 4: he was one of the guys that I had coming
Speaker 4: up big in the late ends this year, and that
Speaker 4: you know that didn't happen. But uh, you know the
Speaker 4: good thing is they have a field of sixty four
Speaker 4: downs to the field of forty eight.
Speaker 2: And that that helped him. Oh yeah, what.
Speaker 1: Did what did the middle endfield show you, mister middle infielder?
Speaker 1: Because I know you like what you saw. And we
Speaker 1: were spoiled the last two years, weren't we by Grant
Speaker 1: Smith and a million petre.
Speaker 3: I think they played all right. Uh. I think there's
Speaker 3: a way to go, you know, to get to elite level.
Speaker 3: The talent with Tyler Bell is really good. There's a
Speaker 3: few things that he could work on. I think that's
Speaker 3: going to make him, you know, be very good at
Speaker 3: the next level as well. I mean, he's got the
Speaker 3: physical tools right now. Sometimes a little lazy with his
Speaker 3: arm because he can, well you can, but you don't
Speaker 3: want to do that on double play balls and stuff.
Speaker 1: You no, I mean guess prior to this level, you know,
Speaker 1: at the high school level, he didn't have to really
Speaker 1: worry about turning it loose.
Speaker 3: Oh no, he Well what I found out he does
Speaker 3: have it's in there. Oh yeah, he doesn't. He doesn't
Speaker 3: use it. But mine is where I really want to
Speaker 3: see them excel is anytime they get a chance to
Speaker 3: turn a double play, they need to do it. And
Speaker 3: there are times where they're a little late, maybe either
Speaker 3: get into the bag or a little late they catch
Speaker 3: the ball a little late getting into your partner so
Speaker 3: he can turn it, because both of them turn the
Speaker 3: double play when they get the ball in time. Now,
Speaker 3: Luke Lawrence really impressed me. Yep. He was a lot
Speaker 3: more than what I thought he was gonna be. And
Speaker 3: he came on probably was their best hit at the
Speaker 3: end of the year and played outstanding defense. So I
Speaker 3: was really impressed with him. I'd love to see him
Speaker 3: back again together for another year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that could happen. Well, I mean, it looks like
Speaker 2: we're going to get to see him for at least
Speaker 2: one more year. So when you talk about Tyler Bell,
Speaker 2: some of this stuff is I think we view him
Speaker 2: and a lens. Obviously, he's following Grant Smith, who just
Speaker 2: did whatever it took to make a winning play, and
Speaker 2: that young man came out of nowhere made some tremendous plays.
Speaker 2: But with Tyler, the ceiling on his potential and his
Speaker 2: talent is so high. I think sometimes, like you were
Speaker 2: just talking about with the here's the things that I
Speaker 2: think he can get better at, you view him in
Speaker 2: a little more critical lens because it's like, Okay, your
Speaker 2: talent is there, let's realize that here's the steps you
Speaker 2: need to take to reach that potential. Because I think
Speaker 2: that young man can play in the big leagues, but
Speaker 2: he's got he's got to develop, and he's only nineteen.
Speaker 3: And like you say, since we're talking about what's gonna
Speaker 3: make him better, it's not a criticism, it's just here's
Speaker 3: some things you need to work on right.
Speaker 1: Use you've spoken to them and they were welcome to
Speaker 1: hear it.
Speaker 3: Yeah they are. They are kaya scar gettu is there.
Speaker 3: We talked a little bit about just fielding. You know,
Speaker 3: you watch like the things that I watch, as you know, Dick,
Speaker 3: during the game. I want to see if they're getting
Speaker 3: that foot down in time, like, not after the ball
Speaker 3: gets to the plate. Get that foot down before the
Speaker 3: ball gets to the plate, because if it's afterwards, you're
Speaker 3: not gonna get as good a jump. And watch how
Speaker 3: they're you know, playing hitters and moving.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And it was tough on these guys because they only
Speaker 3: turned twenty something double plays, but they had a pitching
Speaker 3: staff that threw a lot of fly balls. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: they really didn't get the opportunity to do that. And
Speaker 3: if they're back, they will be in my opinion, if
Speaker 3: they were to come back another year, they will be
Speaker 3: the premiere infield in college baseball.
Speaker 5: Ye.
Speaker 4: Thing I like about Tyler Bell's play is his back Ye.
Speaker 2: I mean the young Yeah he was.
Speaker 4: He could swing the bat and he's a switch hitter
Speaker 4: and uh if he, like Doug said, continues to improve
Speaker 4: as an infielder and he's got great talent there. Uh,
Speaker 4: I mean it's it's hard to coach bat speed and
Speaker 4: he's got bats on both sides. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and I had I have had TV talent, and
Speaker 2: scouts ask me where's his power? What side of the
Speaker 2: plates has powered? I'm like, well, he hit six on
Speaker 2: one side and four on the other.
Speaker 3: You tell me he hit He hit one left handed
Speaker 3: one night though that was I don't know that there's
Speaker 3: been a ball hit further this year.
Speaker 2: Well, he hit one that left the ballpark at Duty Noble,
Speaker 2: Like it cleared the backside concourse and that's out of
Speaker 2: the ball. It's a big park left handed. Remember it
Speaker 2: was left handed. It was shot left handed.
Speaker 3: And you walk up beside him and he's six one
Speaker 3: maybe plus a little bit.
Speaker 2: But if you I was about to say, if you
Speaker 2: go up to him when he doesn't have his baseball
Speaker 2: uniform on, that kid is big. Yeah, And that's my
Speaker 2: That's what I love most coaching. You can speak to
Speaker 2: this when you look around the league Texas, Tennessee, LSU, Arkansas,
Speaker 2: those guys are huge. Those Team Florida really massive. When
Speaker 2: you look at Kentucky's freshman, what do you see Roan Schwartz,
Speaker 2: big Tyler Bell, Yeah, Hudson Brown, Yeah, Yeah, they're big.
Speaker 2: I love the future for this program right now. And
Speaker 2: the freshman class coming in is big too. Yeah.
Speaker 4: But they are sec bodies, you know, they really are.
Speaker 1: Prior to the I guess it was the last home
Speaker 1: game because it was rainy and they were doing VP inside.
Speaker 1: Doug and I went down to the cages and there
Speaker 1: was Tyler and I've been meaning to ask him this
Speaker 1: for some time, but I said, when did you start
Speaker 1: switch hitting? And he said he was three years old,
Speaker 1: three and his dad urged him to do it, and
Speaker 1: he said, I didn't like it. I didn't want to.
Speaker 1: Like most kids, when you switch over, you try to
Speaker 1: back cross handed. He wouldn't let him. Of course, you
Speaker 1: can't do that, and he said he wasn't really comfortable
Speaker 1: till he was twelve.
Speaker 3: But me is. He said he was natural right handed.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I would not have guessed that after watching him swing
Speaker 3: the bat.
Speaker 2: But yeah, same here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's it's it's fun to watch it and
Speaker 1: when you know, everybody knows his backstory by now that
Speaker 1: he was taken between the first and second rounds technically
Speaker 1: in the supplemental draft. But I guess you've told the
Speaker 1: story a couple of times, Darren. He just didn't hear
Speaker 1: if at all from Tampa. Didn't hear what he wanted
Speaker 1: to hear, but didn't hear much at all.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people, but you're not hearing from Dampa.
Speaker 1: True, But now you understand what that franchise is struggling.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, he had a number or he was coming
Speaker 2: to school, and when Tampa sent out and offered the number,
Speaker 2: I guess, you know, I don't know what it was,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't in the ballpark, and he just said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to Kentucky, which is where he wanted to go. Anyway,
Speaker 2: How good is it now?
