Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Dave Perkins, Bob Elliott and Larry Millson: Toronto Mike'd #1271

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

In this 1271st episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by Dave Perkins, Bob Elliott and Larry Millson as they talk Blue Jays baseball. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, the Yes We Are Open podcast from Moneris, The Moment Lab, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

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brand marketing and strategy, PR, advertising and production. You need The Moment Lab and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, together on Toronto Mic'd for the first time

is Dave Perkins, Bob Elliott, and Larry Milson. Welcome to each of you. Thanks for doing this. Good to see you guys. Good to be seen. Great to be here. Good to be here. Yes. Good to be able to come.

Well, honestly, Larry, I'm going to just very, very quickly recap all of your previous episodes. I'll do this really quickly. And then I'm going to ask you guys a question. And then hopefully we'll hear less me and more of you guys. I'm so excited you guys are here, even though the scheduling of this episode almost killed me.

But we made it happen, guys. We're here. We're here. Okay. So I'll do it as quickly as I can. But if you're looking for the a to z on bob elliott's career he was here in uh december 2016 it was episode 207 mike chats with legendary baseball writer bob elliott about his years covering the expos and blue jays why he was

banned from bob mcgowan's primetime sports and the Future of Baseball in Canada. That was back in December 2016. In July 2019, this is episode 490, I spoke with Dave Perkins, and he told several amazing stories. He's a longtime sports columnist for the Toronto Star. Perk, because he told me I can call him Perk, talked about primetime sports, chatting up Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. We have some

exciting golf news in a minute. His Blue Jays and Olympics memories and his former colleagues and much more. Then in December 2019, Bob Elliott and Dave Perkins together. That was episode 561. We talked for two hours.

Then in April 2023, finally, longtime Globe and Mail scribe and Toronto Blue Jays beat writer Larry Milson came over. We talked about his visits to Maple Leaf Stadium, his years at the Hamilton Spectator, the Toronto Star, Toronto Telegram, and Globe and Mail, and the many Blue Jays teams he covered. Almost two hours we did.

And here we are. You guys are here together. Let's start, if you don't mind, can we chat about the late John Sullivan? We lost Sully only a couple of weeks ago. Let's go around the table maybe and hear some Sully stories. Who wants to go first? Well, my favorite John Sullivan story involves a colleague of ours alan ryan who who another longtime baseball writer for the toronto star everybody loves the bear i think it's safe to say that the bear is a one-of-a-kind museum quality human being there's no question about that and the bear was not unfamiliar with things like alcohol and cigarettes,

shall we say. And Sully, who was quite a good guy, and I always enjoyed my time around Sully, and these guys will tell you Sully stories, but Sully was a very crusty individual. His nickname was Bunker, as in archie bunker and uh sally was the bullpen coach for a long long time so one day in spring training and you have to remember when we were all going to spring training back in the day spring training meant nothing right like those games didn't mean

anything it wasn't like now where people are keeping idiot statistics and things. You know, spring training was nothing. It was very, very informal. So one day we're in Philadelphia, Jack Russell Stadium, the home of the Philadelphia Phillies, which was what, about three miles from the Dunedin Park. So they played the Phillies like two or three times a week, it seemed. So Allen Ryan, as was his custom,

would last about four innings in the main box. Then he would wander down the left field line to the Toronto bullpen where he could stand and smoke, watch the game, and wait for the starting pitcher to come out of the clubhouse, which was right beside the bullpen, well down the left field line. So one day, Cedar was the manager. Cedar Gaston was the manager. Al Ryan meanders down the left field line and stands in foul ground,

smoking a cigarette by the empty bullpen, and the telephone rings. And the bear looks around as as he would do and take another puff and a cigarette and the phone kept ringing and for some reason john sullivan was not there and he might have been in the clubhouse in the washroom whatever sure but there was no one there and after about 10 rings the bear did course, what he shouldn't have done. He reached over and said, hello. And the instant he picked up the telephone, John Sullivan came boiling out of the clubhouse 100 miles an hour.

Put that phone, what? Bear, God damn it. What's wrong? Blah, blah, blah. Screaming and yelling. Sully was not happy. And the bear goes, oh, I shouldn't have done that. So game ends.

Cito calls in Allen and says, did you really pick up the bullpen phone? And Allen says, yeah, I don't know what happened. He got to me or something. But, yeah, I know. And Cito airs him out and said, don't do that. Poor Sully almost had a stroke. He was so upset and blah, blah, blah. So that's fine.

So nobody could stay mad at the Bear for long, right? So three days later, whenever they're back playing again in Jack Russell Stadium, before the game, Cito says to Alan Ryan, well, Bear, you going to go down for a smoke after the fourth inning again today? And the Bear says, oh, probably, you know. And Cito said, well, tell you what, I'll phone down, and when Sully answers the phone, I'll say, is the Bear there? I'll phone down, and when Sully answers the phone, I'll say,

is the bear there? Which, of course, would have made poor Sully's head explode. But, I mean, as you can tell, things were a lot less, you know, rigid in spring training in those days. But that was my Sully memory. These guys are a lot better and more. but that was my Sully memory. These guys are a lot better. I remember Sully was the first base coach in 1983 in August in Baltimore when they got three guys.

His famous words was now, watch out now. He's coming. Oh, picked off number one. Anyway, they ended up having, they took the lead, and I think it was a Cliff Johnson home run in that inning, then proceeded to have the next three guys picked off first base. And Tippy Martinez, I don't,

the reason was everybody was so eager to steal on Len Ciccato, who was playing catcher for the first time since Little League, you know, because of various moves that Alto Valley made. That's what they ended up with. And, of course, the next year he was bullpen coach. But I remember Dave Collins.

I mean, Dave Collins was just – and the thing is that Tippy Martinez did not have a good move. In fact, nobody can remember anybody he ever picked off before. But Dave Collins, who was an exceptional base stealer, was so anxious to go, you know, and he said, oh, he was balking. That's what everybody said when they got back, that he balked. It was Collins and Bunnell, and who was the third one? Oh, I'm trying to think.

I should have looked it up. Covered the game. It was so stunning. And they lost it. Well, how about you, Bob? You got a John Sullivan. Yeah, I remember the year they, I guess it would have been 95, I guess. It was a work stoppage year.

So it was going to be a two-week spring training instead of six weeks. Like the hitters, the hitters are probably ready in two weeks. The pitchers aren't. Like Flanagan, Mike Flanagan always say, they can go in the cage and hit for two hours. He says, we can throw for 12 minutes, you know. Right. And then we have to take three days off.

So the boss, Wayne Parrish, thought it would be a good idea to write every day, these guys through eight minutes these guys through 12 minutes they could monitor it for the two weeks so I tell Cito and he goes he rolls his eyes and he says I don't have any time for that go and see Galen Galen Sisko so every day I would go in and I'd say Galen what happened today so he'd give me the list so I'm in there Galen's sitting here I'm here and sully's beside him so a guy comes in and he says a writer comes in and he says john i want to talk to you about ernie witt

how's the team gonna survive without him and he says i think we'll be all right and uh so then the guy asks you know how we often do we always ask the same question just phrased differently and so sully's taking his pants off and he fires his pants into the into the bin there that they have for the laundry and he says the game survived babe ruth retiring i think it can survive any wet moving Atlanta or Baltimore, wherever he went. So the guy leaves, and Doc Taylor was across the way, and Doc Taylor says, John, I think you handled that rather well. Sully was a really great batting practice pitcher.

He threw a fastball that was straight, which is what the hitters want to see in BP. And it was just perfect. And I remember George Bell always wanted him, but every once in a while he'd get McLaren. And McLaren was rather playful as a batting practice pitcher. He would like to throw a little breaking ball and stuff like that. And the thing is, you'd hear George Bell say, Blake, you, McLaren.

that and the thing is here you'd hear george bell say blake you mclaren and then you can swear by the way on this part oh okay anyway um the other thing i remember getting on the bus and mclaren was always kneeling sullivan and you'd hear on the bus mclaren saying bunker whenever sully was getting into one of his little snits or whatever. But he was solid. Really solid kind of baseball guy,

but also as a person. You know, away from home, I just really enjoyed him. Yeah, and he looked the part too, didn't he? You know, with the cha and the whole thing, he just Yeah. And he looked the part, too, didn't he? You know, with the cha and the whole thing. He just looked like, he looked baseball. He looked baseball.

And he, remember, he was a backup catcher for the Tigers in the 60s. He used to talk about catching Mickey Lulich and, you know, he used to, he'd get a little disgusted when a pitcher started looking the dugout after five or six innings, you know. And he'd say, you know, a guy like Lolic would get in the eighth inning and Sully said, boy, he had to take a hold then because he was really going to bring it when he could smell the finish line. He wasn't looking in the dugout.

Yeah. So the rules here today, gentlemen, is if you have a story that pops in your head, just tell it. Like, don't worry about me introducing it or whatever. Share the stories. Love it so much already. We lost John Sullivan and I'm glad we could hear some Sully stories.

Maybe really quick, because as you drop names, it's going to trigger questions that came in from listeners and FOTMs. Maybe a moment, if you guys don't mind, how you know each other sounds ridiculous, but just to tell a new listener, how well do you three know each other?

When I put this episode together... I've never seen them before in my life. Well, Dave and I were actually neighbors. Well, I started working with Globe and Mail in 1972, and you were the thoroughbred guy, and Jimmy Gala was the harness guy. And I came in working on the sports desk, and I really liked horse racing,

so I kind of gravitated to these two guys. And there was no baseball in those days, right? The Maple Leafs were gone after 67, and the jays were still five years in the way i used to work some desk shifts with you dave and remember uh we used to harass the maple leaf fans a little bit oh yes yes that was but because in 72 i mean it had been five

years since they'd won anything five years five years five years since they'd won anything i'm not well don't worry. They were going to be good the next year. Next year, they were going to be great. Who was it you used to call Daryl? You used to call me Lanny. We used to give everybody leaf nicknames. I was Lanny.

Who was Daryl? You used to call somebody Daryl. That's funny. I can't remember who Boreal was. But I first knew knew and i did i did some harness racing for the toronto star when i went over there in 77 i covered racing for a lot of years and bob was doing racing for the citizen a lot of citizen and we used to talk now and then about it was horses we we talked about that's how i knew that's how I knew Bob back in the day I mean we were all horse guys

before we were anything else and then 85 I guess I was up here the expos were bad and the Blue Jays were in the hunt so I was here for the last 6 weeks and last Saturday I went to see a George Strait concert in Milwaukee

so I was telling the guy I went with Donnie Campbell from Ottawa, I said, we were here in 85, and the camera zoomed in on Bruce Barker, who was working for CFI Care or whatever, and he was eating a brat, and Kubek said, and there's Bruce Barker. He just had his 16th brat of the four-game series setting a county stadium record. So we get to, that was on a Sunday afternoon.

They had that little balcony out front. Right. At the press box. So we get to Detroit, and I think it was Scotty Morrison. Everybody was, like, I didn't know the guy that well, and Scotty went up to me he says hey did your kubrick mention your name he said oh yeah my mom heard it she was really proud bruce barker also an fotm by the way he's been he's been down here and uh we had a great

chat but where is he now barry where is he now he's not bare uh i don't he's somewhere outside the floor i should know this right now you put me in the spot from once in a while but yeah remember the 85 winter meetings in san diego yeah mill said a great line remember you you went to teo we went to tijuana we went to tijuana happiest place in the horse races and these guys these these, Perk, they were $1,000 claimers. Right. But they had an OTB there, and the guy said, I said, Mills, why is this guy always asking me if I want ice with my Diet Coke? He says, well, you take it?

And he says, yeah. And he says, well, you know what the ice is after it melts. And I said, what do you mean he says well it then becomes the water so you how many have you had and i said i've had a bunch so anyways i said mills it's time to go he said no we're not betting until bay meadows open so i said why he said because we started at the meadowlands, and if I lose at Bay Meadows, I will now have lost at eight tracks in one day. Bay Meadows, San Francisco?

Yeah. Yeah. Burlingame. You know, one thing about that track is they had one of the best margaritas I've ever had. They just knew how to make them. It's funny you mention that because the year the Super Bowl was in San Diego

I think it was 2002 maybe about 20 years ago I went down to Tijuana because I wanted to go to the track and see it and the racing was gone and it had become like the backstretch all the barns i mean we're like a homeless

shelter it was tents everywhere and but they had bedding in the grandstand they had otb in the grandstand but the on the backstretch where the barns were it was nothing but refugees and homeless people i mean it was unbelievable why i went there i don remember. The one thing I remember about that Super Bowl is on a Saturday morning or something, I'm in the breakfast line at the hotel. And I get a tap on the shoulder. It's Freddie McGriff. And I hadn't seen Freddie for, he'd been gone for a couple of years. And this was at the height of the bonds, bonds hitting 75, 73 home runs, whatever it was. And so Freddie says, let's the bonds. The bonds hitting 75, 73 home runs, whatever it was.

