Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Doug Smith: Toronto Mike'd #999

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

In this episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with the Toronto Star's Doug Smith about his career in sports media, being there for Joe Carter's HR, covering the Raptors from day one through the 2019 championship (and beyond!) and more. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Patrons like you.

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Joining me this week, from the Toronto Star, Doug Smith. Doug, thanks for doing this, buddy. My pleasure, absolutely. There's been a few false starts. I was thinking of our history together. This is at least the third time this Doug Smith episode of Toronto Mic'd has been in my calendar.

I know. I can't remember exactly why they all fell apart in the past, but that's in the past. That's in the past. The past is the past. And I think those first two were actually pre-pandemic, believe it or not, because I was looking at... I was going to come to your place. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So thanks for... Yeah, we finally made this happen. So you know your episode 999. I saw that on the Twitter machine. That's pretty cool. I thought maybe you held out for the triple nine, which would have been wise. In fact, on that note, somebody did say such a thing.

Let me see. I want to give him credit. Steven Tustin wanted me to know that Smitty is wise. Well, I don't know about that, but I think Steven Tustin was the first boss that ever hired me as a stringer to cover high school basketball with the Niagara Falls Review. Really?

And then he was the sports editor of the Toronto Star when he hired me from Canadian Press in 1996 or 7. Okay, so that's amazing because to me it's just a name on Twitter. I didn't actually dig into who Stephen Tustin is, but that's actually a good starting point.

Okay, so we'll pick it up again with Stephen Tustin, but first, since I'm going to praise you off the top, and then I'm going to, you know, get you hard. Steve Buffery. Beezer wants me to know, he says you're one of the very best in every way. Beezer's a great guy, man.

Good Etobicoke lad, but yeah, we hung out for a long time. I worked with him at the Sun in 88 to 90, I guess, 91. Traveled with him extensively on the Raptors beat. We did a lot of Olympics together. Peter's one of a kind, man. He's a very genuinely good man and a lot of fun to travel with. We're going to have a couple of cocktails

and tell a lot of good stories. Yeah, he's the honorary mayor of Etobicoke, but I'm sure he's doing good. As well he should be. Fantastic. Just a couple more quick notes here off the top one is by uh Gene Valaitis from Jesse and Gene and Gene wants me to ask you what it's like having such an unusual name and I'll just piggyback on that to say that you have an absolutely and you know this but you have a terrible name for SEO.

Yes, I do. But I'm quite fine with that. Sometimes the anonymity is good. There are probably 20 Doug Smiths that sort of have Wikipedia pages just all over the place. But one that was interesting to me is there was a Canadian radio sportscaster named Doug Smith who covered the Montreal Maroons. Yeah. Then the Habs. And then,

uh, the Montreal Alouettes and the CFL. This is all in like the thirties and forties, but you're not that Doug Smith. No, I know, I know the name, but we're not related at all.

There was a, there was actually, it wasn't Doug Smith. He was a, an original rapper who was taken in the expansion draft out of Missouri from the Dallas Mavericks by Isaiah and Glenn Romo in the original 95 expansion draft. Did he play in that first game or no?

No, I don't think he ever came to camp. I mean, he got way before the camp even began. But he was on the original list of, what, 30, 15 guys it took? Yeah. He was one of them, Doug Smith, yep. Okay, so you're hiding in plain sight with a name like Doug Smith. I guess it could be worse. You could be a Mike Smith.

Exactly, or a John Doe or John Jones or something like that. I'm fine with it. Okay, and one more housekeeping item that's important to me is to find out how you feel in these days because I know there was a heart issue at some point over the last few years. Yeah, there was a couple, a rather serious one called an aortic dissection in 2018.

But the good folks at Toronto General put me through 13 hours of open heart surgery, kept me alive. And then I go see my cardiologist, Dr. Rubain, quite frequently, and he keeps sending me home instead of the hospital, so I'm good. That's scary, man. It was pretty frightful. I fell down at the arena at the Scotiabank Center.

Is that one of those situations where the newspapers start writing the obituary just in case? I'm pretty sure one was being prepped in the weeks or the days before I had my surgery. It was after a game. I just sort of collapsed in the hallway going to interview Dwayne Casey after a regular season game. Wow. Well, I'm glad that you're being sent home and not

to the hospital. And, I mean, we should let people know, right now you're actually in Minnesota, right? Because you're on the... Minneapolis. I was in New Orleans, now I'm in Minneapolis, Minnesota, right? Because you're on the... Minneapolis. Was in New Orleans, now in Minneapolis. Going to Cleveland tomorrow. It's like the garden tour.

It's like the delightful tour of North America. Well, good for you, man. Bouncing off the mat there and continuing to kick ass here. All right. So, now that we find out your ticker's okay. Oh, by the way, Brian Gerstein, who's a FOTM, he remembers meeting you outside the ACC and he points out you were having a smoke

and he wonders if for health reasons you've quit that nasty habit. Nobody likes a quitter. I did for a long time, but I'm back at it. Not as much as I used to, but it's one of those pleasure, guilty pleasures, bad things. I know it's bad for me.

I know it shouldn't, but I do. Well, I hope, have you told your cardiologist about that or is that? Actually, I have, but so he gets mad. My family doctor, she gets mad, but meh. He shakes his finger at you and says, that's a bad idea, Dougie. Yeah, but then I don't have a cigarette in his parking lot on my way home from his office. So let's revisit that comment from Stephen Tustin there. A smitty is wise.

So the Canadian press, like I have a few questions for the Canadian press portion, but basically give me like a little background before you end up at the Canadian press. It sounds like Stephen might play a role in this, but like basically when do you decide you want to be in sports media and how do you get your foot in the door well actually with me it was between uh it was at the end of grade 13 way back in the year way back in the day when they had a grade 13 i grew up in

niagara falls i was not the best high school student ever but i was looking for something to do and around august there was an ad in the paper for niagara college for arc welding or journalism and i didn't feel like i could be an arc welder without lighting things on fire so i figured i'd go take journalism and the biggest draw was that the program had a hundred percent placement if you went and you got through two years they got you a job wow and i did uh austin gilbert and barbara blue ran the program at at Niagara College in Welland back then and then I got a job at the Tilsonburg News to start my career off

that's a Stompin' Tom song right yep it is My Back Still Aches worked there for a long time there, Woodstock, Orangerville Grand Falls, Newfoundland St. John's, Newfoundland and then got Wayne Parrish actually hired me at the Toronto Sun in 88.

Okay. Worked there, worked at the Ottawa Sun when it first started in 88, 98, 88, 99, 89. Came back, worked at the Toronto Sun for a bit, then went to Canadian Press. And then the rest, you know, six years there and the rest of the Canadian history. Hey, if any of those like dings are are breaking Raptors news, will you break it on this program? Absolutely. They're mostly my boss saying, what time are you filing later on? Tell your boss

this is a very important publicity moment for you. I think, and if I say this and it doesn't happen, I'll sound really, really dumb here, but I believe I'm in the Toronto Star tomorrow. All right, cool.

Which is a rare thing. You're used to that, Doug. I'm sorry. So to commemorate episode 1000, and I only have this clue I'll be in it tomorrow because they sent a photographer over to take pictures. So unless they were just doing that for, you know, shits and giggles, I think. I think they were doing that because the photographer's got to do something. That's right. That's right. Well,'s right. Just before he came to my place, a fire truck was stolen by a woman and then drove through the door of the fire station.

I remember reading that. Yeah, I remember reading that in paper. It was cool. He was there taking photos, and the next stop is the TMDS studio here. All right. So tell me this. John Wing Jr.,

who's an FOTM like yourself now, Doug, he says, tell that guy he owes me 30 bucks from Grey Cup 42. Which one was 42? That I don't know. That I don't know. John Wing, I remember the name,

but I can't remember why I owe him 30 bucks. He's a stand-up comic. He was big on the yuck-yuck circuit. He probably him 30 bucks. He's a stand-up comic. He was big on the Yuck Yuck circuit. He probably worked with my brother, who was a stand-up comic forever. Okay. On the Yuck Yuck circuit. What's your brother's name? Paul Smith.

