Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Billy Donovan doesn't sound committed to another season as Bulls coach (Hour 2)

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

In the second hour, Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris listened and reacted to Bulls head coach Billy Donovan’s recent comments about his future with the organization. To Rahimi and Harris, he doesn��t exactly sound like someone who wants to return as Bulls coach next season. After that, Foul Territory host A.J. Pierzynski joined the show to discuss the White Sox calling up top pitching prospect Noah Schultz and the Cubs’ uninspiring start to the season. Later, Rahimi and Harris held the Halftime segment.

The score. This hour is brought to you by Menards. Save big money at Menards. And this ball game is over. Ball game over, season over. The final from Dallas, Mavericks 149, and the Bulls 128. Mercifully, the Bulls season has ended. You may go in peace.

Thanks be to God. That was Chuck Swirsky. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 1043 to score. And there was a reason to watch the Bulls and Mavericks game last night. It was a fun tribute, by the way, to the former Mavericks of years past. Stacey King's name was on the court over the American Airlines Center. And they were wearing their throwbacks, which I think they should have never stopped wearing. That's another story for another day.

But in the meantime, there was also a record watch that was being had. We were trying to see if Nembert was going to get the assist record. too short of tying it. He ended up with 23 assists. The Mavericks scored 149 points and the Bulls had 128. But there were a couple of reasons, Marshall, to actually watch this game if you're, if you're into it like we are. Patrick Williams watch? Is that one of the reasons? What was your watch for Patrick Williams? Minutes, points? What? A dollar? He played 36 minutes. He's five of 15 from the field. Well, Lachlan Oberg is a thing. Triple double baby. Let me let me just tell you. Ten points.

15 rebounds, 10 assists. Layla, this all feels so very... I'm trying to think of the... Antichlifurie. Keep going. You just keep... I mean, there are several adjectives you could use to describe this NBA season. Not just through a Bulls lens, but through an NBA casual fan lens.

You know why? For the first time in league history, eight teams. The Bulls are not one of them, by the way, but eight teams have finished with 55 or more losses. The Mavericks are one of those teams. Yeah. Yeah, take... And that told you the state of the NBA to me the fact that eight different teams had more than 55 lost.

That's hard to do. That's... Because eventually those 55 lost teams, they all got to play each other. It's just not good. And the polls, as you said, 31 and 51. And MacMockew is out here getting run. And Yuki Kawamora's out here getting run.

Listen. Is it that what you're supposed to do, though? Shouldn't those guys... They should have been doing that for the last however many weeks. Adam and Stacey have been calling for Mac Mac MacKulng for a long time in these games, and they had every reason to do so. And Mac MacMcclung didn't do the dunk contest because he wanted to be an NBA player. And they still didn't have him on the court as much.

Well, he's an NBA player, although being on the whole deal that he's on with the two-way and everything. Is it free somebody if they're not in the league? With Bobby Portis, it's free Bobby P. I was literally thinking that. I was literally thinking maybe we should have printed the free Mac Mac Macs- shirts. But it's not free. Essentially, you would have to commit. You would have to commit to Mac MacLong. Oh, no doubt. But I mean, you're free to MacMac. It's not, it doesn't have the same ring. Mac. Mac. Hmm. I see what you did there. Commit McClung. Is that what you're

saying? Well, he just started going to the Max Crossbe. Mac. Mac. Listen, Colin Sexton. We, we have enjoyed your time here on the Bulls. We thank you for your service. It's time to move on. These are the, like, watching the game, Leonard Miller. Do you believe that Leonard Miller is a rotation player on a good NBA team, a playoff bound NBA team? This is a basketball segment, and every time somebody says the name Leonard, and I know

I'm in Chicago, I think you're talking about Leonard Floyd still, bears. Oh. So. Okay. So that's where my brain is still with the name Leonard and sports in the city. But yeah, I watch the, uh, the, uh, the, the the the uh what's the word i'm looking for where they oh condensed game of the bulls and the mavericks i did not watch it in real time i my stupid random self got home at 630 yesterday from the from the flight

and i was like i'm going to have some bulls game what why why why yeah i didn't do that i was watching uh what was going on with the white socks because i wanted to figure out what happened because i couldn't watch that game because i was watching the cubs game i was watching the masters on the plane because we had no Wi-Fi But we had the Masters. That's fair. That's fair as well. But some exciting finish.

The only thing that happened of importance to me was after the game. That's it. We've been trying to figure this out for a while now. Billy Donovan maintained consistently and was for his word when he said, talk to me about this stuff after the season. He wanted to focus on coaching his team. The future for him, whether it be with the Bulls or somewhere else, was going to come after the season.

