PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Is Elijah Green Worth It?

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

On this episode, Jesse is still roaming freely in the world so Derek is joined by Darrell Johnson aka Darrell from Dubai to discuss his experiences being a fan overseas, thoughts on Elijah Green, and why Colin Cowherd thinks there are so many people at Chase Field. 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 the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of PHNX, and this show is brought to you by the Draft King Sportsbook app. Draft King Sportsbook app is America's top-rated sportsbook app. And right now, you can use our code of PHNX, and when you sign up and use that code, you will get $150 in free bet simply for making one $1 bet on any football game this weekend. It's got to be a Draft King's game.

Again, it can't be your backyard pickup game. But yes, if you bet $1 on college or NFL, you will get that $150 in free bets instantly. Thank you guys so much for joining me. I'm very excited today because even though I am without, once again without Thundercstick, Jesse Friedman, I am joined by a person who I would consider to be my podcasting mentor.

And when I say that, I mean, he's the guy I stole everything from that you listen to me do on this podcast. So joining me today, my friend, did I make it weird now? A little bit, a little bit. All right. Well, my friend, Darrell from Dubai, FK.A. The Beast from the Middle East. Darrell Johnson. Daryl, thank you for joining me today.

No longer from Dubai. No longer. Daryl from Mesa is what we'll have to call you now. right. Much less exotic. Yes. Well, again, thank you for joining me. Daryl and I have been friends for a while.

We used to do a podcast together that we still do occasionally called the Steel Cage. And Daryl is a huge Diamondbacks fan, has been for years, probably, as far as I'm concerned, one of my most knowledgeable friends when it comes to not only Diamondbacks baseball, but Diamondbacks history. You are a historian of sorts of the Diamondbacks. I just remember stuff. You just live through it. I don't read stat sheets and keep up on stuff.

But every now and then something will peak my curiosity and I'll look stuff up again. Like, you know, I had no idea who the manager of the Braves was because I don't know how. I've been in Dubai for the last 10 years. So I'd only watch baseball every so often when I can. And so I was looking up Brian Snitker. And he's just like a really impressive dude who's not. been in the Braves organization his entire life. Yes. Yes. And it's, it's interesting because it does change fast. Like, I find myself even being surprised at times when I see managers from other teams

that were former players. Like, I was like, I didn't even know that guy. Stop playing. And now, like, look at him. He's the manager of the Giants, you know. Yeah, it seemed like 10 seconds passed after Craig Counsel retired and all of a sudden he's a manager. Yes, absolutely. And so, what were you doing in dubai i wanted people to kind of get an idea on your history and and what you how you came to be darrell from dubai well i was teaching kids how to take standardized tests i was worker for the princeton review had a uh an opportunity to go to the dubai office and basically have a have a salary rather than you know work hourly and yeah that's nice and it worked out pretty well for a while um

But then my now wife lost her job and the pandemic hit. And we decided, okay, let's use this as an excuse to bring you over here. I love it. Well, I'm glad you're back. And I was curious as to how your experiences were as being a fan overseas, not being here, not living anywhere close to the same time zone as a team. How hard was it for you to keep up with what was going on? Beyond just waking up and checking.

score is nearly impossible. I'd try to catch most Sunday games because those would happen at about, you know, 11 o'clock, midnight, my time. And sometimes if the debacks were on the East Coast, I would catch some of those games. But usually it was just checking scores and being lonely because, you know, I could usually find a friend who could talk NFL and they're occasionally or some NBA fans, but nobody I knew knew a thing about baseball, like even how the game works. I'm very happy to be on this show just to be able to talk baseball with someone. Yeah, I hear you. Well, and that's not an easy thing these days, right?

It's the interest in the sport itself is waning, not to mention the fact that it's not easy to find Diamondbacks fans, right? It's definitely not a team that kind of crosses over and has fans in other locations around the world. Yeah, well, it's funny because in Dubai, on a couple of occasions, like I'd be wearing my U of A polo or something, and someone would say, oh, I went to the U of A, hey, isn't that great? But nobody ever even recognized my DBAX hat, you know. Yeah. Or even ask. We're going to ask, like, what team is that? Oh, that's baseball?