Speaker 3: When you come and play in the Southeastern Conference? You're
Speaker 3: playing at a high a level anyway, right, not you know,
Speaker 3: borderline double A because the pitching on every level and
Speaker 3: every team is really deep now. So you know, in
Speaker 3: the old days, you go to college and you go, yeah,
Speaker 3: now you're getting the pro ball and it speeds up.
Speaker 3: Now the game starts speeding up as soon as you
Speaker 3: get in the Southeastern Conference.
Speaker 2: There's absolutely no question.
Speaker 1: Well he's a guy who's got it, coach, as you said,
Speaker 1: he's got the bat speed, the idy arm and all
Speaker 1: and evidently willing to work, you know. And if you're
Speaker 1: willing to work, as you know, you go ahead.
Speaker 3: There's a couple of stories that are you just don't
Speaker 3: even want to talk about this year. I don't I
Speaker 3: get to frustrated. But there's a couple of really good
Speaker 3: ones too, like James McCoy. James McCoy comes back this
Speaker 3: year not even gonna play. They don't know what he's
Speaker 3: gonna do, but he was a returning starter from last
Speaker 3: year's team, as you all know. And then he's just
Speaker 3: putting in his time and he's working hard, and he's
Speaker 3: running gatorade the guys, he's chasing foul balls. He'll come in,
Speaker 3: pitching in and then they'll to throw him in next thing.
Speaker 3: You know, at the end of the year, he is producing,
Speaker 3: hitting forth and playing every day at first base. And
Speaker 3: the attitude that kids showed throughout this whole year. I
Speaker 3: became a huge fan of his as a person just
Speaker 3: watching the way he handled it.
Speaker 2: Coach Ben Cleaver can't tell me about him.
Speaker 1: Hey, hang on, save that thought, because we're at the
Speaker 1: end of segments, so we need to, uh, I need
Speaker 1: to take a break satisfaction. That's right.
Speaker 4: That guy is just a master of words.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he is.
Speaker 4: Uh, there's very few ever like him. And uh, a
Speaker 4: lot of people think I'm crazy for liking Dylan, but
Speaker 4: he is to me probably the greatest American songwriter.
Speaker 2: If not think a lot of people agree with you.
Speaker 1: Toss some names out it can he gets Let me,
Speaker 1: let me throw some names at you. Shub ties eyes,
Speaker 1: old Ben Abraham that's his Hebrew name, Okay, Elston Gunn,
Speaker 1: blind Boy, Grunt, Bob Landy, Robert Milkwood, Thomas Tedum, Porterhouse.
Speaker 1: These are all the names he he had performed under
Speaker 1: a written under Lucky Wilbury, Boo Wilbury, Jack Frost, Sergei Petrov,
Speaker 1: and simply Zimmy Robert Allen Zimmerman settled on Bob Dylan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know the name.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, Traveling, Traveling, Yeah, with George Harrison, Tom Petty,
Speaker 4: Roy Orbison and the guy from Yeah, jeff Lynn Flynn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the one. People that's like Pat Dobson on
Speaker 1: the Oriol's pitching status name you don't remember, all right,
Speaker 1: we were talking Kentucky baseball. We're in the garage, by
Speaker 1: the way, if you haven't noticed. Uh with the chain
Speaker 1: gang of Doug Flynn, Keith Madison, and Darren Hedrick, all
Speaker 1: of us work broadcasts of Kentucky baseball, among other things.
Speaker 1: But uh, that's why we sent text messages back and
Speaker 1: forth all night, every night until dawn. I'm looking at you, Darren.
Speaker 1: But we were talking about the baseball Wildcats part of
Speaker 1: the break, and uh, you were going to talk about pitching,
Speaker 1: starting with Ben Cleaver.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean I saw the first first time I ever
Speaker 4: saw Ben Cleaver pitch last year as a freshman.
Speaker 1: I remember that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he didn't get to pitch much.
Speaker 4: And the way the ball comes out of his hand
Speaker 4: is different. You know, you hear people talk about the
Speaker 4: ball sounds different off that guy's bat. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 4: guys like that. And the way the ball comes out
Speaker 4: of Ben's hand is special. And I knew that he
Speaker 4: had a really good chance to be something special. I thought,
Speaker 4: even though people like him around the league and the
Speaker 4: scouts like me, I think he's the most underrated pitcher
Speaker 4: in the Southeastern Conference.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: Yes, Wow, his curveball is a classic curveball. Can you
Speaker 2: kind of tell the listener what it means to have
Speaker 2: one of those classic twelve to six curveballs.
Speaker 4: It's Scott Downs. I mean every time I see him,
Speaker 4: I think it's Scott Down. Scott had that curveball that
Speaker 4: Ben has. And Scott didn't throw quite as hard as
Speaker 4: Ben when he was at Kentucky, but he pitched what
Speaker 4: thirteen years in the big league.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So if you're left handed and you have that great
Speaker 4: spin and that great curveball, uh, you got a chance.
Speaker 4: Those guys can, especially if you could throw the back
Speaker 4: door breaking ball like Ben does, like Scott Downs did,
Speaker 4: like Paul Kilgis did. I mean those lefties that can
Speaker 4: throw it back door successful?
Speaker 2: Yes, really, just real quick before we go back to
Speaker 2: Kentucky baseball, Doug your time the majors, Who was the
Speaker 2: best curveball you faced? Who had the best curveball that
Speaker 2: you might recall that you faced? That was quick boy,
Speaker 2: he was He.
Speaker 3: Had a good one. The best slider was probably Steve
Speaker 3: Carlton and he threw it ever pitch and you knew
Speaker 3: he was throwing it. Still hard to hit.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I always like to talk about the curve ball
Speaker 2: because you don't see it as that classic ephis pitch.
Speaker 2: You don't really see that as much anymore.
Speaker 3: This was really good. Now you know who had a
Speaker 3: good one but he couldn't throw it over, Thank goodness,
Speaker 3: was Nolan Ryan. You know, his ball broke too much.
Speaker 3: He just couldn't control it.
Speaker 4: I tell you somebody else that had a really good one.
Speaker 4: I don't know what happened to it because he didn't
Speaker 4: use it that much in the big leagues. There are
Speaker 4: two guys. Joe Blanton had a really big time curveball.
Speaker 4: I mean it was a hammer, and then Brandon Webb
Speaker 4: had a great curveball. But Brandon he developed that sinker,
Speaker 4: and yeah he didn't. I mean it's he developed that.
Speaker 4: He didn't really need the curveball.
Speaker 1: By the time he was in pro ball he developed
Speaker 1: the sinker.
Speaker 2: Well he had.
Speaker 4: He had a good sinker at Kentucky, but it was
Speaker 4: like a hard two seamer. And when he took a
Speaker 4: little bit off when he was in Triple A, that
Speaker 4: thing started moving like nobody's read that.
Speaker 1: Wearing a bullpen was one of his coaches said, take
Speaker 1: a little off. See what happens.
Speaker 3: Well, in those days, though, you guys weren't throwing a
Speaker 3: lot of sliders. It was basically fastball, curveball, change up
Speaker 3: when Keith and I came up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I was with Triple A Oklahoma City, our
Speaker 2: pitching coach was Bert Hooton, who threw the knuckle curve curve,
Speaker 2: And of course by that time he was a little
Speaker 2: more of the old not bad attitude, grumpy veteran, let's
Speaker 2: put it that way, salty. But I was out of
Speaker 2: the Yeah. I was out at the bullpen one day.
Speaker 2: We get there, yeah, and I was like, hey, Bert,
Speaker 2: I've heard so much about your knuckle curve. Would you
Speaker 2: just throw one and show me. He's like no, I
Speaker 2: was like, that was.
Speaker 3: The Yeah, he did have a good one.