And so Freddie says, let's have breakfast. I said, great. So we sit and have breakfast and we're talking. And I said, Freddie, you come in in 87. You know, I remember when he broke in with Cecil Fielder, right? That was our time. And I said, you kept hitting 30, 35 homers every year. He says, now you're going to get close to 500.

I said, but all these other guys are hitting 68 and 64 and 72 home runs, and you're still hitting 35. What's wrong, Freddie? And all he did was reach out his arm and go like this. Like he's making the needle mark in his arm. He wasn't signaling for the left-hander. That's right, exactly right. He was, you know, there was guys juicing

who were getting the bigger numbers. And that's one reason I was glad to see him go to the Hall of Fame last year. The Expos used to go to San Diego. And if it went in September, there'd be like they would play Friday, Saturday. Sunday would be off because what's the name of the football team? San Diego. Chargers. Yeah, they would be playing an exhibition game.

So then there would be a stayover day. So they'd play Monday. So on the Sunday, Jean-Paul Seurat and I I we go to where the surf meets the turf at old Del Mar so we go to Del Mar so JP says can you get us in the paddock I said yeah sure so we go in the paddock and we talk to Sandy Holly

and I said what do you want to talk to him about he says we'll interview him so I interviewed him and JP didn't say a word, so we're leaving. And he says, so Sandy, have you got any good ones for today? I'm thinking, you idiot. Sandy.

It's funny that I got, so when I was, we were waiting for Larry. So we had Dave and Bob were here waiting for Larry. And then I got a phone call from Peter Gross because I get a call every Sunday from Peter Gross. But Peter Gross, the podcast I produce for him

is down the stretch. It is Ontario's Divinitive Horse Racing Podcast. Like so, and him and he's talking, you mentioned the Leafs from the 70s. He and Jim McKinney

have a big trip planned, I think in a couple of weeks or whatever too. Sarasota? No. Saratoga. Saratoga, thank you. Oh my God. i'm showing my

ignorance here close yeah it's very close one one letter off but they have this big trip they do every year and uh yeah he's he's pretty jazzed about that but he's still a big horse horse guy so okay so i will periodically chime in with specific questions that came in but then i will really try to get out of the way and let you guys go because i i just love it but uh diamond dog because you mentioned cito gaston we were just love it. But a diamond dog, cause you mentioned Cito Gaston. We were talking about John Sullivan, diamond dog wrote in. Why do you three think Cito Gaston never got another managerial job outside

Toronto? He actually had one in Chicago and then Reinsdorf decided he wanted to go with this buddy, Ozzie Guillen. But Cito was actually getting congratulations from people within the White Sox organization. And that's the year they won the World Series. I think

Cito was a better manager than Ozzie. Yeah, because they had the meeting and Reinsdorf said, and they'd interviewed Cito already and his bottom line, I want somebody calm. I want somebody experienced. I want somebody experienced. Ozzy was not calm.

He had zero experience managing. And the one guy went home and he says, I'm going to phone Cito and congratulate him. And he played with him in the minor leagues. And his wife said, dinner's in 20 minutes. You'll get on the phone you'll ruin dinner phone him afterwards so the guy said he said we get into the wine and i forgot to phone him which was great because it would have been awful if i'd have phoned him and

congratulated him well somebody did phone him well somebody did yeah and cito he also had the he tells the story and he laughs he says I had the I had an interview with the Angels when they hired Socia and I didn't go and he laughs and he says my wife didn't want to go to California

I said well what's so funny he said well I'm not married to her any longer by the way just checking in real quick here. It's the leaderboard of that Canadian Open. So I'm just checking in here. So Taylor's the Canadian. He's tied with Fleetwood.

So I guess this is going, and again, I'm going to show some ignorance here too. But I guess they play an extra hole. What's the deal there, Dave? They play sudden death. I remember Mike Weir was in a sudden death playoff with Vijay Singh. That would have been 04, maybe 03, 04, but around 20 years ago. The years have kind of... That was here, wasn't it?

Yeah, well, at Glen Abbey. So here's what I'll do. Well, I don't know. I'll give it about a half an hour. I'll check back in and see. But yeah, they're going to a playoff in the Canadian Open. But Nick Taylor and Tommy Fleetwood are going to that playoff. So we kind of celebrated this.

Speaking of congratulating too early, I feel like we thought Nick had this thing. But it's going to a playoff. So we'll check in later, see how it's going. Dave, did you want to chime in on the Cito? Just that he wins back-to-back, and then it's interesting that he never managed another Major League Baseball team. No, and I think after a while,

he got sick of doing interviews. He was interviewed quite regularly, and a lot of that was they were promoting they were promoting you know people of color for for all jobs in baseball right and see i think cito began to feel he was getting some of the interviews strictly to tick a box for someone right and and i think he resented that as well he should have right and uh you know i i i think think when you look at the number of guys who are going to the Hall of Fame who have won one World Series, number of managers, and who are already in there,

and here's a guy who's won two, and only one can be the first African-American to win a World Series, and he's also that. I think it's kind of silly that he hasn't been, you know, pushed in there already. I remember he he hasn't been, you know, pushed in there already. I remember he did mention to me, you know, one time he felt like some of the jobs he got interviewed for, he felt like he was being used.

Yeah. And, you know, and I don't think people understand there was a lot of pressure he tried to deflect associated with what he did accomplish. Yeah. Do you think he gets enough credit, though? Oh, you just had to... No, I don't think so.

No, I don't think so. He never did. I'll tell you, my quick one on Cito is that, like, so the year before they got Devon White, he was in Edmonton. Right. That's what Doug Rader and the Angels thought of him because he struck out too much.

So he comes here, and they want him to hit the ball on the ground and don't strike out. Chito said, you only hit and lead off once a game. Do whatever you want. And then, Mills, you and I were in his office. Alomar was considered a baby with San Diego because Templeton got hurt, and they asked him to move over and he to play shortstop and he wouldn't do it for i think mckean so so anyways you remember the night

scofield breaks his leg you and i are sitting there and we hear a knock on the door he said hey skip you want me to move he said we got alfredo but he can only play for a week or so. So, you know, if you want me to flip over, I'll move over. And it was so he was he was he the great tactician, you know, like in that 15, 14 game Castillo hit with what, eight outs to go or nine outs to go that he let the pitcher hit. But I tell you, guys played above what they were, and guys played for them. And that's a manager's job.

Yeah, I would say. To get guys to play hard and to play well for them. And there's no doubt guys on that team played to their capabilities and some beyond them. I mean, you mentioned Devon White. He was in the minors before, and, you know, he gets in the Blue Jays and he's an all-star for years. The team wins.

Everything works fine. You know what I mean? And he leaves, and how many more years is he out of baseball? A couple of years later, he's out of baseball. I mean, some guys, the manager's job, A, is to get people to play for you. And to get the most out of them.

And I think he did that. Even more recently, how about Jose Batista? Yeah. I think, so you don't let him be a pull hitter. When he was with Pittsburgh and other organizations, they wanted Jose to be, you know, a hit-all-fields kind of thing. And that works for some people, but you've got to let a guy be what he is.

And so he emphasized with Batista to, you know, be on time, get the foot down, and it's okay to pull. I remember he had 54 home runs, and there were some guys whining that 40 of them were pulled you know like 54 yeah who cares and what was this that what was this that on gruber gruber hit 30 home runs and cito called 22 of them or something like he told him what was coming well how about how about adam lynn well i don't know that one. Well, didn't he tell Adam Lynn just about every run he ever... Yeah. This is fascinating to me.

Holy smokes. Cito could... Cito could pick... He could read pictures. He was very good at... He was really, really good at that. Picking up cues. Adam Lynn probably loads a lot of home runs to him.

So you mentioned Jose Bautista. I just want to ask, have you guys ever witnessed in all those years you guys watched Blue Jays baseball, did you ever see a Blue Jay find that next level, at that height, at that point in his career? I'm just thinking, because Jose Bautista was like pushing 30 or something

when he turned into this. Because it let him be what he was. I think that's one of the strengths of Cito as a manager. In most cases, there might have been a few, you know, bumps along the road with maybe the Ola Road or Sean Green, but basically let people be what they are, and I think that helped a lot. There was another guy he doesn't get any credit for,

but was Scudero. Like, they just told him, why don't you go with your two-strike approach for every pitch? And suddenly he became a good hitter and made him a lot of money as a free agent. That's right. And he ended up being on the World Series win over San Francisco. And we always talk about small ball in postseason. I don't remember many significant bunts in World Series history, but one of

them was by Marco. He put down a sacrifice bunt, and they scored the winning run in Detroit. And there was a big bunt by Otis Nixon, and Cito called that one, too. That's a great bunt, too. I remember that one. We're going to get to that one later, actually. But I'm wondering if Dave or Bob have any thoughts on the Jose Bautista like the spike I don't know what you call that but when suddenly

you went from a guy, kind of a pedestrian guy to what 50 plus homers, like it was quite the jump Well Yeah but he was juicing right He didn't

I think it was the guy in the white wasn't it, the ESPN story? Yeah, yeah. The man in white. But what ESPN failed to leave out of the story was that it was the White Sox who complained about him, and it was their first trip in. So I looked it up, and he had hit seven or eight home runs this september before and so they came in in april and he had one home run so those white socks that bullpen guys were pretty sharp

to figure that out that that he was going to be that good but i remember one day and bradenton doing a story i do it. Sometimes it would be nothing. But Aaron Hill, who's the most impressive player you've seen this spring? Batista. Vernon Wells. Batista. Fletcher. Batista.

You know, he hits the ball hard twice a game. And I think, like, what was he, five teams or four teams? That one year he bounced around as a real five guy? So he, and Pittsburgh, then he wound up back in Pittsburgh, and then I think Alex was a JP, and look how it traded. It was Alex, I think he was working for JP, but he, the catcher, that kid, that catcher. Robinson.

Yeah, Robinson Diaz. Yep. Yeah, and they promoted that guy. Catcher of the future. Yeah, yeah, they promoted him, and now we saw why. Yeah. But, you know, the other thing that Batista said, actually when he came to Toronto is when he got a chance to play every day.

They just put him there. And, you know, remember they had him batting leadoff at first. And I remember some people laughing, you know, when he was hitting all the home runs and had him batting leadoff. Well, they seem to do that now, don't they? So maybe they're a little ahead of their times. I remember one time talking to Batista, and, you know, the first time he went off with the home runs

and led the majors, you know, like he was the best player on the team. And then he was the best player in baseball. Then he was the best player on the team, and then he was the best player in baseball. Then he was the best player in the history of the franchise. So I asked him. He says, heck no. He says, Sean Green had 48 doubles and so-and-so hit this many home runs, and he went on and rhymed all these numbers off. So I'm writing them down, and I'm thinking,

well, he might have the home runs, but no way he has doubles. And he had all over to hit in 390, 384, or 64. 363. So he had that number, but he was 380 in August 20th. Yeah, yeah. It was like 390, whatever, after the doubleheader in Cleveland. So I went upstairs, and he knew them all. I was very impressed.

So I went back down, and and i said how do you know all that stuff he says well i'm playing here i should know the team's history very few guys know anything yeah like you remember the marfield story yeah they don't know who they are much less i remember there's one relief pitcher has gene tennessee we've never played in the majors and and remember crabtree that was a crabtree yeah yeah. Crabtree, Doc Taylor's working on his arm. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say that, yeah. He says, congratulations, Timmy. You got your first save last night.

He says, yeah, Doc, you'll never know the feeling. He had four saves in the postseason. Didn't give up. He never gave up an earned runner postseason. 12 and a third or whatever it was. Look it up. I don't know. There's a name that popped up. I think, Bob, you were going to tell a story, but I don't know if that moment passed. I don't know. There's a name that popped up.

I think, Bob, you were going to tell a story, but I don't know if that moment passed. I can't remember the name. Whose name popped up? Barfield. Somebody mentioned Barfield? Yeah. Oh, yes, you did.

That was a long story. That was the Gruber story. Okay. When Lou Gehrig, it starts about Lou about lou gehrig okay it's going back so kelly gruber wins the lou gehrig award he doesn't know anything about lou gehrig but but he has a good sense right he's he's asking somebody about what's the lou gehrig and blah blah blah and lloyd mosby says to him ask perk hek. He knows all that stuff. So we're in the club.