He's now dead. Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe eight or nine years ago. But yeah, Paul was a stand-up comic. He worked at Yuck Yuck for 25 years. Okay, that's absolutely the connection you have to John Wing then because, yeah, he was all over that circuit. We're talking about the Mike McDonald era

and even when Norm MacDonald's coming up. Norm MacDonald used to play golf with my brother, again, Tony, a long, long years and years ago. Wow. Brent Butt was a buddy, was a pal back then. There were all kinds of guys in that era. Okay. End of comedy. that's awesome.

I had no idea. And again, sorry about your brother, but the Mark Breslin's an FOTM. So if you want to hear some Yuck Yuck's history, it's all in the archives there. Okay. Now, Gare Joyce, we need to spend a moment here. He's another good FOTM.

But his question, I feel like it's setting you up for something, so I'll just read it the way he wrote it. But he wrote, Who did he have the most fun rewriting at Canadian Press? That'd be the one and only Alan Adams. Okay. Hockey writer extraordinaire. During one of the lockouts or strikes or whatever it was,

the latest season back in, well, the early 90s, maybe 93, 94. Al Adams was the guy, was the Canadian press reporter. He got all the stuff because the league and the union both knew if they gave it to him, they wouldn't have to give it to everybody in the country. But, you know, Canadian press was the clearinghouse for reporting. Al was a very good reporter, but certainly not the cleanest of writers. And I was on the desk and he used to call us with, this is happening, get something out. And we would write it under his

name a lot, a lot of times. There were a couple of, I remember one day he was, he called me and said, we have this, mail it, type it, get it ready to go. I said, who do we, do we have it from a good source? He goes, well, call this number and read it to him. So I called the number. Hello? Hey, it's Doug Smith from Canadian Press. We're going to go with this. And the guy goes, yeah, go ahead. Hung up. I go, ah, who'd I call?

He goes, that was Bob Goodenow. So yeah, that was the Desmond's, I don't want to say nightmare, but that's who Gere's talking about, I'm sure. Oh, that's funny. And what's your relationship like with Gare himself? I don't know him that well. We hung around a little bit, but back in the day, like a

lot of years ago, because he was a hockey guy and I went the other way. Right, and he's aspiring, even though he's a great sports writer, he's aspiring to be like John Wing Jr. I think he's been trying to be a stand-up for several years now.

David Schultz. What's going on? All these old guys want to be stand-up comics. This is all connected to me. You know that, Doug. At a TMLX event, these Toronto Mike Listener experiences on the patio of Great Lakes Brewery, both David Schultz and Gare Joyce

did perform stand-up. Oh, man. That would have been an epic Canadian journalism night. You should have been there. I should have been. That would be classic. Kevin McGran was there. McGran's everywhere.

He takes a life at the party. So what years? We're talking early 90s, right? You're at Canadian Press? Yeah, 91 through 96, I guess. My first beat at Canadian Press was Rocket Ismael's Argo year. Oh, man. And then I backed up Steve McAllister on a Blue Jays beat in the World Series years in 1993.

94, the basketball kind of started. I did baseball quite a bit. I guess 94 would have been the scab spring training. So we got 95. The 94 season never happened. That's for sure. No World Series in 94. Then it would have been 95 spring training

when they tried to bring in replacement players. That was my last swan song in baseball. And then you've been with the Raptors essentially since day one. Yeah, I covered them first year and a half at Canadian Press in the run-up to them, and then the second regular season I moved over to the Star. Okay, so before we get to the Raptors chat,

I put on my Kawhi Leonard t-shirt just because I'm talking to Doug Smith here. Tell me about what it's like covering that World Series. Just anything you remember from... That's a big, big moment in Toronto sports history. The first one I sort of caught it, I sort of helped Steve in the regular season, caught the last two games in Atlanta. And, you know, you were so tied up,

and you really didn't get the sense of the moment. The 93 one was absolutely, well, obviously memorable for the Carter home run. But I remember sitting with Steve McAllister and two Associated Press writers, Ron Blum and, ooh, I can't think of the other, Ben Walker, and we had the front row seats because we were the wire services. Right. And we had a pool on what Carter would do in that at-bat.

Okay. And one guy picked a foul fly to left. I had pop up to right. McAllister, I think, had a ground out to third. And the other guy, I think, had a ground out to third. And the other guy, I think, had a foul fly ball to right field. Okay. And when he hit, when the ball went over the fence, we all looked at each other and went,

oh, shit. Now we've got to work. But no one won the pool. Do you remember who was on deck? Ooh. No, I don't. I can't. I believe it was Alfredo Griffin. Could very well have been. Yeah, he came back the end of that year.

And, yeah, the funny thing was, it was such a hugely dramatic, the pressure of the moment for a writer from a lawyer service was intense and incredible. Right. And, you know, so we get the stuff filed and the desk is off and it's brighted and we're running downstairs.

It was a Saturday night and we're running downstairs to the clubhouse. And I think somebody from USA Today came by us and went, that was one of the greatest moments in the history of sports. And we all went, fuck off, we're on deadline. He had no paper on Sunday. He had nothing to do but relish in the drama of it. And we're like shaking. We were so crazed.

Get the right quotes. Get the right guy. Get the stuff on the wire. Because at midnight on saturday back in 93 there were no papers alive you were absolutely on a minute to minute deadline across the country you know you you know witnessing that moment to then uh later witnessing kawaii leonard's uh shot in that game seven interesting i mean one ended the championship so there was really tough to compare them because, you know, that's a rather significant detail. But still, two of the iconic moments

in Toronto sports history, at least since Colour TV arrived. Yeah, well, since TV arrived, pretty much, of any kind. But yeah, I don't think there were too many of us in the building for both of them. And that was pretty impressive. But the Carter one was, you know, like you said building for both of them. And that was pretty impressive. The Carter one was, like you said, a one-on-championship.

It was a huge moment. But I still think they win that series anyway. I don't know if they win the series anyway if Kawhi's shot doesn't win. I'm not sure they win in overtime, let alone go on to win the finals. What a moment. I'm saving the Raptor chat for just a little bit later here but uh uh let me ask Paul Hunter so Paul Hunter you know him and Mary Ormsby were in my backyard a couple of summers ago and it was amazing if people want to check that out but his question for you is ask him if he remembers an anxious back roads cab ride on the last Saturday of the

Atlanta Olympics oh I both certainly do this is one of the last Saturday of the Atlanta Olympics. Oh, I both certainly do. This is one of the epic stories of all time. Okay. Me, Hunter, and Dave Perkins. I was with Canadian Press, Perkins and Hunter with the star. We walk out of the stadium. It's after Bailey's relay win on this last

Saturday night. The city of Atlanta by that time had actually quit on the Olympics. There were no bus drivers. They didn't care. There were no cab drivers. They wanted us to get the hell out of town as fast as we wanted to get out. So we figured there's no way the buses are running. So we find a cab, the three of us. We get in. I mean, me and Perker in the back and Hunter's in the passenger seat in the front. And a cab driver, he may or may not be stoned, we think, but as it turns out, he was hiring a kite. So now he says, I got a back way to your, we're going to a place called Manuel's Tavern,

which is a good drinking hole in Atlanta. I got a back way, we'll be fine. The guy starts driving down this road that runs parallel to that. We think we should be on the guy starts driving down this road that runs parallel to that we think we should be on the highway he's on a road that runs parallel to it right and it's getting a little bit dicey as we go and about 10 minutes in the drive there's three guys on this corner four guys on that corner a couple guys on the other corner and it's not there's not a lot of traffic let's put it that way the guy says we need to get some gas. Oh, fuck, all right, sure, no problem. Pulls in a gas station, and there's a guy standing next to the pumps.

Okay, cool, the guy's going to pump us some gas, no problem. The cab driver gets out, he goes, we need to get some gas. The guy opens his coat, and we see a gun. The guy says, I'm not selling you no motherfucking gas. We're like, me and Perker in the back going, we've got a 911 on our phone ready to hit send because we figure we're dead. Cab driver gets back in and goes, I think we'll make it.

He said, dude, take us to our rooms. We're not going to any bar. We're scared to death. He drops us at Clark Atlanta University where we're staying and the three of us walk out and Beezer comes up and sees us. He goes, Smitty, looks like you saw a ghost. What happened? I go, dude, this is the biggest, best cab ride story ever.

