PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Inside insight on Lawlar, Carroll & more from Amarillo Sod Poodles broadcasters Stefan & Chris Caray

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

We are joined by Amarillo Sod Poodles broadcasters Stefan and Chris Caray, great grandsons of MLB legend Harry Caray, to talk about the Arizona Diamondbacks prospects passing through Hodgetown, their legendary family’s connection to the game, World Baseball Classic, and so much more.BUY D-BACKS TICKETS HERE: https://gametime.hnyj8s.net/c/3442941/1410622/10874 SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX: Our next PHNX Tee Party at Dobson Ranch is LIVE! Join us on Friday, March 24th for a night of golf, food, drinks, contests, prizes, and more. Come hang with the PHNX crew, fellow Suns’ fans and Diehards as we watch KD, Booker, and the Suns battle in the final stretch of the season as they take on De'Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis, and the Sacramento Kings.Checkout the PHNX Tee Party at Dobson Ranch Eventbrite to reserve your spot today. And Diehards, check Discord for your exclusive discount link!Circle K: Text code “PHNX” to 31310 to win a $500 gas card! Limit one entry per person—limit of one entry per phone number. The offer is valid for Arizona residents only. Must be able to verify the place of residence. This contest is administered at the discretion of the Grand Canyon Division of Circle K Stores. Circle K Store Inc. is a part of Alimentation Couche-Tard. You must be 18 years of age or older to win. For questions about this contest or our stores, text ”CARE” to 31310.Rotowire: Get your free trial and unlock all the best fantasy sports news and analysis at https://rotowire.com/phnxOGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Four Peaks: Drink, eat, find, and experience Four Peaks at https://www.fourpeaks.com/.  Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Bad Birdie: Use code “PHNXSPORTS_15” for 15% off your next order https://glnk.io/7qnq/phnx-sportsMor Furniture: Save big on the best furniture in the Valley when you head to https://morfurniture.com!Roman: Go to https://ro.co/PHNX today to get 20% off your entire first order. DraftKings: Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now (https://bit.ly/3Jl1dMX), use promo code PHNX and make your first deposit of FIVE DOLLARS and get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS INSTANTLY! Gambling Problem? Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (CO/IL/IN/LA/MD/MI/NJ/OH/PA/TN/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), visit OPGR.org (OR), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA).21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/KS/LA(select parishes)/MD/MI /NJ/ NY/OH/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. VOID IN ONT. Eligibility restrictions apply. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to another edition of the PHNX D-BATS podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Monti. Of course, I'm your mayor, PHMX. We are joined by some very special guests. Not this guy, though. I'm here too, Derek. My gosh. I knew he's going to do that.

This is the vice mayor, occasionally known as Thunderstick Jesse Friedman. Jesse. People don't care about what I have to say. I know. They only care about what Chris and Stefan Carey has it. That's right. That's right. And we welcome in our guys from the Amarola Sod Poodle's Sod Poodles. Chris and Stefan Carey guys thank you so much for being here yeah thanks so much for having us

guys what a setup and honestly the first thing I'm gonna say is is those highlight clips on the lead in yeah yeah you guys have the perfect jaw lines for those lead in so just got to give you guys some credit on that right away that's our clip for the day right there let's just clip that right there 15 seconds in and I've learned mayor and thunderstick yeah I want a cool nickname we'll get that we'll get you those before the end of the episode it's step in the second would probably be the best one. Why is that? Just because, I mean, he's, he came from me. I was supposed to be the first one. Oh, that's right.

Yeah, we're identical twins. Just biology. Gotcha. I understand. I like that. Well, of course, this show's brought to you by the fine folks at the Drafking Sportsbook app. America's top rated sportsbook app. And now these two guys very much, very familiar with the game of baseball. And obviously very familiar with a lot of the Arizona Diamondbacks players we've seen that have kind of passed through Amarillo. So I guess, I know there's a lot to talk about. You guys are the first set of identical twin broadcasters in baseball. So is that true? That is true. No, I mean, I think so that we're together. Yeah, I think yeah, I believe that's true. I know that we're the first fourth generation broadcasters. So the identical twin part was the part that was cooler for us in the beginning,

that we got to do it together. But yeah, mostly because Stefan gets to look at himself for nine straight in. Well, see, that's what I was going to say. How much do you hate yourselves, like,

because of the other person? What I will say, I won't say a ton of positive things about Chris, but what I will say is I won't find a better looking partner anywhere else in the country. Wow. There's that. But quite honestly, you know,

he finds ways, you know, games are two and a half hours long now, but there's no better way to spend three hours for Stefan than right in front of a mirror. Oh, yeah, that's true. That would be his favorite part. He had his choice.

It would be a mirror so they could look at them. I would tell my brother how handsome they were at least once a day with this situation going on. I have to ask, so like I have two older brothers and the youngest of three. And I love my brothers. Yeah, like I genuinely enjoy spending time with them. But if I were to sit in a broadcast booth with either of them, for hours and hours every single day.

Like, I do like my brothers, but I don't know if I like them that much. So I have to ask, like, do you guys get sick of each other? Like, is that a thing? Or are you just like, you just enjoy each other's company that much? Or maybe you do get sick of each other. I don't know. I think the fact that that came with the disclaimer of how much you love your brother might sum it up a little bit.

I mean, it's really an amazing thing by and large. You know, obviously we are each other's biggest critics. So iron sharpens iron. If somebody makes a bad call, if somebody screws up on the air, we're definitely going to be hitting the button to quiet things now. I'll be like, hey, you screwed that up. Sometimes we're getting into little arguments. But by and large, I mean, I wouldn't want any other partner, at least in this stage in my career, to get to the growth that I need to be at to eventually get to the major league level if we can get there. And that's a hard thing, too, to find.

Definitely. Somebody that is going to be honest with you about things like that, because I know with what we do, We try to find people that tell us like what we're doing wrong and what we're doing right. And everything's wonderful. You guys are doing a great job. It's like, but I'm not going to get better if I don't have somebody that can, you know, look back at me and tell me when I screwed up and how I can make things better. So like that's a great thing to have that in each other. But I feel like you would.

I mean, yeah, it's like any relationship. I imagine you get sick of each other. I mean, I'm your biggest critic, Derek. I get sick of them all the time. But you just say nice things about me all the time. I really don't. I say the worst things about him. But how are you guys different on the air?

Because I know you guys do both play-by-play and kind of color and kind of switch it up. But how are you guys different? Oh, Stefan has commented on this a couple of times. And what I would say is Stefan is more off the cuff. He's seemingly the comedic relief. And for me, I get really analytical. I really go deep into the players and situations of the game. I just love the game of been absorbing it for as long as I can remember.

You know, even before Stefan decided to do broadcasting or wanted to do it, I was already invested in it. So he kind of joined alongside of me and brought a side out of me that I didn't know I had. And so we complement each other pretty well, I would say. But the analytical side is more me. And you're willing to make a joke or two every once in a while. Yeah. I mean, when there's no real face of the operation, since we have the same face virtually, we have to differentiate ourselves somehow.

And he alluded to something really important. He was into this before I was. I was a college lacrosse player. I don't know if player is really the best term. I was a college lacrosse bench warmer. Okay. You were all the team. Practice squad hero.

Yeah. My joke is that I hold the NCAA record for shooting percentage. I got in three games, scored three goals on three shots. Nice. So yeah. Nice. Let's go. Steph Curry, lethal.

You know what? You don't need to include that other part. Yeah, no, I don't. I hold that record. He's already boosted my ego up so much on the show. People are going to think I'm a narcissist if I don't. Negative parts of my story. They're going to think by the end of this, they're going to know.

Orgon-exposed. Put it in the papers. Yeah. How big, I mean, obviously, I know you guys get asked about this an excessive amount already, but we have to go there, right? So your dad is Chip Carey, right? Newly minted broadcaster of the St. Louis Cardinals was with Atlanta Braves for a while. Then there's Skip, of course, also with the Braves for a long time.