This is an exhibition stadium. So Gruber says, tell me about this Gehrig. I go, well, Gehrig, 2,130 games, and he blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's this and he's that, and he died young of a disease. And he's a great story in baseball and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Gruber says, gee, he must have great statistics. And I said, well, one year he had 33 homers and 107 RBIs. And Mosby says, what's so great about that? And I said, on the road.

He said, what? And I says, on the road road and that's 77 games he had 33 and 107 road games only and mosby says well that's impossible and i said no trust me you can look it up it's an in walks barfield and mosby says lloyd or jesse listen to this listen to this tell him tell him so i go through it again in 1927 Lou Gehrig has 33 homers 107 RBIs on the road and Barfield shakes his head

and he walks away he comes back a minute later and he taps me in the arm and he says how much did he make and I said well I think his best salary was 32,000 in 1934 whatever it was and Barfield kind of snorts and he taps Mosby I think his best salary was $32,000 in 1934, whatever it was, you know.

And Barfield kind of snorts and he taps Mosby and he says, see, they couldn't have been no good. They didn't make no cake. Yeah, that was it. That was the thing. They couldn't have been that good. They didn't make no cake. And I thought, okay.

Betty Crocker. That might be the way you sort it out these days. But a cannon for an arm, right? It wasn't there. Great question came in. Now that you mentioned Exhibition Stadium, let's go back. So Blake Bell writes in and goes, Hi, Mike. I don't think anyone's really uncovered or written

about the root of Dave Steeb's ultra-competitiveness. His agent, Bob Lamont, said Steeb was already that way when he played high school football for Lamont. Any insights from the panel as to its origin? Maybe we start with Larry and we make our way this way. But Larry, the origin of Dave Steeb's ultra-competitiveness. Any thoughts on that? I don't know. Come on. You don't have all these answers come on just a competitive guy or maybe I guess I guess well he was he was a punter in high school I don't

know how many how many punters would you call competitive I I don't know. I mean, he's, I don't know, it's just his personality. I've never seen a guy who, the way he would, just emote on the mound, you know, I mean, but they're, I can't explain. The roots. The roots of the competitiveness. I think some people are just different than others. That's all I can say.

But I've seen other. I mean, it's not unusual to see a competitive person in the major leagues. I mean, a lot of them get there because they're competitive. Some guys show it in different ways, and Steve definitely showed it. And he's glaring at teammates if they made mistakes and, you know, things like that. And sometimes his competitiveness hurt him. He would say, for instance, he'd throw a slider to a guy and make him look bad. And he said, well, that next one, I want to throw another one and make him look even worse.

And he, of course, expected what happened. He would hang it and it would be hit somewhere, sometimes for a home run. There was another time he thought umpire blew a call on him. And he says, well, I'll show him. And he reared back and fired a fastball right down the middle. So the guy hit a three-run home run. They lost the game. Right.

I mean, stuff like that. I mean, sometimes it three-run home run. They lost the game. Right. I mean, stuff like that. I mean, sometimes it comes back and backfires on you, you know. Right. But competitiveness that I saw in him was more, or what we saw in him was just the way he was on the mound, you know, and even talking to him after. It took him a cool-down period, didn't it? Before he'd start to, and actually he'd start to give us, I said this last time, but he'd start to give us some real good stuff.

Yeah. Bob, what about Dave Steeb's ultra-competitiveness? I didn't, I knew Bob, I knew Bob. I didn't know he coached football. I thought he was his math teacher, and then he became his agent. And he had Hank in two, and he had became his agent. And he had Hankin, too? And he had a third guy. Who was the third guy?

Carpenter, Chris Carpenter. Carpenter, yeah. Yeah, Lamont did coach the football. He did? Okay. And he's, you know, coaching high school football in Texas or California is very stressful. I remember him after one close game, he's saying,

he just sat there in the barn and pounded back the beers and stayed sober. Stayed sober. That's when you know you're under stress and you're going to pound them back and it has no effect on you. But Bob, he didn't have a lot of baseball clients, but this is how sharp the guy was. He had the coach of the Green Bay Packers. He went around and he got the offensive coordinator for this team and the defensive coordinator for this team,

and that's where all the head coaches come from. So I think at one time he had 13 head coaches. He signed them. He had more success as a football agent. A couple of years ago he had both coaches in the Super Bowl. Yeah. And he was very nice and talkative, and he'd sit there, and, you know, it would be 6.30 in Anaheim and 9.30 at home,

and I'd say, Bob, I have to do some work, you know? First edition filler. Yeah, which is going to be seen by people north of Highway 7 or whatever. I said, I'll gladly talk to you, but not right now. I remember when he first started to represent Steve, I remember calling Steve. They put in their arbitration numbers, and they were very far apart. And so for the first edition, I wrote a story saying that they're probably,

you remember they used to have spring training used to hold out every year and so for the first edition, I wrote a story saying that they're probably, you remember they used to have, spring training used to hold out every year, you know, because they had that, you know, because he hadn't had enough time in the majors to have any leverage, and then they took advantage of it, as teams do, but I remember, so I called, after I wrote the story, we had a bulldog edition, you had to have it in by, you know, 5 or 6 o'clock in the afternoon. And so I phoned Steve that night, and I asked, just to ask him about it,

maybe to throw in a few quotes. And he says, oh, no, things have changed. I said, what do you mean? And he told me he had a new agent and things are changing. And that's when he tipped me off, the fact that we're working on a long-term deal, even then. I think it might have been two or three, the first one. And so I had to rewrite my story and sent it in. And I got to the office the next day,

and Jeff Stevens, the sports editor, didn't believe me. He says, no, that can't be. Because it would be so acrimonious up until then. I said, well, I got it from himself. And then Dave told me later, he says, Larry's on to something. He says, he told Lamont, he says, maybe we better release something. And they did. They come up with the story the next day.

Wait, wait, you know, today you still cover the team, Larry. Like you can't call up any players on this 2023 Blue Jays team, right? No. No, no, no. It's just that you're here. And a lot of them might not want to talk to me since I post pictures of guys not backing up home plate and stuff like that. I was covering today's game.

That's why I was a few minutes late today, by the way. Happens to be the longest game of the year I think they played. It was over three hours. I was at a two-hour game I guess earlier last week. I was at a two-hour game. That is interesting, your access to players today, just before I get back to the

olden days here. You simply can't have, you can't get one-on-one time with any Blue Jay anymore, can you? It's, it's harder. I mean, because a lot of stuff is done now

in front of a screen, you know, which, with commercials in the back. Rodgers, yeah. And, you know,

and there's scrums. I mean, you can still do it and the guys and their stories will say, told the Toronto Sun or something like that.

You can still do it and you can still line it up. It's not as informal, you know. And I think social media has made people more guarded. Plus, the players feel they can say what they want to say through social media. Like Anthony Bass. Yeah, right. We used to travel with the team, and that was the big difference.

You'd see the guy in the hotel lobby you'd see him in the coffee shop right you'd be out walking and bump into a guy in the street it was or play golf with them or right hanky and i used to have bets on uh games like basketball games and there's no betting we used to and it would be a lunch, you know, so several times. And he always got me in Missouri. I figured that he would, because he's from there, I would take Missouri over another team, say, in the NCAA tournament. And he always seemed to know when not to take them. I said, Tom, I mean, how did you not,

how did you let me take Missouri? He said, because they played a lousy schedule, you know, stuff like that. And I remember that Ben Johnson won the gold medal. Oh, yeah. Okay, he comes over to me after, he says, and we're all proud, you know, a Canadian kicked their butts, right? Carl Lewis, yeah. Yeah, so anyway, yeah. Oh, I remember. He comes over to me, he says and we're all proud you know a canadian kick their butts right yeah so anyway yeah oh i remember he comes over to me says i just heard they got ben johnson and this is right after

he was joking they've got him for drug use he says they're going to disqualify him and we're all laughing because we had a bet on it right and? Oh, he was joking. And he was joking. And it went out the next day. And the thing is, I got to say, I owed up to it, even though I won on the track. I lost in the urine room. I bought lunch for Tom that time. In Cleveland, which is where we were when the race happened, In Cleveland, which is where we were when the race happened,

Rick Leach took Carl Lewis, and George Bell took Ben from the Islands. So now we get to Boston, and the news hits the fan or whatever, and so Leach wants his money. And George says, no, no, no, no, no says no no no no the bet was whoever crosses the line first right there wasn't anything about gold or silver and he says i want to bet you pay me and they were still fighting about it speaking of bets the aforementioned dave steve still owes me a dinner because shortly be, I don't know, whenever they rinsed them for the second time,

remember when he came back, the comeback, your lever. Yeah. And, uh, anyway, I,

I had heard they're going to get, they're going to release them next week. So I'm talking to him and, and he says, oh, they're going to do that. I said, David,

I think they're going to release you next week. He said, they're not going to release me. I said, well, maybe not,, I think they're going to release you next week. He said, they're not going to release me. I said, well, maybe not, but I think they're going to release you next week. He says, I'll bet you. I said, well, what do you want to bet? He said, I don't know.

I said, well, I'll bet you dinner. Fine. A week later, they release him. Wow. So I didn't see him for a couple of years. Yeah. Then I run into him and I said, you owe me dinner. He says, yeah, I know.

And he says, I don't know. I said, I never see you. I said, yeah, you know, what's going on? Last summer at the 20th or 30th anniversary of the 92 team, and he was there, I run into him, and the first thing he says is i still owe you dinner i said well god damn it let's do it i'll never get paid all right i have a very interesting question for you dave perkins from a guy who calls himself 63 lunches but really quickly i'll tell

you i have dinner for all three of you because i got Palma Pasta lasagna for you. So thank you, Palma Pasta. You guys are all getting a frozen lasagna for you. And I also have a beer. Dave, before I ask you this question from 63 Leafs here, Great Lakes beer is your beer of choice now, is that right? Yes, I enjoy it. You turn, you move me into it. So is it because your first visit, you went

home with some beer and then you liked it, so now that's all you buy, right? I had to go home with something, so yes. Beer it was. And it was good, and my local happens to stock it. Okay, and that's a beer store. And they all don't. So anyway, yeah, it's quite good.

No, I agree with you there. If you like that sort of thing. If you like fresh craft beer. So you guys get the fresh beer from Great Lakes. Go ahead. Why did the guy call himself 63 Leafs? Yeah, that question's coming. I think it's interesting.

But what were you going to say, Larry? I'm in the Hall of Foam. The Hall of Foam. So 63 Leafs says, Hi, Mike. I always wondered why Dave Perkins did not like Tony Fernandez. You asked me this five years ago. Yeah, four years ago.

I didn't check. Does everybody have to like everybody? Is this participation now? No, you don't have to like Tony Fernandez. So he asked that same question when you were here the first time? Well, somebody did. Okay, well, it's got to be the same guy. I forget what my answer was, but it's the same answer.

It's the same answer. Go back to the... Just say C episode. Right, right. Go back to the Dave Perkins. But why does everybody... I mean, there's lots of... There's hundreds of players we covered who didn't like them.

They didn't like us, me. Who cares? Your job is to just... It's funny enough, if you point out that somebody made a mistake... People hate you. Even guys in the press box will say, why do you hate that guy? I don't hate him, he just made a mistake. Yeah, right.

Yeah. You know, I mean, it's funny. That used to be our job. Yeah, exactly. And now there's an awful lot of cheerleading. I mean, George Bell, one of the greatest players in the franchise history. I remember he lollygagged it on a base hit in Tiger Stadium and let the guy get to second at a cost in the game.

Remember that one? And we were all over him for that. I can remember a pitcher on the Blue Jays staff said, because I used to keep funny stats. I used to keep stats that people never kept, umpire ERAs and things like that. Right. 40 years ago, 35 years ago or something. And a guy, one of the pitchers saw me working in my notebook one day.

I was recording some weird stuff. I think it was outs on the bases or something. You need a big notebook for that team. And the guy says, why don't you keep a stat for us? I said, which one? He says, why don't you keep up number triples we give up down the left field line? Like that was a shot at George by their own guy. You know what I mean?

Because they used to give up a fair number of triples down the left field line. Another one you could have done on George's cutoff and then missed. Oh. He was, you know, down that stretch in 87? Mondesi would have beat her. Well, that was later, though. You know, I think, but you're right. At one time, his arm was so good, he was, it didn't matter. But then as he deteriorated, then it became costly.

Five seconds here for station identification. Hi, I'm George Bell. You listen to Toronto Mike. George is here? George. He's doing better. He had some stats put in, and he had some heart issues a year and a half ago, maybe? I'm not sure.

