The Josh Innes Show - Opening Day

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

Opening Day is a holiday to most people across the country. It's pretty crazy that people will pay stupid sums of money to attend Opening Day when tomorrow's game will be dirt cheap. It's amazing that so no other sport has truly been able to capture the same Opening Day vibes as baseball. Astros fans are still sad about the stadium name change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ah! Woo! Okay. All right. When a core's life is cold enough, the mountains on the can turn blue. So the next time you want a cold lager, cold filter, cold package, Coors Light, just wait until those glorious mountains on the can turn blue. It's easy to say that fast when you're freezing cold.

Can I tell you something that annoys me, which I guess is kind of the whole point of this podcast, so I will. I'm thinking about when we eventually move, and I think we're about to move pretty soon here, and hopefully something good comes, but I think we're, I mean, we obviously are going to move within the month or so. And I was like, all right, once we get moved, I kind of want to get the podcast really at least sounding like an actual show again treat it like you know like like a product like a program if you will and not just a uh you know a dude sitting in his bedroom talking into a microphone into a laptop in his underwear you know now maybe a lot of you enjoy

that and i'm sure there will be elements of that still but my ambition is to get it sounding like kind of a radio show again and get Jilly involved and and riff you know an hour a day on different shit and have fun with it and and get people back on the phone again and or on the Skype and Zooms and all that shit like that's kind of my ambition for that but I'm like you know part of me thinks we need kind of a wacky podcast name you know that kind of fits that kind of fits what we are. Like there is the Josh Ennis show and there are just nation people and that's a thing. And I respect that. But part of me wants, as we've discussed before, to have a wacky name that kind

of is something that's sticky, a name that when you hear it, you're like, oh, that's kind of an interesting name. And like at one time, my goal was to call it like beer balls and barbecue right like that's things I like I like sports I like barbecue and I like beer but then I was like I don't know I mean just it didn't it never really felt right but I was kind of doing that because at the time I was working in St. Louis and I was trying to get my podcast going again so like because Hubbard Media at the time is the one that was distributing that. And I was like, do I even want to do it? And I just never felt right. It requires too much explanation in a way.

And then yesterday I'm walking the dog and me and Jilly are out. And Jilly's always saying that, hey, if we come up with a different name for the podcast, I'll promote it on my iHeart shows and all that kind of stuff. So when I'm on a Nashville, I could say, hey, check out the Josh Ennis Show podcast, but I feel like it needs something different that's kind of wacky and kind of funny that kind of pops. Like all these podcasts I see everywhere, other than like a Joe Rogan or a Pat McAfee or whatever, people who have big names that people know anyway,

they all kind of have a sticky type of name you know and uh i'm walking and and we're talking about something and and jilly reads me some story because that's usually how our dynamic is you know i try to avoid things that piss me off but jilly will do a good job of finding stories that she knows will just set me off so she tells me some story about how i don't even know what the hell it was and I was like Jesus this is why I fucking drank and I was like oh that sounds like a great name for a podcast but just know that if you think you have a great name for a podcast somebody already has that name like at one point I wanted to just call the podcast shower beers because that's what I

truly love if you think of the things that I love, I love to gamble, particularly gamble on football. And I like to drink beer in the shower. These are things that I enjoy. So I was like, you know, hey, why don't I call the podcast like Shower Beer Nation or like Shower Beer Crew or some shit like that. And then you go to the podcast pages, like you go to Apple Podcasts, for instance. Like let's look up Shower Beer, all right? If you look up Shower Beer, there are already podcasts that people have called Shower Beer.

Now let's look this up, Apple Podcasts. There's one from some guy, it's just called the Shower Beer Podcast. Shower Beer. Now, the other important thing is to see how often people are actually doing this podcast. The last episode of the Shower Beer Podcast was in 2020. So to me, there's like a statute of limitations on that. If you haven't done a podcast in five years, I could, in theory, call my podcast the Shower Beer Podcast or some sort of different variation of the Shower Beer Podcast. But then I was like, well, why don't we call a podcast like This Is Why We Drink? Why We Drink.