Incredible. I had no idea. Although one day I was wearing, I have a Fenway Park shirt because I went to Fenway Park and I bought a shirt. and I was wearing that in Dubai, and some guy was, like, sitting at the bar next to me. He was like, ah, Red Sox fan, huh? And I had to explain, no, I'm a Diamondbacks fan. I've just been to Fenway, and he had nothing to say about the debacks.

Nothing. Well, neither do any of us here right now, because it is tank season, Darrell. It is tank season, and the debacks are still currently tied with the Baltimore Orioles for last place in all of baseball at 48. and 103. Are you a fan of tank season, or does this just become ridiculous at one point as far as baseball and how long this season actually is? Well, as someone who likes watching baseball, I kind of hate the idea of tank season for a couple reasons. One, I just like watching good baseball. And you know, you asked me to be on the show yesterday, and I said, okay, well, I'll just be sure to watch the game, because especially these days, I'm not catching every inning.

But this time I did. I watched every pitch of that awful game. That wasn't a great one to watch. Yeah. And most of the evening was just my mother complaining about how many flyouts there were. Like, all they do is just hit it to the outfield. Does anybody even hit it to the ground? Yeah.

Like, it was just depressing. But the other reason is just, well, your co-hosts have said the same. Just that there is, there's never really a guarantee with the major league baseball draft. Like having the first pick, I mean, looking at the number one picks, I mean, sure, Daryl Strawberry, Ken Griffey, A-Rod, you know, you see those names pop up. And like with hindsight, you say, oh, yeah, well, no doubt. Of course he went first. But, right.

But you don't really have that guarantee so much, you know. Right. Like other sports. Other sports, yeah, you have your failures. You have the ones that were letdowns, right? But they're few and far between. And they almost become, like, legendary because there is so few that don't necessarily work out. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, exactly. You know, like, you're going to have your Sam Bowies and your Ryan Leaves. You went second, but. Yeah, well, you know what I mean? But, yeah, it's the Michael Jordan thing, right? Hakeem was the number one pick, and that was the right thing. right that's right um but yeah no you're you're absolutely right i just think that baseball and and the draft the other thing about it as we spoke about yesterday with macaela it it takes so long for these guys

to come up and actually be a part of the organization right so there's there's a lot of hurdles to get through whereas you know in football you look and the number one draft pick is starting in week one on on their team yeah and what is probably the most likely scenario is whoever we get first or second, be it Elijah Green or whoever. I don't really follow high school and college baseball that much. But whoever that is, it'll be a name that we hear. And then three years later, we'll be trading him to the pirates for another. Don't do that.

Why are you doing that? No, no, no. Why are you doing that? That's what happens. I just watched Dansby Swanson play shortstop for the Braves. But he's getting like, he's not. He's hitting below 200, so that doesn't seem to be like a too bad of a pick. He's the starting shortstop for a playoff team, all right?

Yeah, I know. All right. All right. Fair enough. We have a good shortstop. I like Nick Ahmed quite a bit, but come on. Yeah. We sell off every asset we ever have.

I know. Well, and you're right because, like, it does become depressing. I don't think the Diamondbacks obviously are tanking on purpose. I will say that I probably wouldn't be surprised to find out that some guys aren't giving a full effort at this point, but I don't think that there's any deliberate tanking going on. You just look at a team like the Rockies in our division, right? The Rockies since May 21st are 55 and 51, which isn't bad, right? And that's over a pretty extended period time.

Yeah, it's four games over 500, so it's nothing earth-shattering. it's not going to move the needle. And especially in the NL West, it's not going to be enough for you to even make the playoffs with how well the other teams in the division are doing. Yet it just goes to show that the Rockies are playing good baseball and they're winning games. Yet at the end of the day, they're still not going to be anywhere close to the playoffs. And all their winning really has done is move them further down the list. I think that Max Scherzer's complaints about competitive balance.

in such a baseball are valid because all it really does is encourage teams to lose games. And then that in turn encourages people to lose interest in the sport. Yeah, I agree to an extent because the Rockies, I'm not sure what the numbers are, but I guarantee you they are getting better attendance at their games. Oh, the Rockies attendance is insane. No, the Rockies attendance is crazy. I was just looking at attendance numbers. When they play the Rockies,

and this is the two last place teams in the same division, right? Here we go at Colorado. This was the last series they played against each other. They drew 30,000 on Friday night, 30,000 243, 32,699 on Saturday, and 24,552 on Sunday. That was at the end of August, that was August 20th through 20th, second, two teams that aren't anywhere close to making a playoffs and the Rockies were still able to get nearly 33,000 people in there on Saturday.