He really didn't have time to think about who was going. going to be the VP of basketball operations, the general manager, and the like. And Sam Smith did the damn thing yet again. Excellent postgame questions. He made the trip. And here's what he asked about whether or not the new GM should bring in his own head coach. You know, is it appropriate that if you're going to bring in a new, you know, top level manager, you know, should he already have the coach? What do you think about that? Should somebody who gets, that hired in that job. Should he have that coach or, you know, do you have any opinion about that?

Yeah, I think that's part of the certainly would be the discussion, you know, with ownership. And I said this before. One, I really appreciate, you know, Michael and Jerry's support. I really appreciate the relationship with the both of them. I think, and I said this before, I think maybe some of Michael's comments, I understood what he was saying in terms of support of me. But I'm very, very confident that Jerry and Michael are going to do what's best for the Chicago Bulls. And they should, you know, and we all need to because we work for the organization.

So that's probably some of the things we probably need to discuss, quite honestly, you know, when we get at some point this time, this upcoming week, to be able to do that. You know, I totally understand it from a lot of different levels. And those are the conversations that I need to have with Jerry and Michael about. Does that sound like a guy? who is committed to anything yet, because that was not my take. So I heard this and I was like, all right, this actually sounds normal to me because he just got done coaching a game and he's got a lot on his plate as far as what to think of.

Specifically, first thing, exit interviews to the players. And then we know he's not meeting with ownership tomorrow or I guess today. And I felt like this was going to be a process that took some time. time. He needs a couple of days to just think about what he wants. He had said this also, I believe, in the same press conference. Somewhere along the way, Sam had asked him about reflecting on it. We thought the most important thing for you guys to hear was what we just played. Sam and Casey do an excellent job every day.

There's no doubt about that. Casey Johnson as well, who was on with our morning show today. He was on with Molly and Haw. But for them to ask the pointed questions like this, one of them was, how would you look back on this season? And unique is the word Billy used. There's no doubt about that. But I also think it was uniquely exhausting, you know, from a level of him having to deal with two deaths in the family and his father being one of them. And then what happened regarding the trade deadline and Jaden Ivy and the like, this is not a season you can replicate.

So therefore it is unique. But at the same time, once again, he's finding really graceful ways to describe what I can only imagine is incredibly trying. He deserves some time to rest. call the season dysfunctional because any season that starts with one vision, a five and oh start. I can't just remind people that the Bulls were five and oh to start the season. They were five and oh. And then the vice president of basketball operations, our church, Karnas Chauva, saying midway through the season, we're going to do something different this time.

And then that different was worse than what, you know, the grass really is not always greener on the other side. What they did was not good in terms of what they got back. as far as draft capital, in my opinion. But were you happy that at least, and the bar is in hell, but that at least they got draft capital back for some of the expiring contracts. Sure. Because you got to get something back, right?

And they hadn't in the past. And so they did that. And then maybe that opens eyes as to why they hadn't gotten stuff in the past because they didn't know how to get stuff back. I don't know. I mean, I feel like the trade deadline became the search for the nine or ten very good players that Arturis Karassova spoke of. Like, we're just going to take flyers on all these guys.

a lot of them we've scouted previously, and that's what became the idea. We know that it wasn't executed to its finish. That obviously happened when they decided to fire Arturus Karas Chávez and Mark Eversley. But Billy Donovan, when he talked about this, I think he translated to me what was what I gathered, which is the organization wanted to compliment him. They don't want to punish him for what happened around him. it's just procedurally this is not usually how it goes and that's that's the disconnect i don't know that there is a disconnect though between billy donovan and ownership in the

same way that there is between or was i should say between mark everesley archerish carter chosovas and ownership and or billy and or billy because we were told how bad of communicators they are and when you take that into direct i think we also experience it from the lack of press conference. Yes, clearly. And in contrast, every time someone did have to step up to the podium, J.N. Ivey specifically comes to mind. That's when your head of front office,

the people who made the deal to bring J.Nivey in should be front and center and taking accountability for where that decision led. The lack of due diligence leading to such a catastrophic result is a fireable offense, period. The basketball results were a fireable offense. But let's take it out of the NBA as far as how I think Billy interpreted and told us what he thinks of what Reinsdorf said last week. Say you're not running an NBA team.

Say that you're running a regional paper company. See. You're probably not going to fire the assistant to the regional manager, even though the regional manager was bad. But this is not a typical business. But I'll tell you one thing. when you fire the regional manager and the assistant to the regional manager is there, when you hire that new regional manager,

he gets to pick his assistant to the regional manager. Well, here's the scarier part in this extension of this analogy of this random regional paper company. You then typically promote the assistant to the regional manager. Do you not? Depends on how... If you like hiring from within... Depends on how much you believe in the assistant to the regional manager.