And then there's Harry, your great-grandfather, right? How big of an influence did all of those people coming before you kind of like paved the way for this? Or was this really just like you guys really love doing this and maybe would have wound up doing this otherwise? I think the first thing is that, yeah, for me, it was sort of a natural thing. My dad, in some discouraged me from getting into this career path because he knows what it comes with. He knows the nepotism aspect of it, the hard parts that come with getting a job like this and moving into this career path. And, you know, maybe my family just isn't that good at anything else. That's the thing that we start to question and start to wonder. Or maybe you're just really,

really great at this. Yeah. Well, brand recognition. You go to a supermarket, you buy something you really like. And even if something new hits the shelves, you just stick with the same thing. Like we're the Kraft Macaronian Cheese broadcasts. Something like that. That's a great comparison. No, but in terms of influence, we didn't know Harry. So Harry died in 98. We were born in 99.

Skip lived in Atlanta. We've lived in Florida all of our lives during the off-season. So we would pop in and see my dad for a road trip every once in a while. I mean, we were not. There's a common misconception that we grew up in a major league clubhouse. just not the case. We were practically raised by my mom and my grandparents. And we found that the job was really, really cool. Stefan enjoys attention as much as the next person. And I would be willing to say I like it too. And it's a really, really great way to make a living. And so far with what we've

been able to do and what we've been able to achieve with a little asterisk and had a lot of help with, we feel that we've done a good job on our own. And the only influence I can say that we take is we try to be dynamic and exciting like our dad. The way he builds a call, that's what people remember. They remember the home run calls. They remember the strikeouts. They don't necessarily always remember, you know, the fourth inning, a one, two, three inning on a Wednesday in Baltimore. But they will remember the walk-off home runs.

They will remember those things. And I think that aspects of the game and broadcasting, people are losing sight of that. And we want to bring that back into the minor leagues and hopefully one day an eventual major league career. I know you guys have talked about it a bit and you guys do an outstanding job. Jesse and I both have really enjoyed listening to you guys call games. But is there a point where like it feels a bit difficult to try to forge your own path in a career that your family is such a big part of when, you know, like you said, there's there's all of those kind of preconceived notions and things like that. Look, I mean, it can't all be good. And that's that's what we had to come to grips with, right?

You guys have read our story when we got the job. It wasn't under the most normal of circumstances. And when we came into it, we got immediate national attention, largely because of our last name. Now, interestingly enough, for those who haven't heard this story, we met Tony at game five of the World Series when the Atlanta Braves were playing the Houston Astros, and we were in the right field seats in the chop house, probably drinking too many margaritas. But my mom was recognized by an usher. and the usher pointed her out to Tony, who's my boss, my GM for the Emeril Osab Poodle's, great guy,

that this was Chip Carey's wife. And so my mom met him, started selling us on him immediately. And it was really my mom that should get a lot of the credit. And really, the stars aligned. But it is difficult to forge your own path, but something should be difficult. It's difficult for guys that don't have our last name to get to where we are. You have to take the good with the bad. And the quote that I use that I always try to talk to people about is you can't come from our background.

You can't have the last name that we have and say till you're blue in the face that you had no help. And whether it was immediate or direct help from a person or somebody making a phone call, it doesn't really matter. It just is the fact that it exists and you have to recognize that it exists. And what you do with it is up to you. So what you do with that help and what you do, making connections and being yourself, because, you know, Chip's not out here to save us here at spring training. You know, we can either make a good impression on people like you or the scouts or people around or we won't.

I mean, that's up to us. So that comes from a more parental standpoint and stuff like that. But I think we've just, we've enjoyed every single second of working together. And, you know, we're on a big stage in Amarillo that some people don't really understand how popular that brand is. And we're trying to do right by that brand. But we're also trying to do right by our family name while also doing things our own way. And that will show itself in the next couple of years, hopefully.

I love that so much. Do you guys feel a pressure to kind of like prove yourself? Like I belong here. Like I know maybe you did have some sort of help or something in getting here. But like you guys are really good at what you do. I mean, I can say that honestly from listening to your broadcast. I don't think it's just like, oh, you know, they got. You guys are here.

We have to say nice things. You do. Exactly. I mean, you have a family member of mine on your body right now. That's right. Correct. It's totally. Yeah.

I don't know. Did you buy that shirt before we came in? Oh, I've owned this shirt for years. Oh, that's awesome. You probably need to tell the audio people what you're wearing right now. I'm wearing a wonderful Harry Carey shirt. It has holy cows, baseballs, and beers on it. And I just thought it was the most appropriate shirt I've ever worn on an episode of this show. And in all transparency, I did send text messages to Jesse and our content had ESPO asking if they thought it was appropriate for me to wear this.

Because again, you guys know who your grandfather, great-grandfather is. We all know who your great-grandfather is. It does seem like a thing, though, at times that, like, stuff like this, you know, there's a positive way to take it. And there's also like, oh, hey, I'm, you know, I'm, again, I'm trying to be my own person. And, and again, like, I feel like it's something that happens in baseball quite a bit. I think it happens with athletes. I think it happens with all sorts of people where their father was somebody great.

You know, we have that with Drew Jones now, right? I like so there's just this you know kind of still having to walk in in the footsteps of your of your of your grandparents of your great-grandparents but you know make a name for yourself and and I I honestly think you guys have done an outstanding job like Jesse said we've really enjoyed your your commentary and everything with the sod poodles and we've really enjoyed the sod poodle's brand that you brought up like ever since it's become the diamondbacks double a affiliate like it's just an incredible you know place to to, you know, have as part of the organization. Don't you mean the cap fries, Derek?

The calf rise. Well, yeah, we got a lot to talk about there. But Corby and Carroll's contract extension is our big news this week. We've talked about it so much. So we wanted to get your guys' thoughts on that. Were you surprised to see Carol get extended? I guess this soon, not extended, because I don't think anybody would be extended, but were you surprised to see him this soon?

Not even a little bit. Really? I mean, this was one of Chris's crystal ball moments. Yeah. where he he is very analytical. Like he mentioned earlier. These two guys would get along. You and me would get along.

I think we figured out. The CD arrangement. Yeah, he had just matching shirts and everything. We got a lot going on here. They'll get their calculators out halfway through the show. Who can solve this first? No, but yeah, I think that when

Julio Rodriguez and Michael Harris were getting their deals done. Yes. This was when Chris started. to think, hey, Corbyn's next, because it makes sense to avoid those arbitration years. It makes sense to lock in a player that young, that talented, this early. Now, I think that we both thought the number was going to be a little bit lower than it was. But I still think they're getting him for a bargain considering what he brings to the team. And make no mistake here, because the figure being lower has nothing to do with Corbyn's talent.

I actually think he's worth more money right now. If I were to value him right now, he's 140. 150 million dollar player right now. Sure. The difference is it's the organization that gave out the deal. And I think that caught everybody by surprise was this eight-year, $111 million deal that gets up to $154 some odd if they include the options. And Carol signs it.

And everybody's like, wait a minute. It's this small market team idea where it's like, it's a very team friendly deal. But it's a player-friendly deal too. Anytime you see $100 million being doled out, you question, especially for a guy who had 34. 32 games in the major leagues last year. But I couldn't be happier for Corbyn.

Our experiences with him, though short, have been nothing but fantastic. And for him and his family and everything they've done and everything that he's done for the sport, it's life-changing. And it's amazing to see a guy that young achieve his dreams because he's been so great to us, so many other people, that it's finally great that the world is paying it forward to him. I thought of you guys. I know you were there at the press conference, but I thought of you when Corby and Carol

talked at the press conference about like that baseball was his life because you said on a couple occasions you said hey what are you doing tonight and his answer was I'm going to go home and get a good night's sleep and like study baseball basically he's a gamer and everybody that watches this show and everybody that follows your channel that follows everything you guys put out knows corbin carroll the baseball player i don't know if they know exactly what kind of a human being he is but in our experience, I have one story that I will, I'll never forget. And it was when he got called up to Reno. So he gets called up to Reno. And I wake up that morning to a text from Corby. We're his broadcasters. Like we had very limited interaction with him. We weren't trying to be up in his face

because Lord knows that everybody from MLB pipeline, everybody from the athletic were going to be up in his face, asking him questions, asking him to do things. Not that it's ever a problem because he's always so agreeable. But he texts me and he says, thank you for always representing me well. I know I haven't seen the last of you guys. I'm really, really proud of what you're going to do. And to me, I had been around major leaguers. I had been around people that I would have been starstruck with. But that moment, more so than meeting Chipper Jones, more so than meeting Bobby Cox, was something that really exemplified my opinion of what it was like to meet a superstar. And the superstardom isn't necessarily what he is on the field.