And Hunter and I and Perkins are just shaken. But we made it through safe, but it was the most terrifying cab ride I've ever been in my life. Oh my God. And what a story. And just to blow your mind and what a small world we live in Tuesday morning do you want to guess what gentleman was sitting in this chair I'm pointing to right now I don't know

it could have been the great Perk no he's been here a couple of times oh man there's an episode of Dave Perkins and Bob Elliot where they just tell me old Blue Jay stories that just blew my mind just one of my favorite of all time. No, it was actually Donovan Bailey was sitting here on Tuesday. Oh, okay.

Cool. One of the greatest Canadian sportsmen ever. Not only ever gets his due for what he was and what he did. Okay, on that note, because he's coming up very soon. He'll be on Toronto, Mike, that I'm going to drill into this. But he really does seem to be underappreciated. He doesn't seem to be getting his due. No, and I don't know why.

Maybe it's, could it be Ben Johnson hangover? And the track was at such a low point when he sort of resurrected it in 90? I don't know, 96? Remember, Bruni Surin just got the Order of Canada. Yeah, I know Steve Simmons is big on this, that Donovan's not on the order in the order of Canada, which is absolutely ridiculous to me because of all the great sports people

of our lifetimes, he's got to be in the top seven or eight. Don't he? I think, well, he's the, let's face it. The only,

I believe he's the only Canadian to win gold medal in the 100 meters. And you mentioned Ben. So my perspective on this is that we're exactly eight years removed from Seoul, Korea when Ben has his gold medal removed for taking steroids. And I feel Donovan was like, he's sort of like,

we needed him more than ever eight years later. Like he basically kind of resurrects our faith in all of this. Like, I feel like that makes what he accomplished like more vital and important. Yeah. So I'm still not sure why the general public seems to, the general sports history public doesn't seem to give him nearly enough credit for what he did for canada and what he did as a canadian in you know everybody in the world sprints i know we

got great hockey players but nine countries play hockey right we got a lot of great basketball players this played around the world but everybody runs everybody does track and field right right and you know even yeah even in this country there's so many people who don't participate in ice hockey because of the the costs up front etc like that's not a you know it's a high high barrier of entry as they say but everybody runs yeah and everybody in the world wants to be and it's such a gun goes first guy at the end wins there's no subjectivity there's no judging there's no nothing gun goes be first guy at the end wins. There's no subjectivity. There's no judging. There's no nothing. Gun goes, be first, you win.

Man, he delivers a gold medal world record and, you know, did it clean, which, you know, is very important here. So I might pull that clip actually for Donovan when he comes on just to set the stage for the convo. But we got to drill into why is he not getting his due? I think it's really good basketball player too. Yeah. Well,

he plays every Monday night. He's in some men's league and, uh, yeah. He used to play. I don't know if he still does. An old buddy of mine. Yeah.

Yeah. He still plays in some league for sure. I get all the, I get, I got to know how I get told every Tuesday morning, how many, how many points he, uh,

he dropped on the Monday. Now, so since you were scheduled before the pandemic, I actually, in fact, one of the times you were going to visit me, it was a last minute cancellation because of good reasons, like personal reasons. So it wasn't like you were, you know, messing with my schedule or anything like that. So I actually had collected questions from people before the pandemic and after. So there's a bit of a mishmash here. And this is like the first time. I think these will be the oldest questions I've ever asked a guest. But Mark, well, here, so many places here.

Let me start with Steve Popper. And Steve Popper wants me to ask you, did you cover the first Knicks-Toronto Huskies game in 1947? He's asking for Fred Kerber. Those are two epic friends of mine from the New York media who have been around covering basketball for as long as I have. Popper and Kerber used to carry Mark Berman's bag. Let's just put it that way.

I'm sure they'll tell you that. But they're a good guy. Popper's a great guy. Still on a beat, too. Okay, good. Berman or Kerber has actually been smart enough to retire to like Rhode Island and become a gentleman farmer.

Okay. Okay, whatever gets you through the day. That's cool. Now, this one, it is pre-pandemic. I'll just add that little caveat to it because maybe you can't do this now. But Jason Hayes wrote, why has the Highway 10 QEW Starbucks gotten busier?

Where is a quiet one we can work out of? We used to stop there all the time, driving in every day. That was my go-to Starbucks stop. Now it's not on the route because the parking lot's too crazy. There's all kinds of different stuff in there. But now I drink coffee at home, sadly,

because you can't go anywhere in this day and age. Right. See, even these questions seem to date us to a previous era, like the before times. Yeah. But that was my Starbucks forever. It was a very cool place. Okay, cool.

Cool. So before I get to the Raptor stuff, how do you end up at the star? Just tell us how you make the move to the Toronto Star. The first guy who covered the beat for the first year is a guy named Michael Clarkson, who they brought in from Calgary. He was a former NNA winner,

but he's a very deliberative writer. And I'm not sure he appreciated or liked covering a team every day. And Chris Young, who was a columnist at the time was a friend of mine just from being around basketball and being around the business for a lot of years called me and said hey Mike's leaving do you want me to put your name in to cover the beat I said you know let's go where do I sign up and Steve Tufts and then Phil Bingley at that time the managing editor brought me in and basically said you want the job at yours because you have experience you've been around the game you know the people you're settled you can you can handle the day-to-day beat writing because

you have to do a lot of that at Canadian Press right and it that's that's that's basically how it was like Chris called hey you want you want to talk to him about the job talk to him for an hour have the job and at the and it's still true, it's just a little bit of a shrinking pie, Mr. Smith, but the Toronto Star has the highest circulation of any newspaper in this country. Yes, and that was, it's where you wanted to go. If you're a sports writer,

a lot of guys want to go there to write hockey, but I had no interest in that whatsoever. Basketball was kind of the cool thing. It's what I knew, the people I knew, the game I knew. I'd been around it. But yeah, it's still a great newspaper. You're right, Shrinking Pie is absolutely, the numbers aren't nearly, back in the day,

we got to 700,000 readers on Saturdays, but those days have gone across the world, let alone in Toronto. Absolutely. Now I'm going to play a little clip just to warm us up on the Raptor talk here. This is potato quality audio, but we're going back to 1995

with this one. Here we go. ...side for Tabak. Alvin Robertson for three. There is the first ever basket scored by a Toronto Raptor. A three-pointer. So there's Rod Black calling Alvin Robertson's three-pointer. First points against the Nets on that day one.

And just what can you share with us? I love thinking about that first season with, you know, Jean Tabak and these, youak and the first year Raptors? It was a very bizarre year, a fun year. They knew what they were and they were old enough and veteran enough guys

to understand the team wasn't very good but they were fun to be around. Damon Stoudemire played hard all the time. Brendan Malone was a great coach to talk to and sort of learn the game from. And they were an interesting bunch of guys. Like John Sally was a very funny, odd kind of guy. I remember he had a – there was a New Year's Eve party at Ontario Place

under his name. And that was – come to John Sally's New Year's Eve party. Well, it turns out that a car ended up in the lake. The coat check girl left early, so people were walking out with arm loads full of coats. There might or might not have been some gunplay. I remember us going to Sally, like, December, on, like, January 5th, going,

Sal, what? He goes, I wasn't there. Someone said they gave me $50,000 for my name, so they used my name. That was pretty cool. And then later on that year, I was on a road trip. I was actually rooting for Canadian Press, so I was out covering the Raptors in San Francisco

because I was doing a Steve Nash piece at Santa Clara. And I was with Bill Harris from The Sun. We're at the San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf. We're at Marriott, where the team stayed. That's how long ago it was. The team stayed at a regular Joe Marriott. And about 11 o'clock one night, we're in the lobby bar, and there's John Sally at the front desk with his bags.

We look at each other and go, hmm, that's probably a story. What's going on? So we walk up. We go, John, what's up? He goes, I got waves. I'm getting out of here. I'm going to the airport. I go, what?

He goes, yeah, I got a bite out there. They're getting rid of me. I said, well, John, give us a quote. What do you got to say to the people of Toronto? I love you people. And then he got in a cab and we never saw him again. There he goes, Spider. Wow.