I think... To be fair, Billy Donovan is... not Dwight Shrew. There's only one Dwight Shrewd, and there's only one Billy Donovan. Well, but to take it even further, if the assistant to the regional manager says, hey, I really like being the assistant to the regional manager, but I don't want to be the regional manager. Now, when you bring in the regional manager, don't you have to have him give his say of who he wants to be his assistant? Or you end up with Robert California. Let's see this. We've exhausted this analogy, I believe.

Or we're just telling you the plot of the office. Yes. But that's kind of the thing here is that I think there's some traditional business thing that's being applied to a non-traditional business. But either way, Billy Donovan did not sound like a dude who was committed. And I don't expect him to. But if he did lean one way or another more definitively, then that would help us understand what's next. I expect Billy Donovan to be back until he's not back, until he says, I'm not coming back in whatever role, whether that's front office guy? Because would you be surprised if Michael Rinesdorf handed him the keys to the franchise? No, and that's the point. 630. You can text us 312, 644, 67, 630 says, why is Billy the only adult in the room?

I hate this team. I don't think he's the only adult, but I think he has been the adult, and he's had a lot on his shoulders to say he absolutely. Joe Kelly. He's not. Suisseur. He's the guy who tells you like, hey, the I'd of March are bad. And you're like, whatever random soothsayer, I don't believe you. That's like, oh, maybe that guy had a point.

It's just bad. It's all bad. Except I actually, I would not have dissed on Joe Kelly. So I would probably be like, oh, interesting. The Iads of March, you say, runs away. 815. Don't you get Will Ferrell first? Yeah, I forget where he came in that order

of operations there. What was his name? It was like Alonzo or something on the office? I don't remember. But on the scale of like the he-gone meter for Billy Donovan, after hearing that... Are you changing your scale? Yeah, did it change for you? No, I...

He said, there was nothing he said in that press conference that I was like, oh, that's surprising that he said that. DeAngelo. Like the dude who never got traded to the Bulls, DeAngelo. DeAngelo Russell. Remember that time, 70 hundred times where DeAngelo Russell was supposed to be traded to the Bulls? I mean, every team thought they were getting DeAngela Russell trade was supposed to happen like a hundred times and it never happened. Everybody forgets about that era.

Here's what I'll say about Billy Donovan and what he had to say after the press conference. Nothing he said surprised me. Nothing made me even raise an eyebrow because Billy Donovan's giving you his real time thought process, in my opinion. an authentic real-time thought process where he doesn't have some canned answer. He's listening to the question. He's answering the question as best he can in that moment. And shout out to Sam Smith and others who were asking those questions after. And the point was made in that press conference.

And it lasted quite some time longer than a typical Billy Donovan post-game press conference. This might be the last time we hear from Billy Donovan as Bull's head coach. And I think that that possibility, after hearing what? what he said yesterday got more real. Yeah, it didn't for me. I think he's going to, now I'm not saying he's not going to leave, but I think he could very well be back as the Bulls head coach, and that might be problematic for whoever has to take over the Bulls.

Well, credit, that was a great question by Sam Smith, and really the one we all wanted to know. A man who is no stranger to a good conflict or resolution is next. A.J. Piersinski. We wanted to talk to him about Noah Schultz Day. always good to catch up with him about baseball in general, and he's got something for us. So the two-time all-star catcher, the man himself, is joining us next here on Rahimi Harrison Grody. Now coming to Ben, a two-time All-Star and World Series champion with your Chicago.

AJ Persinski. People just like to hate me. The 1-1, AJ, swinging a high-fly ball, right field. This is going to go. Oh, three-round Homer, socks down to their last strike. Go ahead. Light it up. His fifth of the season.

Usually the first thing that comes to their mind is, man, I really hate that guy. Number 12, A.J. Vresinski. Where's Jonah Heim? Oh, by the way, your guy's charging the mound. Isn't that your number one job is a catcher to not let that guy get there? With Rahimi Harrison Grody on 1043, the score. Really a good Jonah Heim point. we are happy to bring in our next guest.

You know his music. You know his intro. That is A.J. Pirsinski, the All-Star Catcher, 2005 World Series champion, host of Fowl Territory. And he joins us not only on our hotline, but on Twitch. Twitch.tv. slash The Squort Chicago. AJ, how are you? Good.