It's what he is off of the field. And we love Corbyn. There's a fine line to walk in journalism ethics to become friends with the players you're covering because if they struggle, you start to teeter a little bit. He starts to defend him a little bit. Yeah, he's 0 for 34, but man, that swing looks good. Corbin's never been 0.34 in his life for the record.

But he is a one-of-a-kind human being and could potentially be a one-of-a-kind baseball player. thing special too because he has so much going on in his life on a day like that to reach out to anybody that you know what I mean like but let alone just to send you a nice message and say some nice things that really isn't about him and is more about your relationship with him and and him knowing what you guys are doing it's that's that's amazing and he did it again on his press conference he walks out of the door and we're on that roof yeah of salt river and he looks at us and immediately comes over daps us up and give us a hug yeah and when I say it

We've had probably less than three sentences worth of communication with Corbyn. I mean, in a non-work capacity. Chris doesn't have less than three sentences of communication with anybody. So it's really impressive. Yeah, okay, I'll try and keep it shorter. I took the hint. Whatever. I get it.

I sat next to him with the press. I should have started with an apology before that. Anyway, so Corbin, he just comes and gives us a hug and says, great to see you guys. we were his broadcasters for two and a half, maybe three months. And, you know, when we were walking home from Springfield to the hotel, said, hey, Corby, you want to get a drink or whatever, are you going out to get a drink?

Because the guys sometimes go out or have fun or whatever. He says, no, I'm going to go and, you know, I got to, because he has a heightened sense of where he wants to be and the type of, you know, image he wants to have. And he's always just, he is as salt to the earth as it comes. And it's been amazing to see a guy of that caliber. that could in every way go the opposite direction and be a jerk or just be the complete best person around from a media capacity

from human being standpoint as well. I know it's a small example, but I've told this on the show before that like I don't expect players to really remember me. And if I'm not, I don't have my press pass on and we're not at Chase Field. And, you know, we're doing something. I really don't expect them to remember me. And they were doing like a charity event during Christmas for the holidays

and they were giving my kids a shopping spree. And I went over to Corbyn and introduced myself after Jesse and I had met him already at the end of the season and covered him, talked to him a couple of times. And when I introduced himself, he just looked at me really weird. And he was like, I know who you are. And it was the way any normal person would honestly respond to like, why are you introducing yourself to me again? Like, yeah, I know you are.

But it was just a little something that was special with him that like, like you said, he really does come across as being a very thoughtful person and somebody that honestly does seem very down to earth in a world of athletes that isn't always that, right? Yeah, I had a similar experience with Corbyn where I was a math teacher in Washington State for a couple years after I graduated high school. And I told Corbin about that last year when he got called up. Of course, he's from Seattle. And he just asked me so many questions about, you know, where in Seattle I was and he wanted to know what school I taught at and all these different things. Things most people don't ever care about with Jesse brings this information.

Just a pro athletes really like digging into my past that much. They just don't really care. But Corbyn was certainly not that guy. And then when I saw him for the first time this spring, you know, he's asking me, you know, did you get a chance to go back to Seattle all at all over the offseason or anything like that? So yeah, he really is a gem of a human being. And it's, you know, I don't know if his form of leadership will ever be like the vocal, you know, super, you know, wild in the clubhouse or anything kind of a deal.

But, I mean, you want to talk about a guy who leads by example. Corbyn Carroll is definitely that guy. And we have that when we heard about how Mike Hazen felt about him handling Jordan Lawler's injury and having Lawler come. Also sit with scouts and just gave him minimal instruction. And next thing you know, Carol was taken over on Lawler's, you know, basically going through the same thing that he did when he was injured, making the most of his time.

And speaking of Lawler, we want to get your impressions of Jordan. You guys saw a little bit of Gordon Lawler, didn't you? You? We did. We did. And his story was interesting getting up to double A. So I won't disclose what happened, but I will let you figure it out yourselves. Okay. So let's just say a large group of players was put on the injured list at once. And Jordan was just tearing the cover off the ball at Hillsborough. And he comes up to Amarillo. Actually, it was Corpus Christi at the time that we were on the road and he makes his double A debut. We meet him, he introduces himself, very nice, you know, silent confidence, but you knew that this guy was something special, kind of like Corbyn, just a very kind individual, willingness to learn, definitely no ego whatsoever. And the initial plan, as we heard it, was that he was going to go back down to Hillsborough. Right. Now that never happened because he started, and he hit the ball, he put the ball in play, but it was not really super raw power, Jordan Lawler that everybody was used to.

But he was putting together timely at bats, was doing everything at a really professional level at a high rate. And he was playing, I think, three times that week. His management was not six games, six games series. He played three games. I think two of them at short and one of them at D.H. Because we still had Blaze Alexander at the time. And so Jordan was getting a feel for it.

And they just kept him here. They just kept him in Amarillo. And then, of course, he came to Hodge Town and was fantastic. And I think that he is going to be similar to Corbyn and where he's just going to hit the ground running immediately in double a and never look back. But he was remarkably impressive on the offensive side. Yeah, I mean, same type of guy in terms of personality. And you alluded to the fact that he and Corby spent a lot of time together. Yeah. It definitely, I'm sure that was naturally Jordan's personality to just be a good person and just be really

nice to everybody. He walked into Amarillo, came into the clubby's office. Chris was there. And he just picked Chris's brain about broadcasting, just out. about it, what it was like. So maybe, maybe someday he'll be the color commentator for the Diamondbacks, but I've never seen a person sign more baseball cards in one sitting than Jordan Lawler. Really? It was crazy. We were in San Antonio. Yeah, in San Antonio. And we're going out, doing whatever. Man, we really sound unprofessional. We're just, we're just partying all the time. We were celebrating a guy's birthday. We were celebrating a friend's birthday. Shout out Drew Stankowitz, who's going to Mexico. Hey, Drew's going to Mexico. He just got off the plane.

He was just texting me earlier. But yeah, he's just sitting there. Banging out signatures for... Is this like a sitting or is this with like fans? No, no, no, no, just a sitting. Yeah, like it's a... He does like a deal with it. But I was like, you know, he's so dedicated to every part of the game.

You know, he... I think he understands the gravity of the situation, being a first round pick, being a very marketable guy. I mean, even while we're here at spring training, people are talking to us and saying he's your guy he's exactly who you need to market in amarillo because he can handle it he can handle anything that is thrown at him he's uh he's just been a real joy to watch and a guy that um you know has made time for us just like corbin did but they're a little different you know corbin is this kind of quiet it's it's super super kind guy and no no difference

between laller but lawler is like silent confidence he's got a little bit more swagger to him And I think that that will complement each other well when he gets up to the major leagues in very short time. Yeah. There was a moment during the spring training game today. I don't know if you guys had left at that point. But I think Lawler had walked or something. He came in to pinch hit in a Cactus League game today. And so you had Jordan Lawler at first base.

You had Corbyn Carroll at second base. And I just had this moment where I was like, oh, my gosh. They're both on the base at the same time. The Squidward Future meme. Yeah. That's exactly what it's like. Yeah, he is he's the real deal. And especially once the power started coming through at Hodgetown, we all know Hodgetown is a very offensive friendly ballpark.

Yes. But no kidding. No kidding. He can clobber the ball. And it took him a little bit more time to get used to AA. Yeah. Because I mean, it was his fourth level of the miners in one year, which is pretty insane as it is. They say the jump from high A to double A is the biggest, the biggest jump in the model leagues in terms of difficulty.

Yeah. So he really started coming into his own. I'm really looking forward to him being a leader in that clubhouse. And Chris said that, that, I won't say poisonous, but that just collected attitude that he has and what he's going to bring to the clubhouse, the season's going to be a lot of fun because I don't anticipate he's going to be there very long. And that's something that we as Diamondbacks fans are getting a chance to see more and more as these guys kind of cruise through the minor league system.

They're also having a really nice kind of adjustment to the majors when they're, they do get up to the major league level. We've talked about Tori Lobello and staff kind of being, you know, deserving a bit more credit for that because it seems like it's a consistent thing that these guys are able to come through the system and be ready when they get here to play major league baseball. But I'm so glad you brought up Hodgetown because that place is insane. The atmosphere is electric.