He had some work done. They wanted to fly him to Boston to have the work done there. The same hospital that took care of Ortiz after he got shot. The Red Sox couldn't get him in the country because of the COVID.

George stayed back and the Dominican got the hard work done there. So stents, I mean, we know about stents, right? I was going to say, how are you guys doing? We got more stents between us than Vladimir Guerrero has home runs.

Should we go around and do a health check? You guys look great, but... It'll turn into a six-hour show. All right. check or we're all, you guys look great, but. Don't turn it into a six hour show. Alright, Gare Joyce. Okay, I had a triple bypass and somebody wrote on my card who held you at third.

Tim Hornsby. Tim Hornsby. I was at the Steve Buffery retirement party and definitely saw Dave Perkins there, took a picture with him. Larry, you were probably working that night. I think that was opening night, I think.

Maybe opening day. Or maybe a home opener or something. Usually when these things come along, I'm covering something. You were at the Dome, I think, or whatever. But Bobby, you were probably out of the province. Who's saying this? Gare?

No, no, I haven't got to Gare yet. No, I got to... Now I'm going to Gare. So now it's Gare. This is Gare. That was me. I've always wondered what the last day

of the 2004 season was like. John Cerruti died in his hotel room that morning. I talked to John a couple of times as a player.

Hankey's best friend. I was scared talking. But they couldn't have been more different in the background, in background. Such a nice guy. How did the news reach the staff of broadcast and press row?

I don't know if Greg Myers would have been around that day. The one guy on their roster that season who was a teammate of John. Yeah, let's just, if you don't mind, let's talk a little bit about John Sruti and that day, that horrific day, the final day of the 2004 season. Well, I think it broke about the sixth or seventh inning or something. I mean, you could see that Rick Briggs, Jude, you know, like the look on their faces, something was up.

And anyways, I think they finally announced it after the game. And Perky, we went back to right, and Perky looks over and he says, what's a great guy like that to run who basically his big night out was having three milkshakes what's what's he how is it that he's gone and a couple of lumps like us are still sitting here i said i don't know the funny thing is is that was a sunday and on the saturday um two days before i made my first and only hole-in-one. You know, John was a great golfer. And we played a ton of golf.

And I had made a hole-in-one that week. And John had heard about it. So he came into the box on the Saturday, and he wanted details. He was excited. He was, you know. And we set up a golf game for the following week, he and I. And so Sunday morning, when I got to the park, I said, I have to go and check with John because we're going.

So I went up to the broadcast booth. This is an hour before the game. He wasn't there. And I said, huh, where's John? And they said, I don't know. We're looking for him. He's late and he missed the meeting and blah, blah, blah. So I thought, oh, well, it's one of those things, you know.

And so I went back. And just at game time, I noticed Tom Cheek was not on the radio. Cheek had gone to TV. So I went back and said, why is Cheek on TV? Where's Saruti? And all of a sudden you could see everybody was, well, no one knows.

No one knows. Like this. And you knew something horrible was about to happen. So I went right to Paul Godfrey and said, there's something going on here. What's happening with Cerruti? And he told me. And he said, don't say anything because we're still trying to get a hold of his family. So I sat there for a few innings just kind of stunned.

There was a guy that, you know, 24 hours before, we'd been in Yakima about seven irons and stuff. Oh, was he 55 or something oh not even i don't know 45 40 i was i was in um new york covering the expo's final game but you guys know serugia yeah um yeah i'm sorry i had rob folds on the show and we we talked quite a bit about this and they were tight broadcast crew there and uh yeah it just sounds like a great guy it was uh and then the next day claudia phoned me and asked if i'd write uh something for her for the you know i uh i didn't want to but uh obviously you know i did whatever i could

and then the the the jays chartered an airplane to fly to Albany for the, or Dunedin, pardon me, Dunedin for the memorial. And Buck spoke. Yeah, and Buck spoke. No, we went to Albany for Cerruti's. Oh. And it was when Sheik passed, they chartered a plane, we went to Dunedin.

Okay. and it was when Cheek passed they chartered a plane we went to Dunedin and that was held at the funeral home and then at the stadium yeah remember we all went to the stadium after Cheek passed those were sad times terrific guys best friend I've had in baseball

again sorry for your loss terrible one little interesting fact that Gary Joy's question I've had in baseball. Again, sorry for your loss. I know it's terrible. Okay. One little interesting fact of that Gare Joyce question is that I now remember Gare telling me this story

that Tom Henke was his best man. So Gare Joyce's best man. So Gare Joyce's best man at one of his weddings, I don't think it's the current one, I gotta check in with him, but was Tom Henke. Let me segue over to ask, give me an idea what kind of guy Tom Henke is.

What was he like when you were covering him? Just Tom Henke seemed larger than life for me growing up. Yeah, he was probably as good as they come. I remember when Rick Hummel passed, that's the guy I phoned because he played the year with St. Louis. But there's another guy, you know, he was pitching for Texas and he fouled up a bunt in spring training. Doug Rader called him gutless, and next thing you know, he wound up being exposed in the compensation draft and uh

they were going to draft that uh argenis salazar from montreal and uh the rule was a team could only lose one guy so uh moose johnson was the guy who moose johnson who was terrible for names he said well there's that big tall guy, Hankerman or something like that. He wears glasses, and he's with the Rangers, and he's a AAA, and he's in the doghouse. So that's how they got him. In 85, he had a find-it-if-you-can ERA, like 065 or something at Syracuse, did he not?

They didn't call him up until late. Until Baltimore. Well, I remember they'd spend all that money on Bill Cottle. I have a Cottle story. Hankey was just an average guy who happened to play baseball. There was no errors about him. He was a funny guy with a good sense of humor. There was no errors about him.

He was a funny guy with a good sense of humor. I remember one time Al Ryan was engaging him in kind of witty banter about something. And, you know, Hankey's 6'5", and the Bears 5'10", or whatever. And Hankey's answer for something was that he was lightheaded because he was much closer to the sun than Al Ryan was. He was being seven inches taller. Right. I remember the time we were in Texas when George Bush, the younger, owned the team, and his father was the president, George H.W. Bush,

and the Jays were playing, and George Bush, the younger, he'd come in the press room and have dinner and sometimes sit with writers and talk and shoot the shit, or shoot the breeze and blah, blah, blah. And so the word was that he was gonna bring his father, President H.W. Bush, into the clubhouse to meet the players.

And Hankey, somebody said to Hankey, Hankey's a great American, patriotic American, you know. He had all the bumper stickers before they were popular. Right. And I remember somebody said to him, what will you say to the President of the United States, Tom? He said, Mr. President, it takes, what was the words? He said, it takes 100 pounds to make a big dog.

And somebody said, no, he said, a big dog takes 100 pounds or something like that. And somebody said, 100 pounds of what? He said, of dog. And I said, you're going takes 100 pounds or something like that. And somebody said, 100 pounds of what? He said, of dog. And I said, you're going to say this to the president when he comes in? I forget the exact word, but it was one of those just kind of insane, hanky-isms, you know, kind of things. But what a bullpen when you figure those two guys, when he and Ward were,

I mean, that was the original original get the game through six innings and it's pretty much over. Yeah. You know, Ward would do two, Henke would do one. Sometimes, you know, Henke would do one and a third, one and a third, he'd do four outs, five outs. He wouldn't, I mean, he'd do what they needed him to do. You know, I remember when Ward had a bad outing and he wouldn't talk to us.

And so we asked Henke the next day if he'd go talk to Ward and just say, you know, if he'd just owned up to it after the game and all that. You know, that's part of his job, but also we might even cut him a little more slack.

And he went and talked to him and Ward was sensational ever after. All those guys, whenever they blew a save or blew a lead, I remember them all was standing right there. Anybody got anything? If Hankin got knocked out, Pat Hankin got knocked out in the first inning, he'd be in front of his locker at the end of the game. One time in Texas, Hanky gave it up to Sierra, I think.

Ruben Sierra, I remember that. And he wouldn't talk. And the next day he went around and he apologized. Exactly. I was going to mention that one. He said, so did the dog, you guys. But, you know. I was in a bad space or something.

Yeah. No, I remember I was going to mention that. Yeah. Is there a Bill Cottle story there I can get from you? Oh, yeah. So they're at Tiger Stadium, and Cottle throws his first pitch. And at old Tiger Stadium, so Bobby Cox goes walking out, and he gets to wit long before they get to the mound,

and he covers his mouth and he says, Ernie, how could you call a first pitch changeup to this guy? I don't know who the hitter was. It was a dangerous hitter. And so Ernie's got the mask on. He says, Bobby, that wasn't a changeup. That was his fastball. So they get to the mound, and Bobby Cox says, let's go get him, Billy.

And he walked back to the dugout. And that was, I think, a week later, Hanky was up. I remember a similar situation. It was in Oakland. And I think Dave Collins might have gotten the winning hit or a hit against Cottle, but he blew the save. And after the game, we were talking, and one of the, I think it was the AP guy, had been in the Oakland room, and he asked Cottle,

the guys want to know, the Oakland A's players, they want to know, when did you start throwing a change-up? And Cottle went ballistic. He says, I don't throw the change-up. And I remember another time when there was a lot of controversy, some people thought that, you know, maybe he wasn't being used right or whatever, you know, because Scott Boris was his agent and he was,

I used to get a lot of calls from Scott. And so I remember Bobby once just took me over into his office, put me in the corner and says, there's nothing coming out. And that was a simple, you know, that was the explanation. There's nothing coming out. I got to ask, I think it was, I can't remember now whether it was you, Dave, or you, Bob, who told me this,

and we'll find out right now, I guess, but that Pat Gillick wanted Bobby Cox to play George Bell, but Bobby was playing Dave Collins. And someone told me this story. Is there any truth to this, that Pat Gillick trades away Dave Collins to force Bobby Cox to play George Bell? Is there any semblance of truth in any of that?

Or did I dream this in like a fever dream? That one I don't know. They traded away somebody to play Sean Green. Don't forget, also in that trade was Alfredo Griffin and they had Tony Fernandez who was ready to take over. Okay, so there's more to that trade than that. That was the Bill Cottle trade. Oh, right.

Right. Okay. Because they went after Suter. Somebody told me this story, and I can't remember now. It obviously wasn't Dave Ornbaum. So they needed a closer. I mean, they probably, you know, and Cottle was a good closer at one stage.

Sure, of Oakland or whatever, yeah. Well, he was the, as I know from, I used to collect the stickers, he was the Rolaids Relief Man of the Year some year or two prior, for sure. His nickname was Cuffs, remember? Okay. Sean Green.

What were you saying there about Sean Green there, Dave? Well, that was the only time I can remember somebody got traded because they wanted Sean Green to play. And it might have been Gordy. Traded. Geez, I'd have to look it up. Okay. But anyway, they wanted to open up a spot

For Green in right field Might have been Stito didn't want to play him I can't remember Stito wasn't a real fan of Sean Green No I remember that Was it Joe Carter? No no no He left as a free agent

Yeah he was gone by then I'd have to go back and look it up I mean what 26 years ago? Mike Hannafin, who was actually here just a few weeks ago, but Mike Hannafin writes, love and respect to all three of these guys. I felt fortunate to work as a lowly radio reporter in the same era. Great reporters and writers and great people who made it fun.

Did Dave enjoy being an official scorer? That's from Mike Hannafin my can worst job i ever had when i was 19 years old an orphan i didn't have money to get through school i took a job as a as a night janitor on weekends at a bar on youngstreet so you can imagine the stuff i cleaned up you imagine the horrible messes that i would go in and start working on at 2 in the morning. And that was a better fucking job than official scoring. And one correction. Mike Hannafin

was not lowly. Good call there. He is the official scorer of the Vancouver Canadians, Mike Hannafin. So he knows a bit about being an official scorer. Get it right, Michael. I did it too, a little bit. Not as knows a bit about being an official scorer, although he seems to like it a lot more than me. Get it right, Mike. Get it right. I did it too, a little bit.

Not as long as Dave, but I did a few games. But I had too many. It paid me more to do and was less, Dave put it succinctly, but less stressful to do the freelance articles, and I got paid more for scoring and putting up with all the nonsense. It always used to amaze me how many people who sat in the press box took

everything personally. And nobody ever said boy that was a tough call. 50-50. I could have been either way. Every single call was always that's the worst call I've ever seen. What do you mean? How could you say that it's and if you said well it's error, it's not a hit.

The other phone would ring and the pitching coach would say, how could you call that an error? Okay, well, that's the Mike Hanifin follow-up. He goes, did you ever get any serious static from any player or their agent or any team? Like, was there any blowback on you, Dave? All the time. Yeah, yeah.

