Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Danny Parkins talks Cubs For A Cure, what matters most for Bears in 2026

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Mark Grote were joined by FS1 host Danny Parkins to preview the Cubs For A Cure Radiothon and to discuss the Bears' outlook in 2026.

This hour is brought to you by Joel Osco. I could do Stephen A's job, guys. It's not that hard. Danny Parkins. QB1 party. All are invited. Host of Fox Sports Wands, first thing first. Let's hold our horses.

Nicks making the finals. We've seen this before through seven games. Teams throttle people. It mismatches happened in the playoffs. Knicks are playing great. Knicks are high. The Bears, plenty of reason to doubt them. Caleb Williams,

No. Former host of 670 The Score before he abandoned us. That's the Caleb Williams Custom, baby. Jersey number one is going to the Raptors. You guys made it seem like at Chicago Bears fans. We had our guy, Danny Parkins, all these guys. Danny Parkins on 1043, The Score. Wait. No, we're not waiting.

We wanted to talk to Danny today. And now, and we're going to do that. He is at Danny Parkins on X. You can check him out on the newly expanded. First thing's first OT from 4 to 5 on Fox Sports. It's one. And we have the Cubsburg Cure Radiothon coming up in just over two weeks. Danny Parkins joining us on our hotline and on Twitch, twitch.tv.tv.tv slash the score Chicago. Danny, how are you?

I'm great. And technically, just under two weeks. Oh, yeah. This is Thursday. Yeah. Yeah, two weeks from an hour ago. It'll begin. So I have some news for you. Yeah, we had one of our texters to our text line. email he sent us a message saying how can I sponsor part of the Radiothon so I gave him the email account 1043 Radiothon at Gmail.com if you guys are interested so even the text line coming through for the big Radiothon. Great. Yeah, I hope I haven't, I got to check the email address this morning. I haven't checked it today so I hope that that comes through. Listen, we've got

oh my good, excuse me. What the hell is going on? Jesus. Get yourself together, man. This is a 50,000 watt radio station, pal. I don't know what you think you're doing. I think it's even more watts now with the FM. We're 100,000 watt radio station, Parkins. Get this guy a handkerchief or something. You're a lot of watts, grody. I don't know what's happening.

Somebody spray him down over there. I thought you have people. Homes him down. Yeah, Robbie is slacking on his duties as producer. It's an excellent point. Did you just wake up? Look at you, man. Your eyes are half shut. You're wearing a sloppy teacher.

look like me for crying out loud. Yeah, no make, that's it. You look tired because you don't have makeup on. Dude, I look tired because the NBA playoffs are brutal. They're awesome. Is that what it is? No, they are awesome, Leila. That is true. But my God, these NBA games end at one in the morning every single day on the East Coast. It's crazy. And then I wake up with the kids every day, you know, it's very hard being me. So I am tired. I have no idea what just happened with my throat. I got to get that figured out because I'm about to broadcast for 24 hours with you guys. Yeah, yeah. Triano! Take care of this guy. You know what? Put Triano on. Enough of this hit. Enough. Yeah, I get it. I get it. But I honestly, maybe I'm not going

to have to start waking up anymore because of Matthew Boyd. Maybe I'm not going to have to play with my kids anymore. Wow. Yeah. You know what I mean? I can just send that story to Steph and be like, listen, honey, these takes, they're paying the bills. I got to get a break from playing with these kids. dangerous out here. It could cause you to miss work. That's real. That's, you know, maybe it'll get me out of Little League on Sunday. Are you saying? Can tear your meniscus. Are you not buying, are you not buying that, Danny?

Is that what you're saying? No, no, I'm buying. I'm buying it. I'm just saying it's like a whole new excuse for parents everywhere. It's good. Yeah, I'd be like, I don't know, it's dangerous. Grotie has He has no children. He has a free cat and he's out here trying to

belittle the physical nature of playing with kids. No, well, and I see like, It's exhausting. Danny, when I heard it yesterday, it was the one time that I believed a player that he got hurt doing something odd, like playing with your kids. Usually I'm like, okay, you're making this up. It's too ridiculous. But I believed it with Matthew Boyd.