Speaker 1: Every time I hear knuckle curve, forgive me. But you know,
Speaker 1: I played adult league ball for a while and I
Speaker 1: was the emergency catcher and we had this kid who
Speaker 1: drug This guy a grown man. He had been in
Speaker 1: prison somewhere but he dropped literally, uh for passing bad checks.
Speaker 1: But all of a sudden he's on our team and
Speaker 1: like you got to catch him, Like, oh no, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody's on vacation. I go out to the mound. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's the singles, here's my signal for the knuckle curve.
Speaker 1: I'm like I'm not calling that and he's dow it anyway,
Speaker 1: and I ended up in a crack bone in my
Speaker 1: thumb because of that. So every time I hear the
Speaker 1: knuckle curve, I have I have flashback.
Speaker 2: That's good. Was just dropped st Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: But if you don't know what's coming and you're the catcher,
Speaker 1: you know anyway.
Speaker 2: Just do like Bob you says, let it stop rolling
Speaker 2: and took it out.
Speaker 1: That's right, coach for our for our listeners out there,
Speaker 1: if you could, as a as an expert, as a professional,
Speaker 1: explain the basic and I know you both other guys
Speaker 1: can as well, but the difference between a slider and
Speaker 1: a curve, how you throw it, and why they're different.
Speaker 4: Well, the easiest way to describe it, I think is
Speaker 4: you throw the curveball at the top of the ball.
Speaker 4: You throw it from the top down. With a slider,
Speaker 4: you throw it like a high three quarter grip.
Speaker 1: And I know it's radio, but Darren has a baseball
Speaker 1: in his hand.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he is. You know, the slider. I always
Speaker 4: like the off center it just a little bit, yeah,
Speaker 4: and throw it on the side and you throw it
Speaker 4: with your fastball motion. And that's why a true slider
Speaker 4: only breaks about six to eight inches.
Speaker 2: It looks very similar to a two seam fastball in
Speaker 2: some ways, right, except it might have a harder break.
Speaker 4: It has it has a the opposite spin. That's it
Speaker 4: of the of the two seamer.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: And if you throw it, if you throw it right,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's a devastating pitch because.
Speaker 2: Hitters have trouble pick it up.
Speaker 4: It looks almost like a fastball coming out of the hand.
Speaker 3: But uh, a lot of guys throwing the cutter now,
Speaker 3: as you said, which is very similar.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the cutter, I mean I've seen really good
Speaker 4: cutters only break three inches.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I think when you get that hit, you
Speaker 3: get that ball and it looks like a fastball, and
Speaker 3: then at the last second, if it moves at all
Speaker 3: from being a fastball to then it's gonna be tough
Speaker 3: to hear.
Speaker 4: I think the problem that some pitchers have is they
Speaker 4: try to make their slider too big and they try
Speaker 4: to make their cutter too big, and when they.
Speaker 2: Do, they break too much. Yeah. Yeah, And when they.
Speaker 4: Do that, they they lose that tightness, they lose that
Speaker 4: late break, and it becomes more loopy. And but boy,
Speaker 4: those guys like Steve Carlton that have the true slider.
Speaker 3: Or Mariano Rivera who never wavered from that cutter here. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know he's gonna throw it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean Doug can tell you it's so
Speaker 4: hard to pick up and the time you pick it up,
Speaker 4: most of the time it's too late.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, I will say this. I read this statistic.
Speaker 4: I don't know, fifteen years ago, the number one ball
Speaker 4: that was hit out of the ballpark in the major
Speaker 4: leagues was a hanging slider, no doubt.
Speaker 2: Hey, that's what Mitchell Daily hit out. And you know they.
Speaker 3: Always say hanging sliders go.
Speaker 4: A long way, yeah, because they have velocity and they
Speaker 4: just sit there. It's like hitting off the tee. But
Speaker 4: do not throw it in the five.
Speaker 1: Oh I thought that was Mitchell Daily song run never on.
Speaker 1: I've got it somewhere. But uh yeah, I was gonna say, guys,
Speaker 1: these poor souls at the play, like mister Flynn, have
Speaker 1: what four hundreds of a second to figure out you.
Speaker 3: Know, I was a poor soul before they started throwing
Speaker 3: all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's just to me what you know, and
Speaker 1: the pitches I'm watching SEC tournament down then as we
Speaker 1: all have. And I'm watching guys swinging the pitches in
Speaker 1: the dirt, but when when they decide to swing, it's
Speaker 1: belt high.
Speaker 2: In the I mean, it's just last night and I
Speaker 2: saw it was hard.
Speaker 3: Tennessee comes in. The guy would come easy and he's
Speaker 3: throwing easy ninety seven, ninety eight on oi. Wow, it's crazy,
Speaker 3: and that's that's pretty common. Yeah, I mean, well just
Speaker 3: look at the Kentucky staff this year when these guys
Speaker 3: were throwing and throwing pretty decent. They're all in the
Speaker 3: ninety two to ninety four range. I mean, they didn't
Speaker 3: have so many guys get above that, but you can
Speaker 3: see them popping out right around ninety two to ninety four.
Speaker 3: If you could throw ninety two or ninety four, you
Speaker 3: got to be able to be successful, because that's hard
Speaker 3: enough if you can locate and uh, but.
Speaker 4: You got to you know anymore, though, Doug with a
Speaker 4: with a ninety two to ninety four, you have to
Speaker 4: have a secondary and a third pitch.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, you know.
Speaker 4: You have to have a slider, you have to have
Speaker 4: a curveball and a chain because guys see ninety two
Speaker 4: to ninety four so often now that they adjust to it.
Speaker 4: And it's amazing how hitters today adjust to velocity.
Speaker 3: But they always have.
Speaker 2: They always have.
Speaker 1: That's right, all right, we got to step out. We
Speaker 1: will come back and talk more baseball. Have you ever
Speaker 1: seen the video? Oh yeah, yeah, it's just just people dancing.
Speaker 4: So I'm driving home one night and uh, and it
Speaker 4: was it was like ten o'clock at night, and there
Speaker 4: was a there was a Harvest Moon.
Speaker 1: Out that's the name of the song, by the way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm watching I'm on Keen Road between Keene
Speaker 4: and Highway sixty eight, and uh, been away from the
Speaker 4: house for a while and kind of missing sharing and
Speaker 4: there's a Harvest Moon and that song comes on and
Speaker 4: you feel.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: I had to call her and said, babe, Harvest Moon
Speaker 4: just came on.
Speaker 2: I'm five minutes out.
Speaker 1: So many different performers called at a masterpiece, called that
Speaker 1: song a masterpiece. Honestly, I was never a huge Neil
Speaker 1: Young fan. I appreciate him, but I was never a
Speaker 1: huge fan. And I was a big Crosby Sills and
Speaker 1: Nash fan. And when they added Neil Young, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but no, I I give him credit on that one.
Speaker 1: I had heard it once before. I'd never seen that video,
Speaker 1: and I'm watching the video and I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: so simple, but that's what the song's all about.
Speaker 4: It really shows his Versatiley because it's a little different
Speaker 4: than and very much in the needle and the damage done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a different song.
Speaker 1: Was this was a restaurant was situated inside a redwood
Speaker 1: forest out in California. Really shot that video, so that's
Speaker 1: kind of yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: We're talking with the chain Yang with Darren and Keith
Speaker 1: and Doug. We've been talking to a lot of Kentucky
Speaker 1: baseball and talked about Doug's glove, which has always been
Speaker 1: a favorite subject, and the coach has been telling us
Speaker 1: how to be better pictures. Darren, I'm I'm wondering all
Speaker 1: the time you spent in the miners and we've talked
Speaker 1: to you about I think last time you were here,
Speaker 1: you describe what it was like watching Aaron Judge come
Speaker 1: up and some of the other really great players, and
Speaker 1: Doug and I got to do minor league baseball for
Speaker 1: a couple of summers ten years ago, and a lot
Speaker 1: of these guys are still playing and they're the best
Speaker 1: guys because they're still playing. But do you remember anybody
Speaker 1: And Doug, I think you had a roommate that fit
Speaker 1: this description, but who you thought was a can't miss
Speaker 1: and for whatever reason didn't make it. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of those guys in the miners. I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: you encountered that.