I can't believe how fancy y'all are now. I mean, it used to just be a radio calling show. Now I've got to put clothes on to do this thing. I mean, don't you host a show today? What's going on with Fowl Territory? What's the word today? Oh, no, we do have a show today, but I mean, you know, it's a little early for me to, I can't peek too early. I got to kind of try to control my peaking. So, you know, it's a little early to already put a shirt and a hat on. Yeah, peaking is better than peacocking. So I guess you're halfway there. But thank you for allowing us to siphon some of your on-camera presence for this interview. Yeah, it's changed. Like I said, people change. You know, you guys change. You guys get bigger and bigger and bigger.

and now we have all you have TV cameras involved. Here we are with the WrestleMania-style intro. You know what's happening in Vegas this weekend. I thought you'd at least be happy with the wrestling side of it. Oh, of course. I mean, WrestleMania, by the way, WrestleMania, I don't think it's doing so good right now. They're struggling, I think, with ticket sales.

So maybe you guys can buy me a couple tickets and fly me to Vegas this weekend. We were just in Vegas. Our timing is off. Yeah, yeah. Unbelievable. We were at Circa. In the meantime, AJ, we get some. we get some good news. I feel like at least as far as a pitcher is concerned, I haven't been

this excited about the White Sox calling up a prospect. I want to say for me since Michael Kopeck. You know, we get the news about Noah Schultz coming up, local guy, a big name prospect, even when he was drafted by the Sox. You know, how do you feel about them doing this, given their record and their performance so far this year? Well, they have to have somebody that can pitch Grant Taylor can't start every game for him. I mean, it's like, holy cow, I thought he was one of your seventh or eight inning guys. and he's out there opening every game. I think it's great.

You know, Noah Schultz's first rounder, been there for a while. We'll see what he can do. He looked like he cleaned up his walk issues, which he's had in the past this year, at least early on so far. So if he can throw it over the plate, he's going to be tough. The biggest thing for him is the walks. That's always been a question for him.

Deep counts, large pitch counts early. You know, I said for years, Noah Schultz was three years in his professional career. ever pitched into the fifth inning. So he did that last year, which was a good step for him in the right direction. We'll see. I hope he does really well. He's what a six, what is he, six nine, six eight, six nine? Six nine. Lefty. I mean, I don't want to face the six. I faced Randy Johnson. That was tough. I don't want to face a six eight, six nine, whatever he's listed at. Lefty, kind of side sling. And so if he can throw it over the plate, he's got a chance to be really special.

We'll see. Hopefully it works out. Back to the aforementioned player that you just talked about, Grant Taylor. Now, he pitched two innings. in being the opener yesterday, which is a stretch because he'd only been pitching one inning at a time. Do you feel like this is the gateway for him to become a starting pitcher

sooner rather than later? Or was this just a one-off because they had a bullpen game? Why not? If you want to make him a starter, why not make him a starter in spring training? Why are we trying to do it in the middle of the season?

I don't... If his role is to be a starter down the line, wouldn't you think you'd want him to start? And I mean, I hate to say this, but in AAA, if he's going to be a starter, if he's not ready to start at the big league level. I don't know.

I understand the opener to a certain extent, but it's usually the teams, and I don't want to say that aren't very good, because that's not always true, but it's usually a team that don't really trust their starting rotation because basically what you're trying to do is steal the first inning for the guy who you have coming in usually next, which is the bulk guy,

so they don't have to face the top three hitters in the lineup. And I don't know, it's a weird thing. Does it work? It obviously worked yesterday. The White Sox won. Does it work all the time? Not always because all. it takes is one guy to have a bad inning and all of a sudden you're way behind and you have to

bring in your starter, your so-called starter, even though he's your second pitcher in the second inning and try to cover a bunch of innings. So God forbid the long guy goes down like what happened yesterday when Cannon got hurt. So it's an interesting strategy. I understand the strategy, but I don't know if you can maintain that for an entire season, especially when Taylor's pitching like four out of five and starting and doing all this. It's a lot. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's just it's antithetical to convention. I think, to the point of extreme. And that's what it is.

You know, the rays are probably the best example of a good team. They kind of pioneered the opener concept. But, you know, when Taylor's out there for stretches like three out of four games, you hear he's going again yesterday. Sox ended up using nine pitchers, as you mentioned, because of the injury to cannon. This isn't even how you draw it up when you're trying to be creative. No, I know. And listen, it's a learning process for, I think, for everybody involved right now.

And they're trying to build depth. They're trying to build an organization that has more than five options. options as a starter. And anytime your opening day starter gets option after three starts, that kind of puts the organization on notice, right? And I feel terrible for, you know, Shane Smith getting sent down so early. But, you know, they're trying to make moves. We're trying to get better. They're trying to be competitive. And hopefully Noah Schultz can help them do that. But at the end of the day, you have to have starting pitching. Starting pitching usually wins over 162 games. AJ, I'm curious as to your thoughts on the Chicago White Sox offense, specifically,

they're hitting 193 as a team. They're the only team in baseball with an OPS below 600. Is Will Vennible just left to his own devices of picking lineups out of a hat? I mean, how would you go about trying to get something started for the White Sox office? Well, I mean, I can't even, I don't know because, again, I'm not in there every day. I know this. They have power. I like my draw at the lead off spot.