All the time. I remember, and also the first game I scored, I had the pleasure of having a double no-hitter going into the sixth inning. Okay. And not much pressure, huh? And anyway, there was a play, Crawford. Carl Crawford was the runner, and in my mind I kept saying, remember, this guy runs fast, okay?

Right. And, you know, he was going to be the next superstar. So there was a ground ball to third base, and, you know, he was going to be the next superstar. So there's a ground ball to third base and he was safe. So I said, hit. That was the first thing I said because I had it in my mind that he's fast. So to give the fielder some credit, some leeway. Sure. Well, I didn't know this, but Jerry Howarth is ripping me apart.

He was one of the great second guessers of scores. Always. And, but, but, but before he had finished, I realized my mistake. I had a quick look on the monitor and called it E5.

Okay. And Jerry's still ranting on about me because I know this because Bruce Brenner come in and says, do you want the tape of what Jerry's's saying about you and i said no but the funny thing is you've realized you don't have any friends either i when the first it was the first call i made as a score i looked down press row and there's all my friends all looking away not one guy saying not one guy going e5 or something like just help me you know what i mean it's so easy when you're sitting there yeah writing a story right to say something you

know to say e5 or you know okay or traditional one um um single rbi single second on the throw right but when you have to say it yourself you know know, it's – Dave, you did it longer, but your first couple of games, you know, it's a little tougher. How long did you do it for, Dave? The second game I – two years. The second game I scored was the guy – Longoria? The no-hitter with two out in the – two out in the night.

Yeah. And the guy hit a ground ball in the hole. The second baseman dove. Simple base hit. I got called every name in the hole, the second baseman dove. Simple base hit. I got called every name. Was that Brandon Morrow? Yeah, Brandon Morrow. Alomar has that in his back pocket.

Yeah, right. I got called every name. It was a base hit. Of course it was. And they put my name out on the radio. Jerry did. I got threats. I got death threats.

We know where your kids go to school. Oh, my God. I got that kind of stuff. That's like the second night. That's disturbing. And people who knew it was a base hit were saying, oh, yeah, you should have called that an error. I have two scorekeeping stories.

So one night in Montreal, the scorekeeper gets in a car accident. So Ian McDonald was there just doing some work from the Gazette, was doing some work for the Sporting News. So Richard Griffin goes to him. He says, Mac, we're stuck. Could you score the game? So he scores the game. They're playing Cincinnati.

stuck could you score the game so he scores a game they're playing cincinnati and there was three calls that like how many times did you wrote a story did you ever mention the scorekeeper's name twice a year once a year you know there's three calls that turns out the managing editor the gazette is sitting there and the guy guy said, well, what's that? He said, well, that's a hit. And the scorekeeper went the other way. It was his employee. And they weren't allowed to score or keep games. So the guy writes in the paper, Ian McDonald of the Gazette scored.

And Pete Rose was managing the Reds, so he ripped the calls. He gave Dawson an error instead of the guy getting a double or a triple or whatever. So the next day he got called in and he got suspended and everything. What was it, 50 bucks in those days? I mean, the managers can be connivers too because Joe Maddon phoned, it wasn't me, but he phoned up another scorer and tried to convince him that in game one,

it should have been an error. So he wanted him to change that. And the reason was in game two, there had been an error called. He thought if that one was called a hit, then that one would have to be called a hit, or no, an error, and then it would save his pitcher a run on his ERA. So he's willing to deprive his own hitter of a hit. Right.

But not, but for his own, you know, so anyway, the scorer dismissed it. But I mean, there is a review process. They do review it. Nowadays, yeah. Nowadays, yeah. Joe Torre used to change everything to a hit, didn't he? Always.

Always. It was always a hit. And I can tell you from experience, Joe Torre did not know the rules. I got into it with him one time. Players don't know the rules. Because he did not know the scoring rule, and he made a thing. And the Elias people phoned the next day and said, well, you can't do that.

You can't score it this way because of whatever the circumstance was. I forget the circumstance. I said, don't talk to me. I had it right the first time. Joe Torre is the one who changed it. And they went, oh, well, you know, we can't, you know. And the other one, you remember, what was the guy's name? He was a minor league umpire, LaFave.

Joe Sochuk? No, not Sochuk. Oh, way back, yeah. Yeah, at Exhibition Stadium. Yeah, right. So there's a call that Cleveland doesn't like. So Rick. Rick Minch.

Minch, yeah. He went to the LA Kings, I think. Yeah, and Gretzky's guy, yeah. So he comes down, and I see him, and he's got fire coming out of both ears and everything. I said, Rick, just so you know, this is the guy's first game back after open-heart surgery. I don't care.

So he starts barking at Lefebvre, and he says, I'll talk to you after the inning's over. I'm watching the ballgame. So he goes by us, and you remember they had those hooks for the jackets? Right. And I said, Rick, I tried to warn you. And he goes, that's horse shit. And he goes, wow.

And his hand fits right into where the hook is, right? So he's walking. And he's stuck. Is he stuck? He's stuck. Serves him right. So I don't know what happened after. I don't remember if he changed it, but it was funny seeing him, poor Rick, hung out to dry.

Like I said, it astounded me how people in the press box cared. Who cares? It doesn't change a game. Well, we used to yell at you just for funsies. Like when Howard's first call. Oh, my goodness. Howard, come on. Bear down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But some guys weren't kidding. Jerry was never kidding. No, no. Always. Didn't matter what you said. But, you know, I remember reporters beat guys. Guy with the Seattle.

Finnegan. Finnegan. Oh, he was. One of the first games I ever covered, like one of the first seasons I was on there, and there was a call. He went tearing down talking to the scorer. Like it's his business or something. Yeah, like, I mean, he's a reporter.

Anyway, yeah. That's a PR guy's job. Enough on that. Yeah. Now, I did hear Bob mention the name Richard Griffin, so I'm just going to tell the listeners that Richard Griffin's back here later this week, so he'll be back in the basement with Scott MacArthur.

So there's more. If you're a baseball fan or a Jays fan or both, that'll be interesting, too, to hear from Scott MacArthurccarthur and richard griffin they've got a new podcast they're doing together we're going to talk about it i just want to give you guys one more gift here maybe a couple more gifts but i have a wireless speaker for you courtesy of manaris and that's so you guys can listen to season four of yes we are open which is an award-winning podcast from manarisis hosted by FOTM Al Grego.

And Al's been traveling the country, having conversations with small business owners and capturing their great inspiring stories so that we can be inspired. So don't leave home without your wireless speaker from Moneris. And I have flashlights for you guys from Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of this community since 1921 and i'd learned yesterday that ridley funeral home finished second in the grilled cheese challenge we had uh in this neck of the woods so i'll be talking to brad jones about that the grilled cheese challenge so there's a joke rolling around my head but i'm not gonna say it well you can say

it if you want you can say if you want i'm going to yeah i'm gonna ask this question because i'm interested in the answer. Tex McGiblets wrote in and said, how did the Tim Johnson story break? Meanwhile though, Eric wrote in and said this year marks the 25th anniversary. 25 years

since Tim Johnson's short tenure as Blue Jays manager and he'd like to know your recollections of Tim Johnson and the controversy surrounding him. So Dave, maybe we start with to know your recollections of Tim Johnson and the controversy surrounding him. So, Dave, maybe we start with you. Do you remember how that Tim Johnson story broke? And remind us just about the Tim Johnson story. The star had that.

I can tell you exactly how it started. We all thought the guy was full of shit right from day one because he said all kinds of weird stuff. This is about uh serving in vietnam what was this about oh that is upbringing too everything which his mother denied and well and that's that's that's what happened she said it wasn't like that at all the star had a baseball guy named jim byers he's a travel guy now yeah jim was was on the thing jim happens to be from california and jim was home uh talking to his parents and he was at some kind of party in california and somebody said oh you're writing

baseball in toronto now well you'll know this lady over here her son's the manager wow and it was tim johnson's mother whomers runs into at a party. So Johnson had made up all this crazy stuff like, well, you know, he was going to have a basketball scholarship to UCLA, but he wanted to play baseball instead. So instead they gave the scholarship to Lew Alcindor. Like this was the kind of bullshit that this guy was spouting. So anyway, and he'd been to

vietnam and he'd done this and he'd grown up on the mean streets fighting his way out of the mean streets of la and blah blah blah blah so buyers introduced to johnson's mother says well you must be awful proud of tim uh you know coming up the he did, fighting his way out of the slums. And she laughed and said, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Is Tim still telling all those stories? And that's exactly the line. Wow, given up by his own mother. Byers comes home and says, you know, I ran into his mother.

His mother says she didn't do any of this. So we started looking at stuff, and we pulled all the media guys from his playing days and noticed that all his biographies kept getting better and better and better. Like it just went on and on and on. So we started making phone calls and

it didn't take long to pull the whole thing apart. I mean the whole thing was... Pulling those threads, yeah. The thing about Vietnam though we all knew he had never been there because he said so. When he was first hired in November, Rich Griffin did a feature on him and he was talking about, and I think this is where part of his problem came with the Vietnam thing is

that some of those guys who never went over felt the guilt. And so a lot of the stories told were really what happened in, um, in camp, you know, like training. Right. He was talking about how difficult it was to wear the uniform, never having been over there, but the way people regarded you because it was a very unpopular war. And so we knew, I mean, he had admitted he'd never been there,

even though he told stories in Boston where he'd been before that he had been. Even though he told stories in Boston where he'd been before that he had been. And he told players and stuff like that after that he had been. But it was on the record that he hadn't been. He said it himself. Yeah. And Jeff Baker was working on the start of that. He did most of the leg work.

Didn't he call up Henkin? To uncover that. Yeah, Henkin. He called up Henkin, I remember. And among others. And I can remember the, I mean, there's a lot of Johnson stuff. We just don't need to get into. But I can remember the next winter, it had all hit the fan. And the next spring training, it was over at the Yankees.

And Clemens was with the Yankees that year. And Clemens saw me, and Clemens said, what's he saying now? And I said, what are you – he says, well, is Johnson still talking about that? I said, well, it's getting to a head because it's coming out. Other guys are mentioning it and blah, blah, blah. And he said – and Clemens said, I couldn't believe when he kept lying to us about having to kill those people in Vietnam. And when Clemens said that, I thought, well, it's over soon.

Because, you know what I mean? Clemens wasn't the kind of guy who would say anything about anything. No. And when Clemens would say that. Very bland. That was kind of. But I was in, I don't know if I was at Vero for Sean Green or where I was. I was on the other side.

So I phoned back the first day and I asked Mike Rutzi. I said, did he apologize? Because Ash told him he had to apologize on day one. No, he didn't. He's going to wait. He's not just going to apologize to the pitchers and the catchers. No, he's going to have to do it again. So then I phoned back four days later.

I said, full day. Did he apologize? No, he didn't. So I walk in, and they're still playing catch up at the complex. And Fergozzi walks in. I said, you're a couple of weeks early. But here's one. Did you hear how they fired him?

Tell me. So they played in Tampa, a night game. They go back. Gordon Nash and McCleary fire him. And they give him the news, and he sits back in his chair like this, like to put his hands over his head. Yeah. And as he gets to about here, McCleary high-fives him.

You just fired a guy, and you're high-fiving him. Not to defend the guy, but that's... He was also... He's very... That's the right word. He was very nervous as a manager. And... Tentative?

Insecure. Insecure. Insecure. And later in the season, even though they had a pretty, you know, one of their better seasons in years, and they actually, that good Yankee team, they won three out of four in New York in September. Jim Latt and Mel Queen kind of nursed him through

a lot of the managing decisions because he'd be, in the dugout apparently, petrified. Like, basically, what should I do now? I think he was a lot like Montoya. He was in awe of the players. Right. Interesting. Oh, he was.

It was always with Tim, it was always like he was best friends with somebody or something. You know what I mean? Like Clemens would do anything for him, right? That's what he would basically tell us, you know, stuff like that. When you think back to it, that team, too, that might have been the best pitching staff they ever had. When you look back, I mean, they had three consecutive Cy Youngers.

Hankin and then a couple of Clemens. I mean, Clemens, I still say best free agent in the history of baseball. He had them for two years. He won like the Triple Crown or whatever all three years right two years hey i'd never heard of the triple crown i'd heard of the hitting triple crown but i'd never heard of the pitching since hal newhauser which is the 40s with the tigers or something now because it's not some weird number you know oh there's they're meaningless stats now, aren't they? Well, here's the best stat of the year. What was their run differential against Tampa Bay?