But I did wake up today and say it was weird how the Cubs handled the whole Kyle Tucker thing last year and how they weren't transparent and they didn't communicate particularly well. So I just needed to go through it with myself a little bit to make sure I wasn't being naive. I believe Matthew Boyd, but I think that we have to do it. are due diligence just to give it a little bit more air time, I suppose. Sure, you guys are Big J journalists. No, I would say it's pretty obvious that that is what happened. And, you know, I feel terrible for him. The team is snake bit, but they keep winning. Is the consensus now that counsel can manage? You guys are there on the ground. What's happening? Oh, yeah.

He's great again? Okay, great. Okay. I think, I mean, you know, it's a day by day basis. Sometimes you agree with people's decisions and sometimes you don't. And I feel like that's not just Craig counsel, but I have liked how he has, there have been some effective mound visits. He's done what he can with the bullpen. Trent Thornton basically came in off the street yesterday and got the saves. So you can't, you can't hate on it too much. I was going to get the win, actually.

Eight different guys with saves this year. Yeah, Trent Thorne got the win. Yeah, and then we found out Corbyn Martin, according to reports, has been DFAed. But the point is he's doing what he can with the guys he has. So there's that. doing amazing. They're doing amazing. What it was 18 of 21? Yes. Another crazy long winning streak with,

I think it's 10 guys who started, you know, 10 injuries to pitchers or they were in AAA at one point. This year have made appearances of the big club. It's, uh, it, it feels unsustainable, but like, who cares? It is such a crazy ride and so many teams are flawed always. And they're going to make significant reinforcements at the deadline, which is still a ways away.

But like a belief that, you will always figure out a way to win. That is a really, really valuable team or thing in a team. So, yeah, they are playing unbelievable baseball and overcoming a crazy amount of adversity. Like, I think we talked about it before the year, right? Like, biggest strengths of the team were probably defense and organizational depth. And organizational depth has been like the biggest story of the year so far for the Cups. It's been crazy.

No, I think you're right. Like the fact that they have been able to withstand this. And we were talking the other. day, Danny, about how we've all witnessed games where if a team is up two to nothing, given how inconsistent a lineup can be, or you're watching worse teams, you're going, oh, I don't know that they can come back from that. And I feel like this is taking on Bears' comebacks at this point with how they're winning, especially in the last few games.

Bears. Yeah, Bears. Yeah, maybe Caleb Williams can pitch. I bet he could, actually. Yeah, he's got a great, though I really, that's one that I would never forgive counsel for. Could you imagine? Oh, yeah. They're like, you know, we need another arm.

We're going to sign Caleb and then he got hurt. It's bad. The Cubs pitching injuries is bad, but we have to protect the most important arm in Chicago. And that is very much Caleb Williams. Most important arm, I feel like, is a good title for Caleb. What is it? Most important arm. Yeah, he can also be most important person, but most important arm as well.

Arm person. He is. All of the above. What he is, guys, is he's. precious. And you know, Danny, there is a there is a rookie minicamp going on this weekend on Friday and Saturday.

You've been hearing about all that? I don't know if that made it to your show that we're going to see Dylan Thineman and Logan Jones and Sam Rosh and Zavion Thomas all doing their thing out there and Ben Johnson part two.

How good, by the way, do you feel? Because I haven't talked to you in a little while about the bears, as usual. You're pretty happy with this rookie class that the bears have put together here as far as the draft picks are concerned? Yeah, I think it's okay. I think, you know, Thineman made sense for value. And if you can get a day one starter at the 25th pick in the draft, that is obviously significant because a lot of teams are not going to be able to get a plug-in-play starter at the end of the first round. It's not a premium position.

I think everybody would have preferred edge or front seven. just based on positional value. But you have to trust that they stayed true to their board. And, you know, listen, it's not a very exciting offseason. Like, that's the truth. The Bears were back-to-back-to-back off-season champs. They had a three-peat for the off-season, and you've got to give up the banner.

But that's actually what's supposed to happen when you are a good team. So, you know, they tried to trade for Max Crosby reportedly, missed out. They're not a perfect roster. the key, I think, to this upcoming year is very simple. We'll talk about it 100 times between now and then is how big of a step forward does Caleb Williams take? Like, is it incremental? Then I think some of the problems and flaws with the roster will be there. But if he takes the leap that we've seen truly great quarterback prospects and talents take when they've been in the second year of great offensive systems, and he's an MVP candidate this year, then I don't think it's going to really

matter much. And the Bears can be a top five offense in the game, and that'll overcome a lot of problems that may or may not exist on their defense. Well, Danny, I feel like the first round magically somehow of the draft worked out for most GMs. The teams that wanted to take the big risk, like the Rams and the Vikings did so, and then teams that needed exactly who they may have wanted even at 25, like the Bears did, got who they got. But the second round may be a good indication of a challenge now that's new for this team in this front office. Once you have the later picks, you may not get your guys.