I know they moved him out yesterday and they won. Listen, they got to get Marikami going. They got to get Colson Montgomery going, right? They got to get a lot of people going. Kiro's not hitting like he was last year. So is it sophomore slump or is it teams are figuring out what they're doing? And now they're making adjustments. Now it's time for the hitters to make adjustments, right?

I don't know what you can do. You have the pieces you have. And you can try to get cute and try to switch up lineups and move guys here and move guys there. But the end of the day, if the guys aren't hitting, it doesn't matter who you have hitting where. Because if they're not hitting, they're just not hitting. and you need someone to, you need a couple guys to get hot and carry them for a little while. Well, and I think that that's it too, is we feel like the socks lineup looked pretty good to start as we saw. That was before everybody made adjustments, as you mentioned.

But Murakama really added some pop, at least for the lack of on base, there was slugging, as we saw, you know, Colson Montgomery, a huge part of that. But to see it kind of shut down like this, like we've seen, teams go through streaks. But what do you think about just the extreme lack of offense we saw like in the past? past first two games of this thing against the Kansas City Royals. Can we talk everyone, every other team saying it's cold, so can we say it's cold then? We can. We can.

I mean, you were a professional hitter, you know better than I do. Listen, I got off to slow starts. I got off from fast starts. It was just one of those crazy years. When you get off to a slow start, everyone worries. If you have the, if they, let's say the White Sox did this for a two-week stretch in the middle of July, right? People will be like, ah, it's just the middle of July.

They're a little bit tired. but because when it happens at the beginning of the year and the numbers are out there and like you said hitting under 200 the OPS is what it is, everyone's like, oh my gosh, they're never going to figure it out. Let's give them a little bit of time. This team was actually, I think,

on paper, supposed to be built around their offense, not around their pitching. And these guys, maybe Kyle Teal is that big of a loss. I don't know. But we'll see when they get fully healthy, everyone back and we'll see where they end up. Let's talk again in about June and see where they are. All right, that's fair.

Meanwhile, across town, the Cubs have gotten off to a slow offensive start as well. And I'm curious as to your thoughts, not just about the Cubs in general, but how the National League Central stacks up. I know it's only been a couple of weeks. They're in last place, aren't they? They are. Yes, they are. Is that supposed to make me happy or sad? I'm guessing it doesn't make you sad.

No. Listen, I picked the Cubs and win the division. I still think the Cubs are the of the cream of the crop in the NL Central. I think they'll figure it out. Now, listen, losing Kate Orton really, really hurts. Bregman's going to figure it out. I mean, you look at some of their numbers. They're going to be, they have a bunch of veteran guys.

It's not like they're running a bunch of young guys, kind of like what we talked about, the White Sox that don't have a track record. Dansby, Bregman, PCA will figure it out, right? Ian Hap, Nico Horner, all these guys, Carson Kelly, they've been around a little bit. kind of figured it out. Now, the one that surprised me is Michael Bush going 0 for 30. I didn't think, I thought he was too good. Now, it happens to everybody in the big leagues at some point, but I never thought I'd see him go 0 for 30. So that was a shocker to me.

And then he ended up getting the hit last night to kind of got him going. That was a big win for them last night against the pirates who were in Wrigley trying to sweep them. They figured out a way to rally late. Now the pirates made some defensive miscues, but they figured it out. They figured out how to win that game. And they're like, what, one game behind? Everyone in the N-L Central is like one game on. The Brewers got off to a huge start. They've lost five in a row. Just got swept by the Nationals at home.

I bet you they didn't think that was going to happen. So I think the Cubs are going to be fine. I think show does look good. You know, I think their pitching is really good. Cabrero's look good. The back into their bullpen is really good. So I think the Cubs are going to be fine. Again, it's two weeks and it's cold out.

The wind's blowing in and Wrigley. You guys can't have it blowing out every day. Well, it was blowing out yesterday just just to make your point. Like that helps too. It was wind-aided for everybody. And that was my issue, AJ, was a lot of times we've talked about the weather helping the opponent. But theoretically, it should help the home team, too. And I feel like that occurred yesterday.

Normally, both teams have to bat, right? They both get 27 outs on the same field. That's what they tell us. It's not like one team. It's not like the old Metroome where people accused the twins of turning the fans on when they were hitting. And when they were not hitting, they'd turn them off so the ball didn't go as far. Something like that. Riggily, it's outside and the wind blows the way it blows.