Maybe as we talk about some of these older Raptors before we get to the 2019 season. I'm talking about 2019 like that's the most current season, but we're chatting in 2022 here. But Kirk Van Houten wants to know who is the funniest Raptor

that you ever met? The subtlest, Garbo was hilarious. Jorge Garbo was absolutely subtle and totally just a funny guy. Not a loud joking guy but subtle jabby humor. You walk in, he got named the NBA's

Rookie of the Month one year for his first year, I think in January. And the same day he had been named Mr. Basketball for Europe or something like that. And I was like, 29, 30 years old, Garbo, when he got here. I remember getting him, when he was walking out of the studio,

I go, Garbo, Rookie of the Month, that's pretty good. was walking out of the shootout. I'd go, Garbo, rookie of the month. That's pretty good. He'd look at me and go, if I am a rookie of the month, this league is fucked. I'd go, okay, that's pretty good. And Jim LaBombard, the old PR guy, you know, he dressed pretty well. And Garbo would walk up to him and go, if you wear that tie in my city, you get killed. He just had that kind of way of like subtle aside jokes that were pretty

they were they were pretty cool he would be right there in my funniest raptors list well my mind's kind of blowing that you picked him because the very next question i was going to ask you is from a gentleman named drew mcintyre and he wrote doug is the best can you ask him about jorge garba garba jay science great man he just liked to dance and he i remember sam mitchell was coaching at the Can you ask him about Jorge Garbausa? Garbausa, he looks great, man. He just liked to dance. I remember Sam Mitchell was coaching at the time, and I would say, how's Garbo doing? Garbo, he'd walk up and he'd go,

well, he smokes as much as you do, and he drinks a lot of wine, but we love having him around. And I saw Garbo at, I guess, the London Olympics. Spain played the United States in the gold medal game. And Garbo at that time was the president, I believe of the Spanish Federation at that point. And we watched the second half from the smoking lounge because he couldn't stop smoking while Spain played the U.S. in a gold medal game in the Olympics.

Oh, that's funny. He was a good guy. That's funny. Yerouge says, and this is his words. I bet he enjoyed covering the team more when they were bad relative to, That's funny. Yerouge says, and this is his words, I bet he enjoyed covering the team more when they were bad relative to,

and he probably wrote this before the championship actually, but relative to the last six years when there's been little controversy. Well, maybe you can just add on to that. What era had the best stories? The best stories were probably that Jalen Rose. Like the end of the Vince before DeMar era. Okay. Jalen,

Rafe Ralston. This is the Chris Bosh era, basically. Yeah, Chris Bosh era. Jared Jack was a good guy. Rafe Ralston was a weird guy. Jalen was a funny guy. I remember one night we were in a game and I think it was Charlotte good guy. Rafer Alston was a weird guy. Jalen was a funny guy. I remember one night we were in a game, and I think it was Charlotte or Atlanta.

I think it might have been Charlotte, when Jalen and Rafer would not pass the basketball to each other for an entire game of basketball. If they had a play, Jalen would have to pass it to Bosh, who then passed it to Rafer, or Rafer would have to pass it to Alvin Williams, who then passed it to Jalen. And Alvin was on a pass it to Alvin Williams who then passed it to Jalen. And Alvin was on a team at the time.

Alvin was like, what's that? He goes, I never fucking seen anything like that in my life. That's great. So that era was kind of weird guys and they were never going to win. So you had to seek out odd stories. That was pretty good. And do me a favor.

Anytime a story like that strikes you, just spit it into the microphone there because I got to collect these things. By the way, what do you think of Alvin Williams? Do you ever, like, I guess you go to the games, you're not watching on TV, but have you heard any of his color commentary? Yeah, I've heard a couple of road games

that I haven't been at, so I've had to watch them from at home. And I think he's really good. I think he tells a lot of pertinent live stories. He reminisces pretty well, from at home. And he, I think he's really good. I think he tells a lot of pertinent live stories. He, he, he reminisces pretty well, right. But sort of makes it,

uh, brings it to the, to this team and this sort of this team style of play. I think he's got a lot of good context to, uh, how the game is played. I really enjoy listening to him. It's funny.

Cause when he played, he wouldn't say shit. I've got a mouthful and now he can't shut them up. That's funny. That's funny. So now that, he wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful, and now he can't shut him up. That's funny. That's funny. So now that the aforementioned, because Rod Black called that first game that I played the clip from,

but Rod's, what is he? He's no longer with the firm, as they say. So he's not with TSN anymore. He's a free agent himself. So I wondered aloud, as I said, okay, Doug's on. He's been covering this team since day one who else has been covering the game the Raptors since day one the only other name that popped in

my head was that Leo Roudens has been there since day one and he's still with TSN but am I missing anybody that I think Paul Jones was around to start I'm not sure if he was at every game but he was certainly on the he was on the I don't think he was doing a lot of broadcasting, but he was around the team. Right. Like me, Jonesy and Leo are probably only three that are left now in the, in the media side of it. Right.

And like, how long, how long will you run? Like do you, do you plan to retire at some point? Like I remember when Bob Elliott was on the show and he was telling me like, he just knew it was time to hang it up. But are you, I mean, is, do you have a thought on that or are you just telling me like, he just knew it was time to hang it up. But are you, I mean, is it, do you have a thought on that or are you just going to keep,

keep on keeping up? I think they're going to take me out feet first. I don't know what, I'm not sure what I'll be doing. I don't think I'll be writing six days a week or covering a team 80 games a year, but I want to keep my hand in for as long as I want. As long as I'll have it.

And I don't know what that form will take because I don't know what the form of paper will take in however many years but i'm not going anywhere you know that that much fun that much fun still well having fun is everything and that's awesome and uh your expression feet first it's funny until you remember that you collapsed at a game you know what i've used it a couple of times since then. I thought, Christ, they almost did. Yeah, that's the thing. It's funny and then you're like, oh, that almost happened. But I can say it because it's me.

I can say it about someone else, but I can say it about me. Well, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. That's all I can say. Oh, there's another question for me actually. So I watch, I watched that first game. I actually recorded it to VHS. And,

uh, so I, I loved having a team that I could be there for day one because I was too young for the Jays on day one. And this was like my opportunity to be there day one. And I loved it. But one of the, one of the characters from the early days,

I was always kind of fascinated with was Oliver Miller. Like, what can you share with kind of fascinated with was Oliver Miller. What can you share with us about Oliver Miller? Oliver Miller was pretty much a bad guy. He was just not a good man. Pretty good basketball player. Had good hands for a big guy. Could play a little bit.

Had a very high sense of self-worth. I remember standing with his mom. The last regular season game that year on the loading dock of the skydome i think we're probably both having a cigarette and and oliver had a player option i think for the second year of the rapture and at some point i said well to his mom i said well we'll see oliver back next year right and she said no we gotta find out what my baby gonna get paid and he declined his option when i was a free agent and never made – I think he signed a three 10-day contract with the Raptors the next year and never got a job.

Oh, man. He wasn't a very wise guy, and he wasn't a very good guy. And I think he ended up doing time in jail for pistol-whipping a cousin at a Fourth of July barbecue. Also not the most physically fit player we've had. He was not svelte, no. He was a big man, as they say. Yeah, there was a little jiggle there.

Speaking of bad guys, the first points in Raptor history belong to Alvin Robertson. And I always think, if it was somebody else, let's say it was Damon Stoudemire, I feel like that would be leveraged more often by PR you know, PR, etc. But it happens to be by a guy who apparently wasn't a very nice man.

Had been arrested that morning. Had been charged, I don't think arrested, charged with assaulting a woman in the Skydome Hotel lobby. Maybe 18 hours before that tip-off. Was the first rapper arrested in Toronto. Okay, so did you write that story? Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't know whether I or Mary did at the time,

but I'm not sure what Mary Ornithy of Star. Of course. Perhaps we would have recorded it, but we followed it for years afterwards. There was a stalking issue with a girl and a former girlfriend. This was not a very close girlfriend of his in Toronto. And there were some credit card issues. It was very ugly and very contentious.

But he was charged that morning of the first game. So that might be why there's a lot of... No, that's for sure why. The Raptors... Grateful memories of the Alvin days. Right. Because he had 30 points or something that game. Yep, and they win, and he was the old grizzled veteran

who was still playing hard. Right. If only he could have been a sweetheart, like a Mr. Rogers or something. Because I noticed the Raptors distanced themselves from Robertson the way that the Jays have now distanced themselves from Roberto Alomar. It's sort of like, oh, we're not talking about that guy.