We see the run on defensive linemen. We see the run on edge rushers. Right before practically two picks, Ocas goes to New England. So that may be the new challenge. You know, that second round and just how you manage your board becomes very crucial in the years

where your team is better. Well, listen, yeah, it's a high-class problem. You'd rather be picking. It would be great for us if draft season was not as interesting. Right? Like, that would be great. Yes.

It would make it harder to do sports radio in Chicago in March and April because those polls position segments had a lot of juice to them. Your who's your guy would have a lot of juice to them when they were picking one, when they were picking nine, you know, that's that sort of thing. But when you're picking 25 or later, it's just, it's not going to be as fun. You're like, well, we could take the number one safety or the number seven edge rusher. Like it's just not as, but that's good. Like that's one of them good problems.

So, yeah, hopefully that's the new reality for the Bears. And, you know, hopefully they don't pick in the top 10 again for a very, very long time. Talking to our guy, Danny Parkins, the former scorer host, the host now of first things first. And Danny, yesterday it happened again. A new basketball boss was. introduced in Chicago. Bryson Graham is here. Thoughts?

Listen, I think that I'm glad it wasn't the person that everybody said it was going to be because at least that represents some sort of outside of the box thinking. I think that's good. But no matter who it was going to be, because the Bulls were not going to have an unlimited budget, they weren't going to give Bob Myers $20 million a year to run the front office because Sam Presti's not leaving Oklahoma City. It was going to be someone who's getting his first chance at the big job.

It's very similar to Arturis, Carnitivis, and Mark Eversley. When Arturis and Eversley were hired, they came from successful organizations and a bunch of people sung their praises. That's exactly what this is. We don't know until he's in the big seat, how he's going to do. And if the Bulls have some lottery luck on Sunday, he's probably going to get off to a great start. And if they don't have lottery luck, they're probably going to be a pretty bad team. No, they'll probably be a bad team regardless.

But I think it's hard to have a huge, strong opinion on a guy that we're just, we're taking everyone else's word for it on him. Seem smart. Thought he came across well in the press conference. glowing endorsements from people who had worked with them, but that's exactly what the last group of guys were. Maybe not as much with the press conference thing, but that was a little bit more of a language barrier, frankly, for our tourists. So, you know, unless the Bulls were going to really swing for the fences,

I think it's tough to get too excited or too down on this one way or the other. Other than, like I said, I was glad that it wasn't just conventional wisdom, and it was a little bit more outside the box. Yeah, Danny, I think that that's important because, People forget that AK and Eversley were a complete, complete departure from what we knew to be the case. And John Paxton had stepped away. I don't know how much he was involved in that choice versus getting Bryson Graham. And I thought the same thing you did.

I thought Matt Lloyd made a lot of sense because he was one of the only candidates. I thought he would be okay with Billy Donovan still being the head coach, just having worked with the Bulls for so long. But this is different. And we've seen them go different before. how far off the conventional path, it seems like this isn't the case. You know, Bryson Graham is really credited with acquiring players of talent in different ways. So maybe that helps them get there a little bit.

Two-way contracts, they say are a big, you know, feather in his cap, Jose Alvarado, of course. So there's others there. Yeah, but I mean, but again, but Mark Eversley had big ones in Toronto and Arturis had guys that he claimed success for in Denver. So, like, that just, that stuff, you know, like, when the big. Bears hired Matt Nagy. It was like, any cold plays for Andy Reid? And it's like, no, he didn't. It was just like something that was set at the time when he was hired, you know?

So, like, he's going to sink or swim based on his merits of what he does here. Like, Jose Alvarado is not going to save them. It's going to be what he does here. And unfortunately, we were just talking draft for the Bears. Like, you know, unfortunately, Sunday's a big day for the Bulls. Like, Sunday's a really big day for the Bulls because this is a historic draft. you could get the fourth pick and still get an all-star. There's a ton of talent here.