God, weren't they plus 13 in the series? They lost three out of four? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. All right. It's absolutely nothing because you win 20 to two or whatever it was. Interesting. I have a quick update for you guys from the Canadian Open,

which is they're on the fourth playoff hole. So undecided still. So it's, again, Nick Taylor in the hunt, Canadian Nick Taylor in the hunt still. I hope it doesn't get too late. Yeah, I'll keep you guys posted. Or they can turn the lights on. Four playoff holes. Haven't they ever heard of the automatic runner? Actually, there's a question like that coming up.

They can go to Vic Hadfield's mini-put. Hey, since we talked about Tim Johnson, the follow-up question from Eric is, of all the Blue Jays managers that you guys have covered, who is the easiest one to interview? It'd be interesting to hear if you guys have the same answer. I would say Gibbons for me, but I haven't done the past couple.

Wow. I was trying to think. Gibbons for me, but I haven't done the past couple. Wow. I was trying to think. Gibbons would be one. Cito for me was always good. Cito is good, but my favorite. He wasn't one who would make your story necessarily. Fregosi was easy. Yeah.

Fregosi could light up a room. Fregosi was probably the most, equations would have been Fregosi. Probably the most equacious would have been Fragosi. Bobby Cox was really good because his, talk about a competitor. You talk about Dave Steen being a competitor. Yeah. Bobby Cox was one of the most competitive people I've ever seen. Sometimes he couldn't speak after a loss. I was just going to say, sometimes he could barely get the words out.

Wow. Sometimes you can barely get the words out. Wow. And I remember once coaches telling me they went into the shower room and he'd taken, it was in a bottle, a glass, and thrown his shaving lotion thing into the shower. Well, it shattered, so effectively nobody could take a shower. He was so mad. I remember another time we went into the manager's office to see Bobby

after a tough loss, and all you found was his rumpled uniform was thrown in a corner. He wasn't there. Then the next day he says, where were you guys? I was looking for you. And conversely, oh, is that your answer for Gosey my favorite would have been Buck Rogers Buck Rogers is great

I just I got an exposed question coming up here Chuck Tanner would be mine for all time managers can I tell you what Chuck Tanner and I did yeah of course go ahead Chuck Tanner was

the Blue Jays were never in the playoffs In the early 80s So I would always end up doing some nationally Expos and stuff like that I did the Cubs until they clinched Which took forever in 84 Stuff like that So anyway Chuck was great

He was pacing up and down You know they had the 40 man rosters And they knew who was every player. This is September, and they're a pennant race and division race. And he's got a clipboard, and he's pacing up and down. That's why I went into the game, after the

game, I went to him and said, who do you think you are, Chuck Noll? He says, yeah, yeah. He would, he was really great, and he says, that's what it is, man. I'm Chuck Noll out there. Of the opposition managers, I had so much fun with Lou Piniella. Piniella was good. Piniella was hilarious. And he was a horse racing guy.

Yeah. And for some reason, Piniella knew that I had been a harness guy and picked the horses and the paper and all that stuff. And he would sometimes, when they came to Toronto, he would have a program. And he'd flip the program and say, mark my program for tonight because it's an afternoon game and he was going to, Greenwood was open in those days.

But Pinellas said, I would say the funniest thing I ever heard a manager say is the Jays used to go into New York when the Yankees weren't very good and the Jays would pretty much hammer them. Like the Friday game would always be close because the Yankees would have what little pitching they had. And then if the Jays beat them Friday, they were probably looking at a sweep because they'd be out of pitching by Saturday and Sunday,

the Yankees would be. But they had a guy through sliders, a guy named Cecilio Guante. Remember him? Yeah, that's the guy that hit Fernandez in the cheek. Yeah, that's right. That was scary. He was a great sexist. He waited for seven minutes.

And the Yankees had a catcher back then. I think it was Matty Noakes, who had two knee braces on. You could hear him clank when he walked. He wasn't very mobile back there. And Guante had started bouncing this slider. And Matty couldn't block. So one night, Guante's pitching. He comes in relief.

And he starts throwing them to the backstop. And Mat can't get it. And Oaks can't block them. And two or three get to the backstop. And Jay's got a couple of bases, and, you know, the next guy gets a base hit, boom, Jay's win. So I went into the Yankee room, and Piniella's sitting there shaking his head. And people toss a couple of easy questions.

And then somebody finally says, Lou, what about all the pass balls? Wild pitches. What's going on? And Piniella, he looks up and he's shaking his head. He says, man, you can't write this, but it looks like they bet the game. Which is about the best thing I ever heard a manager say. Like it was, we're all kind of laughing.

But I mean, that was, you know, that's the way Piniella thought. It looks like the bet began. Noakes got, he got Stalmar in the ninth inning, trying for his first shutout. He had a home run in Detroit, and then he got traded to the Yankees, and he got him again in the ninth inning when Stalmar was trying to go for a shutout. And he got him again in the ninth inning when Salomero was trying to go for a shutout.

With Chuck Tanner, I remember if they had a tough loss, he would tell the trainer or the clubhouse guy who was ever around to turn up the radio because he didn't want a quiet dressing room. And he was really good. I remember he was going on about just after the September 10th game, talking about what it takes to win, you know. And he says, well, you've got so much for pitching, so much for attitude. I said, that's over 100%. I said, what percentage do you think it does take to win?

And he said, well, it's 90% pitching, okay? And he says, okay. And it's 90% attitude. So now we've got 180% now. He says, and then you've got to throw in 50% for ability and stuff like that, he says. So that's 230%. So we decided you had to give 230% to win that division.

Right, that's tough to do. That's tough to do. So one year I was doing, well, every year I did the Expos. I'd drive over to Bradenton because working in Ottawa, we had this kid there named Doug Frobel. And so he's a Class A guy, and then he's the AA guy, then he's a AAA guy. So this one night, I didn't get over on a Saturday.

So I look at the schedule, and they're playing, and Pittsburgh's playing in Lakeland on a Tuesday night. So I phone the manager's office, like, you couldn't do that now. And I identify myself. He says, we haven't seen you this spring. What's going on? He says, I said, well, I was looking at your schedule for Lakeland. You got a night game.

He says, do you want me to bring your man? And he said, I'll hit him third. And I said, okay. So I drove to Lakeland, and I got locked in the stadium. Cobb shows up. He says, are you trying to break in? I said, I'm trying to break out. That's right.

I remember, are you finished? Yeah, that was it. Whitey Herzog was another one who was really great, and it really nice you know to talk to people remembered when players used to have jobs in the offseason right and he used to work a shape in the spring himself into shape in the sprint training and all that and um rick hummel yeah our dear friend so i used to take uh he loved labats labats he used to call it yes so i used to take him down uh a little carrier of Labatt's down to St.

When they were in St. Pete's or wherever they were. Right. But they were at St. Pete's for quite a while. And I have to explain to Mr. Ricky that there might be a few missing because there was a lot of traffic down,

you know, and we decided we'd have to have a couple. But Whitey Herzog, you know, and he'd always have them in a couple. But Whitey Herzog, you know, and he'd always have them in the refrigerator. But Whitey Herzog kind of liked that. You know, so I got along with him really well. And he would be, I'd ask him about the Blue Jays, for instance. He said, as long as Gillick keeps trading with Steinbrenner, they're going to do all right.

And the other one was, remember Whitey Ball, like with the Kansas City, and then with St. Louis, they all had. Rabbits. Rabbits, they had stolen a lot of bases. And I asked him about this. I said, is that changing the game? You know, remember in those days with the artificial field and stuff like that. Everybody stole a lot of bases,

right? And a lot of them were just stealing for the sake of stealing, really. But I asked Whitey about that and he says, listen,

if I played at Fenway Park, I want guys who clubbed the ball. He says, you know, so what it was is he built his team from what they had.

When you had Kansas City and St. Louis were both big stadiums, right, with artificial turf. So that's why they had the rabbits. I remember Woody Herzog provided my all-time winter meeting highlight. I was standing in the lunch line when he threw Go-Go Gilbert into the potted plant. Remember that?

When Go-Go Gilbert was one of the first agents, Dennis Gilbert was his name. Remember, he was kind of the Boris of his day before. And he was pitching something, and Whitey wasn't having any of it. And it got a little heated, and finally Whitey just tossed him into a potted plant somewhere. And I think everybody wanted to cheer, you know.

So one day they come to Dunedin, and some guy, some local guy says, did you bring Ozzie Smith? And Whitey looks at him and he says, this would be like playing on this field. This guy's going to the Hall of Fame. I'm not bringing him up here to play in a field that looks like it's built in Vietnam. And so the PR guy walks by

and he says to Mr. Ricky Hummel and a couple other guys, remember we're going to the racetrack tonight. It's our treat. We're taking the writers out. So Hummel says,

what if we play extras? Wade, he goes, no problem. I got my cocktail pitchers here. So I said, what does that mean? He said, I got Gibson Alba to pitch the ninth, and I forget the other guy's name, to pitch. There will not be extras.

We're from the era when if it was tied in the ninth inning, a catcher would tell a guy what was coming so they'd all get right sure yeah remember when it went up on the board in baltimore that boston had clinched the division and the jays were out of it oh yeah now hanky's next pitch was right down the middle boom it was the bottom of the ninth game ending homer that's right yeah all right you're talking about talking about um the way things used to be and it's a whitey herzog again this is that spring training at this st pete's you know you have to go through you know you have to get out you have to go underneath you have to

go into the dugout basically to get out so i'm in whitey's office doing an interview and uh it's getting close to game time and i said white do they're playing the national anthems he says don't worry he says I just got a call home he says I got to talk to my wife about a little bit of income tax things a couple questions here he says they told me that they were just putting my name on the restaurant and it wouldn't cost me anything. Now it's $100,000 later. So now he's on the phone. I'm sitting through this whole conversation with the one with his income tax. So now he's finished. I said, wait, I think they're about ready to start.

He said, don't worry. He said, what do you got? Any more questions? A couple more questions, and we get it. The game's going. So we get up, and we leave, and I have to go through and we get it. The game's going. So we get up and we leave. And I have to go through the dugout. And the game's on.

And then Whitey just joins the... But, you know, Israel Weaver says, hey, we do this every day. St. Louis, very famous for, like, there's Musials, there's Mike Shannon's, you know, for naming restaurants after the guys. So one night we're in there at the Missouri Bar and Grill, which was in. That was the press headquarters. Yes, right across from the other newspaper but but uh danny cox wasn't at the workout so there's hummel and maybe two other guys in and

uh danny cox walks into the room he says did you hit him he said yeah i hit him he said did you hit him? He said, yeah, I hit him. He said, did you use your left hand? He said, yeah. How many times did you hit him? I hit him once for hitting my sister and once for hitting my mother. So apparently on the off day, Danny Cox got on a flight when he was with the Cardinals during the World Series, flew down to Warner Robins, Georgia, where there's a base. I guess his wife was married to this knucklehead,

and he popped the guy twice. Wow. And I said, so is he going to start? He says, that's why I asked him if he uses the left hand. He'd start. Wow. Wow. You're talking about restaurants.

I remember I couldn't get into the Marriott, so it cost me a lot of points in the 82 World Series. But the guy was nice enough to set me up with a non-points giving hotel out near the St. Louis Zoo, but it wasn't that far from Stan Musial's place. And I went there, this was during the World Series, and I saw one of the greatest moments you might see in a different way. It was Herzog, Shane Dance, Musial, all those guys were there, it was the 82 World Series,

and they're leading the whole restaurant and bar in a sing-song. Really? And it wasn't just like, you know, it was like it went on forever. Wow. And the place just glowed. And I remember when finally it was over, seeing all those guys leave, red chains, it's unusual. And they're all smiling and relaxed and, you know, they weren't studying.

You know, they had a few or two, I guess. They weren't looking at a computer figuring out the ex-fib. But it was a wonderful moment. And, you know, that's something I wish in those days, one of the few times I wished, like maybe back then, I'd had a phone. Somebody could have recorded it. Then they would have ruined it, though. But it was just, it was one of those magical moments that you stay with you.

And the funny thing is, I would never have gone there if I hadn't been moved to this non-points giving. Non-points giving. So St. Louis plays Boston in the first game of the World Series. And Walker goes, I don't know, 4 for 4 or 5 for 5 or whatever. He has a heck of a night. So I'm trying to figure out where he ranks as that performance by a Canadian. And the only one that's close is Doc Taylor.

So I see McCarver sitting in the booth alone. I go in and I ask him some questions. So he tells me about when they won in 64. 64, yeah. So he says, yeah, he said, we had a great time. We had a great time in the clubhouse and we were all celebrating. And then we all go to Musial's.