Speaker 2: I could give you a list of guys that I
Speaker 2: thought they have the potential and they never panned out.
Speaker 2: One of them was Greg Bird with the New York
Speaker 2: Yankees system. And Bird was actually, when he got the
Speaker 2: Triple A, was actually a better hitter and overall player
Speaker 2: than Aaron Judge. We actually thought Bird was the prize
Speaker 2: of that core group wow, with Judge maybe second. And
Speaker 2: Greg got up to the big leagues, was hitting and
Speaker 2: doing well, and then things didn't go well. He got
Speaker 2: sent back down, and he went back up, sent back down,
Speaker 2: and then he got the injury that he never could
Speaker 2: get over. Yeah, and was just hurt, hurt, hurt, finally released,
Speaker 2: came back with another team, hurt released, and I think
Speaker 2: he's completely out of the game now. But there are
Speaker 2: several guys in that instance, and it's it's kind of
Speaker 2: weird to see how once you get to that major
Speaker 2: league level some guys have it and some guys don't.
Speaker 2: And there's also some guys too that you see him
Speaker 2: in the big leagues and maybe they don't work with
Speaker 2: the New York Yankees, they get traded and go somewhere
Speaker 2: else in their career takes off. Yeah, and it's the
Speaker 2: bright lights of New York. They just can't handle that.
Speaker 2: They go to the Minnesota Twins where there's not as
Speaker 2: much as attention, and all of a sudden they're all stars.
Speaker 3: Just think of the guys that have come through UK.
Speaker 3: I can just right off probably name you ten that
Speaker 3: I thought guy's got a shot to him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Good career. Yeah, in the big leagues for a long time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's amazing when with injuries and guys mature a little
Speaker 3: bit earlier, or they whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And lose interest.
Speaker 3: Well, a lot of that happens too, you know.
Speaker 2: Or they get distracted.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they get distracted probably morning, yes, and we don't
Speaker 4: have to talk about what distracts them, but they do
Speaker 4: get distracted. We had a Doug and I played with
Speaker 4: a guy uh in the Reds organization but named Rick Colsey.
Speaker 4: And when he first signed with the Reds, I had
Speaker 4: the opportunity to play with him. Center fielder, could run
Speaker 4: like a deer had a cannon, and they were comparing
Speaker 4: him to Willie Mays.
Speaker 2: Wow he was.
Speaker 4: It was like he was a can't miss. He hit
Speaker 4: over five hundred and rookie ball. Then he gets to
Speaker 4: Tampa and he's hitting over four hundred. They moved him
Speaker 4: right up to double A and something happened.
Speaker 3: Uh three rivers Canada got yeah, yeah, and that that
Speaker 3: women were three to seven to one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the distraction and they had that tract accent
Speaker 4: and and boy they were they were they It's crazy.
Speaker 4: That's the only town I ever played in where you
Speaker 4: come out, you come out of the locker room. And
Speaker 4: I was married at the time, so I tried to
Speaker 4: sneak out of there, but there would be fifteen or
Speaker 4: twenty girls just hanging out of outside the locker room
Speaker 4: and they just, I don't know. They love baseball players
Speaker 4: in Canada. But Rick got caught up into that and
Speaker 4: some other things. But what he was a beautiful soul too, Yeah,
Speaker 4: he was. He was a great guy.
Speaker 3: Well, our buddy Greg, Yeah, Greg met our friend, my
Speaker 3: roommate Greg Snata to him.
Speaker 4: Then he was a big league all the way.
Speaker 3: But he had had all all five tools, yes, and
Speaker 3: was an unbelievable athlete. He played high school basketball and
Speaker 3: football and was I remember he came down on the
Speaker 3: way to spring training one year. We were driving down,
Speaker 3: we were going to double A maybe or a I
Speaker 3: can't remember. Stopped off of my uncles and he had
Speaker 3: a little basketball league. He said, I got you two
Speaker 3: on the roster to play tonight. Greg standing flat footed,
Speaker 3: just up, just slamming. You know, he's a great ass.
Speaker 3: He's just a really good ass. But just injuries got him.
Speaker 2: So. Yeah, and sometimes they get up there and get lazy,
Speaker 2: that's right. And if they're not superstars, it don't work. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just it's not sustainable.
Speaker 1: You're talking about distractions. And I can think right at
Speaker 1: the top of my head, there are two different UK
Speaker 1: football players who were going to get a shot at
Speaker 1: being really good in the SEC and therefore a chance
Speaker 1: in the NFL. One was an old lineman, one was
Speaker 1: a linebacker. And one of them just didn't show up
Speaker 1: when it came time for summer work and camping all that,
Speaker 1: Like anybody's seeing so and so the linebacker, and they
Speaker 1: finally somebody said, well he's got a new girlfriend and
Speaker 1: somebody had her number and they traced it back. He
Speaker 1: was tending bar in South Carolina at Hilton Head or something,
Speaker 1: because I'm.
Speaker 2: Done, you know, no more football, you know.
Speaker 1: And another one was an old lineman who and I'm
Speaker 1: not trashing women and girlfriends and all that stuff, but
Speaker 1: this this this woman didn't like football and like this
Speaker 1: guy a lot and said, you don't need football in
Speaker 1: your life, you know. And he decided she was right
Speaker 1: and tried it and realized, no, I liked football, and
Speaker 1: I want to I think he went over and played
Speaker 1: for Georgetown for a little while and it just didn't
Speaker 1: quite work. But he was he was a can't miss guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, just lost his focus, Dick.
Speaker 4: If any of the listeners want to read about guy,
Speaker 4: how hard it is to make it to the big
Speaker 4: league and how hard it is to stay in the
Speaker 4: big leagues once you get to the big leagues. There's
Speaker 4: there's a former pro player by the name of Dirk
Speaker 4: Hayhurst and he's written a book called Out of My League.
Speaker 4: He's written three or four books. He's a good writer,
Speaker 4: very good writer. But he talks about his experience of
Speaker 4: coming up through the minor leagues and and and the
Speaker 4: challenges of that, and then seeing other teammates get moved
Speaker 4: up and make the big leagues and he's steal it,
Speaker 4: and then he finally makes it. And then once he
Speaker 4: makes it, there is a pecking order, Doug. In the
Speaker 4: big leagues if you're a rookie, you used to be. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: it used to be a pecking order. And so it's
Speaker 4: hard to survive that culture because you don't know if
Speaker 4: you belong or not.
Speaker 3: And it's even more difficult now. I would think when
Speaker 3: you come up as a rookie back when we did,
Speaker 3: and you're making sixteen thousand dollars a year and you're
Speaker 3: surrounded by some quality players. Now you come up in
Speaker 3: the big leagues and you're making seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars a year, and you've got so many things
Speaker 3: that got you there, like we'll pay for you to
Speaker 3: come and get you in shape, we'll pay for your room,
Speaker 3: we'll pay for your all this. I think I'm glad
Speaker 3: that when we came up we had to pay for
Speaker 3: everything you had earned it. Yeah, I mean, you had
Speaker 3: to have six guys in a room in Class A ball,
Speaker 3: six guys in a two bedroom is what we had
Speaker 3: in Class A.
Speaker 1: And you can read about guys like that, and if
Speaker 1: one of them was a pitcher who was pitching the
Speaker 1: next night, you got the bed, he got the bed.