Yeah, Alomar is absolutely more intricate to the history of the Blue Jays than Alvin Robertson is to the one year he played with the Raptors. But yeah, they just, he scored the first basket, and they certainly acknowledge that, but they don't herald it or make it a triumph of good over bad or anything like that. At least they haven't retroactively changed the score sheet. Oh, actually, Damon. Yeah, I deleted it.

Yeah, exactly. It was actually Ed Pinckney. Oh, yeah, that's right. He was a starting day. I did recently re-watch the announcement. Just the first jump off, Ed Pinckney. So do you remember the starting five? Damon, Alvin, Carlos Rodgers, Ed Pinckney. So do you remember the starting five? Damon, Alvin, Carlos Rogers, Ed Pinckney, Zantabak.

That is correct. Wow. I'm getting nostalgia flashbacks here. I love it. I love it. Okay. Now, Jason writes in, was 20, and again, I believe, see, this is the first time in the history of 999 episodes. This is the first time I had notes that were this dusty because usually

I just usually if a guest bails and it's like that much that kind of a deal they just they just don't come on but here you are so he probably wrote this before the 2019 championship I think because he writes with the 2014 game 7 versus

Brooklyn the loudest Doug Smith ever heard an arena? An arena? Probably, although Utah, when they played Chicago in the finals, was absolutely crazy in Salt Lake City. But, yeah, that Game 7 against Brooklyn in 2014 was unbelievable. It was just one of the – before 19, it was a seminal moment in Raptors history. It was an one of the – before 19, it was a seminal moment in Raptors history. It was an unbelievably great game.

Funny story, we got moved down to the court side for our seats for that game because a broadcast position opened up right next to the Nets bench. So they moved three of us down there. I think it was me, Ryan Willstadt from the Sun, and somebody from the Post, I'm not sure, or the Globey. But we're down there there and we're sitting there before the game the place is it's bedlam it's going absolutely crazy and joe crawford is refereeing remember joey crawford old time referee a little bit yeah an icon iconic rep and i knew

joey pretty well and he's standing at midcourt and the players are warming up and the place is screaming and the music's playing and he gives me this come here come here and i walk out to center court and we're standing there and he goes look around dougie where the fuck else would you rather be you know that's a you know you're absolutely right it's a pretty cool thing to be at because it went as loud as i've ever heard an arena probably not as loud as game one of the finals or maybe after the kawi shot, but you can put a blanket over those three moments in Raptors history for noise level. So let's cover that 2019 season now, just in case one of those dings is breaking news

and you tell me you have to get your ass to the arena there. What's the name of the arena in Minnesota? Still the Target Center. Okay, okay. It's hard to keep track these days. I know, I know. So, okay, there's two audio clips I pulled. First, I want to talk about the shot you see on my T-shirt.

So let's listen for a minute here. You've got to be aware of the inbounder here if you're feeling. It's off to Leonard. Defended by Simmons. Is this the dagger? Oh! by Simmons. Is this the dagger? Oh!

Game! Series! Toronto has won! 15 fourth quarter points by Kawhi Leonard. And the game winner, 41 points. I could just listen to the crowd noise for the next time. Still gives me goosebumps.

Probably will till the day I die. It was unbelievable. I forgot it was Kevin Harland, though, because that's a great call. Yeah, the dagger. I got the same goosebumps, and I heard it last night, and I still got the goosebumps. And I always forgot that he had 40-plus points.

I mean, I don't know where to go with this, except anything you can remember about the shot, I kind of compare it to the bat flip. It's kind of a bat flip type moment, actually, more than a Joe Carter walk-off, maybe. But please, your words, you were there. Well, you know, it was right in front of us. Our seats are at section 117, so it was directly below us. And we all were standing up because, you know,

you couldn't see from the people standing up. And we wanted to stand up to see the moment that was going to determine maybe the season, maybe the fate of the team that year. And when it went in, I think everybody kind of looked around on press row at each other with one of these, holy fuck moments. But it was like almost – could almost it was almost silent while the ball was bouncing and then this explosion of noise and then of course for us an explosion of pressure because we got to sit down and type and we got to get something in like

right now which is kind of hard because the adrenaline's flowing and you can't really process process what you see. And I remember turning to, I think, Mike Ganter from The Sun was next to me going, was that four bounces or three? And we needed to get it right because everyone's going to write the same thing. Right. And, you know, the media that we see so much, we've been so many places,

and there's so many moments that the special ones really, really resonate. And no one in the reporting crew who was in that building will ever forget what that was like because it was it was stunning to see an experience and then try to encapsulate in 750 words or two good paragraphs to start your story the only way it could have been better and this is me being awfully picky here because i i love exactly how it happened but if we were down by a point yeah that then it could have been better and this is me being awfully picky here because i i love exactly how it happened but if we were down by a point yeah that then would have been like we were we were quite happy being tied because we're thinking okay if he misses we got five more minutes to write it's like heaven it's like it's like bonus time right but it going in was it was again i you

know i i saw carter's home run i didn't see Alomar's or Batista's bat flip. I obviously didn't see Alomar's home run in Oakland. But I saw Bailey. I've seen things. This is, I can't think of one that's been more emotional or more exciting than that shot. And then it was game six in Oakland. Right.

Well, I'm going to get to that because it was the, the ending. We didn't get that moment, but we're going to get to that because I have, you know, again, I'm very happy about how things turned out, but you sort of want that moment when we're cut, we were kind of robbed of it in game six in a golden state there,

but hold on, we'll hold that thought for a minute back to the four bouncer, Kawhi Leonard, the two point shot that won game seven of the second round against the 76ers. Because you mentioned the suspension of time. So I watched it on television. And because of the nature of that shot with the four bounce, there is a period of time. And I don't know if it was two seconds or three seconds because it felt like an eternity.

When it did feel like you're still. Everything stops. It's, it's almost in sports. You rarely have that moment where there's a complete suspension of like everything pauses. Like it took forever. It really did.

I swear when I, when I'm watching in real time, what the scenes that ended, I thought, okay, did the horn start and stop before the ball went in? And I still don't know to this day whether that happened, but it seemed to me

that it did. The shot went up, the horn went, the horn ended, and then the shot went in. Like, that's how long it took. And you're right, in sports you get the dramatic moment, the horn run. Carter hits the ball, it's going out, the place goes berserk. This one, you don't know.

You've got to watch along with him and everybody else. It was unbelievable. And I think in this city, and I speak on behalf of sports fans in this city, that we grow in a custom. Yes, of course, there's Joe Carter in 93. That was sort of the last moment of that nature. But we kind of grew accustomed to that ball bouncing out. I feel like

maybe this is the Leafs. Maybe it's the Leafs' fault. But we're all jaded in this city. Yeah, like 2019 and I mean, with all love to the Argos and I know the Argos did their thing here and there and bless the Argos. And of course

TFC, what year was that that TFC won the Mls cup uh short shortly before 17 maybe yeah so they're in a they're in three years out of four so they were sustained excellence right but it wasn't the same not so yeah so like in terms of you know people spilling into the streets because after the tfc won that mls cup i actually got on my bike and went downtown to see if there was any i was going to see bare naked ladies at Massey hall that night anyway, but I wanted to see, cause I remember what happened after the Jays won.

And then of course we know what happened. Now we know what happened after the Raptors won. And there was a small like Liberty village contingent of like diehards that spilled out, but there was nothing young street with, there was nobody on young or anything. And I realized, Oh,

this is different, but okay. I guess we could have predicted that, but back to the, uh, Kawhi Leonard for bouncer, the fact that went in and we won and that we end up winning that, you know,

winning the championship sort of then in retrospect, you can then elevate this moment because the OG buzzer beater, a couple of playoffs ago, uh, because we lost the series, I feel like that moment now gets, you know, degraded down. And, but if we win the series and that gets kind of elevated, but, uh, lost the series, I feel like that moment now gets degraded down.

But if we win the series, then that gets kind of elevated. Sure. The OG one was also in a bubble that no one was at. So that sort of takes the sense of the moment away from it, I guess, because no one give a rat's ass without putting the bubble. And it's like an accidental renaissance, these

photos of just the crowd when Kawhi goes down and just that moment and everybody's just surreal and so magical and so wonderful. Well, yeah, and it sets up, and I've said this often, never again will we see a thing like

the Raptors parade because never again will two or three million people be able to go in one place at one time. It's never going to happen again in our life because of the pandemic and the reaction to it and the way society is. That was the last sports moment, maybe on earth,

that's going to draw three million people to a celebration. Well, I'm glad I was there. I'm going to be telling my grandkids. I was on a bar stool in Mississauga and quite happy to do it. Well, I was actually, I think I was smart. I live on the, like the waterfront trail.