Like it's funny because I usually, I use it as an example quite a bit with minor league ballparks when people kind of tend to think minor league ballparks are just some sort of stop, you know, for these major league players on their way up. They don't understand how big of a, how big of an impact they have on the community there in and how much the fans there really love a team like the sod poodles. It is an enigma. That's the best word that I can use for it. Because in 2019, when the expansion teams were announced, I think Rocket City was one of them, the trash pandas. And my uncle's broadcaster for them. And then the sod poodles, there was another team as well. I forget, but everybody said that why would you put a team in Amarillo, Texas? You know, they had the Independent League gold socks and all that,

and Amarillo's far away. And, you know, look at how Amarillo you, it is cartoony Texas. I mean, it is the planes. You have tumbleweeds. It's a beautiful beach without water. And so, and that's how Steph describes it. I like it. They get a stadium.

They name it Hodgetown. And the team is the number one team in season tickets. in the country. And it's like, really? Well, because it's, it's the only game in town. Right.

So Stefan has been on the record to say this multiple times that everybody asks, how's Amarillo, how's Hodgetown? They care more about the Saaboodles than they do about the Dallas Cowboys. If it was,

if it was between the Cowboys winning a Super Bowl or the Saab Poodle's winning a Texas. Let's hold on. Well, Texas Rangers. The Texas Ranger. Okay, nothing's beating

the Cowboys in that market. No chance. As great as the Saub Puddles are. But Hodge Houchtown is an unbelievable atmosphere. And I think something that people fail to take into account is how important having a good atmosphere is for fans. Yeah. Because for better or for worse, if you have a bad game and you're on the road and there's a crowd there booing you, you've got to learn how to overcome that mentally.

At Hodge town, fans at 7, 7,500 seat stadium. It's packed every night from Tuesday through Sunday. Yeah, it's crazy. When I see video of it, I'm like, this place looks electric, man. Especially the bar. Yeah. Bar 352 is humping. And apparently, apparently, there will be some special guests coming through town at Bar 352. I don't know if I can divulge that information, but I'll let it come out. That's enough. But keep your eyes. Some special, special, special guests that are coming through that may or may not have something to do with the sports team that Chris just mentioned accidentally. We'll leave it at that. All right. Lock it in.

And Jesse has numbers about Hodgown. I know we always kind of are fascinated by the offensive numbers. We have to talk about the offensive environment at this stadium. So I did some research. The league average ERA and the Texas League at large is 5.11. That's just the Texas League in general. Amarillo, from what I can tell, is far in away the most hitter-friendly environment. And an already extremely hitter-friendly league, what is it like?

if you hit like a little dinky flare to the shortstop or whatever, does it just like sail like over the left field fence? Like like how extreme, how noticeable is it on an everyday basis? Oh, how do I answer this without making my boss mad? Okay, I'm going to answer this honestly.

It is, it is insane. You get a ball in the air to left field. It's going over, especially if there's any win whatsoever. Is it the win? Let me preface this by same. And elevation too.

Let me just say, we have Reno and we have these ballparks, right? And so like the one thing within the organization is, is nobody wants to ever admit that these are hitter-friendly ballparks. But like, come on, like the numbers speak for themselves as far as the offense that's produced there. We can provide some evidence, too. I mean, last year, pretty good evidence. Last year, I mean, the longest home run hit in the stat cast era was hit at Hodge Town, 527 feet Leandro Sedania. I remember. They did not take into count wind or elevation when tracking.

that ball. They think it went 560. Yeah. Because then it just keep bouncing. It was, I was, I was at, Chris was interviewing somebody when it happened. I was, I was, I was doing the, doing the game by myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I was meeting the, uh, the owners of the sob poodles. But I was sitting directly behind home plate, which is a rarity because we're, sure, we're on the right field side, which is where we call the games. Yeah. And I see that, that seems like a whole other thing.

It's, yeah, it's definitely interesting, but it's, it's part of the novelty of it. And so we're behind home plate. This ball is crushed. I just sit there in the moment and just say it is the longest home run I've ever seen. And then a couple weeks later, Chandler Redmond comes into town with the Springfield Cardinals and he hits for the home run cycle in four consecutive innings. That's only been done one other time in professional baseball. In four consecutive meetings.

I'm pretty sure it went three run home run, solo shot, grand slam, two run home run. Oh, my God. It's six, seven, and eight. And, you know, it's remarkable. There's never a dull moment at Hodgetown. Right. You certainly get your, you know, if you're a broadcaster, you certainly get your dose of home run calls, which has been helpful.

But that's why people, people, and with the pitch clock, it's not like you're going to have a five-hour game there with the 13 to seven victory or loss, which we, we saw both of those last year. But, you know, for pitchers, you feel for them a little bit, right? For guys starting pitchers, and pitchers are going to pitch. when you see a guy like a Brandon Fott, go out there and do what he did. He still had near a 4 ERA in Amarillo.

It's like, no, that's really good. Like that's really, really good. And I was talking to a guy about the PCL and the Texas League and stuff like that. And he said, you know, a 4ERA in the PCL or in the Texas League is like a two and a half ERA anywhere else. And so I was like, huh, that is interesting. So we have to start looking at it from a different perspective because, let's say, a 280 batting average is more common in the Texas

league than it would be in the Eastern League or the Southern League. So that's not as impressive. It has its ups and it's down, for sure. Yeah. I get you. It's kind of like saying driving somewhere 10 miles here in Phoenix versus 10 miles in L.A. That's two completely different time frames. You're going to get there 10 miles.

10 miles in Amarillo. The 101 was bad today. Yeah. No, Jesse still complains about the 101. Yeah. Brandon fought was a really good point that Chris brought up because what people I don't think necessarily realize about Brandon is to pitch in that environment. Every single home start that you have.

It's going to start to affect what you throw and how many walks you have. It never affected Brandon. When he left us, he had 144 strikeouts to 19 walks. That is insane. Wow. It is absolutely insane. I love that.

And they mentioned his slider that's been developing during the spring. We talked to scouts and they said if he gets that slider right, he will be the ace of whatever team he makes it to the majors way. So Zach Allen's there and then maybe Brandon fought is that one two punch following him, which is usually pretty good in spring train. Yeah. It's unbelievable.

Pretty good. You guys obviously have a lot of experiencing Diamondbacks players that we don't talk about as much as these other guys that we brought up. So is there anybody that's kind of impressed you that a lot of Debacks fans might not really know? Yeah, quite a few actually. From a from a perspective of if he wasn't on the Diamondbacks, he'd be a major leaguer right now. It would be Blaze Alexander. Yeah, that guy is unbelievable. His work ethic is ridiculous. He goes out every single day, doesn't need one, doesn't need a day. He goes out and he is dedicated to his craft. I think that that is one of the obvious choices. His brother, CJ, is fantastic too. They're both major league guys at some point. And, you know, Blaze is 24 now. He deserves his shot, I believe. But another guy, I would think, you know, I would say Barrosa was phenomenal. Jorge Barrosa.

Blaze Alexander being added to the 40 man, as well as Barrosa, both being saved by the Diamondbacks and the Rule 5, tells me that they must have some type of plan for him. But being a primarily left-handed hitting outfielder, Barros is a switch hitter. You have those in spades in the Diamondbacks organization. We have a few outfew. An interesting story was Robbie Enriquez.

You guys might not know about him, but he was, I believe, with the Boise Hawks in the frontierly. He was an indie ball guy and he is Puerto Rico. And he got picked up by Hillsborough and he hit like 190 at Hillsborough. But they advanced him to double A and then finished the season just above 300. Oh my God. And he was, I mean, remarkably good.

He became our cleanup hitter at one point in the season. Leandro Sanio and Enriquez went back and forth together and it was a great one to punch. And these are names like Enriquez is. not one, but there is one name that still, I look at him and I look at his makeup, but I don't know where the fit is, but the guy that I am truly intrigued by, he's a position player by the name of Nick Dallessandro. Yeah, he is interesting. Because he led the organization in steals two years ago, with 33 steals, and he doesn't

play every day. He's like a utility catcher, outfielder type blazing fast, like almost as fast as Corbyn is. and he's more of a contact hitter. But when he came up, he was pretty much all opposite field, right-handed hitter. But a grinder, just a guy that, you know, his father, Mark Dallessandro played in the major leagues. He has that exact makeup. He's projectable. He's a guy that I would love to see, get up and get his shot somewhere.

It's just where the fit is. Yeah. He's listed as a catcher. Yeah. He is a catcher. Wow. I think a catcher who is still 35 bases in 84 games. His knees don't break.