That is crazy. Is that an indictment of my city or just a credit to Denver? I don't know, man. I don't know. That's an excellent question. I don't want to say that Phoenix, Phoenix comes out for stuff, right? We know that based on the fact that when the Sons were in the final. they were selling tickets for $1,000 for upper level nosebleed and those tickets were selling.

Yeah. Right. And as long as the team was good because like when Steve Nash was in town, they, they boasted like sellout after sell out like, you know, eight years in a row or something like that. You know, like, yeah, they come out for good teams. They come out for good teams. And I just think that it's been a really disastrous go for this team since we hit the pandemic, right? 2019 was a bad year. The attendance was already down then, but it just feels like they have, they've done nothing. Like when you look on baseball reference.com, you can look at their schedule and it shows the attendance numbers. The only single digit numbers that you see were not single digit, but less than 10,000 in attendance are Diamondbacks home games. You know, when they played the Dodgers at home, the Diamondbacks, Dodgers drew 46,000, 44,000 and 43,000. You know, the thing about it, especially when you look at the competitive balance in baseball,

the Diamondbacks are never going to be able to compete with that if they can't get people in the stadium and they can't generate revenue from people here. You know, we have this thing we're going to discuss later about that when it comes to Colin Coward tweeting out about how many people were at the game. And the minute I saw the tweet, I was like, there is no way. I need to know the numbers right now because I was watching that game. and there was no way there was that many people that he was claiming were at the game. Where did he get 15,000?

I don't know. He made it up. He made it up. He's pulling numbers. I don't even know what his, what, what, what the purpose of him doing that was. It was, it seemed like it was just something he threw out. But we'll get to that momentarily because, you know, we want everybody, of course, to know that Draft King's Sportsbook is the official sports betting part. of the NFL, even though we don't cover the NFL over here.

I have been doing some betting on the sportsbook app, myself on the Drafking Sportsbook app. I've found that I really like jumping into baseball games midway through and deciding whether or not teams can come back from the line that they set during the middle of the game, right? For instance, I bet today on the Toronto Blue Jays game where Toronto was down by seven runs. and they set the line at seven runs. And I was like, no, the Blue Jays are at least going to score one more run.

And that's all they did against the Tampa Bay raise. But it was enough to win me 50 bucks. So again, drafting sportsbook app, it's fun. It's safe, secure, reliable. And the best part is you can deposit and withdraw your cash whenever you want. With the NFL games, they have the same game parlayes, which I have become a parlay guy. I've been having a lot of fun combining multiple bets for a bigger payout, even in just some situations where I feel like I'm almost betting on the same thing,

like Kyler Murray's performance, for instance, in the Sunday's game. You know, I can't give you a strategy because I still myself don't know what I'm doing, but I can say I've won a lot of money and it's been fun. So more than anything, it's made watching every single sporting event that I watch so much more interesting. Darrell, have you jumped on the Draft King's Sportsbook app yet? Not yet, but I'm kicking myself because if I had just bet against my Arizona Wildcat football team every week, because I knew. You'd be cleaning up.

The wildcats were favored against NAU by 26 and a half. I didn't think we were going to lose, but I knew we weren't going to win by 27 points. 26 and a half, yeah, right. You're right. Go do it now. get on that. I'll download. I'm doing a show right now. I know, I know. But when we get on, go to use the promo code PhNX. It's a promo code PHNX and you'll receive $150 in free bets.

If you bet on those Arizona Wildcats to not win by 27 points. And all you got to do is bet $1. So again, that's promo code PHNX to get that $150 in free bets instantly. This week at Draf King Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL, 21 and over only, Arizona only, gambling problem, dial 1,800 next step, new customers only, minimum $5 deposit, and $1 wage required, eligibility restrictions apply,

see draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And I have been told I need to stop, but you know what, sometimes when you just know baseball and you see some of these, you know, games going on, I don't know, I've covered enough baseball games that I feel like I have that, little tiny bit of an edge to be like, yeah, I know how teams kind of go into coast mode when

they're up by five plus runs. And I know how the opposing team, they don't want to be shut out. This seems like a slam dunk. I honestly thought the Blue Jays were going to make that game way closer. But all I needed them to do was score one run. And they did. And I'm happy. So, hey, things are rolling. And I can't complain. The gambling, sports gambling here in Arizona has been fun. And again, just have fun with it, guys. Don't try to take it too seriously. Don't pay off your house with it. Unless you're that guy that almost won $725,000 on that parlay on the NFL, which was crazy because that was a $25 bet. I think I read somewhere that he still got paid out, like, because he cashed out before that Lions game that he lost on.