All right, let's see if there's a podcast. There is. And it seems to be a fairly large podcast. Let's see how large it is it is a true crime podcast how many uh let's see how many reviews it has 23 000 reviews so it is a true crime podcast that has 23 000 ratings therefore it is a fairly large podcast. Then I look up their website and they're like, we're a true crime podcast and we're going on fucking tour. It's like, you sons of bitches. Now I can't call my fucking podcast. That's why we drink. That was literally the name I was going

to call it. Like, that's why we drink. First of all, I don't really understand why it's called. That's why we drink because it's just a podcast about true crime but now that's like that was going to be the whole premise of this podcast it was going to be like hey that's why i drink like like this is you know whatever so now i need a different variation of something in that vein so if you'd like to send me any uh you know tweets or any dms you can let me know on that but apparently there is a podcast oh sorry it's about it is a podcast about murder and the paranormal. Grab your wine and milkshakes and join us every Sunday for some chilling ghost stories and downright terrifying true crime stories. The world's a scary place, and that's why we drink.

God damn you. God damn you. That's a good fucking idea. You sons of bitches. That's exactly what I was going for. But not the world's a scary place like the world is a fucking nightmare and people suck and that's why we drink god damn you you've defeated me fuck I thought I finally had a podcast name that truly embodied like what like what I am and now I can't even have that damn name you sons of bitches you bastards with your 24 000 reviews and your fun name and your fun premise for a podcast you sons of bitches anyway uh let's uh play some commercials and we will continue all right if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs you got to check out pick six from DraftKings. When it comes

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See terms at pick6.draftkings.com slash promos. So, other things going on in the world. Today is opening day here in St. Louis and everywhere around the baseball world. Happy opening day to you. Games are going to be starting here in a little bit. I thought about going down to the ballpark here in St. Louis because opening day truly is a wonderful time here in St. Louis. And it used to be the start of what would be a lovely summer of winning 90 plus baseball games and almost guaranteed to go to the playoffs every year

and maybe make a run at the World Series. Now it's a, hey, will you win 75 games type of town? But there were times that it was great. and I'm a sarcastic person and I like to make fun of shit and I like to you know kind of downplay things but I do love opening day here and really one of the main reasons I moved here you know I was thinking about that yesterday because I was in one of these moods because I saw that that Casey had hired a new afternoon person and it's some guy that was in Chicago, but it worked for them before in St. Louis. And my first thought is why the fuck would you leave Chicago to come to St. Louis? And then Jilly keeping my ass in check goes, well, why the fuck did you leave Nashville to go to St. Louis? And I said, Jilly, you're a bitch. Leave me alone and let me bitch for a

little bit. But, um, I was looking at that and I was thinking it just, I was just not even angry because I don't care. Like someone's going to get the job obviously. And that is what it is. But it's like, I was just like, why did I move here? Why did I come here? And then I remembered part of the reason I came here is because I wanted the opportunity to go see my favorite baseball team every day that I could possibly go. And it turns out I've gone like six times the entire time we've been here. But like opening day was part of that, that like nobody does it like St. Louis, right? And, you know, you got the legends that all come out. You got the parade around the warning track and the Clydesdales and here comes the king. It truly is a spectacle. But once you get past the spectacle, which is really really cool sad part is a lot of your legends are dying now like the first time I did opening day I want to say it was 2012 or 2013 Jilly and I came here for an opening day and it was so cool because there's Bob Gibson there's Lou Brock

there's Red Shane Deist and there's uh I think Stan Mews was Stan Musial still alive at the time I don't remember but like you, I don't think he was, but like all of these legendary figures, Bruce Suter, all these guys that were true legends. Now there are other guys that are like in the Cardinals hall of fame that are like the Scott Rollins, who is a hall of famer anyway,

but Scott Roland and Ozzie Smith and more current guys, Jim Edmonds and Chris Carpenter. Those guys are all badass, but there was something about coming to the ballpark on opening day and seeing real legendary people who played baseball at a time that wasn't nearly as glamorous as it is now. Being a Bob Gibson pitching in the 1960s or Lou Brock playing in the 1960s or like just guys like that you know so there was something that felt special like like Ozzie Smith feels special I've met him a couple times right and and like it's cool there's Ozzie Smith he's badass but there was something different