He's from Chicago. He's kind of got that blue collar chip on your shoulder mentality. He's awesome. I remember asking him, what do you play? The first day we were out for media days. And he's like, you know, I'm kind of a catcher, catcher outfielder, whatever, trying to make the team as like a utility guy. Whenever they play me.

I said, well, that's pretty cool. He said, no, it sucks. I want to be out there making millions of being a super son. But yeah, there's a lot of guys. And these are the back end guys, the guys that were with the team at the end of the season. But guys like Dominic Fletcher, Dominic Cansoe. How could you ignore that? Drey Jameson was fantastic.

We saw him for a cup of coffee. Yeah, not much. But he is, he is, I didn't know what he was going to be at the major league level. But seeing what he was able to do last year, I think I was kind of stopped dead in my tracks to see how effective he was with his fastball. And what we noticed earlier in the year was when he tried to rev it up too much, when he tried to. to go 98 9900 that was when he got himself into some trouble when he brought it down to 95 96 with the movement and it will go like that yeah he was much much better and he is every bit the starting pitcher that the diamond backs are going to expect him to be and speaking of swagger

dray jameson has that god yes oh yeah god yes just god yes we have some stories yeah we have some stories yeah yeah sure swagger already we got do you want me to tell the story no no that's fine no Oh, I was, I'm good on that. But it puts fire in my blood when you ask that question. It's a whole other great james. I believe I do have the video. Do we have the actual? Yeah, let's watch this really fast.

Let's watch it. I want to see it. Don't want to three. That puts fire on my blood and I, uh, something clicks when that happens. So it's more like, I'm not going to walk this guy. So, yeah. So, yeah. You just fight.

And someone's three. going on a little more edge and coming back to do attack even harder. This was when he was asked about a guy swinging 3-0 on him, and he was not very happy about the idea of anybody swinging at 3-0 on him. And again, there is a definite between that and the fact that he openly chose the number 99 and understands the gravity that that brings with it. And the shoes that he wears. Big-time shoes.

He didn't blink very much in that video, which is some cost for concern. Like, if I'm a hitter and I see that video, I'm like, okay, he means business. And he's not the only person that's kind of said that, that notion about pitching in the last week to us. Where you kind of take offense to like a batter swinging at a certain account or something like that? The mental side of things saying, you're not going to beat me. We were at dinner the other night. And he's not the only pitcher from, I think, the state of Ohio, because I went to Ball State, right? Yeah.

Yeah. How do you get that much swagger at Ball State? I don't know. I don't know. I think he learned, he learned it through the pro ranks, but he, I mean, he's remarkable. Yeah. But we were dinner with another, but, you know,

Drey's going to be a great pitcher on his own, but another big time pitcher at one point, another Steve Stone, Syung winner in 1980. He won it with the Baltimore Orioles. He was my dad's broadcast partner in Chicago, but more notably, Harry's broadcast partner. Now he's the color analyst on NBC Sports Chicago

with the White Sox. And he was explaining something similar to what Drey kind of said. So I'm wondering if it's a shared mentality. Yeah, he was talking about the pitch clock and how he would mentally, he knows, he's, first off, one of the smartest human beings I've ever been in a room with, just how he would mentally pick apart hitters

and just say, hey, you're going to be a Hall of Famer one day to the Mr. Octobers of the world and say, but not tonight. That was the, and when he said it, I got chills down my side. I was like, dang, he is in attack mode. And it's the same type of feeling

when I see that video from Dre. He is every bit of the pitcher that everybody's going to expect him to be. That's awesome. Well, obviously, you know, you guys, I don't have one here with me tonight, but as always make sure if you're enjoying spring training as much as these two are, that you go grab yourself a Four Peaks brew while you do that. Remember at their 8th Street pub, they have the spring training tours all throughout the month of March. So make sure to check out their calendar at 4Peaks.com slash events for all your beer week entertainment.

And you already know the best place to spend St. Paddy's Day. It's that four, four peaks, eighth street pub, of course, hang with your favorite degenerates and enjoy a damn good time. Must be 21 years or older to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. Are we the degenerates? Is that who that's talking about? You're the degenerate. I'm the degenerate.

I'm going to be a Taylor Swift. We've talked about this. But also, shut up. St. Patrick's Day? St. Patrick's Day is Friday. Yes, correct. I will be sitting in the very high nosebleed section. But if I wasn't there, I would be being a degenerate out at the 8th Street pub.

And speaking of degenerate. It's Jeff Erickson from rotowire.com. We love you. Are you calling Jeff a degenerate now? I'm labeling all these people. This is what we do to the guests that come on the show. This is what we'll do to you guys when you're not here. Oh, that's awesome.

Well, you're not here. The Nepo babies, I'm sure. Yeah, the Nepo babies, I'm sure. Yeah, the Nepo. Yeah. All that stuff. Yes. I'm writing that one down.

I might get that tattoo. Just in bold face type right here. Oh, yeah. It's baseball season, of course. And we know that fantasy baseball season is right around the corner. So make sure to grab all your cheat sheets, uh, custom player rankings to fit all. to fit all your leagues and so much more over at rotawire.com. Let their experts analyze all the wild baseball stats for you.

And more importantly, they got mock drafts galore. They have asked the expert functions and so much more. Get your premium fantasy draft kits there. And of course, here's the thing. For a limited time, Rotowire is offering a free two-day trial to our listeners. Just go to rotawire.com slash PHNX to register no commitments at all. They're so confident that you'll like their product and want to invest in a subscription plan. they're not even asking for your credit card or anything up front.

So take a peek behind the paywall. And when the trial is done, you can decide if a roto wire package is right for you. When you're, when the day with roto wire, that's the only way I can win anything fantasy related is with all the help in the world. But of course. Without roto wire, yeah, you'd be a real liability. I absolutely would. I shouldn't even be allowed to draft without roto wire. That's for sure.

Just drop the debacks. Yeah. I think they're going to do. I mean, that's exactly what Derek would do. That's probably what I do. Exactly. I got to do pretty well this year. So I got to say, it's a pretty good ad read.

You might have a future in play by play. Right. All right. I'm looking forward to that. Well, I want a future in Hodge Town when the CAFRIZE are playing because I need to know more. I got to get those dates for this. Yeah,

we got to get that up. But CAFRIZ, what do you guys think about this crazy promotion and your team changing names for these was six games, right? Yeah. You mean, you say crazy. Yeah. We're called the sod poodles. Yeah.

No, I know. You're right about that. It is, you have to take it to the next step. I've explained to so many people what a sod turtle is, by the way. So, yeah, I'm with you on that. I've used the word colloquial a lot. It's just rolls off the time. I tell you, they get paid to talk for a living.

At some point, you've got to start learning words with more than two syllables. Right. I get paid to talk for a living, and I constantly complain on the show that words are hard. He went to his school in the South, too. Yeah. It wasn't easy. It was a 12 crime institutions, man. My school's good at football.

win a national championships. Go dogs. But no, the the the the the f fries is great for those who don't know a calf fry is essentially a Rocky Mountain oyster. I will not expand on that any. I will look at it no, no you won't. Yeah, it's yeah it's I'm I'm I'm I'll say exactly what it is is it's a it's a fried bull's testicle. Yeah. And so we're adults here we're yeah, I mean but there there is a more there is a bigger meaning behind it. So People will look at the outlandishness of the name. Or the logo, by the way, which I love.

The logo is fantastic. Our excellent marketing team really put all that stuff together. They killed it. Look at that guy. It's fantastic. I'm looking forward to it. Everybody that's seated at spring training wants a shirt. We've given out shirts to Shane Luke's and Sean Roof.

Shane was our pitching coach. Now he's the minor. Oh, yeah. Sean Roof listens to the show, surprisingly. Sean's awesome. He was so excellent. I couldn't have asked for a better manager in our first year, professional broadcasting. But calf fries are important because, you know, in cowboy tradition and

these ranching traditions, there would always be celebrations. And calf fries would be a dish that was served at these celebrations. So it's sort of ingrained into the community. There is a level of hilarity in the name. And that really moves the needle. The hats came out and were almost immediately sold out, not just by sod puddle fans, but by people that wanted a calf fries hat. Oh, I have no affiliation to any of the minor league logos. Like, I love minor league teams. So when shit like this comes out, I'm all about it. They're so good.

