Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Transition: Spiegel rejoices about the start of spring training

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Leila Rahimi, Marshall Harris and Mark Grote welcomed on Matt Spiegel and Laurence Holmes for the daily transition segment.

I mean, I don't like going to, I don't like going to NFL games. Unless you have a robe on, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For a, for, yeah. I went to, I went to, that's right. That's exactly right. So only robed football games for Danny Parkins. No other games. Of a certain magnitude. Hello. Went. No, he said he said it had to be a game that big for him to go.

I got him there, didn't I? felt like you were giving him information that he didn't have. That was amazing. Those moments when you can catch him in a logical fallacy, and he's built his life on not being caught in logical fallacies? Oh, it's a good moment. Danny gotcha, we'll call that. I got you, Danny.

Congrats, great. Grotty had that man dancing in circles. How many times did you have those gotcha moments with Parko? Not often. Not often. Not often. I can count them on one hand. And here I go.

So first of that was not enough. There was the QB1 party. No, man. I took part and all that stuff. We forgot to ask him about the QB2 party. Oh, yeah. I threw the QB2 party. I was very excited that Tyson Bayesian they found something in the QB2.

I'm like, they found one. So I had like off-brand snacks, not the QB2 party. That's right, Spiegs. I remember. No little W at that party, huh? No, no, no. Pib extra. Oh, man, don't go harshan on Roy Wood Jr.'s

Pib. He's Mr. Pib. He's not Pib Extra. Yeah, it's true. Pib Extra's gone now. It's been replaced. Pib Zero. It's all zero now. That's the rage. R.C. Cola. I took one out. I had a Pib Zero that I took out of the fridge and is gone. You never didn't find it, did you? You saw me, Marshall. Saw me in my moment of loss looking desperately for my Pib. Everything right now is zero and with protein. Doesn't matter what it is. Drink it be water. Would you like a little bit of protein in that water?

because that's what the kids love. They love hearing about protein. Protein is good for you, to be fair. It is. I mix my protein powder, and this is going to discuss a lot of people, I don't care. I mix my protein powder with straight water and just shake it up and go. That's all I do. It doesn't disgust me.

Okay. Good. A lot of other things about you that disgust me off. That's fair. We'll talk later about it. Thank you to Modis Buzellis. Thanks to Danny Parkins. Thanks to Modis for letting us know where he likes to hang out.

That was fun as well. Thanks to Ray Diaz. Tyler Beterbaugh, Brandon Friar, Jacob Stutz, Max Curtis, and of course, Connor O'Donnell. Where does Modis like to hang out? The Oakville in Westwood. Don't go bugging Modis, though.

But he gave us a time frame. That's how I was like, oh, Modest, slow down, big fellow. I know, bless, his youthful innocence. He was like, everyday lunch spot and then told us what time he goes for lunch. I was like, ah. Well, since we've got Caleb and PCA together, let's just get Modis and Colston Loveland together.

Let's just get those two. guys. He said he wanted to do a dinner with Badaard and PCA and Caleb. He wants to be in the club. Let's get him with Colston Loveland first. Build him up? Yeah, let's... Start a pack. Apparently, Colston Loveland has an effect on women

according to her first as the H. This is what I'm saying. I got you. He's too young for that. Lawrence is unwilling to say that Modis is a superstar in making to the point that he doesn't want to allow him to have dinner with Caleb and PCA.

Colston Loveland. That's good. Pretty good player. But not quite. I like the idea of them running the streets is two handsome 21-year-old men. Why can't they run the streets with Conner and them? I mean, you know, Connor has really run the streets. I have a question.

Colston Loveland. All pro next year. Are you going to be like, okay, now you can't hang out with Colston Loveland? Yeah, that's a good question. See, you're feeling defensive. You, like, modest, are feeling defensive, and I understand it. I'm sure Modis will be there. Oh, wow.