about seeing a Bob Gibson like holy shit like this like these guys are like mythological characters like I saw Ozzie Smith play baseball with my own eyes in a live game. I didn't see Bob Gibson play baseball. I didn't see Lou Brock. So there was something kind of mythical, like a mythological figure. Like they were like these larger than life characters. At the time that I briefly met Bob Gibson, if you want to even call it, I had an encounter with Bob Gibson. And you're talking about one of the most feared mofos in the history of baseball. Dude, I think had the opportunity to play for the Harlem Globetrotters. So just a freakish athlete, this big, hulking, scary, ain't afraid to hit you in the fucking face type of guy, you know? And I'm at Mike Shannon's restaurant, downtown St. Louis.

It's a Friday, I believe, after a Cardinals game that we're in town for. And they would always do a broadcast from Mike Shannon's restaurant on Fridays after the games, you know. And I would, and I was hammered as I usually am in these stories. And I'm getting up to go take a leak. And as I get up, I kind of bump into a guy, almost like in a Marty bumping into Biff kind of way. Like you start looking up in slow motion and it feels like the person you bumped into is like 800 feet tall, you know? And it was Bob fucking Gibson. And I just like, excuse me, wow, you're Bob Gibson. And he's like, yep.

And that was that. That was my encounter with Bob. I had nothing else to say. I didn't say whole, like I didn't say wow or shake his hand. I said, wow, you're Bob Gibson. But like at like or the time we saw on opening day um lou brock and lou brock well we saw a hummer we saw a red hummer in the parking lot that was trying to park outside of the ballpark and the guy's got the window down

and it's fucking lou brock one of the two or three four greatest base stealers in the history of baseball. At one time was the greatest base stealer in baseball before Ricky Henderson. And you watch this and you're like, holy shit. I go, base burglar. And I wave and he waves back. It is cool. I like to be sarcastic and I like to be an asshole about things, which is easy to do. But there is something that's really cool about going to opening day. The issue with opening day is this, and this is kind of where the scam comes in. I don't know if there's something that people get more hype for that the next day does not matter at all than opening day in baseball, right? Like, like there's great, there's opening night in the NFL and it's Thursday and like people hype that

up and the defending champs are going to play somebody and they're going to play at home and they're going to raise their championship banner and it's all cool. But then you've got five or six solid months of fucking football and you got football on Sunday and Monday and later in the season, Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday. It's fucking football and every game has some sort of meaning. Every 10 baseball games equals one NFL football game. That's how special a football game is.

So when you look at opening day and you've got all the pageantry and the festivities and you come to town for the game and you're willing to spend $150 a ticket to watch the horses gallop around the field for five minutes. Then after that, you get a baseball game. So you've essentially spent $150 a ticket. Like right now, we were looking at standing room only tickets. On StubHub, after fees, standing room only tickets to go to this ball game today are going for like $75 or $80. You can spend $30 and get a standing room only ticket to every game during the month most of the time. Like they sell a package or like a ticket where it's like a ballpark pass and you can spend like 25 bucks for a month and go see 10, 12, 15 baseball games in a month, standing room only. And that's the price, right? We're talking $80 to just stand around a ballpark for opening day that after the initial festivities,

it's just a fucking baseball game and it's one out of 62 and the result does not matter. That's the great scam of it. Nobody looks at the NBA opener and goes, holy shit, it's opening day of basketball. The networks will pump it up. But no one's like, I have to be at the opening game of basketball season. They'll just say, I'll go to another one when it's cheaper football. No one really says I have to be at the opener for baseball opening day or football, but baseball, I must be at opening day. Like it's like this great scam that they've perpetuated

upon people to where you're going to a game, the exact same ticket you're going to buy for today's game, which you're really buying just because, hey, it's like a big holiday and you're going to watch a big ceremony before the game starts. You're spending 150 bucks for a ticket that might cost you $10 next week. You could go on a Tuesday night. Now, here's the catch though, if you want to call it the catch. The problem you run into is part of why opening day is cool is in most cities, it's going to be one of the handful of times the ballpark is going to be full and you're going to get a real baseball game experience. Most places, the ballpark is not going