So I think both teams have to hit. And again, I'm not worried about the Cubs. I think they're going to be fine. I just don't see how in this division, listen, Pittsburgh off the nice start, since he's doing fine. Milwaukee is Milwaukee. St. Louis obviously is not trying to win.

They're trying to kind of in a rebuild mode. They want to win, but they're in a rebuild mode. The Cubs should be the pride of this division. They should win this division. You have to get into the groove of the season. I think that's what people understand with baseball. It's not football word, oh, game one, game two. Oh, no.

well in baseball two weeks is not a whole lot it's basically what under a there about a tenth of the season in let's let's get into june let's see how they're doing in june and they'll be fine everyone i know know people are going to die when i say this cup fans calm down actually you know what no cup fans panic please he it was a reasonable take then it was not a reasonable take i can appreciate it a j what did you think of ozzy gian getting his number retired in that announcement coming through It's about time. I've been kind of beating this drum behind the scenes for a couple of years now. Because first of all, if it hasn't been issued, right, then what are we doing?

If it's not issued, then that means they're going to retire it at some point. So what were they waiting for? That's why I didn't understand. Listen, Ozzy rookie of the year, great player for the White Sox, won a World Series, managed this team for a long time, still is around. The White Sox organization still loves the White Sox organization. I just didn't know what took so long. I'm so happy for Ozzie. I'm happy for his family. I can't wait to see him cry like a little baby when he gets up there and has to give his speech.

It's going to be a great weekend, and I'm happy that the White Sox finally came around and did it. AJ, I got to ask you another question more league-wide, just because obviously your position as a catcher. What do you make of what we've seen so far from the new ABS and the challenges and how this thing is kind of gone? I love it. I think it's great. If you guys go to games and you watch it, It involves the fans. I mean, the fans are into this stuff, man. Like, they're like, oh, oh, every, oh, as soon as someone taps their helmet, the whole crowd just looks at the big screen.

And, oh, no, oh. And then it's a tenth of an inch off, and the crowd's like, yeah, especially in big moments. So I think it's great. I think it keeps umpires on their toes. Now, I've done a, I did a game opening weekend. The Braves ran out of challenges in the top, in the bottom of the first four hitters into the game because they were wrong twice. So that puts you behind the eight ball.

ball a little bit, but I've said this before. I think it's great. The more involved me you can get, the more correct calls we can get. The only thing I wish, I wish it was 3D the way the strike zone is supposed to be calculated by umpires. So we've seen some that are a tenth of an inch low because the strike zone is in the middle of the plate, not the front of the plate. And the ball is probably a strike coming in, but because of where it's measured, it's considered a ball. So umpires are taking a little bit of a front of it. But I think overall empires have done a great job. The players have done a great job of it. And plus it's always funny when guys don't mean to touch their hat and then they get charged a challenge.

And we saw it, I think, a couple of times yesterday and they were both right, even though they didn't mean to challenge it. Yeah, the unintentional being correct. Yes. No, no. Wait for it. Wait for it. Do you have a part of, you're part of these really fun city cruise events.

And I saw you announce on your Instagram that you've got a, you've got a couple of these coming up. One is April 26th. The other is September 20th. What can you tell us about the city cruises? Well, if you didn't get to go last year, you guys should come. It's great. It's me and Ozzy Gien, and the first one, April, is Sean Burke and Davis Martin, two of the starting pitchers. We did a pitching one.

And then the one in September is going to be my drop in Teal, so a position player won. So we're just going to go out. We leave from Navy Pier. It's a great time. We'll sign autographs. We'll have drinks with you. We'll just tell stories. And fans get to interact with us.

They get to have questions. It's three hours. You go out off Navy Pier, you watch the sunset. You enjoy the nice, hopefully weather. Fingers crossed April and September can be a little. icy, but we did this last year with some 05 guys, Jermaine, Scott Pesedning, and Joe Creedy, fans loved it. You just get to interact with White Sox people,

White Sox legend, Ozzy Gehan, and as you guys said, now this number retired. So it's just a fun time. Again, we're personal. We tell a bunch of stories. Ozzie will tell a bunch of lies, and we get to interact with current and former players, and it's just a great time.

Tickets aren't that expensive, and I promise you you'll get your money out of it if you put your money into it. We love stories at the library, those books, whether they're fiction or nonfiction. So we'll tell it, Jay. Don't let the truth get in the way of a true story. We used to tell Hawk down all the time.