I mean, there's room now. LeBron can't be on the all-MBA team anymore. Is Shaggilder's Alexander going to miss too many games as well, so he can't be? Probably. And he's not going to care either. It's a terrible rule. It's a terrible, terrible rule. And just because something bad happens doesn't mean you need to make bad rules.

Sweeping changes. Yes. It's awful. 17 games you miss. You can't be eligible for any post-season award. in the NBA, including the all-MBA teams. And it's awful. Well, they're trying to combat the brutal tanking,

that is the tanking and load management combo platter that's happening right now. And it's bad. It's hilarious. You're Utah, and you trade for a good player, and you're like, thanks for being here. Now sit your ass down. You can play the first three-quarters. That's enough playing time out of him. That is quite some.

Your league, Marshall, is... Oh, my league. It's your league. What did you think about the Pacers winning last night? And it was the worst, it was the worst road percentage because they had won 12% of their road games that a home team had ever lost with the record that the Knicks had. They went on the road and beat the Knicks. And if you're tanking, if you're the Pacers specifically, you want to lose that game 10 out of 10 times. I can't.

And we had a little discussion about tanking yesterday. I can never blame a non-tank on the players. They should want to go and play hard. Like, and that, like, it just, if you're a competitor, you want. want to compete. So I'm not going to be mad at the guys that are actually on the floor or on the field if they're playing hard and they happen to run into a win. But organizationally, you can take steps to make sure that doesn't happen like the

Bulls are doing. I guess they are, right? How many games? How many games? There's 28 left. How many games will Josh Giddy play the rest of the season? That's the question. Because that's how you know that's a real take.

They can lose with him. Come on. Their chances are much better without him. 28 games left, he'll split the difference. 14? He'll play half. Okay. All right.

I'm saying the easiest way to tank is to take good players out the floor and put Lachlan Olberg out there for 25 plus minutes a night. I'm not even being... I got to be honest. I find myself much more interested in watching big time college basketball and scouting some potential lottery luck than I am in watching these bulls last 28 games. That's what taking it for.

Do respect to Colin Sexton, no offense to him, or Anthony Simons, or what have you, but you have now officially lost my interest. Do you have the league pass in France? Because that's where the Bulls are going to look. You know what? That is disheartening, but accurate and that's sad.

I didn't know that you'd pick that up. Is there an app for that? They do love the French. Does Sungate go back to France? Is that where he is now? They do love Frenchmen. They love Frenchmen. They love Frenchmen. Morden just about anybody.

You're not going to get into the Vooch game tonight, Speggs, and Boston to see him emotionally coming out the bench for Boston against the Bulls? I'll catch up on the highlights on that one. I got too much baseball to follow along with. Oh, here we go. It is good. No, I am, you know, I'm not full-speaks yet. That's my point.

That's my point. It's not about the game. I'm not full-speaks, but it does feel good to talk baseball. Dude, the game's just getting the way at this point. This is about dreaming. This is going to send me back to Twitter. So it's going to happen because I need every little snippet I can of seeing, oh my God, someone just told me, Brad just told me that Bregman was hitting bombs off James and Tyone BP.

I need to see that. I need to see that kind of stuff. The BP? Well, whatever. I just need little snippets of men stretching in the Arizona and Florida Sun. Do you know how thirsty you sound right now? You sound parched. Have you met me?

Here I am. Let's go. Football season ended a while back, Marshall. It's time. A while back. How dear. Craig Couss, Craig Counsel did say today that Daniel Polencia is, didn't even hesitate that that's the closer. And guess what?

I like it. I think Polencia deserves a chance to be the ninth inning guy, at least to start the season. And they need to fix it like they needed to fix it last year and the year before they will. That's what they do. Every year is a bullpen process. Let's figure out who our good arms are and we'll use them. Ryan Presley? Not quite.