So I'm already really south. So I went to that part where they came out of the CNE grounds there. And it was the, basically I would say the lakeshore part. And that's where I was. And everybody was happy. It was like, it was just magic and wonderful. Then I got home to watch the rest on TV. And that's when it all got... My wife was at...

She was at Bremner in York, wherever she was. It was just a shit storm, but everything was different on Lakeshore. That's where you had to be. It was just starting and it was fun. By the seventh hour, it was just tedium. It was like, okay, let's go. I know it's a lot of fun,

but let's get this shit over with. Right, right. Now, I look back at that run in 2019, and we're going to play the final seconds from Game 6 against Golden State. But I look at Game 3 against the Bucs in the conference final there because we were down 2-0. And as you know, and here, I'll just let the listeners know, and then you'll tell us as a man who was there.

But the fact that, you know, we kind of were lucky that this went to overtime and it went to double overtime, and then you'll tell us as a man who was there. But the fact that we're lucky that this went to overtime, and it went to double overtime, and we were really lucky. And if we lose that damn game, we're down 3-0, and we're not going to the NBA championship. No, it's over. And Kyle Lowry followed up with, I think, five minutes to go in the fourth quarter. So he didn't play the last 15 minutes of the game. Pascal missed some free throws that made him play five more minutes.

Kawhi was basically not playing on one leg, but he was a banged up guy and carried him. And yeah, absolutely. If they don't win that game, they don't win this championship. And if they don't win game four in Philly, when Kawhi hit the shot with 90 seconds to go, they don't win that series. So it's all the moments that get to it, but there's still

the four bouncer in game six. Right. Okay, so game six. I'm going to play the final minute here and then we'll talk about how I feel like us Raptors fans were robbed of the moment in this game six. This is sort of like when you win a championship

on a, what was it, the woman beat the U.S. The Canadian woman just beat the woman in win a championship on a, what was it? The woman beat the US, the Canadian woman just beat the, the woman in like the world championship on a goal that they didn't see go in. So they played on. And then like during the play, the, like the, the gold judge said,

Oh, that actually reviewed it. It went in. And that, so it was like one of those. So this is almost maybe even worse than that, but let's listen. Crowd still here hoping

for a miracle. Also here to cheer on. Leonard makes it official. Now the Warriors just inbound and that's it. There's a new NBA champion and it's a team from Toronto, Canada. We the North are now we the champions. The Raptors

the 2019 NBA champs. So what happened is, and you'll tell us from your perspective, but I remember it was happening, and then they called a foul? No, Draymond Green tried to call a timeout that the Warriors didn't have. So they had to review that. Then they shot the technical foul that comes from calling the illegal timeout.

Then the Raptors inbound the ball. Then Kauai gets fouled. And then he makes the free throws to end the game. And yeah, it absolutely robbed the moment of it. But for a writer, it was the greatest thing in the world because you had like 35 extra seconds. Because you know the game's over. It's just a matter of now you can polish. You can tighten your words a little

bit instead of just filing them. But yeah, it was anti-climactic last 30 seconds. But you know, when Danny Green threw that ball away and didn't say he was going to have a Curry three-pointer to tie it or win it, that was pretty nerve-wracking. But you didn't

have that sense of moment at all. But we did it, man. And I know you're not allowed to cheer. I know you're not allowed to cheer, but when you cover a team since day one, and you're only, I'm sure you're rooting for a good story. This is the very best of stories. Absolutely. And you know, there

were a bunch of good people that were rewarded for a lot of years of going through crap by winning a championship. And you felt good for them. And you felt good because you knew a lot of good people that were rewarded for a lot of years of going through crap by winning a championship. And you sort of, you felt, you felt good for them and you felt good because you knew a lot of people going to read your stuff. What are your thoughts on cheering in the press box? I think there's, you can't cheer for an outcome and you can't cheer for, you know,

you cheer for your story as we say, but I do think even in a press box, appreciating the amazing athleticism you see, you need that. It needs to keep you enthralled. It needs to keep you engaged with the sport you're

covering. It needs to excite you a little bit. I tell people I cover basketball and every game I go to, something happens to make you say, oh shit. You don't know what it is, but it doesn't happen in baseball and it doesn't happen in football and it doesn't generally happen in hockey. And if you don't feel that, then I think your work suffers. You need to be a fan of the game and of the athleticism and the abilities of the players. Because if you're not,

then you're just a jaded, you're sort of just writing by rote. You're not putting any passion or emotion in it. I produce a show for Humble and Fred and Fred Patterson told me a story once where I guess he was invited to, he was invited to the press box

of a great cup, I think, and the Argos were in it. And I guess there was a big play for the Argos and he cheered because he's a lifelong Argos fanatic. And I guess a couple of the season, the grizzled vets in there, basically let him know, like, no cheering in the press box.

Yeah, no openly cheering for a team, but openly appreciating what you just saw is, I think, necessary. Sure, of course, of course. But of course, you must have known that, hey, if the Raptors win a championship, I can write a book about this or something.

It certainly wasn't on my mind that night, but it did take long after to think, ooh, how do I monetize this for me? On that note, there is a great book, We the North, 25 Years of the Toronto Raptors. This is, like, how can somebody score that book? You want them to just go to Indigo or Amazon? Yeah, Indigo.

Penguin Random House, I'm sure, has it that way. It's out in paperback now, so it's probably in remainder bins all over the city. I get that, for sure. For sure. Awesome. Now, let's talk a bit about your work at the Toronto Star because uh a couple of questions came in about your podcast so I'll just give credit to Stephen here we'll all have another well it's hard to say that said we'll all have

another ever make a comeback so tell us what that is and if there's any chance of it being resurrected. It was a podcast that Laura Armstrong and I did probably four years ago. We did it once a week. And it was like, you know, young girl, old guy busting on each other and talking about sports. And it was a lot of fun. It was based around what kind of microbrewery beer will we have today. And I'll have another one of those kind of things. And we had a lot of fun. We did it. We played up each other really well, I thought. It ended for various reasons, time constraints, technology, staff cutbacks.

I would love to reprise it, and I think Laura would too, but this day and age, it's difficult. We used to go in the office to do it. And now we don't have an office. No one goes to an office anymore. So I'm not sure how we could do it. But I know Laura would like to, and I would like to too, because it was a lot of fun. We're sort of cutting up on each other and talking about sports.

Well, I think there's actually a Toronto Star podcast unit now. There is. It's starting, yes. I don't know. I listen to Mike Wilber's every now and then. I get tied up in the summer, so I listen to a lot of it. But yeah, I think as we move into it, I think me bringing back me and Laura to tell stories on each other

would be a lot of fun. Speaking of One Young Street, are you even there anymore? Did you get booted there? Are they destroying it? We're moving to a place up by where the Globe was. I'm not sure what some new area sometime in 2022. I haven't been in one young in four years probably. I can't imagine I'd ever

go back in. I used to talk to some sports writers. I only go in to give my expenses or something like that. Now that we can do them electronically, we don't have to do that. That's right. Shout out to FOTM Laura Armstrong though. She's doing a great job there at the star. Okay.

Steve McAllister, who I believe came up earlier. How about him? He says, who's Smitty's favorite Tilsonburg Red Sox player of all time? Steve is, oh, man. Steve and I go way back, and we worked together. He was a guy I kept score for during the Blue Jay runs when he was at the same press when I was, too. Steve used to play baseball, senior baseball. He was a hell of a guy I kept score for during the Blue Jay runs when he was at the game press, and I was too. Steve used to play baseball, senior baseball.

He was a hell of a guy. I used to coach and manage the Tulsa Red Sox when I was down there. And we played each other many times in Kincardine and around tournaments, Stratford, Kincardine, Corona, Tulsa, Langston, like all over the place. I'm not sure I had a – I would probably say Terry Lamb was my favorite social media redsock. Okay. Now, I feel I've seen your tweets regarding baseball and something to the effect of baseball sucks.

No, I love baseball. Okay, so that's my fault. I get credit for that one. I thought I saw you at some point tweet baseball. Maybe you were doing it ironically or sarcastically. Yeah, I could very well have been. I played it. I wrote about it.