And so you need some ping pong ball help. And that will have him off to a great start. And if it doesn't go the Bull's way, you know, maybe they can still find a great player, right? Janus wasn't the number one pick. Steph Curry wasn't the number one pick. Obviously it happens. But, you know, given how big of a draft this is,

Sunday is probably the biggest day for the Bulls franchise for the last couple of years going backwards and the last couple of years going forward because you get an AJ DeBansta or a Darren Peterson or Caleb Wilson. Like those types of guys have ceilings that can be franchise changing players. And so, you know, I really do think Sunday is the biggest day for the Bulls in a couple of years. Absolutely. And we want you to save the date. We mentioned it earlier.

The Cubs 4A. Cure 24-hour Radiothon. It takes place from May 21st to May 22nd right here on one of one of the day. 4-3, The Score. Learn more and donate now at cubs.com forward slash Cubs for a Cure. If you want to get involved with the Cubs for a Cure Radiothon, email 1043 Radiothon at gmail.com. And I know you have some updates for us, Danny. Yeah, so I got some donation incentives. I'll tell you guys about in a second. But I just want to say a thank you to Arbor Investments. They're great Cubs fans, friends of the score, close friends of the Ricketts family and Crane, Kenny, Greg Purcell,

founder and chairman. They're on board again this year. We have Fox Sports on board. John Gavin, Doug and Stacey Meyer, Jeffrey Lamort Salons, Russ Armstrong, the Chicago window guy, on and on, Mr. Duck Cleaning. So many. We got over a dozen sponsors already on board. Donation incentives. How about a house in Sedona for a week? They can sleep up to 12 people. We've got Sweet tickets every Bears game this year in the Skyline Club. It's the premier suite at Soldier Field. My guy, Cole Comette, came through and donated some signed memorabilia and his personal Bears tickets to a game this year.

We got 1914 club tickets. We got Wrigley Field experiences. We got Cubs memorabilia. The Friday after the Radiothon, Cubs Cardinals, in St. Louis, row won their version of the 1914 club. So you can be in enemy territory. There's a Jordan Davis concert after the game. So go to a Friday Cubs Cardinals game in St. Louis,

rep the Cubs gear, then watch a concert after the fact. Speaking of concerts, we got tickets to some Wrigley Field concerts. We got tickets to John Mullaney at Wrigley Field. The incentives are going to be absolutely insane this year. So all of it goes to charity, all of it goes to cancer research. 100%. There's no overhead with the event. DM me. Get involved. If you've got a prize that you want to donate, you got tickets you want to donate, you got a restaurant experience you want to donate, get on board with the biggest broadcast charity event in Chicago. We did 750K last year. Unbelievable.

Going to try to top it this year. Danny, and I want to thank you for going on CHGO. I heard your hilarious hits with Carmen the Boys and revealing or reminding us of the revelation. that occurred with Lesser's special addiction, I will just say. The Grobber's special addiction, which was revealed on the overnights. I just want people to know that you never know what's going to be revealed during a Danny Parkins 24-hour radio thorn, especially when I'm on with him from 6 to midnight. Listen, I mean, that's right. We had a middle of the night Jason Gough appearance last year. I think I've set up another former score host to appear during the middle of the night.

We don't have local overnights anymore, except for the Radiothons. So it's after some late Bears games. So we got local programming. Benetti calls in late usually, and he'll donate Tigers Cubs tickets and a meet and greet with him. Adam and Means been known to call him late. Oh, I haven't even asked him yet, but I'm sure he will. Jeff Passon breaks his ESPN rule and comes on every year for the Radiothon. So we'll get Passing on.

We're going to have Rizzo on. We're going to have TIEO's going to be back on. Some other big sports surprises that I'll save for the day of. Huge names are going to be on this year that have never been on before. Been working on it for months, guys. It's going to be a big broadcast. Well, we're excited for it, and we will see you in just under two weeks. Again, the email address, 1043 Radiothon at gmail.com. Danny, thanks again.

Yeah, reach out. DMs are open as well. Thanks, guys. Bye, Danny. Bears. Bears. Bye, Mark. Bye, Layla.

Aww. Aw. He's just a baby. He is. Yeah. That is Danny Parkins. Young dad, Danny Parkins, out here. Save your meniscuses, people.

Coming up next year on Rahimi Harrison Grotie as we get you ready for Cubs baseball. Peekra Armstrong is going through a streak right now again. And the way he described it is in a way that only he can. So we will examine what he's doing at the plate. And hopefully, how far can it go? Next.