Dude, that man retired. I know. That's how bad. signing that was. They signed the guy that was going to retire. They need to change the old adage from the hitters will let you know to the Cubs will let you know. He's like, yeah, this is not good for me. I'm going to call it a career. I'm out, but thanks, Cubs. So the Tigers are going to be the 11th team with two guys who both have multiple Cy Young awards on the same team.

Lately, you brought a Verlander yesterday, and I found myself thinking about this. the Verlander and Scoobel pairing. And like everything in the last several years, it's all like Scherzer and Verlander and Kershaw and Blake Snell and Scherzer and DeGrom and Scherzer and Kershaw. Is there a Strasberg in there somewhere? There's not, but multiple size. I got a Pedro Martinez and Johann Santana team.

I guess, yeah, because there was Scherzer Verlander. It wasn't David Price on that rotation? Yeah, so there was one added in, but this is multiple guys with multiple size. Glaven and Maddox. You've got to go back to Glavenin and Maddox in 99 to 2002. And there's a White Sox team, Steve Carlton and Tom Seaver at 1986. Both those guys were toast by then.

Look, I have been watching a lot more baseball videos and becoming annoyed and very much feeling like it off my lawn because where the algorithm thinks I'm at right now is that I just want to see guys pumping for VLO. And I'm just in there going, and that's too bad about your arm in two years. I'm seeing guys who are hitting 99 on the gun, but they're not happy.

They're hitting 994, but they want to see the triple digits. So they just keep pumping fastballs. I'm like, okay, all right, good for you. Congratulations on that ball that is not anywhere close to the plate, but you saw those triple digits. But to that end, though, how stressed out were we all when Palencia was injured when he was throwing last year? You know, when you saw him injured on the mound,

knowing his velocity had come up. You know, that's why I get a little concerned about the longevity of a year-to-year scenario. I was in the back row at Wrigley behind Zach and Coom watching Palencia fall apart that day. Yeah. He got his ass kicked and then was like clearly upset and looked over at the dugout and he's like,

I'm still out here? Okay, well now I'm really going to throw hard and that's when he hurt himself. So it's interesting, man. It's like it's all the mindset with these dudes. Yeah, I don't need to. to see that, Lawrence, the algorithm might give me. I just want to want the basics. I can just see dudes grabbing

bats off the bat rack today. That makes me happy. Most of the stuff that I'm seeing. Yeah, I went on a whole street. Nice little pan. Yeah, I want a whole street about this. I think the way that we have done spring training in local television has been wrong for a long time and we keep doing it.

What specifically are you doing? You don't like the low angle baseball? Everybody working out in the background? It's, I think that it's ridiculous. to send people for pitchers and catchers. I think it's ridiculous. Okay, when would you send people? Because the issue... I would send it right before the first game start.

It's interesting, but I think this is just... People on your TV saying, hi, I'm out there at Arizona, where I'm in Florida, is just so... The rest of us can sit around going, I wish I was in Arizona. Yes, I think that's what you're missing more. That's all it is.

I coming from a warm weather state went to Kissimmee, Florida, to cover the Astros when they were there. Okay. It was much warmer in Texas at the time than it was in Kissimmee, actually. But does it, is it an emblem of hope in the same way? You're right, because I've talked to news directors about this specifically, because I, one year, said, how come we go now when no one's really done anything yet?

And he's like, listen, this is more about the image of you in Florida. Yeah. It's snow on the ground here. It's right. Their hopes and dreams are going with you when you pop up on that screen. All I'm saying is back it up a week. That's all. Well, I mean, have a local crew shoot your PFPs because that's all the B-roll that you're getting is the PFPs.

But don't you think we've jumped the timeline because things are happening earlier because the WBC is going to take over. No, this is not 2026 specific. This has been going on since I was doing local televised. But the week after the Super Bowl, this fast, though? Yeah. I think it might wait two weeks after the ball. There's always, there's a couple of things. Like, well, there's the truck.