Speaker 3: Tr that's true, that is that's all true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I can share this story now the
Speaker 2: Statute of limitations. But when we were when John Sadak
Speaker 2: and I were with the Scranton team, the Yankees Triple
Speaker 2: A affiliate with the Pictures, some pictures would go up
Speaker 2: and then they'd come back and they would all tell
Speaker 2: us that throughout their whole career, if things were kind
Speaker 2: of iffying and inning, they could look over in the
Speaker 2: dugout and the pitching coach kind of clap, you know,
Speaker 2: come on, let's go up there. In New York, they
Speaker 2: would look to the dugout, Joe Girardi and Larry Rothschild
Speaker 2: would just be staring back at him. Just figure it out,
Speaker 2: do your job, and if you didn't, you knew where
Speaker 2: you were going when the game was over.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a lot of that, and there's something to
Speaker 3: be said for that too, because it doesn't matter what
Speaker 3: anybody tells you. If it doesn't a light doesn't go
Speaker 3: on in your own mind, you're not gonna get it
Speaker 3: in any so. But when I look back, you know
Speaker 3: the guys that we came up, and you're thinking, why
Speaker 3: did he make it? Why did he not make it?
Speaker 3: How did that happen? Because I know for a fact,
Speaker 3: when I left Kentu and I went to this tryout camp,
Speaker 3: the furthest thing in my mind was going away to
Speaker 3: play pro ball. There was no chance I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: have fun out here at this tryout camp and see
Speaker 3: what happens. And then you make it and you go
Speaker 3: through a ball and you're thinking, all right, I'm ready
Speaker 3: to leave. I went to Russ Nixon Russ. I got
Speaker 3: a three year scholarship to go back and play basketball
Speaker 3: at Bethel College and Tennessee. He said, give it one
Speaker 3: more year, and I'm thinking why I had. You know,
Speaker 3: I played three positions. I didn't hit good, I didn't
Speaker 3: do nothing good. And then the next year you get
Speaker 3: moved up a level and you start winning some awards
Speaker 3: and start saying, oh, wait a minute, the game starts
Speaker 3: slowing down a little bit. But it until that hits you,
Speaker 3: you don't know what you're gonna do. Yeah, because there's
Speaker 3: there's a thousand guys out there right now that all
Speaker 3: think they're gonna be Major League Baseball players. Well, we
Speaker 3: know that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 4: So yeah, and then you know, guys like me and
Speaker 4: Doug from Kentucky. You know, we show up in camp
Speaker 4: and there's guys from Miami and LA Yeah, and Dallas
Speaker 4: and Puerto.
Speaker 1: Rico and private coaches.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and these guys are really good and they had
Speaker 4: our good and they have the confidence and that you
Speaker 4: know that that uh, that arrogance the way they carry them.
Speaker 3: Did you ever have that? Because I never did, and
Speaker 3: even to today, I don't. I never had that. There
Speaker 3: was an inter confidence, but I never had that cocky
Speaker 3: confidence that the good players really have.
Speaker 2: I never had it never.
Speaker 1: I mean, and there's still time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get it when I'm on the show, but
Speaker 3: broadcast food.
Speaker 4: When I competed, when I was out there and they
Speaker 4: brought me in the ninth inning and there's two men
Speaker 4: on base, you had to have it, yeah, and you
Speaker 4: just you just get consumed with competing. But in terms
Speaker 4: of hanging out in the dugout in the locker room,
Speaker 4: I never had that.
Speaker 3: See, and I can still be in all being on
Speaker 3: the like being on first and the first baseman's really
Speaker 3: start on. I'm thinking, I don't know how this happened,
Speaker 3: but it's really cool. Instead of saying, you know, where
Speaker 3: am I going next? Yeah? You know, you start looking
Speaker 3: around and and it's just.
Speaker 1: Really we're thinking asking for an autograph. We got to
Speaker 1: step out, hold that dog, mister Hendrick, and we will
Speaker 1: come back and talk more of baseball. This was the
Speaker 1: song that elevated George Harrison as a songwriter in the
Speaker 1: eyes of the experts and the critics and all that.
Speaker 1: With Lennon and McCartney, he was the youngest Beatle and
Speaker 1: you know, those two guys were writing a hit after hit,
Speaker 1: and he kind of caught up with this song. The
Speaker 1: other one was this song was written while the Beatles
Speaker 1: were struggling with being businessmen. They were going to meetings
Speaker 1: every day with Apple Core meaning CRPS the people at Apple,
Speaker 1: and Harrison said, you know, they just got tired of
Speaker 1: you know, coming here, sign this do that makes this decision?
Speaker 1: Nothing about making music. So he played Hookey one day
Speaker 1: and went over to Eric Clapton's house, walked around the
Speaker 1: house with one of his acoustic guitars and that's how
Speaker 1: he wrote this song and songs like that. The backstore
Speaker 1: is those are the best.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and and that's, in my opinion, the
Speaker 4: best album of all time in popular music?
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 4: In my opinion, it's just beautiful and and and the
Speaker 4: crazy thing it's it's it was a bunch of songs
Speaker 4: they sort of threw together, yes, because like you said,
Speaker 4: they were distracted. They were getting a lot of done
Speaker 4: and close to the end. Yeah, and they just put
Speaker 4: all these songs together that were partially finished.
Speaker 3: And you know, there's somebody out there listening now, going,
Speaker 3: what's an album?
Speaker 1: That's right when you download more than one song and
Speaker 1: then the song title itself. They were sitting around they
Speaker 1: had some goofy potentials and Paul McCartney said, of course
Speaker 1: the studios on Abby Road, and they just said the
Speaker 1: street sign right out there says Abbey Road. Let's just
Speaker 1: chuse that. Okay, done, And they were done with a discussion,
Speaker 1: and as you said, it's it's, if not the best known,
Speaker 1: the best, Yeah, Sergeant Pepper may be better, you know,
Speaker 1: better known, but that was my favor anyhow, Thank you.
Speaker 1: That's that's it's my walk up music.
Speaker 2: So if we walked across the street, Coach, would you
Speaker 2: be the one barefoot? Yes? Probably Coach Madison's dead. People
Speaker 2: been saying that long.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: He talked about that too. He was wearing sandals or
Speaker 1: something and he just did just didn't feel good and
Speaker 1: his feast kicked them off, and I'm gonna go barefoot.
Speaker 2: So anyhow, that's what the fake McCartney says.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the real one's hanging out with Elvis and JFK.
Speaker 2: That's right, all right, You were.
Speaker 1: Gonna make a point there. Do you remember what it
Speaker 1: was before.
Speaker 2: The Yeah, it was we were talking about guys that
Speaker 2: didn't make it and how hard it was to be
Speaker 2: in the big leagues. And I think Doug had referenced
Speaker 2: something about, you know, being around some guys that make
Speaker 2: you just go kind of wow. And I remember Steve
Speaker 2: cars Or pitching coach with the Carolina Mudcats. He was
Speaker 2: a reliever for the New York Yankees, got traded to
Speaker 2: the Braves and became a closer there during their big
Speaker 2: dynasty run under Bobby Cox. And he said he got
Speaker 2: traded and walked into the Braves' clubhouse and he looked
Speaker 2: to the clubhouse manager, and he's like, where do you
Speaker 2: you know what locker do you want me to have?
Speaker 2: Where do you want me? And he just said, oh,
Speaker 2: right over, there's an empty one. So he walks over
Speaker 2: and he says, I'm sitting my gear down in this
Speaker 2: empty locker and everything. And then I kind of looked
Speaker 2: my right. I see Maddox on the thing to my right,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, well, that's that's kind of cool doing
Speaker 2: some more stuff, and then he said. Tom Glavin walks
Speaker 2: over and sits down in the one next to him.