We look around, and we can't find Ron. I said, who's Ron? He says, well, we never called him Doc. He wasn't a doctor then. I said, yeah, you're right. So he says, we can't find him. So he says, they had those not as fancy as today, but the plastic up over the clubhouse.

So we sent two clubhouse kids back to the stadium, and there's Doc face down in his locker. So I phoned Doc at home. I said, McCarver just told me this story. I'm going to write it, but is it accurate? He says, I was just relaxing for the second portion of the evening. All right. Speaking of great performances by Canadians, breaking news.

The first Canadian to win the Canadian Open since 1954 is Nick Taylor of Winnipeg. I had him. Great. Oh, that's good. I'm glad for him. Yeah, it's big news. Big news there. Okay. By the way, real quick here, if that's good. I'm glad for him. Yeah, it's big news. Big news there. Okay.

By the way, real quick here, if that's possible. Eric wanted to know, who is the hardest Blue Jays manager to interview? Like of all the Blue Jays managers you covered, who is the most difficult guy to interview? I don't know. Hartsfield. Hartsfield probably.

Hartsfield, yeah. He thought we were all fools. Maybe he was right. I got the general manager, though. Who's that? Ricciardi. Oh. Perk, you going to abstain or you going to pick one?

Well, yeah, I mean, I haven't had the last couple. Right. You know, I've been retired long enough, and I went around in the Hartsfield days. I had a few run-ins with Jimmy Williams, but I always liked Jimmy, and I always thought he was a really good baseball man. He was just, you know, he could be prickly,

but he and I bonded over the crap table one night. I remember that. You were hot. And you know what? Out of friendship, I didn't want to jinx you. I didn't jump in and bet you like all the other guys did. Because I cost myself a lot of money. I was in Puerto Rico.

Here's how hot he was, Michael. Let me hear it. So we go to Puerto Rico. They play this Roberto Clementberto clemente series so i'm getting off the plane behind him some lady hugs me he says you know who that was and i said no he says that was roberto yeah clemente and it was pissing rain yeah she's out there in the tournament so they're they they're going to play the first game, and Jimmy looked at the field, and I forget who it was.

Hiram-Bitone Stadium. Yeah. And it's unplayable. So we're out of there quick. We write our stories, and I go downstairs, and I'm doing well. I won $200 on the blackjack. At the casino, yeah. So right in the hotel.

So I hear all this racket. So he's so hot that even the Mormons were betting. Exactly right. Garth Orr started the bet. Here's Dave Rowland. He says, come on, puppy paws. And Jimmy's saying, okay, one more perky, and I'll give you the opening day lineup.

Exactly. It was the hottest roll I ever had. Wow. And the stunning thing, I'll start betting $5. I took out $3,700. I remember that. Wow. Jimmy Williams did better. And I'll never forget, Dave Steeb was making $1.1 million then.

He was by far the highest paid player. Was betting $5 in Dragon. Taking the doubt? Dragon after every, was betting $5 in Dragon. Taking the doubt? Dragon after every, I'm throwing nothing but points and numbers and hard ways, and it's the best roll I ever had. And Steve's betting $5, winning and putting the five. It was a scene out of the movies. He comes to me afterwards, and he's all excited.

He won 60 bucks. He said, Steve, you got more money than yoko ono you and you're dragging five dollars a hand what are you nuts you'll never see another role like that in your whole life i got another steve money story remember we used to play liar's poker with us dollar bills yeah and um i remember so i had this billy i was down on my last one of last bills, and it wasn't in very good shape. And Steve won, so I gave him the dollar, and he says, I'm not taking that. That's not money.

Oh, is he an alien? He wouldn't take it because it was a dollar bill. It was all battered. And talking about managers, I always had a lot of fun with Tony La Russa. I remember when he was at the White Sox and he had been a lawyer. And so I wanted to – I talked to him. White Sox, I – but he always considered like the outfield, like he'd walk around the field and talk to his players.

That was his office. So it was hard to talk to him before a game. Right. So I waited for him at Exhibition Stadium. And it's getting close to when I'm supposed to be kicked out of the dugout. So anyway, I talked to him. I start the interview. And I wanted to ask him why a lawyer became a baseball manager, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

And he was really good about it and, you know, stuff like that. And the security guard comes along and wants to kick me out. And Tony says, no. He says, let him finish. It's okay. So I finished and went away like that. Then he goes on to, and I've talked to him. I always had, you know, I remember in those days you could go to both.

We had time with the headlines. You could go to both clubhouses, right? And I remember he was, even after he'd finished his scrum, such as they were then, he was always, he would give me this, he'd be sitting there with a beer and I'd ask him a couple of questions and he'd give me a good answer. And I remember one night I talked to him and there was Carlton Fisk had been involved in a play, and Fisk was still in front of his locker, and I got that stuff.

I mean, it's stuff you get for yourself, right? It's not with a scrum and all that stuff. And what Fisk told me was really good about that play. Then he went to Oakland, and then I heard from one of the Oakland writers that he was upset about something I'd written about him. This would have been around 89. It was just the first year of the Sky Dome. Right.

And so, geez, I find that kind of distressing, because, I mean, he had a reputation. I mean, we knew about Tony, you know, and we had our jokes about that, like a genius or something like this. So I said, I better have this out with them, you know, because, you know. So I went down. I went down at 2 in the afternoon. In those days, you could do that.

And I went into his office. I said, Tony, I understand you have a problem with me. And he says, well, what happened, our deadlines had moved up, so I had to take a quote from somebody else. Had been down there, and we trade quotes sometimes. I couldn't go into their clubhouse. He says, I saw Perkins there. I know what, you know, he was there.

He's legit. And, you know, he's telling me all the guys who were there, I didn't see you, but your quote, you know, he didn't like that too much. So I had to explain to him. i don't think it held much water but anyway now he's got this briefcase right but anyway we've got all on jovial and i can always make him laugh forever even i could go into larusa and say something and he'd start laughing like it was like i could make a joke he would laugh he was But anyway, this is 89. Anyway, so now he says, I read your story from last night

and it was Ricky Henderson was playing for the A's then and he'd been hit by a pitch or just missed a pitch, something like that. And he says, your story was legit, you know, and all that. So now he's, so we're're sitting now we're just talking and he takes he's got this briefcase this leather briefcase like a lawyer's case opens it up and he takes out this yellow card his lineup card and you imagine what a tough job he had right oh let me see now now he's got this and he's got this. He's got his mark. He says, what do you think? First, Henderson.

Okay. Second, how about Tony Phillips? Okay. Third, how about Jose Canseco? Or how about McGuire? What do you think of that? Do you think, how do you think of that? You know, we'll tell you.

You remember the year, you remember the year that Henderson was in the playoffs? Henderson stole second. And he stopped at 88 feet and, like, just glared in at Ernie, right? Right. And Stottlemyre hit somebody, and Parker hit a home run, and he went out. It was a great north circle route by the first base dugout. And Gruber chirped him and everything. So now they knocked went out. It was a great north circle route by the first base dugout. And Gruber chirped him and everything. So now they knocked him out five games, I think.

So it's the first game back, and it's an off day before. So before the game, so everybody's right, and there's going to be fireworks tonight, right? So La Russa says, oh, it's all the creation of the Toronto media, or the media. I don't know if he said Toronto. So anyway, second inning, Stahlmeier hits somebody, and all hell breaks loose, right?

So Bear writes one of the best leads ever. He says, well, according to Tony La Russa, everything was going fine until the second inning when an Oakland writer hit a Toronto writer over the head with his laptop and another guy a Toronto guy slapped another Oakland writer with his with his uh with his notepad and then somebody jabbed an Oakland writer in the in the thigh with his pen and uh but actually here's what happened you know that, that's great. I get it. Um,

I see here. I almost, almost got you guys at two hours here. So I won't be another two hours. I won't wrap up here, but Steve Cole wrote in, could you please ask these gents, uh,

what their thoughts are on the trend in major league baseball to pull starters, regardless of how they're doing in the fifth or sixth inning, then parade a bunch of relievers out hoping they all perform. It drives many of us crazy to see a starter doing great, only to have him pulled, and then to hope that four different relievers all have their best stuff. Simple common sense implies that you stick with what's working until it doesn't, but the Jays in particular seem to be short in the common sense department.

Am I wrong? What would you guys say to Steve Cole? I don't think he's wrong, but I think it's mostly 30 teams that are doing it, or 28 out of 30 maybe. He's just paying attention to one. But the thing is, like yesterday, you ask six guys to pitch or five guys to pitch. There's a better chance versus two guys pitching,

somebody's going to have a bad day. So they bring in December with a 3-1 lead. Boom, Grand Slam. And we're off the bus. It's not so much. I don't know what's happened with all the advancements that guys now consider six innings as some sort of an achievement. But that's the way the game is,

and I think it's probably because they use their full arsenal from the first inning on, right? Whereas before they used to use certain pitches. There used to be more pitching. I think now there's more, not all of them, but I mean there's a lot more guys who are all out max guys and I guess Ray was Robbie Ray was probably the perfect

example of that but I can go back to I'm old enough to remember 1980 when Rick Langford drew 22 consecutive complete games and 28 for the year but he told me a great story about this he was 19 and 12 he ended up 19 and 12 his ERA was 326 Yeah, yeah, right. And 28 for the year. But he told me a great story about this. For Billy Martin, yeah.

He was 19 and 12. He ended up 19 and 12. His ERA was 326, despite 28 complete games. But anyway, in his second last, his second, was supposed to be his last start of the season. He's losing. And Billy Martin comes out and says, Rick, let's take you out of the game now.

We can start you in the last game of the season, which would have been on two days rest. And Rick says, good idea, Billy, but I'm not coming out of this game. So he ended up going the complete game and taking the loss. He started on two days rest to try to get that 20th win of the season, and he went 10 innings. He started on two days rest to try to get that 20th win of the season. And he went 10 innings and took the loss. And a lot of people say that when a couple of years later, when his career kind of nosedived, that was the reason. And he said, no, it wasn't. He actually got hit in a line drive on his pitching elbow, and that started his downfall.

So different areas. Dave Steve, he pitched. We took it for granted to go a complete game. You don't even have to go that far back, because Roy Holiday pitched how many complete games, right? That's not that long ago or maybe... No. But he was a horse.

We kind of snickered at that too because the number of complete games he threw wouldn't compare to, say, Steves or somebody. I'm going to say snickered wouldn't be the right way. But even then, it was an example of what the number of complete games he threw, because that was considered exceptional, kind of proved what was going on.

I guess that's the best way to put it. Buck Martinez still says Steve was the greatest pitcher in franchise history. I agree. Yeah, I was going to ask you guys that. I agree. So all three of you agree, Dave, Steve. Okay, who's the greatest hitter in Blue Jays history? That's a good one.

You mean career or era? That's all it's tough to say, but maybe as a Blue Jay. I don't know, it's tough to... It's hard to compare Alomar's five years. Yeah. You know, with Delgado had 11, 10. But five, I think, is a good enough stretch that you can count Alomar, if you want, as the greatest.

The thing about Alomar, he could play any game. He could play the small game. He had power. Speed game. He could do anything. Defense. I'd say Olerd was in there, in the top five or whatever. He struggled that last.

Do you remember when he got the big contract and he kind of struggled and he refound himself when he went to the Mets? To the Mets, yeah. And that's when him and Cito kind of, because he wasn't hitting with authority to the opposite field, so. I think Willie Upshaw was the hitting coach. Yeah. They wanted him to pull the ball, yeah.

Because he wasn't hitting the ball hard enough the other way. And Olerud said, but for him to be a good hitter, he had to establish that he could hit the ball the other way, you know, hard. And it just wasn't working for him, right? Because I remember Sito working with Rob Ducey, the same thing. He wanted him to hit the ball the other way. He wanted him to hit it hard the other way. He wanted him to hit it hard the other way, but not just serve it up.

Because the problem when you just serve it up, they can play you, right? And it's just an easy soft fly ball. But now that I've mentioned Roberto Alomar's name, I'm curious what you three guys think about the fact that he's banned from baseball, ripped from the level of excellence, and none of us are actually were ever told what what

the hell happened we were sort of told like just trust us it's bad enough that you'd be okay with all this I'm just curious like what do you guys think as baseball journalists look at that silence well I mean what are we supposed to do you know it's it's... But you can't think of a comparable, right? Like, you can't think of another example where... Well, there's lots of comparables. They pulled the... The Bears general manager. They pulled, you know, people out of Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.

They pulled Alan Eagleson out of the Sports Hall of Fame. Yeah, but we know what Alan Eagleson... But he's still in Cooperstown. I get it. Eagleson? No, Alomar. Eagleson out of the... Yeah, but we know what Alan Eagleson... But he's still in Cooperstown. I get it. Eagleson? No. Alomar. Eagleson, yeah.