They've loaded up the Super Bowl. The truck is going to drive down Arizona. It's about the symbolism. I get it, Lawrence. I understand your frustration. Truck Day in Boston is a big holiday. There's a lot of speaks out here, Lawrence. I'm a sucker for it.

I'm just waiting, hoping. They just need to see a moment. I think of Dan Rhone standing in the sunshine. I do too. And I can't get that sooner. We ran out of degrees last month. It's been damn cold around here. Right.

So to see, you know, not Dan Rhone anymore, but that's That's who I still think of because he was at everything. And it made me comfortable and warm just to watch. GN was ahead of the game with that. They were ahead of the game when it came to Airbnb because they would just rent a place. And Dan Rohn and Isaac would just be there the whole time. Scorehouse. Fellow ISU Hall of Fame or Steve Schur, don't leave him out of that.

They would just be there. But with everyone else, it's like, well, we're going to send you down for four days. Oh, okay, well, what four days are you going to send me down? The first four. All right, and we're just going to keep using this B-roll of guys, and some guys aren't even there yet. Well, March 4th to March 17th is the World Baseball Classic. So spring training has started a little earlier,

and then if you're on a team that has aspirations and you feel like showing up, you do. Like, it's officially pitchers and catchers day for Cubs, but everybody's there and has been there pretty much for like three days. They're like pumped and excited to get going. So I think it would be a good time to have Bruce Levine say on our show as he is at 325.

You know what I'm saying? Oh. I think the biggest takeaway is doing this for 25 years and seeing how it has changed. Working for like a regional sports network where you just go down for a month and you might come back for two days. Like you get a weekend off. That I like. Really just stay there.

What I don't like is people telling you all we got a budget. All right. If you got a budget, then let's do this in a more. intelligent way with our budget. But you don't want to miss the beginning. And that's that, no, no, hear me, if you are working in a market, such as Chicago, and you're sending people down and your news director looks up and everybody else is down there and you're not, you feel like you're missing something.

I can hire a crew that can go shoot for me. And then when stuff actually happens, that's also budget. I think Lawrence, I think you're interested in quality of content, which is a lot. Yes, yes. It's a lovely thing. Imagine that. I know. But a lot of entities are not looking at that.

They're thinking about what their listeners or viewers would like to see. Visual. Yeah, just like, oh, my God, look at that. It's sunny out there. I'm a sucker for it. To your point, my current station that I am working for, they use Jesse Rogers. They have a crew. They hit when it's time for the hitting to be good.

So that works out because they have someone doing multiple jobs and it all makes sense. whereas my former station, it's like we get down there right before the first and we stay through like the first full workout. Someone should put me in charge of something. You're in charge of something. To be in charge. You get everything straightened out. That was amazing. You don't care what, right?

Someone should put me in charge of something. I can be in charge of finding chuckles. I don't care. Where is Chuckles? No, I meant the candy. Oh, I think I meant Chuckles is the clown or somebody. I think I don't know this candy. You know Chuckles?

Chuckles the multicoled gummies with the sugar? Yeah, those are good. Like the licorish... Are you familiar? I'm not either. The licorice flavor, I'm a no. I'm sorry. I don't think I've ever seen that at the movie theater,

and that's usually when I update to make sure I know all the candies. No, but I'm being serious. Like, you know, you stop, and you're like, huh, okay, that's something new that they're doing with fill in the blank, because you always got a little spit off, and that's how I keep up to date, because I don't really eat candy like that, if I can help it. Oh, I was going to ask you what your go-to is at a theater.

So now... Oh, I'll go popcorn with Reese's pieces in the... the popcorn. It's a good choice. Well done. I love the combo ladder. You got a little chocolate. Very nice. Very nice. When there's chocolate covered almonds, I like that even better in the popcorn because then those will melt. The chocolate itself will melt.