And now we've decided to tell Ozzie that one. I feel like Hawk may have had that happen a timer too. AJ, this has been a lot of fun. What's the latest on Fowel Territory? When can we catch you next on the show? Today, one o'clock Central, one o'clock Eastern every day, Monday to Friday. I honestly don't even know who we have on today.

Tristan Gray, I think, from the NAS. Scott, who's on today? Oh, twin, sorry. National show. So Spencer Nuthbaum from that show is coming on. Sorry, sorry. I got half of it right. I got the over 30 shows.

Yeah, we have over 30 shows. So it's hard for me to keep up. And then with all the player movement, I got Tristan Gray confused with, you guys, you guys know how it is. You guys only have to focus on Chicago. I got to focus on 30 teams.

No, no. And you're doing a great job. The Almanac does take some time to reload. Scott brought in the background, tell him we said hello. AJ thanks again. He's using the bathroom, so he wasn't proud of me for yelling on him, so I apologize. At least he replied. Well, in between tinkles.

Oh, that's control. Nicely done. AJ, thanks again. Thanks, AJ. Thanks, guys. That is AJ Piersinski, featuring Scott Braun. You can check out Fowell Territory. It comes on in about 20 minutes.

And he was nice enough to share his on-camera glow with us for an extra extra 20 minutes today. So that was nice. Coming up next year on Rahimi Harrison Grotie, it's time for halftime. We've gotten a lot of questions about what happened in Vegas. So we will give you the lowdown next. What time is half time here on this Monday edition of Rahimi Harris and Grotie. We have sprayed to all fields today. Yes, I used a baseball term on purpose.

The Cubs did not take the series against the pirates, but Michael Bush broke an 0 for 30 slump, and he was part of the reason the Cubs rallied to salvage the game on Sunday. We asked the question how much the Cubs can really rely on Ben Brown, and he told us about, what he is working on. He was on hit and run yesterday, so we wanted to play the hits from that discussion. Noah Schultz days tomorrow. Alert yourselves. 11 o'clock, we listened to Billy Donovan and his postgame comments from Dallas following the final game of the bull season.

And we just heard from A.J. Persinski. He's about to go host Fowl Territory at noon, talking about the White Sox, Ozzy Gehan, and more. It's time. We made it back last night at various times from our trip to last Vegas. We were there visiting Circa Resort and Casino for the big golf tournament. We got to watch it at Stadium Swim. And we had fun guests along as well. How about Woody Buick? Woody Woodring and Jerry Roberts, we had Jeff and Lives Clements from Grand Appliance and Walter and Sean Binstein from Binney's Beverage Depot that came along as well. They were great to have on the trip. We had a really good time. It was a group of people and we had time at the bandit together, a couple of dinners to set it off. It was a it's always a good process to get to know a new group of people and then to bind over something. And you were healthy this time. I kind of did.

I worried about jinxing it when I said it the first time and then I just kind of laid off. No, no, we're weird. You got to walk around and be outside at Circa. Listen, I went for two runs on consecutive days while I was out there. I'm good. I'm as healthy as I've been since I, maybe a year after I moved to Chicago. That's exciting. I'm good.

I had a tremendous time. I wish my bet paid off. I placed the one bet off the $5 that I found on the street. Forget about your street dollar, Lela. I got a street $5 bill, which is amazing. Yeah, the street $5 bill is Vegas style.

I can't find that. I can only find the street $1 here and there. Now, it always gives me a dollar when I need it because it knows I'm going to lose a bet to Marshall potentially. But five is a different deal. There was a lot of good wagering going on in the sports book. That sports book was hype too. Max Muncie with the walkoff in the Dodgers series.

There are so many Dodgers fans at Circa. Did you notice that too, Ray? Oh, yeah. Even last year. We had history. Oh, yeah. You guys saw like fans get in a fight at the sports book, didn't you? So last year, it was, there was a Dodgers Padres game going on when Marshall and I

were sitting at the sports book. And it was a close game. And it was tense between those two little groups there at the sports book. and the Padres fans started talking trash to the Dodgers fans. One guy got into another guy's face. Security had to come. All in the sports book. It was pretty crazy.

The sports book gets hype. And so did stadium swim. We saw a bunch of, we saw a couple master's parties out there. I feel like people were wearing the green jackets. You had one on earlier that fit you perfectly. I did have a green jacket on to start our shows on Friday for the first segment, just because I wanted to feel like that.

And we've got a couple of questions. Oh, I love the question. Yeah. So on our text line, 312, 644, 67, 67, I'm sorry I hadn't posted the Mantis video yet. I was going to. And I was like, I don't want to be predictable and post it right away. If there's one thing about me, I will post on Instagram when I feel like posting. I'm not timely. I don't care about the trends.