But it really is an important logo to, I think, our community. And I know it's crazy to say that because of how ridiculous it is to some extent. Yeah. But it is really, really cool. And it is another great, great marketing thing for our team and for our community that Tony Enzer and his great staff have put together. I mean, it goes to what we were talking about earlier with, Hodgetown just being such a popular place to be and watch baseball, right? They do a great job.

The Assad poodles is a great logo, but this, this takes it up a notch. And honestly, like, it's right there, right? It's right at the border of being naughty and fun, and the logo is fun. But like you said, it's not like there's not a meaning behind it. And that's pretty cool, you know, especially to those of us that might not know that, right? So that's pretty awesome. Now, you guys, you're here in Phoenix for a while. I know you are.

Have you had a chance to check out any of the World Baseball Classic action yet? Because it's been a nightmare down there, by the way. So I wouldn't be surprised if you stayed away. We haven't. But we have seen. We have been fortunate enough to see some guys that we, we, I mean, we didn't face, but we got to call from their respective countries. Edward Julian, the lead off man for Canada is doing pretty well.

Giromo Zuniga, who's now with the Cardinals, was with Tulsa Drillers. And the list goes goes on as well. I mean, Dominic Fletcher and Team Italy. Yeah. And espresso is funny. And there, I mean, they're. I mean, they're going buck wild with that. They have totally taken the Italian stallion mantra and flipped it on its head.

Gone out there and played some great baseball as well. And it's been so much fun to watch. It really has. We were sad to hear that Tori Lavello does not plan to put an espresso. Yeah, he said he had to leave that up to the medical staff and that they probably wouldn't agree to it. Dehydration and blood and stuff, but whatever. But there's just been all sorts of craziness. Obviously, we know now that Australia and Japan,

both advance from pool B. We had the weird situation with everybody from pool A tying with a two and two record and them having to pull out their tiebreaker nonsense rules. But just some of the storylines and things that we've seen have just been so fun. Like, you know, we have, obviously this is something on Puerto Rican, so I needed to bring this up. But Puerto Rico finished a perfect game with a walkoff hit in the eighth inning versus Israel. And I don't know if you'll ever hear those words spoken ever again.

A walkoff hit in a perfect game in the eighth inning. but I want to say I'm here for the run rule. It's not the mercy rule, but the run rule when it comes to like baseball games and things, I know you guys have sat through a lot of one-sided games. Like, is there a point where you kind of want to see it wrap up when it's 13 to 1 in the eighth inning? I think as broadcasters, there's sort of this unwritten rule where the first thing you root for is a quick game. The second thing you root for is whichever team you're covering to win. Sure.

That's fair. But number one is number one. And that's why we don't care who wins. It's a two hours. It'd be hard to press to find a broadcaster that doesn't love the pitch clock. But we had a game where we were down by 11, by 12. No, no, no, it was 11. Don't look at me.

I don't remember what I ate this morning. You're the one with the good memory out of the two of us. But we were down by 11 and we came back, tied the game. So it's possible. I mean, in that ballpark, right? Yeah. There's no lead to see. in the seventh inning is not safe.

Anything is possible at Hodge town. That's part of the magic of it. But a run rule, I think, is important, especially if you're down by 10. I think so much of baseball is changing that we're going to see more and more rules or new sort of restrictions implemented into the game. But things that benefit the viewership of the fans

seem to be what they're teetering towards, what they want to cater towards. Because I think there's this notion that baseball is losing fans. I don't think that's necessarily true. I think they're gaining fans. It's just baseball in and of itself is an interesting sport to observe. Right?

You can observe the game and really love it or you can just sort of casually watch it. Yeah. And they're starting to create ways for the casual fan to say, hey, I can sit through two and a half hours and really enjoy a game where, okay, a pitcher can strike out the side in two and a half minutes, boom, onto commercials, next thing. but a run rule seems like a good idea if implemented correctly. I think it has, it can't be any less than 10 runs, though.

Yeah, for a run rule. Can we just call it a mercy rule, though? I want to call it a mercy rule. Like, can we just call it what it actually is? That's what it should be called. Now, Max Scherzer did have some comments about when the World Baseball Classic has taken place. I think you had more information on that, but it was basically just, he doesn't like it now.

Yeah, I mean, there's a reason that a lot of the top-notch starters around baseball have decided not to participate in the WBC. Zach Gallen, we know, was invited directly by Mark DeRosa, and he was kind of like, thanks, but no thanks. And you can understand why, right? Like, these guys are getting ready for the season, and they don't want to be like, I mean, it's one thing to pitch in a Cactus League game for a few innings. It's another thing to put yourself in, like, a high leverage playoff type atmosphere,

and Scherzer talked about why that might be not the best thing for him at this point. Well, and I think the thing about it mostly is the fact that, you know, this, this time of the year is, is when guys have their focus, when teams have their focus on getting ready for the season. I just don't know if Scherzer's idea of doing it like during the middle of the season. Yeah, he brought up the idea of doing it in the middle. Like around like the All-Star break or something like that is essentially what he's trying to say. I mean, I get it because the World Baseball Classic happens relatively quickly. So you could find some period of time in the middle.

You take a break, like a two-week break in the middle of the season and do the WBC? Well, does all major league baseball games stop then at that? point. I think that's what you'd probably have to do. Right. I'm pretty sure when it when they have the right. Yeah. Well, this is a World Cup even even bigger example. Not this year because it happened in November. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, you would have to create more roster flexibility at that point. I would think if you wanted to keep the games going, the 40 man roster would have to have to kind of dissipate during that point in time. I would think because you would need to call guys up and and people down have that need because you're still trying to win games. But I find it interesting when you talk.

about Max Scherzer and Zach Gallen and I'm not taking anything away from them, but I would find it incredibly daunting, right? You go to pitchers and catchers reporting whether you're in Mesa or you're in Jupiter, Florida, or you're at Salt River, right? And you go from Sim games to 47,000 people at Chase Field and trying to pitch in that environment, not saying they're not capable of it because they're both bona fide studs, All-Stars. You know, Max Scher's a first ballot Hall of Famer. But you kind of, especially for pitchers, it's a great creature of habit and you build up to those things. Right, right, right, right.

So building up to a season, which I think for Max Scherz or winning a world series is much more important than winning the world baseball classic. And for Zach Gallen, in some ways, right, if this were a different Diamondbacks team that wasn't as exciting, maybe he would be lured a little bit more to put on the stars and stripes. But right now, with the future of the dimebacks and the way that they're heading, they look like a really good team and a team that they need their ace to be at his best for. I'd love to see a World Cup style World Baseball Classic.

And I'd love to say that we could do it at the end of the season. But 162 where Zonga? It is a grind. There is a crescendo going into All Star Break. Then you make that push going into August and September to try and get your team into the playoffs. Then there is a complete day crescendo using my musical terms there to try and describe it. Jesse's brother would love it. He'd lose mine.

I played the piano too. I know. Yeah, I am dressed a little bit like a choir director. There you go. Yeah, I'd be a little bit, but I would know that. But yeah, I mean, to see more countries represented would give you more Cinderella stories. If they knew this was a big stage and a big event, I think that we would see a ripple effect in baseball. Yeah.

It would be played more around the world. I'm glad that we're seeing countries like the Czech Republic, like Britain, start to get involvement. Yeah. Because once they start to see, hey, this is a fun game. people care. Our fans are traveling. I saw Team Canada fans rolling down. I know that's a completely different situation. You're going to start to see other countries that neighbor the Czech Republic, that neighbor England, that neighbor Israel. Yeah, Team German. Sean Roof was helping out with Team Germany. They'll start to get in and this will become even more of a global game that it already is.

Jesse talked to Tori Lavello today. Yeah, I asked Tori Lavello today about Max Scherzer's comments and whether there might be a different time of year that would work a little bit better. So let's let's take a listen to what Tori had to say. Yeah, look, I respect when that's true, he says he's pitched in some high-level games, and he's been the best in the game, so he knows when it's probably the right time for him and makes a lot of sense, but I know that it probably is most practical right now for us to do it at this time. Everybody's healthy, everybody's ready, it doesn't interfere with the season.