Speaker 2: He said, I'm between glabbing and the Mattox.
Speaker 1: Did you have moments like that in a red clubhouse?
Speaker 1: You must have, yep.
Speaker 3: And I had moments out of the Red clubhouse like
Speaker 3: that when we went to Bob Gibson golf tournament one time, who,
Speaker 3: as you know, became good friends, came to our tournament.
Speaker 3: So we get there and where I walk in and
Speaker 3: Bob says, do you know everybody here? And I looked
Speaker 3: at limb Swan was sitting there. Dude, he says, this
Speaker 3: is Sandy Kofax. He ay, Reggie Jackson. Well, we'd met
Speaker 3: a long time ago, and all of a sudden, I'm
Speaker 3: sitting there and my wife looks up and she went,
Speaker 3: what's wrong with this?
Speaker 2: As only OGA can say?
Speaker 3: Right, But I still, you know, because I was a
Speaker 3: fan of the game first, and I want to be
Speaker 3: a fan again so bad if they would quit screwing
Speaker 3: it up in so many ways. But because the game
Speaker 3: was so good, and it was so good to me,
Speaker 3: And when you sit here and talk about it, I
Speaker 3: mean at the fourteen years of my life in pro baseball,
Speaker 3: just it changed.
Speaker 1: What happened to it?
Speaker 3: In your opinion to the game, yes, I think the
Speaker 3: lack of respect for the game itself, to me, is
Speaker 3: the biggest issue in it now if and it's happening
Speaker 3: not just to baseball, it's the law of the sports too.
Speaker 3: Like the live golf tour that they started. Everybody says, well,
Speaker 3: I mean, how do you tell a guy you can't
Speaker 3: go over there, and then we're gonna pay one hundred
Speaker 3: fifty million you don't even have to play golf. I
Speaker 3: understand that, but it kind of kills all the history
Speaker 3: of the stuff of the PGA and baseball I think too.
Speaker 3: Right now, Baseball to me is very hypocritical. I didn't
Speaker 3: think we're going to talk about this and we might not,
Speaker 3: but what we want with what they do with Pete,
Speaker 3: you know, they wait till Pete's dead and I and
Speaker 3: I said that to you. I don't know how long
Speaker 3: a go. I said, now you watch it. When he dies,
Speaker 3: he'll put him.
Speaker 2: In that's right.
Speaker 3: Uh, it's that's to me, is not right if they
Speaker 3: wanted to do it right. What they should have done
Speaker 3: is in the last month when they saw Pete really
Speaker 3: struggling and he was is they said, guys, this is
Speaker 3: not good. We need to get this done now, just
Speaker 3: so Pete knows.
Speaker 1: And uh or you know if indeed, and you and
Speaker 1: I have talked about this. Eight months before he died,
Speaker 1: he wrote a letter absolutely apologizing, admitting to everything.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've changed my mind on that too,
Speaker 3: because when it first happened, he broke a rule. And
Speaker 3: you're right, I'm saying, but.
Speaker 1: I disagree respectfully with why you changed your mind. You
Speaker 1: did because baseball is taking sponsorship money from gamblings.
Speaker 3: Absolutely they are.
Speaker 1: But to me, that and you and I have talked
Speaker 1: about this on the air before, that should have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with it. Because when I go to a
Speaker 1: game and you know, if Doug Flynn boots a ground ball,
Speaker 1: I need to know that there's a you know, they're
Speaker 1: doing everything they can to see to it that he
Speaker 1: didn't boot the ground ball because he got money they
Speaker 1: gave and they look people have been gambling on sports
Speaker 1: since Cavin were throwing rocks, you know.
Speaker 3: But but to me, the way it was done by
Speaker 3: Pro Baseball makes it look very hypocritical. It does, and
Speaker 3: and I hate that. Now it's going to be interesting
Speaker 3: to see what happens with his family and with all
Speaker 3: the stuff that's gonna come because it's what three years
Speaker 3: down the road.
Speaker 1: But let me throw this out there. And Keith was
Speaker 1: a pro athlete, and Darren you worked in pro ball.
Speaker 1: To Doug's point, yeah, they they fumbled this, there's no question,
Speaker 1: but what it did when Darren you may have read
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff. It prompted quite the discussion
Speaker 1: online on the air. And I read a column where
Speaker 1: I think it was The Athletic when and interviewed twelve
Speaker 1: different Hall of famers. Did you see this?
Speaker 2: Players?
Speaker 1: I didn't read it, players, front office. You know, various
Speaker 1: walks of baseball should Pete go in?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: And he was split down the middle, including in some
Speaker 1: of the athletes were adamant, still saying, no, is this
Speaker 1: former Hall of Famers current Hall of Famers fairs? I mean, yeah, yeah, Maner,
Speaker 1: Tony LaRussa, Pat Gillick.
Speaker 3: What Larusa say.
Speaker 1: I think he said I'm on the fence about it
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I'll just tell you that right now.
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to go that far, but I was
Speaker 2: just sitting there thinking about the fact that Larusa has
Speaker 2: his own demons, thank.
Speaker 3: You, Yeah, exactly. And there will be a lot of
Speaker 3: people that will start doing the comparison now because whether
Speaker 3: they're not let me in because I use steroids, or
Speaker 3: I had a.
Speaker 2: Drug issue or and here that's the crux of it
Speaker 2: for me. If you're not going to let Pete in,
Speaker 2: then stop the discussion of the steroid guys, because they cheated.
Speaker 2: They flat cheated. He bet on the game, and he's
Speaker 2: admitted he bet on them. As these guys and Tony
Speaker 2: Kemp does not have a National League Most Valuable Player Award.
Speaker 2: If Ryan Bron hadn't taken steroids with the Milwaukee Brewers,
Speaker 2: Tony Kemp would be an MVP. Aaron Judge would be
Speaker 2: your all time home run champions if not for steroids,
Speaker 2: because Barry Bonds wouldn't fit seventy three.
Speaker 1: How many position players were basically forced out of the
Speaker 1: game by pitchers, sorry, coach, pitchers who were on steroids.
Speaker 2: Yep, you know, or they powered them, or they couldn't
Speaker 2: hit the fifty home runs because they weren't on it.
Speaker 3: That's right, right, And and see back to what we
Speaker 3: were talking about, the hypocrisy. You can't tell me that
Speaker 3: Major League Baseball didn't know that when Sosa and McGuire
Speaker 3: were going through that they were doing.
Speaker 4: Come on, they would look at him. Yeah, it was
Speaker 4: it was Baseball was coming back. If people were.
Speaker 3: Saved it though, I think that that year got people
Speaker 3: to stay around the game. Cal Ripken going for that
Speaker 3: street have saved the game that one year as well.
Speaker 3: And so Baseball, whatever it took to save it, they
Speaker 3: were going to do it regardless of what going on.
Speaker 1: Hey, Mark McGuire did interviews in front of his locker
Speaker 1: with a big tub of creatine over his shoulder. He
Speaker 1: didn't try to hide it, but then he fumbled it
Speaker 1: when he went and sat in front of Congress, and
Speaker 1: she just said, yeah, I did it.
Speaker 3: It was legal, Like Andy Pettit. Andy Pettitt said, yeah.
Speaker 1: Thank you, he did it right, but you know he
Speaker 1: McGuire and so said. They fumbled that another.
Speaker 3: Several levels, several levels, several of them, but they were
Speaker 3: the most high profile. They put some guys in there
Speaker 3: that and we all know used. There's some guys in
Speaker 3: the hall right now that you talk to anybody throughout
Speaker 3: the game they used, and they know they use. But
Speaker 3: they kept it quiet on the download. They didn't strut it.