to be filled after opening day. Pittsburgh, it's going to be filled after opening day. Pittsburgh, it's going to be filled on opening day. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Pittsburgh ain't going to be filled at all for the rest of the year. Kansas City ain't going to have sold out ball games once you get past opening day. Just insert whatever. I mean, most of them will not. You might have games that are sold out a handful, in Houston like if the Rangers come to town like oh shit fuck the Rangers and people might go but like you're not going to have sold out games throughout the course of a season it's just not going to work that way so if you want the true awesomeness the feeling of being in a full ballpark opening day is that either the playoffs

or opening day and as we saw at Minute Maid Park or now Dakin Park last year in the playoffs, you're not even guaranteed to have a full house, right? So opening day is that moment that you're going to get to truly feel what it feels like. Unless you're in a place like Philly, where Philly, when the team is good, you're going to have 40,000 people there most nights. I didn't live this, but when you had the Chooch and Ryan Howard and Utley and Rollins, and you had that era of the Phillies and they won a world series and went to another, right? When you had that stretch, like that group, I forgot how long the sellout streak was, but it

was like years of sellouts at home. And every Andy Bloom used to tell me this, he'd be like, it was a fucking place to go. It didn't matter who they were playing. Tuesday night, pirates in town. It didn't fucking matter. There was 40,000 people. And that's kind of part of why you want to go to a baseball game is because you want the ambiance. You want to feel like you're part of something. If you go to a football game, more times than not, there's going to be 65 to 70,000 people in a stadium. And it gives you an experience that you don't get at home. Whereas a baseball game, there's a lot of games you're going to go to where there's about 15,000 people and they're spread out and you've got a whole section to yourself and you're just kind of chilling in

most places. You're going to get that. And that's why it's kind of like, why do I even need to go? And that's kind of where I am today. Like I keep looking at tickets and if the standing room only tickets go down to, you know, 20 bucks or something, maybe I'll go down there just to be part of the vibe. But once you get past that initial, you know, rush of being down there and all the fun festivities, which, again, they do very well in St. Louis, it's kind of like, eh, now what? I'm at a baseball game. They could lose 15 to nothing today, and it doesn't fucking matter. They could win 15 to nothing today, and it doesn't fucking matter. I think that's the problem. And even in theory, it really doesn't. Like you could lose two football games in a row and your season's not over. But like, it's the idea because it's once a week and there's only 17 of these things that everything feels like it's more important. Whereas you go to a baseball game and you're like, eh, like great. We're down 15, nothing that sucks, but there's another one tomorrow.

And if we lose that, there's a Thursday getaway day game after that. And we'll win one of them and we'll figure this shit out. And I, and I was thinking about that when I was walking this morning about just that kind of like why a different generation of people view things differently. And I don't know that it's a matter of people don't care about the games as much anymore. But when I was younger, when I was like 10, 11 years old, you got whatever team was on in your region and then you'd get like Sunday night baseball or whatever. That was like the extent of your coverage. So if you lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the only time you got to watch the St. Louis Cardinals is when they played the Astros because we had Astros games. So you got to watch

them play the Astros or you got to watch them on Sunday night baseball or Saturday afternoon baseball on Fox or whatever. And that's the only time you got to see your team. So it mattered to you to get to watch them like, holy shit, they're playing the Cubs. But really, you also got like the Cubs or the Braves. So you get to see them if they played on TBS you got to see them if they played on WGN or you got to see the regional team you know you got to watch like the Astros other than that you know out of the 162 games you might get to see your team if you don't live in that market you got to see your team play 12 times a year maybe who knows how many times you got to see them not that often you know um so, so it was,

it mattered more and you're younger. So when you're a kid, things matter more, but now you see that there's a great big world out there. And when you're trying to consume all this, it's kind of like, Oh, I'll, I'll pay attention to it another time. You know? And I think that's, what's hurting sports that aren't football. That's what hurts basketball. It's what hurts baseball. It hurts hockey. Um, there's just not that same pop, that same vibe because there's so many games. And I just don't think people care as much anymore. But that said, it is opening day and it is fun to go. Like I'm sitting here busting balls about spending $150 to buy a ticket to go to opening day for a game you can see tomorrow.