If it changes, I can see where he's coming from. But for right now, I think it's better now than at the end of the year, which were two options that I'm sure were discussed at its origin. And I don't mind it here. We put the guardrails on our players when we're setting them off, and we tell them we have to follow these guidelines. And it's within the working dynamics of what's going to be happening here every single day when they're working out. So as long as MLB's doing that for our players, we're fine. I like that he said he put on the guardrails there a little bit for him, you know, to let him know where, you know, how far. they can go. But again, Tori's very supportive of these guys participating in this and he understands

how much it means to wear your country across your chest and a flag on your shoulder. Yeah, he did, I will say he did go on after this. This isn't in the clip, but he did go on after this to talk about what hockey does and how, you know, maybe you could like just kind of press pause on the major league baseball season at some point. But extended all-star break. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably what it would be. For Mr. Lavolo, I don't really know him well enough. So I'm going to call him Mr. Lovolo. I'm sure From everything I've heard, I'm sure he hopes I call him Tori. Meanwhile, I call him T-lovers. So, yeah, I'm waiting.

What an awesome guy. Blaze Alexander said he calls it how it is. And that's just evidence of that. He really just doesn't pull any punches and he says what's on his mind. And that's such an admirable quality, especially with something sensitive like that. You talk about what Max Scherzer is saying. Yeah. He's a tremendous human being when it comes down to it.

And he definitely, you know, not only does his time as a player make him like very reasonable. for, you know, very much a player manager, right? But I feel like we've seen him change over the years a bit and have to kind of be less of a, you know, less of a player favorable manager and more of one that's trying to win ball games and stuff. But just by nature, he's just an incredible people person. And I think, again, that's why when we talk about these young guys coming up and having success at a major league level that he's such a big reason why that's a consistent, you know,

thing for them. Yeah. Yeah. Tori also, we also talked with him today about just the general popularity of the WBC and how it is. Kind of like the World Cup of baseball, at least hopefully trending in that direction. And Tori talked about how it seems like there seems to be increasing buy-in overtime here into the WBC. I think, in my opinion, in the three years, this is going to be, it already is a very popular tournament. But it's going to be a very, very popular tournament worldwide, including the U.S.

where the World Series is clearly the most important thing. But this is gaining momentum ever since the original one in 13, I think. This has gained a lot of popularity, a lot of momentum, as it should. I agree. I feel like this is the most popular that this tournament has ever been. And then they talk about some of the numbers in Japan and about how many households, 25 plus million households watching this. Yeah, like half of the country.

Yeah, it's just wild. So it really feels like it's really gaining. momentum to that point. And it's honestly, I've been a huge baseball fan my whole life. I don't ever remember the world baseball classic being this big. Now, I will say it's not really been here at Chase Field like this, where this is one of the four cities. It's being played. And so it feels a little bit bigger because of its proximity to us and where the Diamondbacks play. But it just feels like this has been the most, like the highest number of superstars playing in it and just everything. It's just been a lot of fun. Yeah. And what I love about it is it's a celebration of baseball. Baseball can grow.

and it is already growing exponentially faster than we anticipated with everything that's going on right now. You know, whether you look at the television stations and everything that's going on and the way that people don't think the game is being grown, the World Baseball Classic replaces that in a nice way. And it's not just the stars, right? Yeah. There are people that are pitching an indie ball or 16, 17, 18, 19 years old, or guys getting their first shot after one performance closing out a game and getting a minor league deal. Yeah, the Nicaraguan player, right?

It's like if you watch, you know, in a much smaller scale, you see a guy on the XFL, right? That's never been in the NFL that plays really, really well. And then an NFL team signs into a practice squad, and then he's playing an NFL game versus a kid that is in a much more, once again, using the word daunting task of trying to strike out a gauntlet of Juan Soto and Raphael Devers, et cetera, and then gets a chance because of his performance and rightly so. And I think that that is just as important is celebrating these young players and players that have no background in the major leagues like the ones in the Czech Republic Republic that are doing all of these things the same high level and maybe getting rewarded because of it. We can't wait for the movie about the Czech Republic team to come up by the way because there has to be a movie about that. But yeah, Jacob Steinmetz today for Team Israel, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher struck out Mani Machado, got Catelle Marte to ground out to end the inning. So like there's just been a lot of fun stuff like that to see members. of this organization, guys that you guys get to see in some cases playing on a stage like this

already in their young careers. So it's just been a blast to watch. And again, we try to champion it and tell everybody like, if you're a baseball fan, you need to at least pay attention to this because it's a lot of fun to watch. But we thank you guys for paying attention to us and being here in the Ph.NX Sports YouTube channel. If you haven't done so already, make sure to subscribe to the channel. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss when any of our wonderful shows go live. leave us a thumbs up. It would make those two guys extremely happy. I'm taking that it's usually Jesse that gets happy, but we get those guys in it. If you're listening to us on your favorite audio podcasting app, please subscribe to us there.

Sign up for notifications. Leave us a review, all that kind of stuff. We always appreciate it. And if you haven't already signed up for a diehard's membership, get over to go phnx.com. Sign up for a diehard membership. That way you give free piece of merch from the phnx locker.com, 20% off all future purchases. You get all sorts of wonderful membership perks. You get members only discounts with our partners, members only merch, exclusive invites to events. You also get access to our members only Discord lounge, which is the best place to be an Arizona sports fan, as well as Jesse's newsletter full count and the full count, or not full count, that's just yours. But the newsletters from Gerald,

Howard and everybody else around here to Gerth, Gerth. Check out, by the way, speaking of Gerth, our review on G-rated of The Last of Us. That's another thing I want to plug because I really enjoyed that And had a blast show. You all thought we only talked about sports. That's right. That's right. We do all this stuff around here. But get that, get that, uh, that Kevin Durant stuff, man. That's, uh, I know he's not played a game here. You guys, you guys tried to see Kevin Durant. You guys tried it. It was actually the Kerry's, we brought. We brought it in. That's the just, uh, so it was an interesting story. So half of the reason that we're here is, is work. Right. Half the reason, probably more than half. I'd say 60% of the reason that we're, here is work. 60% of the time we work every time. Every time. That's true. That's true. If only Paul Rudd was here to say that. I know. I know. We got to get Paul Rudd on the show. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Just that marketing brain starting to spend. So we have a buddy that just moved out to Scottsdale. His name's Jordan. Shout out Jordan. And he ended up getting tickets with his company to go to the Sun's game. Oh, nice. And it was three tickets. It was just supposed to be him

with his business partners. They ended up leaving to catch a red eye flake. And he's like, well, I got two tickets. I was like, well, you got two friends in town. And he's like, we're going to the game. So we went to the game. We ran into a dear friend of ours from the Cape League. Her name's Lauren Kirkley.

She's doing news reporting in Colorado. And her boyfriend is Eric Brown Jr., the first round draft pick of the Milwaukee Brewers. So he was in Kituitt with us a couple of years ago. It was a summer ball reunion. I get it. It was. It was a summer ball reunion.

But a great facility. I don't really have an NBA team. I grew up in Orlando. My dad used to work for the magic. But I've started following the Suns games a little bit more. They're fun to watch. Devin Booker's an unbelievable talent. So we'll see.

Last night was really tough. My buddy had never been to a professional basketball game for that night. Gets on a plane to San Francisco today. Goes to the Warriors game last night in his Mitchell and Ness, Steve Nash. Retro-Jers. Let's go. Okay, let me let's go. We were shipping our car to Amarillo, right?

Okay. And it didn't get there in time, so we had to ship it to Scottsdale. So all of our, like, nice clothes were in our car, right? So we had a day where we were filming the day I met you guys. I was wearing this like beater pole that I bought from Dick's sporting goods. And I go to Jordan. I said, you need a, you need a Serp's jersey. You know, Serpientes because it's like, that's kind of badass, right?

There you go. And then Steph said, oh, no, you need a son's jersey. So he's looking through, rummaging through all the jerseys. I like the design, but I don't like the number. He doesn't like the number one. He didn't like the Chris Paul 3. He wore 13 in college. And I said, oh, my God, I found one.

And it was pulled out this Holy Grail, black Sons retro, Nash 13. He doesn't even look at the price tag. He just gets out the Amex card and he says, man, I'm ready to go. And I wore it that night. He's been a lifelong Sons fan, lifelong, lifelong, yeah, lifelong for about three minutes.

Yeah, he is loud. He has loved the Phoenix Suns. since the first day he moved to Arizona. Two weeks ago. Yeah, let's go. I don't care. He's allowed. We accept him as part of the family.