He cashed out before that. He made like close to a half a million dollars or over it or whatever. Lots of money are being made. Hope you guys get in on that. But another thing I'd like you guys to do is please check out all of our. our content over at go p hnx.com. I have a brand new article coming to the website where I wrote 1,300 words on how decapitating Baxter cursed this team.

I can't wait for you guys all to read it. You can become a member with one of our deals. You can either get a full year, which will get you a free t-shirt from our shop over at p.nx locker.com. Or you can sign up just for one month or month by month, and you'll get that first month for 50 cents. So you'll get a little sample, a little sample of our website just for 50 cents. I hope you guys check that out because, you know, we appreciate the sport.

We need the support. If you love what we're doing over here, just become a member of the family. And you'll get that, like I said, that free t-shirt of your choice for becoming an annual member or that first month for just 50 cents. But Darrell, you know, we were talking there for a moment about Elijah Green, about draft picks. and so many very, very promising things have been said about Elijah Green. He has been compared to Ken Griffey Jr. He's been compared to Mike Trout. But so have lots of other guys that were draft picks.

I mean, you tend to always kind of compare like good outfielders to some of the greats of all time once you start seeing them have promise, right? Well, of course. I mean, that's what you do. You compare people to the guys you know. And the stories I hear about him, because I've been doing just a little bit of reading about him since you mentioned him on an earlier show, he sounds more like Daryl Strawberry to me. Okay. He's just hitting home runs against high schoolers, and he's clearly just bigger and stronger and better than all of them, which could mean he's going to have a great career and win us a World Series.

But, you know, it's such a toss-up. I don't even know if it's worth tanking for, you know. you really do like this tank season idea. I know. Well, okay, I think here's why, and don't get me wrong, it's not like I really enjoy watching this team lose, even when I get fully behind tank season. I think my thought process is no team wants to intentionally lose. I just think the tank season position is a better position to take as a fan.

It frustrates you less, you know? the team is going to continue to lose. They have, they, they had the toughest, um, schedule as far as their last games were concerned, them and the San Diego Padres. And obviously, the reason why is because the NL West is one of the toughest divisions in baseball. And as the season wraps up, you're going to play a lot of teams from your own division. It made sense that the, these two teams had, as far as, you know, baseball's calculation

for difficulty of schedule was concerned that these, two teams have the toughest. But for the Diamondbacks, it's mostly because they had pretty much all playoff teams left on their schedule, except the Rockies, which they wrap up with with the final series of the year. I think it was easier just to lean into this rather than let any of us be frustrated with the losing that we've already seen all year. You could sit there and harp on this being the worst season ever. It probably is going to be record-wise when all is sudden done. Well, let's see. We've lost, what, 102 games now? Yeah.

Okay, we lost 111 in 2004. How many games do we have left? 12. I don't think we're going to lose 9 of 12. Okay. All right. I'm called the optimist. Would you still consider it with the longest losing streak in franchise history and the longest, you know, road losing streak in MLB history in the modern era?

wouldn't you still consider it to be the worst season ever? Probably, even if they don't get that. Even if they don't get 111. Well, just because, yeah, that 2004 team, everybody knew it wasn't going to go great. Correct. And we got Randy Johnson's perfect game that year. You know, so I have plenty of. fond memories from that horrible season.

Bad stuff seems to happen. Like, if you want to consider Bumgardner's no-hitter and actual no-hitter, two of our four no-hitters happened this year, right? So it's like, we've had a lot of great history happen this season. I think a lot of the young guys have had great debuts. It just feels like when we get down to this point of the year, it just doesn't, I mean, I'm down with everything Lovolo has already said that they were going to do. But I'm talking about even being, even do it more, you know.

Sometimes when I see the number of starters out there in the field that were starters at the beginning of the season, I'm like, eh, can't David Peralta have a break at this point? Can't a lot of these guys just sit? You know, like, that's my feeling on it. And I think that's what I thought was going to happen a little bit more based on him saying that they were going to go towards the youth movement. Yeah, and we're seeing a lot more like, yeah, McCarthy and we were going to see Seth Beer alas.