And it's true. You'll see the exact same lineup for the most part. There will be a different starting pitcher. But other than that, it's a baseball game. But it is fun to go. It's fun to experience it. And if you've never done one, I think you do one. And it's cool, you know.

Especially in a place like St. Louis, where it truly is like a special day. It is a great event. I also see that people are bitching about the Minute Maid Park thing and how it's Dakin Park because the Astros have been posting pictures. It's always going about the Minute Maid Park thing and how it's Dakin Park because the Astros have been posting pictures. It's always going to be Minute Maid Park to me. Yeah, because you started watching baseball five years ago, Chief.

That's why it's always going to be Minute Maid Park to you. It was Enron Park before that. Before that, there was the Astrodome. It's funny when people get worked up over very small things like the name of a baseball stadium. And I get it if that baseball stadium has true meaning, like this is going to sound Homer-ish, but it would be a sad time if Bush Stadium was no longer the name of the park in St. Louis. Why? Because Anheuser-Busch is one of the most important businesses ever in the history of St. Louis. Why? Because the Bush family owned, the brewery owned

the St. Louis Cardinals up until the mid-90s. The most beloved owner the Cardinals have ever had was Gussie Bush, and he was the owner in 82, 85, and 87. They went to three World Series. They won one of them, got robbed out of the other, went to seven games and lost in the other. It is St. Louis. Anheuser-Busch is synonymous with St. Louis, and the world knows that. So yes, Bush Beer is a naming rights deal. The name on the stadium isn't Bush Stadium just because they're friendly with Budweiser and they say, hey, we just want to keep the name. No, Anheuser-Busch pays to have their fucking name on the stadium.

But that's got meaning. That's been there. They started calling, dude, Sportsman's Park in the mid-50s. They changed Sportsman's park in the mid 50s they changed sportsman's park to bush stadium and the backstory is fun because they wanted to call it budweiser stadium and i believe that the league was like no you can't name your fucking stadium after a beer like we can't do that so what bush did is they created bush beer, Bush Bavarian, so they could promote that beer as the name of the stadium. Like, it's just fun shit.

But maybe that's urban legend, but maybe it's not. But what's the thing, though, is there's a history with that name here of 60-something years, 70 years it's been Bush Stadium. And people are, Bush is synonymous with st louis like outside of houston like who the fuck thinks of minute made is anything involving houston they don't so watching people get all pissed off over that like i get it you're used to something people don't like change but last time i checked it was called uh reliance stadium and now it's NRG Stadium and who gives a fuck? If Toyota Center ever has a new naming rights deal, who cares? It's just a big cavernous arena where they play basketball, whether it's Toyota Center or Honda Center or Popeye's Chicken Center

or McDonald's Center, who gives a shit? That's just the name of the place. They don't have any meaning. These stadiums do not mean. It's not Jack Kent Cook Stadium, like a person that did something historic and meant something to people. It's just business and it's money, and that helps fund your ball club. So you can get to walk into,

whether you're walking into Minute Maid Park or Dakin Park, you still get to spend $20 for a fucking beer to watch a baseball game. So like, but watching people emote and get sad, it's always going to be Minute Maid Park to me. All right, dingus, great. It's always going to be fucking Minute Maid Park to you. Great. It means nothing. It's not Veterans Stadium. It's not, you know, Three Rivers Stadium that has some sort of meaning or what was the Riverfront Stadium was the name of the ballpark, the Concrete Donut in Cincinnati. Eventually it became Synergy Field. I can see where that would annoy you because you go from no naming rights deal to a naming rights deal and it

feels cheap. It feels like you're just trying to make a buck. This has always been a naming rights deal. So who gives a fuck? It's always been making money off of the name, whether it's, oh, but Minute Maid just looks nicer and it feels it's got a bright idea about it i'm like it doesn't fucking matter focus on other shit instead of whining over the name of the stupid ballpark it's a great ballpark who cares what it's fucking called all right anyway uh more to come