Speaker 3: They didn't go out and I mean, how you miss McGuire.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's six y five and wait two seventy
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 2: Just to wrap up, my point is, if you're gonna
Speaker 2: put the steroid guys in, Pete's got to go in.
Speaker 2: And I'm fine if you want to argue, well, if
Speaker 2: Pete goes in, the steroid guys go in. My point
Speaker 2: is it's a part of the history of the sport
Speaker 2: and there needs to be something said about it.
Speaker 3: Couldn't Darren, couldn't he couldn't they put in and just
Speaker 3: say he's in the Hall of Fame and then at
Speaker 3: the bottom of his plaqusay make it a part of
Speaker 3: his singer, part of his story.
Speaker 2: Steroid wing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, all right, we got to step out.
Speaker 1: Only twenty five percent of us here have performed on
Speaker 1: stage with a group like the Yolks.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: Wa performs kind of a loose term.
Speaker 1: Well, you could have been juggling or doing hand puppets.
Speaker 3: Might as well as him. Actually, yeah, we saw him.
Speaker 2: What we had a thrill.
Speaker 1: They had to be a thrill get up down stage
Speaker 1: with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is like nineteen eighty so they were they
Speaker 3: were hot, boy, I mean, they were really good.
Speaker 4: I shared this with Darren on the radio. They always
Speaker 4: asked me to sing at church. But it's on as
Speaker 4: it's on a hill far away. That's a good hymn.
Speaker 4: It's a very good Yo you and Max. They're remarkable.
Speaker 3: Uh. And the fact they're moving on. There's three of them,
Speaker 3: there are eighty years of age right now. They got
Speaker 3: a twenty eight year old singer Joe's part and so
Speaker 3: this is gonna be the farewell. They're just they're really
Speaker 3: Last year we went up and saw them at State
Speaker 3: Fair and I went up with one of the Gatling
Speaker 3: boys and they were wonderful. They had lost sixteen members
Speaker 3: of their little family of friends in one year. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so they if you.
Speaker 1: Google them, go to wiki and look up and it
Speaker 1: tells you the current members, but then past members it's
Speaker 1: like thirty something. Yeah, because at one point I didn't
Speaker 1: know this. There were more of an eight piece.
Speaker 3: Well they were a gospel group too.
Speaker 1: Well, they were gospel. They were popped once they finally
Speaker 1: settled on a country.
Speaker 3: You know what their success They used to tell me,
Speaker 3: he said, when you joined them, I told them how
Speaker 3: good they really were? They said, the success He said,
Speaker 3: we got a gospel quartet with a rock and roll band.
Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, and that's exactly what they had.
Speaker 1: And so and Elvira put him on the big map. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Well, you know they're not the diginal Oakreage Boys, that's true.
Speaker 2: The original Oakreage Boys were out of Oakreage, Tennessee. That's
Speaker 2: why they had the name. Yeah, and they were completely
Speaker 2: gospel too, and then they passed the name on to
Speaker 2: the current Well know.
Speaker 1: That, see, folks, that's why you tune in the chain gang.
Speaker 3: Right, that's right, we're talking to this Tennessee boy. Now
Speaker 3: he got to pretty good handle.
Speaker 1: On its true. That's very true. Uh, we've been kind
Speaker 1: of mixing music in baseball, and uh we were talking about,
Speaker 1: uh the peed row. It is kind of the ped
Speaker 1: Rose decision, but shoreless Joe Jackson as well, though I've
Speaker 1: told you more than once he never should have been
Speaker 1: banned anyway. But I'm going to pull this back to
Speaker 1: our original discussion about gloves. Eight minut Out was such
Speaker 1: a great movie. I hope you all saw that, Yes,
Speaker 1: but I got a story about that one. Remember well,
Speaker 1: were you were?
Speaker 2: You were you?
Speaker 1: You weren't quite active with the Reds back then. What anyway,
Speaker 1: real quickly remember the scenes from the games in the movie.
Speaker 1: At the end of an inning, the players would run
Speaker 1: off the field and their gloves. Can you imagine?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I get this call one day and it says,
Speaker 3: is this mister Flynn. Yes it is mister Flynn. We
Speaker 3: appreciate you try and sending in your bye bye bye blah,
Speaker 3: but we just don't think you're right for the movie.
Speaker 3: And I said, uh, okay, what movie. I don't have
Speaker 3: any idea. So I go home and I'm telling old
Speaker 3: and I said, Honey, I get this weird call day.
Speaker 3: She went, oh, I sent your baseball card in to
Speaker 3: these people because they were looking for extras. I said, well,
Speaker 3: they called it day and said.
Speaker 1: Set the wrong car, and you have more than one car.
Speaker 3: And it's about tiger carts. You sent my very last car.
Speaker 3: And they said that's not what they were looking for.
Speaker 3: And I went, how about that.
Speaker 1: That's too bad.
Speaker 3: One of Phil Mankowski was in one of them. Might
Speaker 3: have been the natural Phil play. I played with him
Speaker 3: in Detroit a little bit. Yeah, and uh, he was
Speaker 3: in that movie and they used a lot of his stuff.
Speaker 3: So and he said he had a blast.
Speaker 2: Of filmed at the Old Rock in Buffalo, New York.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, well, I was looking for it earlier, and
Speaker 1: I think I've got it. Let me see here. How
Speaker 1: about this.
Speaker 2: Here's a swinging the tribe today. Plaf Thatch goes Nixon
Speaker 2: looking up.
Speaker 4: Daily went Daily wins it, Daily wins it.
Speaker 2: Kentucky defeats in c State five to four on a
Speaker 2: walk off home run five Mitchell.
Speaker 1: Daily happier times when the Wildcats won their first and
Speaker 1: only win in the College Award Series at Omaha with
Speaker 1: the walk off home run that followed the ninth inning
Speaker 1: home run. Man, you guys, we're all over that.
Speaker 4: You know, Mitch Daily should be one of those guys
Speaker 4: like don't I don't know who all, but there's a
Speaker 4: ton of them. You should never have to buy a meal.
Speaker 2: One, that's right.
Speaker 1: Or Ryan Nicholson as well, because his home running the ninth.
Speaker 2: That's right, those guys.
Speaker 3: I mean I hit three home runs at game right, Nolan?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, four, All five runs were off a home runn.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 1: You remember Nolan Richardson, don't you? I mean, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Nolan McCarthy.
Speaker 2: Oh, Nolan McCarthy, yeah, two game in the seventh, the two,
Speaker 2: and he struck him out, but the ball got away
Speaker 2: from Webber McCarthy the third, there's nobody at cover of
Speaker 2: the play. It's a foot rice eight times across safe.
Speaker 2: Nobody covered home for orget State. McCarthy scores from second
Speaker 2: as Kraft Smith arrives at first. What's a three to
Speaker 2: two Kentucky lead.
Speaker 4: What a heads up play by McCarthy. The pitcher was
Speaker 4: lackadaisical about covering home, and McCarthy never slowed down. He
Speaker 4: was barely around third base, made a beautiful slide well
Speaker 4: ahead of the throw.
Speaker 2: Im dropping coach.
Speaker 1: Now you see why can't I get that kind of
Speaker 1: expert analysis in the TV booth it's only over in
Speaker 1: the radio. But now kidding, Doug and I we were
Speaker 1: in that booth, but we're in the stadium. In the stadium, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't have a chance to call him because the
Speaker 1: big boys were calling it. But uh wow, those were
Speaker 1: great And who knows, maybe it happens again, maybe they
Speaker 1: get hot next week. But those names that everybody heard
Speaker 1: will bring us back as this is our last segment
Speaker 1: to the baseball Cats. So many of those great players
Speaker 1: moved on, and you know, and Nick in our pregame
Speaker 1: meetings with with the network guys and with Dug and me,
Speaker 1: you know, he keeps telling them, look, we lost this guy,
Speaker 1: this guy, this guy all to the pros. We lost
Speaker 1: all our pitchers and all that. But those guys just
Speaker 1: made the explosive plays. And I guess, Darren, we we
Speaker 1: just didn't see a lot. These are talented players they
Speaker 1: got this year and I'm not I'm not dogging them.