Like, I just, I do what I want over there. And I'm not sorry about it. So you'll get the, you'll get the Mantis video today. We saw Mantis. Woody had a great time watching the Mantis. Woody was smoking a cigar taking pictures with, of the mantis while he was doing so. I feel like he really liked the oddity of it, Ray.

He really did. It was cool to bring someone else in our mantis experience. And he was appreciative of it for sure. I could tell he was enjoying himself. Woody here. We also got a question about Dave the Cat. So Mitch brought Vegas Dave, which was a cat stuffed animal. Yes.

We got a follow up. So Grody brought Vegas Dave home to Dave the Cat. and apparently Dave the Cat did not like Vegas Dave and hissed at Vegas Dave and Grotty said he's never heard Dave the cat hiss in his life But is any part of you surprised

that Dave the cat is territorial when he sees any other feline-like creature in his space I think Dave the cat thought Vegas Day was real Maybe 312 wants to know who had the most expensive dinner order. Yeah so Grotie as we found out as just careless with the company card

and we did want to know who was going to Bought Mitch ordered two seafood towers for the group so that was that was a Mitch production over at Berries at Circa I got the scallops I don't know who had the most baller of the food there was a bone marrow entree it was Ray

I cheated so I've been pescatarian for a few years now even before that I was like I've been moving the goalposts oh the goalposts have been moved after last weekend I'm not going to say I'm going back to eating red meat but there was surfing

turf on the menu and I was like, you know what? I'm going for it. And it was like a pretty expensive dish. Wasn't the most expensive dish on the menu, so I felt good about that. But it was delicious. I had steak for the first time in like 11 years. And along with, you know, some lobster. But it was, it was all delicious. Oh yeah, just the lobster. It was all delicious. It's what you try to downplay the lobster? Do the risotto at that Andiamo at the D? That was so good. too. I had that. That's the sister casino to Circa. That was incredible. I had regular people orders. I ordered salmon

the first night and then I had the beef tips with Nyoki the second night. Oh, that looked really good. Yeah, I believe Sean Binstein ordered that. They were great too, just talking to them about wine. Like, here we are sitting in this massive wine cellar and I was like, well, we have the group. We've got great

appliance who does a thing or two about a wine cellar. And we've got Binnie's. Like, this was a one-stop shop socially for us. They had all the answers between them. We really used to them on this trip. Talk to Woody about cars a bit. I was dying laughing at everybody saying Woody here, though.

Woody here. He's a character. We were watching the Cubs game in the cabana at Stadium Swim, and I don't remember what, at what point he said it, but like we were just watching the Cubs game and he said, Woody here? It sounds just like the commercial. I love it.

It's like us saying Max Crosby over and over again. We're just like. Max. Max. Max. Hey, I'm lucky to have you right now, Ray. Ray and I went on our usual walk that, hey, did we not get into the real, real part of Vegas? We sure did.

We walked past the container park. We walked past the strip mall with the chapel and seeing a bunch of people getting married. We walked to the 7-Eleven again. We walked past the 7-Eleven last time. So, Ray, what happened? Why did you almost get ensnared by the girls on Fremont? Yeah, there's a lot of ladies, beautiful ladies on Fremont Street that want you to take a picture. Stop and take a picture.

For the monies. Yes, yes. And so, like, she started walking as we were on our walk. She started, like, walking right next to me at my pace. And she said, hey, why don't you take a picture with me? And I said, oh, no, not today. And then she had this, like, feather boa on. And she wrapped her feather boa around me. And then she said, but if not now, then when? And she just looked right into my eyes. And I was like, I can't do this. I got to go. Grotie and I were just toodling along.

And I was like, wait, where's Ray? Right. We stopped. You ran up. And I'm like, what happened? Apparently Ray almost got ensnared. It's like you escaped the sirens from the Odyssey or something. She was giving me a strong eye contact.

Would you have wanted to get stolen by this person? What's that? Would you have wanted to get stolen by this person? If I had no, if we weren't on a business trip, me. Oh, see, that's what I said. There are worse things to be in there. I want to make sure that is that. But also I have a girlfriend, so of course not.

But if I was single and not on a business trip, sure. Because if she's listening right now, she didn't like that first answer. I'm like, Ray almost got stolen out here. Like what kind of pictures? What kind of monies for the pictures? Oh, God. I can only imagine. So, as usual, a lovely time was had that I can recall at Circa Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

And Stadium Swim was, as usual, fantastic. We also got excellent weather. there really is no reason to complain about a thing. So definitely check out, Zirka. You know we love it. And when it comes to watching sports, especially multiple games too, there's nothing better.

Five on it is next on Rahimi Harrison Grotie.