That's so disappointing. By the way, Seth Beer had no, well, he had surgery, by the way, which was very surprising to me because after he had dislocated the shoulder, it seemed like things were kind of positive. Like it seemed, I remember Lovallo the next night talking about how Beer wanted to play, but they were going to hold him out.

They'd said after the game that the shoulder, as gross as the sounds, slid in smoothly back into place. So, yeah, a lot of that sounded positive, but then we find out that he has had surgery, which, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, do it now, right? Yeah, well, I think it's scheduled for tomorrow. Okay. So he hasn't had it yet, but he's going to. But, yeah, that threw me for a loop, too, because, yeah, dislocated shoulder.

I mean, it can result in surgery, but, but, yeah, the way they were talking, it really kind of surprised me. Yeah, it didn't sound like it was that. just drop that on me. Oh. Okay. Well, I guess this is the right time of the year to do it. Well, and it's also the curse season. It's also the curse season. So might as well happen.

But back to Elijah Green a bit. I mean, I think people have just been very high on this kid for a while. And it makes it, it makes it hard not to be interested in it. What would really just shock the hell out of it. me is if the Diamondbacks get the number one pick and then they don't draft Elijah Green, right? That's totally a possibility. Kumar Rocker this year was assessed to go much higher than he did when he was drafted. He ended up going back to college. We had the situation with Jordan Lawler that DeBacks got that apparently should have gone in the top three, but didn't because people

thought he was also going to go to Vanderbilt based on the offer that he had. So, I don't know what we're going to see when the 20-22 draft comes around. Well, yeah, that's another huge factor that goes into the draft, just mere signability. Yes. If you're an NBA team and someone's eligible for the draft and you draft him, he's yours. Yep. Not so much in baseball. I know.

It's so weird. It could very well be that we get, you know, the Diamondbacks get the first overall pick and start getting into talks with Elijah Green, and then he decides to go to Cal State Fullerton or something. Yeah, right. I don't know. It just, it frustrates me at times. I'm glad the Diamondbacks were able to get Lawler to sign

because I was a little bit concerned about that myself. I think that baseball really needs to change some of those rules. You know, I don't know. I think it's weird that baseball players can be drafted and then decide to go to college, opt out, and come back and re-enter the draft. Right. That's, again, like we talked about last night, Aaron Judge did that, where he was drafted very, very low. I recently found out that on average, over a thousand players are drafted by major league every year, which blew my mind. That's like way more guys getting drafted.

when you think about the depth of the of the minor league system, though, it makes sense, right? They have four or five teams that they have to fill a rosters of, right? But yeah, I don't know. I think at the very least, what I want for the Diamondbacks is for them to pick whoever they want without any kind of hurdles, without anybody else selecting someone before them. I think at this point, there's no real reason for them to lose intentionally, but their schedule is hard enough that I feel like it's going to take care of itself.

Obviously, there's still going to be those wins and things that they do. They're still a professional baseball team, right? But I don't know. All I can say is I want a little bit of money betting against the Diamondbacks on the Draft King Sportsbook app. I'm not super proud about it. So I don't want to like go into super great detail. but I mean, it's not the worst thing, right?

Again, like I said, just because the Diamondbacks are losing doesn't mean you need to lose. So go download that Draft King Sportsbook app and use our code PHNX. Again, you will get for $1 bet on any NFL or college game, you will get $150 back in those free bets. So I did want to touch what we were talking about earlier on Call on Coward's tweet, inflating the D-BACs crowd numbers last night. It was a really weird tweet. Like you said earlier, I don't know where he got those numbers from,

but he claimed in this tweet that there was 15,000 fans at Chase Field last night. And he gave the D-BACs fans an odd pat on the back about it. Like, good for them to go watch a team that's not doing well. You know, like, and yeah, I don't get it. Because it just, it really, for me, it shows a lack of knowledge about what's going on. here. First of all, if you've been to Chase Field, even if there was 15,000 fans there, which the last game that there was that many fans or more was a game against the Seattle