Speaker 1: They played hard, they played well at.
Speaker 3: Times, but they were they were baseball players.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got a whole lot of sizzle.
Speaker 3: They were there.
Speaker 4: I mean you look at Nolan and uh and Walt Smith,
Speaker 4: Grant Smith great.
Speaker 3: I mean, these guys were ball players. They they had
Speaker 3: a great baseball i Q. I thought, yes, I mean
Speaker 3: they if something need to be done, we'll get it done.
Speaker 3: Might look we're gonna get it done because they're gonna
Speaker 3: That's not to.
Speaker 1: Say that this team doesn't have it every I think
Speaker 1: there's just more last year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a determination. I mean Grant Smith said it,
Speaker 2: I need to make omaha like I need to breathe
Speaker 2: or like I need to I mean, that was that
Speaker 2: whole team last year. It was just a different group
Speaker 2: and they were experienced, they were older. They knew what
Speaker 2: needed to be done and went out and did it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean they got the pits when they needed to,
Speaker 3: get the hit when they needed and they went on
Speaker 3: the field. It got to the point where at the
Speaker 3: end they're gonna win.
Speaker 1: And the name we haven't brought up yet was you
Speaker 1: had a guy in left field who had come from
Speaker 1: a small college Charleston Southern, and put together a first
Speaker 1: round draft picks season and Ryan Walshmith now as bad
Speaker 1: went to sleep a little lateness in the year, but
Speaker 1: he's easy having a big time in the minors and
Speaker 1: how many times did he come through offensively ended?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was just the key.
Speaker 3: He was the key, he really was. They put him
Speaker 3: in that leadoff.
Speaker 1: Remember he blew his knee and any of us would
Speaker 1: have taken a year to come back, and he said,
Speaker 1: I'll be ready.
Speaker 3: He was two strikes. He became a really good two
Speaker 3: strike in. I mean, you seem he'd go up there
Speaker 3: looking for a pitch and he'd hack at it. He
Speaker 3: didn't get it, but man, when he got two strikes,
Speaker 3: it was just.
Speaker 1: And then he got a Mason Moore and guys like that,
Speaker 1: you know, that rotation, and they were a healthy coach.
Speaker 1: Maybe not all year, but by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: Nick pointed this out, each of the last two years
Speaker 1: teams have won regionals. By the end of the season,
Speaker 1: everybody was healthy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it.
Speaker 4: Johnny Humble too, I mean, oh yeah, what happened to him?
Speaker 4: And in Columbia South Carolina and not many pitchers survived that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even went back to back homers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm going, wow, how do you overcome that?
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just a tough thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. They had a two run lead, didn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they go back to back to back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it took a while, but man, he came
Speaker 4: on strong and showed some real courage and confidence.
Speaker 3: Are you feeling good they're going to be in the tournament?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do. As we sit here today, I feel
Speaker 2: like they're going to be in unless it gets really
Speaker 2: wild with the bubble this weekend. I just don't think
Speaker 2: the bubble is strong. And you look at Kentucky's resume.
Speaker 2: They beat Louisville, it was a series win at Tennessee, got
Speaker 2: a series win at A and M. Swept Oklahoma, And
Speaker 2: to me, sweeping Oklahoma in a three game weekend series
Speaker 2: is a lot better than winning one game on a
Speaker 2: neutral site in the conference tournament because those games are
Speaker 2: not weighted the same.
Speaker 4: But here's the thing, Darren, I've been through this so
Speaker 4: many times. They can find a way to let you in,
Speaker 4: they can find a way to keep you out.
Speaker 2: I'm not thinking like that though. He's living. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was one of the new era. I was
Speaker 1: one of the people that had to come over and
Speaker 1: interview him, say what happened? And I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there's the bubble can make you sweat,
Speaker 2: that's for sure.
Speaker 3: I really wish though, and if they don't get in,
Speaker 3: it's going to be hard to say, well, you know,
Speaker 3: we got screwed or something, because the way they played
Speaker 3: the last little bit. I mean, look at how many
Speaker 3: gate what was the final and thirty conference games? How
Speaker 3: many they had to lead in?
Speaker 2: Twenty seven of them, twenty eight of thirty one if
Speaker 2: you want to count the essay.
Speaker 3: Twenty eight to thirty one.
Speaker 1: I had a lead.
Speaker 3: They had a lead, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but those were killer losses at Vandy oh manah.
Speaker 2: Oh, Look, I hate when I hear somebody say they
Speaker 2: melted down. I'm like, they didn't melt it out. Fandy
Speaker 2: went and hit home runs Like there's nothing you can
Speaker 2: do with that. Here, the pill that sign hittinst McCoy
Speaker 2: was not a bad pitch. It was out. It was
Speaker 2: meant to be in the dirt, but it was out,
Speaker 2: and that kid just reached down there and sent it
Speaker 2: the other way.
Speaker 3: See, that doesn't bother me. When when you hit a
Speaker 3: home run. What bothers me is you take a three
Speaker 3: run lead out and you walk the first gown for it.
Speaker 2: That's what drives me. That's always how it starts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and when we saw that a lot. How many
Speaker 3: times this year did you see Kentucky take a lead
Speaker 3: only to give it up in the very next inning,
Speaker 3: half of the inning. And so those are things that
Speaker 3: didn't happen last year, right, and uh, it's just yeah,
Speaker 3: it's you know, I mean, gosh, we all want them
Speaker 3: to win because how much fun and plus from a
Speaker 3: selfie standpoint of view, broadcasting winning baseball is much more
Speaker 3: fun and what.
Speaker 1: That did for the community last year.
Speaker 3: And years they come out too.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah, well, uh, as always, we are out of
Speaker 1: time so quickly thanks to the change.
Speaker 3: I don't want to go.
Speaker 1: Well, you can stay here and do a little laundry.
Speaker 2: Gotta go home, but you got to get out of here.
Speaker 1: That's gonna do it for tonight. A quick thank you
Speaker 1: to my buddies Doug Flynn, Darren Hedrick and Keith Madison.
Speaker 1: We send text messages to each other all night long,
Speaker 1: every night, the text chain that Keith's wife Sharon has
Speaker 1: dubbed the chain Gang. So every now and then we
Speaker 1: drag him into the garage. We talk baseball, we talk music,
Speaker 1: and again, if you're listening via the podcast, we're sorry,
Speaker 1: but copyright rules mean we cannot play the music that
Speaker 1: we're talking about, but we will if you missed it.
Speaker 1: We will replay this show at some point coming up
Speaker 1: in the next few weeks as the summer months rolled in.
Speaker 1: Coming up Monday, it'll be a best of show, except
Speaker 1: we're gonna lead off with the news about Kentucky baseball.
Speaker 1: Did the Wildcats get into the NCA Tournament or did
Speaker 1: they not? We find out Monday afternoons, starting at noon
Speaker 1: when the selection show. So we hope we'll have some
Speaker 1: reaction from Nick Menngon and or one of the players.
Speaker 1: That's it. Good night from the garage in Lexington.
Speaker 4: Je, gosh, you lolled get.
Speaker 5: The ball around the enemy. You lolled the gag you
Speaker 5: right down the first you lily hear it out of
Speaker 5: their dugout. Did you know what that makes you? Burry
Speaker 5: tact show anything then.
Speaker 2: To take.
Speaker 5: Stomi in contorting to theos