Now your hand's all gooey. Yes. Give me the gooey hand. That's right. Shake that gooey hand. Does anyone ever go when they offer those refills of popcorn? Has anyone ever gotten to the You have? Yes. I send my brother to go because he doesn't really care about the movie. I did this

when I watched a night of his great movie, Jurassic, whatever it's called. World. At place. Yeah, it's the one with Scarlett Joe Hansen. I was like, this is a movie we should not have paid to see. It was a lot of those. It was bad.

It was bad. But we split a popcorn. It was like, yeah, go grab some more. He's like, yeah. Layla, you got a go-to movie snack? I don't go to movies. Okay, fine. Would you go to a movie?

If like someone asked you to go to. I think the last movie I saw in the theater was Rogue One. That's a great movie, by the way. Yeah. And I didn't eat anything in the movie. movie theater. I didn't grow up like that. Now you just got to follow up and watch Andor. You didn't grow up like that? Didn't grow up going to the movies you mean? No, we did. But like snacks were not really like part of the program.

Did you, were you ever, you know, sneaking a couple of snacks in? See, you said sneak in. I just said bringer. No, we just watched the movie. That was enough. You need snacks to watch the movie without snacks. You're not going to get fat that way. No, I managed to find other ways. Thank you. I didn't think so. Go get some cheese it. Christine's move is to get the popcorn, but they can only fill it halfway, so she goes over and puts the butter in it halfway,

and then brings it back to finish the load, you know? She's a planner. She has a good plan. There is only one way that you're allowed to get popcorn, America, and that is it. I don't think she's wrong. No, she usually isn't. Here's what we're going to do on today's show. Bruce Levine is going to join us from Arizona.

He'll have thoughts on what the bosses of the two teams had to say. we are also going to talk with James Big Cat Williams, especially because of what happened in the Super Bowl, where Will Campbell and his arms have become a discussion, and do you need long arms to be a good left tackle? A lot of the O-line people that I've seen over the last couple days, though, have been like, wasn't his arms that was the problem. It's his whole technique.

Well, Alex Coon has been making the point in our chat that the Bears kind of covered up for left tackle all year long. They did. They did a job. They did a great job of it. So we are going to spend some time with Big Cat talking about that as well. As biggest guy I've ever seen in my life. We are also going to talk about Billy Donovan.

What do you guys think it's like to be Billy these days? Ask Roddy. Oh, yeah. Billy's ready to just rage and just be like, do you folks know what I'm dealing with here? It's unprecedented. Perfect. We don't use that sound bite at five. That's going to be on the show.

But we are going to start things off. As you can tell, the vice. the vibes are real high for baseball. I also, can I just, can I bring everyone behind the curtain for a second? Let me just say Matt Spiegel. Yes, sir. I suggested yesterday and today

that we do a segment where you wax poetic about baseball. And you, sir, were like, well, you know, we shouldn't do that. We should just talk baseball. And I'm like, no, no, you're the baseball guy. You wax poetic about baseball. Yeah.

immediately during transition, doing a segment that we could have done as a segment where you started romanticizing about Justin Furlander and whatnot. We are doing it as a segment. Mine was about the branding if we're taking people behind because I have been branded before. What's wrong being branded as the Scores baseball guy? You literally do a show. What's that show that you do on Sunday? The one I listen to it? I already am.

We're good. We got it. We're going to do it. I believe it's called Inside the Clubhouse. Oh, okay. ITCC. ITC. Inside the locker room.

Oh, yeah, that's actually the name. Inside the locker room. That's a different. And then inside the dressing room is the hockey show because they don't call it a locker room. They call it a dressing room. With Barry Rosner. He writes a very readable book. When we come back, we are going to talk about the vibes of baseball and talk about expectations on the Cubs.

And there'll be some conversation about Shota and Palencia as well. Stick around. Some baseball conversation after Tany's open, which is a point. appointment listening. Next, here on the score. Short-armed gay. This segment is brought to you by Duke's mayonnaise.