Mariners of all team on a Saturday on September 4th, they got 18,000 at Chase Field. I'm assuming it was some sort of bobblehead giveaway night or something. It was a $9 seats in celebration of the number of there. Thanks. Thanks, Daryl, for, thanks Daryl for knowing more about this team than I do. That's why I brought you on this podcast. But yes, absolutely. Were you there for that game? Is that why you knew that? No, that was knowledge off the top of your head. You and I were celebrating my nuptials. That's right. That's right. That's why I don't remember anything about that. But yes, there was a... Otherwise, I would have, actually. I'd have taken advantage of the $9 seats. Sure, absolutely. I mean, but it's just kind of wild because when you go through these

numbers like these other these other stadiums draw so many people like this last series with the dodgers 43,000 44,000 46, their series in Houston 22,000 25,000 23,000 here back at home against the Braves 9,000 642, 8,879.8,879 was that game he claimed that there was 15,000 plus. I don't know what he was seeing. I don't know he was basing those numbers on. But even if there were, it would be like 12,000 Braves fans is what it would be. Well, as confused as I am about, you know, where he got those numbers and why they're off

and why he decided to compliment, you know, D-BACs fans. I have no idea. But what this tells me is that there aren't enough Braves fans in Arizona. Because when the Dodgers' come to town, it's almost a sellout. Oh, man, 34,000 strong, yeah, absolutely. I was actually surprised at those numbers

because they, I know obviously this season, being the way it was, they had a reduced capacity for the crowd early on. So the opening day numbers and such aren't really, you know, anything you can rely on because it was a different capacity based on when the Dodgers came to town a few months later.

like you said near near sellout crowd for those games uh and and again i i don't know i'm i don't know why this tweet even came into my life i don't know why i even paid attention to it it just kind of infuriated me to see that like like what a from a very prominent sports personality just making these bold lies kind of broad statements that aren't true like it's not a lie because it's I don't think he was intentionally trying to do anything. It was just where did you get that information from? And why did you think it was all Diamondbacks fans supporting this kind of crap? It's clear that he wasn't watching the game, too.

Sure. Because if you just look and listen to the crowd, it sounds like an empty stadium. You can hear children individually yelling at the players. Yes. Yeah. It felt like a 2004 Expos game. Yeah, no, I went to many 2004 Expos games. My sister lives in Montreal, so I got to enjoy that one song. Yeah, by the way, I'm a huge Montreal Expos fan from being a kid,

simply because they played the Dodgers in one of my first baseball games I attended. And the Dodgers at the time had a ritual of coming out to sign fans, baseballs, you know, jerseys, whatever after the game. And the Expos won the game. so the Dodgers decided not to come out. And like a security guard came out and kind of told us like, hey, the Dodgers aren't able to make it. Basically, like it was kind of how he worded it.

And then the entire Expos team came out, fully dressed in like their travel suit and tie wear, and just started signing autographs for everybody. And I had been given a baseball from one of my dad's friends, so I gave it to them. And they just took the baseball from me and just passed it around the whole team and like everybody signed it and then they gave it back to me

it was a really positive experience in my life as far as baseball is concerned, you know? I don't really think sometimes these guys really understand how much they can make us turn into idiots for this sport by doing little acts like that. What year would that have been? I think that had been 92?

92, okay. Yeah, yeah. So what, Tim Raines? Was he on that team? You know, I wish I could remember, but I don't think I was very engaged in the game as an 11-year-old. But, you know, you know how it goes. I will say that the Diamondbacks, you know, if you want to commend the team, let's commend the Rockies. Let's go back to that series that we were just talking about.

That's not a team that Arizona Diamondbacks fans traveled for or came out of the woodworks in Colorado to go see. The Rockies deserve all the credit in the world for getting 33,000. close to 33,000 out for a Saturday game against the Diamondbacks. And like you said, I think that might be an indictment more of us as D-BACs fans rather than it is of, you know, Rockies. I think people still enjoy watching baseball. And you know what? Like we said earlier, the Rockies have a winning record going back to the middle of May. So at least they've been playing good baseball that you go out and you can watch and you can see your team win a game regularly.

versus the fact that since the Diamondbacks were cursed by them beheading Baxter on a very similar date, it was May 15th, 2021. They've won, I think, a total of 30 games since that day. Since May 15th, they've won 30 lousy games. It's wild. Can I go get back to Colorado? Because I'm trying to think of reasons not just beyond, okay, they're a better and more competitive team. And I don't Maybe the weather? Maybe it's... I think the weather's a huge thing. The weather's a huge thing because, you know, it's September in Colorado outdoors is a lot more comfortable than just driving to Bob.