No, no. Well, I mean, at some point, there's going to be a reckoning. You can't Ryerson everybody. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like at some point, if somebody wants to dig deep enough, they're going to find terrible things about Ted Williams and things like that.

Ty Cobb, we know what happened. And people don't even want to look there. Basically, I think a friend of mine told me, basically anybody over 100 years old was a bad person. But, I mean, there's always, I mean, you can go back and dig up anything you want on anybody i i assume because you know some people we choose to do it some people we choose not to do it so to do it to somebody like him it must have been pretty serious i i assume you know because

usually if you're the better you, the easier you get let off. That's right. Well, let's just say, I mean, most. It's just like if you listen to the broadcast, it's funny when a guy's hitting 200, you never hear what a great human being he is. That guy's sitting around 290 and gets up to 30 home runs. It's like the Anthony Bass situation.

Like, you know, he's an easy guy to say goodbye to, right? Like, it's not like. Well, apparently it wasn't, because it took him 10 days, and he had to reaffirm his goofy beliefs in order to get rinsed. So, you know, they were quite willing to stand with him. But don't forget to visit the porch. They suspended Kevin Pillar for mouthing the word or something, you know? No, yeah, he used the F-slur, yeah.

So, like, there's a certain inconsistency. There is an inconsistency, of course. for mouthing the word. Yeah, he used the F slur. There's a certain inconsistency. There is an inconsistency, of course. Of the way they deal with stuff. It might have depended what weekend it is, too. What was Escobar? Oh, it was in Spanish, I think. He wrote a racial slur in Spanish.

He got suspended, right? And that was a... A homophobic slur in the Spanish. He got suspended, right? It was, and that was a. A homophobic slur, I think. Yeah, homophobic. But he was suspended. It was some kind of a joke. It was a joke. It was supposed to be a joke. Because one of his friends had had, his wife had had a baby,

but a baby girl. And they had done, and there was some kind of message about. Oh. About you wanted to have a baby boy or something like that. I forget what it was. Well, Escobar was also involved in a pretty messy suit. Yeah. We got the one from his lawyer because the star got the one from the complainant's lawyer.

Yeah, right. So the get even, Escobar's lawyer gave us. It was pretty graphic stuff, really. This doesn't extend to baseball, you know. Right. John Tory, you know, that ended up on the front page. Because John Tory was, you know, doing what he was doing. Before, so were a lot of other people.

Yeah. That didn't seem to lose their job. But what about, okay, what about Kelly Gruber? Okay, because there was the Pitch Talks event and Kelly Gruber was inebriated and he said misogyny. In some areas. Yeah.

Yes. And Ashley Docking, I think, was hosting. And there was misogyny. I would say misogyny was expressed by an inebriated Kelly Gruber. This is how I would explain it. But he, since that incident, he's been, what do you say, persona non gratis in Blue Jaysville.

When you have the 1992 reunion you mentioned earlier, yeah, we know Alomar's not going to be invited, but Gruber apparently was also not invited. There you go. I guess he's sort of erased as well at this point. I don't know.

I don't know if you have any thoughts on Kelly Gruber's current status as a member of the 1992 World Series team. I don't know just i don't know if you have any thoughts on kelly gruber's current status as a member of the 92 world series team i don't know maybe it just became like just his behavior generally maybe yeah behaving poorly just forget about there just say being in the press box or something like that and saying things and stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, maybe it just got to be a pain. He did have the tag on the triple play, which wasn't a triple play. Right.

I remember his teammates used to call him Foggy. Yep. And he thought it was because he hit the inside the park homer into the fog at exhibition stadium. The fog, yeah. And his teammates said, no said no no that's not it so we're in milwaukee and he's playing catch and i'm talking to him like i don't think he could do that this so it was a tuesday and i said uh how's it going kiddo or something and he said oh sunday

was rough because that was that was 92 and he would like play and then he said, oh, Sunday was rough because that was 92, and he would, like, play, and then he wouldn't play, and he'd come out of games and everything. I said, what do you mean it was rough? He said, well, Sunday morning I had to go upstairs to Beeston's office, and Cedar was there, and Gillick was there, and Ash was there, and they gave me three options. I said, what were the options? He said, well, I could go to Syracuse, play every day, or I could go on the DL, could go to syracuse play every day or i could go on the dl

or i could stay here and play every day i said so what are you doing he says i'm i'm gonna stay here and i'm gonna play every day i said oh he says well they told me that we're a better team with me playing over i think lawless was here wasn't it he wasn't even the guy who played he would have been 89 oh man sprague yeah maybe sprague yeah so anyways uh now we go to texas and he comes up to me and he's did you write some story about me having a meeting with beaston and gillick and cito and everybody on a Sunday. I said, yeah. He said, where did you get that?

I said, you told me. Oh, yeah, I did. Foggy. Foggy. All right, I promised Brian Gerstein that before I said goodbye to you guys, I would get each maybe one because I know we're at the two-hour mark. I could actually do another two hours, but I'd be cruel and unusual punishment for you guys.

But Brian Gerstein needs... Do you have your favorite Montreal Expos moment, perhaps? He's got serious Expos nostalgia, and he's sad that they'll probably likely never return. But give me maybe your best, your favorite memory of the Montreal Expos. I think mine was second game of a doubleheader against the Giants. Frank Robinson's managing the Giants.

And Montreal's winning 2-0. And Charlie Lee pitches a no-hitter. He walked seven guys. And he was, I think he had first and second, went out in the eighth, and he's standing behind the mound on the turf, and he's bouncing the ball, and Frank Robinson comes out to the umpire, and he says, he's scuffing, he's scuffing the balls, like just upset Charlie Lee, and it was Mother's Day,

and I was like Joe Blow, know the suburban guy and anyways I hung around hung around I got his mom's phone number in Memphis and she had a great line she said well my daughter gave me chocolates and my my other son gave me flowers but the best Mother's Day gift of all was from Charles and so anyways Bob Dunn it was an off day Bob Dunn had a show and he'd read the paper or something and the next thing I walk in next time I walk in everybody but the

center field cameraman said hello to me how you doing that was a good story you know so that kind of stands out for me what about you, Larry? I was thinking of a few things. I think the thing I, my fondest memory of the Expos is the first year and playing the St. Louis Cardinals in their final homestand of the season

and just the atmosphere of that place, You think of all the people in Canada and had been waiting for so long for Major League Baseball. In Toronto, we had just lost to Maple Leafs two years earlier. And I think, just as not a particular anecdote, but just that atmosphere that weekend, for me it was just so much fun. And just the way the crowd interreacted, you know, like that was the fun of it for me.

There were some other things like Chris Byers hitting for the cycle. There was spring training talking to Andre Dawson and Tim Raines and talking about maybe Tim Raines playing center field and stuff like that. And they gave me quotes for like two or three days' worth of stories. It was great. So I guess I look at it from that standpoint. I enjoyed somehow talking to Bill Verdon, even though he was like kind of a serious kind of guy.

But I always look at people like that as a challenge. Now, he was kind of fun. And Jim Fanning was just a wonderful guy. Just a great guy. And talking to Jim Fanning about the days when he was with the Braves, you know, and he was kind of left to, when they left town, didn't they kind of leave him as the guy to take all the brunt of it? He had to stay behind in Milwaukee.

In Milwaukee. Yeah, and he took all the brunt for, you know, so stuff like that. But I think that first season and the last homestand, the last weekend. And what about you, Perk? Well, I didn't do too much with the Expos, but I go down once or twice a season

for whatever reason if somebody came in. But I do remember the last time I went there was I was sports editor of the Star. I'd come off the baseball beat, and I went down there to hire Rich Griffin to replace me. Wow. Yeah.

Right. Rich was the PR guy. And, uh, of course I knew him a little bit from, you know, years. And I said,

uh, I'm coming down. I want to talk to you. Yeah. Okay. I didn't tell him about what I said, we've got to go out for lunch or something. He said,

what are you talking about? I said, no, I just trust me. So we went out for lunch and out for lunch and and then he was kind of dumbfounded he didn't kind of see it coming and he had something to think about and i hung around for a day or two and tried to you know sell him and the idea and everything and then i went home because I'd had to get clearance from the high sheriffs to even start the process, you know what I mean, even make a pitch. And then it was to see how cheap I could get them.

I think his final straw at the Expos, he said, when we had to write the press release for Bruchot, saying our fans are looking forward to replacement players. And that's it. He said he felt that was like the last straw. All right, gentlemen, this has been amazing.

I've loved this. This is a really quick one. Len wanted to know who do you guys deem as the current, like the living face of the Toronto Blue Jays organization? He says the Blue Jays are going to be 50 years old soon. Who is the living face of the organization? Maybe it's you guys. No.

Could it... Beeson or Gillick would have to be up there. Yeah. It doesn't have to be a player, right? I saw Beeson at that buffery retirement. Yeah, I stiffed Beeson on the Belmont. I gave him a forte. He didn't get there in time.

He asked me, the Triple Crown races, we have a joke going on. I give him a tip. Who would it be, a living player? Was it Delgado? It's got to be one of those names up there. Is it Batista? It'll probably make a big stink when Batista comes back in a couple of weeks.

Yeah, that'll be big. With the ring thing. Yeah, the level of excellence. Or anything. Yeah. The level of excellence. The Delgado maybe just because of a lot of things he did. You know, Freddie maybe not there long enough. No, but Freddie will rekindle all this.

Right. Cooperstown weekend. Right. I would say. Some of it. I wouldn't call him the living face of it. Maybe Roy Halladay but he's not living

oh sorry here's my last question here we're going to do final thoughts here but my last question is who do you guys think was the best closer in Blue Jays history I don't know. This guy they got now, he's close.

Being as dominant as Hankey was. Really? I think. Okay. Off last year. I would take Hankey because, you know, at least he did it longer. But he wasn't a 1-2-3 guy like Ward was. I would say Ward only because he had more, I would think,

two-inning shots than Hankey. Yeah, but don't forget when Hankey first came up, he would go more than one inning lots of times. They changed that around. I remember that. He'd come in in the seventh and it would be over. The guy they got now is good, but he's strictly a one-inning shot. Yeah.

Well, a few times, but they overextended me. But those other guys, they never thought anything of going two if you had to. But do you remember Firestone? What are you saying? I remember lots of Michael. Yeah, so Michael, they're in Baltimore, and they bring in Anki, and there's all these fans behind him cheering, and it's first and second, nobody out in the ninth.

And he says, you're a Baltimore fan? He says, yeah. He says, well, here's what I'm going to tell you. This is going to be as exciting as heck for you, but you're going to lose. And that's what happened. I think they had a two-run lead and he gave up one. Am I pressing my luck here before I

play the extra music? This is actually, I'm just wondering if you would... If Dave Perkins would share the Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield story... It's too long. You want to save it? Always leave them wanting

more, I think is the secret to your success. Go ahead. How about Bob? I want to congratulate Bob for being elected into the Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame for referees. Yes. That was

a fantastic feat It's that side out call that gave me the The win outside of the Baltimore Sports Bar It was an incredible call Believe it or not, alcohol was involved And there was no ball But you beat

Phantom Beach Volleyball The Bear The Bear started an instant campaign For video replay of Beach Volleyball. The Bears started an instant campaign for video replay of Beach Volleyball. The Bears were disappointed, but you dove more. I dove, and my arm, as you see, was on the line. It was a great side out. This is Alan Ryan, whom we started with about four hours ago. What hotel were we staying at?

It was a fancy hotel. It was in Ohio, wasn't it? Stouffer's or something? We walk in and they got sand coming out of their... I'm emptying my pockets. And Bear says, so what do we do, just take any room? Thank you.

I'm sorry to talk over you there. Holy smokes. Thank you so much, Larry. That was amazing. Bob Elliott, another great appearance and Dave Perkins thank you very much we're going to have you guys back at some point I still got so many questions

so you're going to have to come back but I really appreciate you guys coming in together this was like a dream come true so thank you very much thank you Michael congratulations on a thousand shows congratulations did you ever officiate a George Santos game Thank you, Michael. Congratulations on 1,000 shows. Did you ever officiate a George Santos game? And that brings us to the end of our 1,271st show.

You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Moneris is at Moneris. Recycle My Electronics are at EPRA underscore Canada. Go to recyclemyelectronics.ca. The Moment Lab are at The Moment Lab.

And Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. I'm live tomorrow at the Myseum with Retro Ontario that's Ed Conroy and PJ Fresh Phil I'll see you then I'm out.