I was a member of a national championship team back in the day. Right. Okay. I couldn't go cover it because I don't want to work 162 days a year, but I like the game. I love fall baseball. Well, I'm glad to hear it. I love fall baseball. Well, I'm glad to hear it. I love baseball too.

Now, here's a name from Three Point Grange. Michael Grange would like me to ask you about covering night games after day games. That's the world's toughest turnaround. You guys keep talking about how you've got to cover a day game after the game.

He's got it backwards, right? Yeah, it's a day game after the night game He's got it backwards, right? It's a day game after the night game is what he means. That's the hardest turnover because the hardest turnover is day game after day game because after the day game, you go out all night and you got to get up and cover it again.

Everybody talks about day game after night game being a tough turnaround, but there's no party time after night game. You get a day game and then then you've got to get up and cover a day game the next day? If you do that, you can play hurt. Well, Grange has more questions, so I hope you're comfy there. Ask him about playing ball with Jay Triano.

Yeah, I played baseball with and basketball against Jay back in the day in Niagara Falls back in the early 70s. One of the greatest high school basketball games of all time I watched was Jay Triano's A.N. Meyer team against a guy named Tom Skrlak and Notre Dame and Welland. And I believe Jay scored 63 and Skrlak scored 59. It was like a one-on-one game with eight other guys on the court. It was really something to see. Jay was obviously

an all-world basketball player and nothing we had seen down there in a long time. But him and Skrlak had one of the all-time great high school basketball games and maybe in Ontario history. Ask him about the art of the walk-away. Yeah, that's a journalistic technique that a lot of us use and I get tagged with it a lot. You're in a scrum,

maybe 16 or 17 or 10 guys hanging around a player or a coach or whatever. And when the scrum breaks up, you walk away with a guy and you ask him three more questions that no one else can hear and also no one else

can get the answer to. I got to do that with the Raptors a lot because I've been around there a lot and they know my face. So I walk away and get stuck. Grange has done it. Grange has done it a couple of times too. That's right. You've earned their trust, which ties into Grange's last, well, his last question is, have you seen his passport?

But I think that is. Yeah, it's on the seat. It's below the seat of his car. This is the Green story. We're driving back, we covered, back when the Pistons played in Auburn Hills, we would all drive, sometimes together, often in separate cars, and go across at Sarnia and then down, because that's the easiest way, the Blue Water

Bridge. So we're coming back one morning, and we're on the bridge, and we're on the downside from Flint into Windsor. And we're driving in our car, and Grange is in his car next to us, and we're on the bridge and we're on the downside from Flint into Windsor. And we're driving in our car and Grange is in his car next to us. And we can see him. He's driving, but he's reaching. He's driving. He's reaching.

We don't know what's going on. Well, he can't find his fucking passport. And he's trying to find it on the seat of the car as he's getting sort of accustomed. We get ahead of him. We go through. Somehow, and it's only Grins who do this, he talked his way through customs without his passport and then found it

on the seat of... Going to the States or coming back? Coming back into Canada. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's possible. But we're watching him. We're watching him search in his car for like a kilometer and then he never did find it, but he got in the country. So I haven't seen his passport and neither had he. Wow. And here's his last

question here. Ask him why generations of young Afro-American ballers have come to trust an old white dude from Niagara. You know, I think it's, you're just around a lot. And the way you ask respectful

questions that can still be hard, and the way you treat people as people. Look, I tell this to people all the time. If a player sucks, me asking him why he sucks makes no sense because he knows and he's going to tell me, but I'm not going to be able to understand it. Neither is the Joe Blow. But if you handle it respectfully, you can rip

and still have their respect and respect them and have a relationship. And if you do it, if you're there every day, they come, I think, to trust you. They may not read your stuff, but their family or their agent does. So they know what you're doing. And I think it's just a matter of building relationships and trust with people you see all the time. just a matter of building relationships and trust with people you see all the time all right my friend i'm gonna ask you a tougher question here because so many people uh were basically like daring me to ask you about this but i think we'll just you know you're uh it's all fair here i'm just gonna ask you about the the dwight howard tweet if you just don't mind here because uh yeah

i used to i used the terribly inappropriate wrong word in the heat of heat of the moment and i apologize for it and it was yeah it was certainly not something i'm proud of and something i took back as quickly as i could and yeah it's uh it was a mistake i made and owned up to and apologize for and you've uh you've learned so you uh yeah it's uh now the the i'll ask dan's specific question here and then we'll move on. But Dan says, I'll be interested to hear if you ask him about Dwight Howard tweet. Doubling down after multiple people commented it was racist

and then mea culpa after Katie Nolan tweeted at him that it was in fact racist. But, you know, the word, and I feel like, I'll say the word. Yeah, okay. Because just because people will think it's worse than it I feel like I'll say the word it's, uh, because just, just cause people will think it's worse than it is if I don't say this word, but this is the word thug,

T-H-U-G. And, uh, you did delete it and you did issue, uh, an apology as you said. So. Yeah.

I got the next morning quite prominently and quite, quite heartfelt. Yeah. I learned from mistakes that I made, but I don't want whoever this person is to think it was Katie Nolan who prompted me to apologize because that's absolutely not true. I heard from a lot of people, and a lot of people I consider friends. And after I did, I apologized.

And I deleted it and apologized for it and continue to apologize for it to this day. It was a terrible mistake. I made it. I owned up to it. I learned from it. And I won't make it again. Casey Dolson wants to know,

what's the best advice you could give to a young sports journalist? Oh, wow. I think not being one, that's really hard because the eras are so different. And I would say just write, just get published somewhere, but always get published by someone who edits you. Always have someone read your stuff before it gets out there. Because if you don't, you're just perpetuating, you're just sort started perpetuating your own mistakes and you're not learning. You're just writing and you need to be edited by someone. Now, whether that's,

I would hate to sell tell people to volunteer because your time is worth something and your work is worth something. And I think that's why I think unpaid internships are horrible, right? But it's always find someone who will publish you. And it doesn't necessarily have to be the single sport you love or where you want to end up but just learn how to write and tell a story and make sure someone helps you

in that process we talked earlier about the shrinking pie but you look at a guy like Blake Murphy for for instance, who started Raptors Republic or Raptors HQ, whichever it was, had a staff and sort of helped people along. And now some of those guys are doing very, very good work. And it's because they found an outlet for their writing

and their creativity and their recording and were helped along in that process. And I think that's where this day and age, that's probably where things are. And I would hate to be a young journalist starting now because all those papers I said I worked at, Tilsonburg, Woodstock, Orangeville, St. Grand Falls, Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, none of them exist anymore. So there's no place for kids to start.

And that's unfortunate because my first job, I wrote headlines, I typeset the paper, I took pictures, I developed film, I did interviews, I did all that kind of stuff. Now, that depth of knowledge for young journalists doesn't exist.

The chance isn't there to get it. That's really, really hard. It's like saying, okay get it. Doug, it's almost like they got, it's like saying, okay, we're getting rid of a single A, double A, triple A. You know, it's like, where do you hone your craft before you get called to the majors? That's exactly what it is.

And, you know, back in the day, to work at the Toronto Star was something that you absolutely was the end goal of your career. Now it's the starting goal of most careers. And I don't, I'm not entirely sure that's all good because i think you learn a lot of stuff living in other cities doing other things

learning other parts of the business no well said uh i'm glad you brought up blake murphy uh who it's funny i i knew blake as a guy with a music podcast, of course. But he was writing for The Athletic. And now he's on the Fan 590 morning show. By the way, radio has the same problem as newspaper in that there is no farm system anymore. Right. But Blake's also doing some writing for the Sportsnet website too. So he's still got his hand in a little bit there.

But he's a great example of a guy who fought his way up through his own hard work and finding people to run his stuff. I think that should be the goal of young journalists now. Blake Murphy there who wrote for The Athletic before he moved over to

Rogers Sportsnet. It's a good opportunity for me to ask you because I'm curious. What do you think of The Athletic? They have some wonderful writers, no question. I think sometimes their stories are far too long. I think often they are, because I don't think, I think the attention span of readers is probably a lot less short than the number of words they give them on everything.