Absolutely. Sorry. Yeah. You did it. You stood your age right there. Uh-huh. Exactly. It was my own minor protest.

I know, I know. Things being renamed. That's... that's fine. I don't care. But anyway, the weather's a big part of it probably in the team, but also like, how is Denver set up? Is a lot more densely populated? I don't think it is. I think it's similar to Phoenix in that regard. Yeah, well, I mean, you do have the fact that Phoenix and our count, like our, you know, suburbs and stuff are a little bit more spread out. So it's like, there's a lot more people that live 20 minutes plus from the stadium. I think that the, you know, Rocky

Stadium is beautiful. It's the, you know, open, you know, air stadium. I think they have a lot of cool stuff to do very close to the venue. So it's like you could go get some Rockies tickets and then go, go get something to eat very close. Whereas like we have downtown. Well, we do. But when you think about it. We have a pretty good downtown. It's not we do. It's just not very close. I've had this, I've had this argument with a couple of people from pHNX. We have a good downtown. It's just not very close to like Chase Field. You know what I mean? You definitely have to walk a decent distance to start getting to the good restaurants and bars.

And it's no knock at Willie's tacos next door or anything like that. It's just a lot of the places that you and I enjoy are typically a little bit farther away. I guess you're right. Putting it on 7th Street in the middle of a desert, that does make a difference. Yeah. I guess so. I probably wouldn't be walking to what Central and Van Buren to go to. of, you know, what...

Right, right. I mean, or like when we go to like... Crescent Ballroom. There we go. Crescent Ballroom. Cobra Arcade Bar, all the places we go, you know, Angels Trumpet. Those places aren't close, but we don't mind walking it because we're from here and we'll walk that distance. But the more conventional baseball fan that probably wants

something close to the stadium, I know that prices are... Parking at the Barajama Hall across the street. Exactly. And walk just across the street, right? I know that prices aren't a problem because the Diamondback once again are one of the lowest cost, you know, teams in all of baseball. So who knows? I really think at the end of the day, we tend to be a city that wants to watch a good baseball

team, a good product, and a winner. And when it's not, we just choose to do other things, you know? And it takes a lot of effort and energy to drive into down to be extremely of this, which I know it's mathematically fall, but it's going to be summer until the end of October. You know, it's going to be hot. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm with you, man. Well, it's hot all summer long, and, you know, that's going to be a problem for until the end of time for baseball here in the valley, but at least we have it. And I just don't want it going away anywhere, especially not to Henderson, Nevada. Thank you guys so much for joining us here on the PHNX Debax podcast.

If you're catching us on YouTube or anywhere else, we want to remind you that you can never miss out on any episodes of this podcast by subscribing to us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. And if you're hearing us right now in one of those apps, we want to remind you that we're cranking out some pretty awesome content all year round, and we're doing it on every major Arizona sports team on our YouTube channel. That's at PhNX Sports. on YouTube. So

subscribe to that channel. That way you can get that little notification whenever we're talking sports. And we have some fun over here. Today I found out that one of my favorite people on our network, Chirsten Seussle, grew up when she was six watching

the history channel instead of cartoons, which delights me. Because if you know Chirsten, it makes all the sense in the world. Daryl, no offense to you. I know you watched cartoons, but you seemed like the kind of bloke to watch a little bit of history channel when you were younger?

A fair amount. I watched, well, the thing is, I wasn't a cartoon fan unless it was funny. So I watched all the Warner Brothers and animatics, but all the people talking about Transformers and Ninja Turtles, I had no interest in any of it.

Because it wasn't funny. That's incredible. It wasn't funny. Why are you making a cartoon and not having jokes of it? That's amazing. That's amazing. Well, you can follow us all on Twitter.

My pal, Darrell is at Zazamplop. I am at cap underscore caveman with a K. But of course, as we say, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports. You can follow PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And yeah, follow us everywhere. We appreciate you guys supporting us. We thank you so much. Again, download the Draft King Sportsbook app.

Use our code PHNX. Subscribe. Do all the stuff I did. I said. I hawked. I did it all. But we thank you guys again so much for joining us. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's more fun when you bet on it.