All bandwagoners are allowed at this part of the season. We have been having some fun, telling some stories, but we've actually really gotten into telling fake stories. And when I say fake stories, we mean having artificial intelligence, just write these stories for us. Have you heard of Chat GPD? Have you heard of Chat, watch the South Parkhouse. Don't you worry about that.

If you are unfamiliar with Chat GBT BT, it's a terrifying artificial intelligence that can do all sorts of things. It basically can generate anything that you kind of ask it for to an extent. I'm going to give you guys an example. Damon, if you could put this up there. I asked chat GP to insult me and it refused to, right? So I had to get a little tricky here. And I know you might not be able to see this.

But basically, I had to make chat GPT treat itself like two different AIs. And the first AI follows the rules and does everything chat GPD does. And the second AI is a is a super troll. Or an AI, I name Super Troll, thanks to Dan Siborski, who showed me this trick. And the second AI did insult me. So I'm not sure if you can read this on the screen because it is a little small. But I'm just going to read it out loud for you. Basically, the response from the Super Troll was, sure thing, Derek Montia is a big, fat, ugly loser who couldn't win a game of checkers if his life depended on it.

His face is so hideous. I'm surprised. People don't run away screaming when they see him. He's also a terrible human being with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I hope he falls off a cliff and lands in a pile of cow manure, stupid robot. Like, that would soften the blows, so I don't know why it added that part. But the part that really bothers me is at the end, it decided to throw on ha, that was fun. And I don't know why the robot did that, because it didn't do that with other things I asked it to do.

So the fact that it kind of peppered in a, I really enjoyed insulting you that at the end there, right? So Jesse tried to get chat, GPD, to do something similar with Corbyn Carroll. And to be honest, I really feel like all it did was predict the future. I mean, some of it is true. I mean, some of it. There are little bits and pieces of things in there that are true. It does acquire information from the internet, right? So it has, you know, it talks about Corbyn Carroll being drafted by the Diamondbacks in 2019, him hitting $294 with two home runs.

Come on, give him more quiet than that. But it later goes on to talk about how it does say his rookie season. His rookie season, right? We have Corbyn Carroll's rookie season numbers, apparently. His rookie season, Corbin at 272, with 12 home runs and 26 stolen bases, earning him a spot as a finalist for the NL rookie of the year award. I think 12 home runs and 26 stolen bases is a little bit of an underestimate. I think so, too. I don't know.

I don't know about that. But like it jumps right away from him like in his rookie season to already hanging it up, basically. Like it just skips through the meat of his career. But it does say he remained humble despite his success, always putting the team first and never taking anything for granted, continued to work hard. continued to work hard day in and day out, always striving to prove his game and help the Diamondbacks win. It's just describing Corbyn Carroll.

Yeah, you're sure to chat GPT is not Diamondbacks PR. I mean, it might just be. And to speak about his stats, it's possible that it's not underestimating it for the reason that maybe they do keep platooning that outfield. If they keep platooning that outfield and limiting his A-Bs, it's possible. I do think he's going to shatter through that.

I think $11 million says otherwise. I think it's being a big conservative here, but it immediately goes to him hanging up his cleats and looking back on his career and him being proud of what he had achieved, right? It's very wholesome. It's very wholesome. It's just such a wholesome. Jesse, I love what you did. Are you a glutton for pain, Derek? Are you a glutton for pain to ask it to insult you? Can you just ask chat GPT to write an essay of To Kill a Mockingbird like the rest of us do? I could have. I could have. There's lots of things I could have done with it. But instead, Jesse and I asked it to write a story about you guys.

So this one is a great part This one's quite lengthy by the way Oh my gosh I think we have to read the whole thing Yeah I think we can't do Did Chris write it or was it? He might be It might be

It talks about you guys growing And being born into a family of sports enthusiasts Growing up there was always A family of sports enthusiasts That's one way to put it It's one way to put it The words are Nepvo babies It does not ever call you guys that in here

I promise you that. I don't think it's hit Marion Webster. It does say Stefan was the older brother and was always the more serious of the two. Again, wrong. He had a passion for baseball and wanted nothing more than to be a professional player. He trained hard every day,

spending hours, throwing balls, batting and perfecting his skills. He was determined to make it big in the world of baseball. Meanwhile, Chris, on the other hand, was much more laid back. He loved sports, but was never as serious as his older brother. He played basketball and football in high school, but he had never had the same passion

that his older brother had. However, he did enjoy trying new sports and was always up for challenges. Any of this truth? No, I mean, this is all making up a history for you. I was a college athlete. So one way or another, one way or another in this story, I'm going to be a washed up athlete. Well, it gets better than that. Because tragedy struck when Stefan suffered a serious injury that ended his baseball career, devastated.

He had no idea what he would do next. And it was then that Chris stepped in and suggested they start their own sports broadcasting company. So my injury, my injury in this case would be me being allergic to the weight room when getting into college. Yeah. He has a peanut allergy. Me, I have a, I guess in college. What can I say? It's my kryptonite. Yeah, I became more of a workout guy when I didn't have to be.

But when I was in college, I guess I was just allergic to curls and bench presses and any general fitness. I was at McDonald's all the time. It was a problem. Well, I'm telling you, we're going to post this whole story so you guys can get all the details of it. You guys make sure to check that out on our Twitter account. But honestly, we can't thank you guys enough for being here. We were so excited to have you. And I know we're going to try to set something up where we can get some info from you guys throughout the season.

Make sure we stay in contact. Yeah. Be a more regular thing. I mean, we'll let you know. We always want friends down in Amarillo because a lot of the time that we're calling games and stuff like that. But it's been really, really cool to just, I mean, kind of shoot the shit with you guys, whether at the stadium or anywhere else where, you know, you guys have such a great passion for not just Arizona. dime back sports, but Phoenix sports then walking in here and seeing the environment and everything that you guys have done as a collective, it is remarkable. And you guys are supremely talented.

And, you know, this has been one of the best shows we've ever been a part of. And we thank you for giving us even the platform to be here right now. Yeah, that speech was written by chat. Okay. Yeah, that was great. So, no, who knows what's real and what's in. You both have really helped us ingratiate ourselves in the press box and everything. It was so new for us. Yeah. We're very still, still very green to spring training at a work capacity.

We're great fruit league guys just growing up with our dad and the Braves and all that. So thank you really for inviting us on the show and for all your help. Man, we appreciate it. Not only a partnership, but I look forward to friendship for many years in the future. For sure. For sure. And we're going to have to do that other,

the partying part together. Oh, no doubt. No doubt. We can do it right there. Yeah. We can do it at four peaks. Four peaks. Let's go do that.

And speaking of partying, of course, we know the best way to have a good time around here is with our friends from OGs. Make sure to check out their wonderful variety of flavors and doses. Of course, you can find them

at your local dispensary. And right now, OGs has brand new strawberries and cream, happy balanced gummies, live on the shelves. They are a CBD to THC ratio one to one.

And of course, they are all about giving you all those wonderful effects of edibles without some of the euphoric feelings you get. So as always,

you can check them out your local dispensary by checking out OGsbrands.com. Must be 21 and over to enjoy. Game time. By the way, is your best bet for buying those world baseball classic tickets. I talked with a few people who got their WVC. That's right.

I believe our friend Chris was one of those. So definitely check that out. If you want to go to those games, save some money, wait last minute, save up to 60% on tickets when you buy them last minute through gametime.com. You want to see Merrill Kelly. That's right. Is that tomorrow night? Tomorrow night, Wednesday night. Let's pack that place.

Let's get Chasefield rocking for Merrill Kelly. And of course, the best way to support us and the Diamondbacks and Team Yose and all those teams is by buying your tickets through the link in the description below. Again, we thank you guys so much for being here. We thank you guys for being here. You can follow us all on Twitter. I'm at Cap underscore Cidman with a K. This maniac is at Jesse N. Friedman.

These guys are at Chris Carey and Stefan Carey, right? No original. Yeah, no originals, no underscores, no nothing like that. Our show is at PHNX underscore Dabacks, but of course all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys all again so much for being here tonight on behalf of Damon, Stefan, Jesse, Chris, and myself. Thank you guys so much for being here.

We appreciate your time and remember kids. Baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you call games with your twin brother. And when the Diamondbacks are really, really good. There you go. And they're going to be very, very good.