So that a 2,000 word story is great as long as it's not the 10th 2,000 word story in a row you know what I mean right but as a as part of the industry I don't know and I didn't know whether it's sustainable no I didn't oh it was it was started by a guy by people who said they were going to put newspapers out of business. Right. And then sold to a newspaper. That's right, yes. So I don't, obviously their business plan of getting to the point where newspapers were obsolete failed.

So I don't know, I'm not sure what the Times will do with it now that it has it, whether it will put ads on it or jerk. I don't think there's a person on earth who's paying the full subscription rate to The Athletic. And those who are pissed off that they are. Those who are selling lifetime contracts that now you can get for a buck a month. But it has wonderful

journalists and it tells great people who tell great stories on that site. I'm just really interested in what the New York Times will do with it and how that owns it. Yeah, stay tuned here. Okay, I got a question here. And I, for some reason, because this is from your first appearance, which did not happen. So if you're looking in the archives, you won't find it. But so I don't have a name attribute attributed to this. But it says, for some reason, I am sure Doug was a wrestling fan back in the day. So before I read the rest of this question, were you a wrestling fan?

I was, I don't think I, I'm not sure I was a fan, but I used to watch wrestling on TV, like back in the Maple Leaf Gardens days with Like, uh, yeah, is that King Kong Bunny? That's George the Animal Steel. George the Animal Steel, sure, the Sheik. Okay, okay, then

I'll finish the question. All those Bruno Sammartino, back in those days. Right. Iron Mike Sharp, he was the strongest man in Canada. Dewey Robertson. Maple Leaf Gardens. Two pins. That's not a three pin fall until curfew.

He writes about the Sheik every other Sunday night at Maple Leaf Gardens gardens haystack calhoun the mighty igor fabulous kangaroos uh tiger jeet singh uh tex mckenzie lord althoi layton and he's wondering oh yeah back these are the wrestlers of my misspent youth oh yeah wow he wants to know uh if you attended any classic matches as a young lad and if you had any memories from that. I don't, but I remember editing,

being on the desk of the Toronto Sun back in the days when WrestleMania was the biggest thing ever. Yeah. And Frank Ciccarelli covered wrestling for us and wrote it featurely and funnily, and we would send him to cover WrestleMania. And I think for the longest time the greatest single sales copy of the toronto sun all ever was a wrestlemania cover and i want to say it was randy macho man savage and miss elizabeth it might have been hulk hogan i'm not

sure right that was it up until i think carter's home run for all those years it was like the leading seller that's a fun fact Doug you check that with your next son guy who's still around over there but there was a son front page that was Wrestlemania that was the number one seller for I want to say a decade I mean you know these son guys

haven't changed in 40 years so it's except for the Waz who's like my age. Oh, he's probably younger than I am, actually. Other than him, it feels like the Sun guys have just been there forever. Am I wrong? There's been not a lot of new.

They also should never have done my buddy Bob Elliot dirt, but that's beside. Well, what happened there? Because Bob... I don't know. Bob's the greatest bob is the greatest we agree that i actually had a phone call like a phone call with bob because he wanted to uh say something and this is a sweet man bob elliott is he wanted to say something for my 1000th episode which by the way drops tomorrow morning so everybody get excited about episode

1000 dropping tomorrow but he uh he asked me to phone him so I could record him over the phone, and we had a really great chat. Nicest guy. But the way he told the story was the packages were offered after he put in his two weeks or something, and he missed them or something. But you can tap out here if it's going to save your relationship with Bob,

but it sounds like maybe he was done dirty here and I just missed him. I think he was, but I don't know the specifics and I, on whatever side of the story Bob Elliot is, that's my side. I don't care. I'll just patch in Steve Simmons here and he'll clean it up for us here. By the way, Steve Simmons, I know

you tweet a lot and engage with the Raptors fanatics. Steve Simmons also used to tweet more, but he tweets a lot and engage with the Raptors fanatics. Steve Simmons also used to tweet more, but he tweets a lot and it's sort of polarizing. When Steve Simmons tweets, half of Twitter wants him dead or something.

Yeah. I think Steve probably holds harsher or more fiery opinions on a variety of sports. Hotter takes? Hotter takes than I do on more sports. So I think that's, you know,

I think if I was to talk about the pucks with any kind of knowledge, I'm sure I would be irascible too. But I like Cy a lot. He's been doing it for a long time and doing it very well at a very, very high level. So something must be working. He's a nice guy. He's a nice guy. He's a nice guy,

but sometimes, and I defend him a lot, you know, cause you know, every time I mentioned his name, people like tell me, say hot dog, hot dog or whatever,

because of the Kessel thing he wrote, which he explained on Toronto Mike, if you want to hear why he wrote the, the hot dog story about Kessel. But the one that got me though, was I think it was a playoff game. You'll remind me, but there was a Raptors story

he wrote where the Raptors were walking through a casino late at night before a playoff game or something. Yeah, it was a Cleveland playoff series in the DeMar era. It might have been the conference final. Corey Joseph was on the team back then, so it would have been 14-16 around then.

And I didn't think it was quite fair to the Raptors in questions. I think their hotel was attached to this casino and it just didn't. It is. So just, you know. There was some context missing. Right. And I think that probably was, yeah,

that was probably the reason for the huge controversy to it. That there wasn't a lot of context of why those guys would be in the building they were in, that they were actually staying in at that time of night. That's a huge detail, I feel, to leave. But anyway, this question came in from someone named B. When Doug is completely off the clock and flipping around the channels, what sport, TV show, or movie will he always stop and watch?

Stop at and watch. I probably won't. I'll probably watch some repeat of either Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dies or You Gotta Eat Here or a cooking show or NCIS or a CSI. Something like, something I've seen. But surely you watch sports other than basketball. Yeah, I do. I watch a lot of baseball.

Okay. I don't watch a lot of football because I'm in the season i don't i'm generally don't uh i guess a lot of fall baseball i used to watch a lot of golf because i thought it was very relaxing but now my sundays don't seem to doesn't seem to fit and maybe i don't have the same interest but gotcha that'd be about it and i like to watch like-level soccer, like World Cup soccer or World Cup qualifying soccer or Champions League soccer, not TFC against. Not MLS. Yeah, not TFC against.

But are you on the Team Canada bandwagon here? Oh, for sure. Yeah, you've got to be. They seem like a very fun, good team. And why not? I don't have to write about them, so I don't have to be're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're,

they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're,

they're, they're, they're, they're, It's not too hot out here in Minneapolis, by the way. And we are winding down. How's it going for you so far? Is it everything you dreamed of, your Toronto Mike debut? This is a big deal to a lot of listeners. It's like sitting around a bar telling stories. It's right in my wheelhouse.

Speaking of bars, okay. Well, firstly, speaking of bars, before I get to the bar question, I wish you were here because I would give you some parting gifts. This is sort of to tease you. You're not here. Jack Armstrong, by the way, did the show and he loved the Great Lakes beer so much. He actually

and no one else has done this but Jack and I did it because it's Jack, but he's like, could you get me more? Like I literally biked over to his hotel room more Great Lakes because Jack Armstrong asked for more Great Lakes. He loved it. Great Lakes made many an appearance on All Have Another.

Okay. We've got to bring it back. Maybe they'll sponsor the show. Who knows? We'll see what we can do here. Thank you, Great Lakes, for the beer that I'm not giving Doug because he's in Minnesota here. I would have a lasagna for you from Palma Pasta.

I'm a big Palma Pasta guy. I go to the Palma Pasta kitchen on Cementic in Mississauga. We had Palma's Kitchen. Yeah, that's their HQ there. And we hosted TMLX5 there. So this is the December 2019, before the pandemic. We had a listener experience there. And Wilner was there.

I mean, the cast of characters that showed up to this thing, it was quite something. But next time we have a TMLX at Palmer's Kitchen, I'm going to make sure Doug Smith shows up. Absolutely.

Like I say, it's around, it's like a three minute drive from my house. Like, well, they're often. Amazing. So I also have a Toronto Mike sticker for you from stickeru.com. You can go to sticker you.com,

upload your image and get your stickers and temporary tattoos. And let me give some love really quickly here before I get to this amazing question here, give some love to Ridley funeral home who hope they don't see you anytime too soon, Doug. I'm with that. I'm with that for sure.

And for those who love weed, this is for, I did a great episode yesterday with Andy Palalas from Canna Cabanas, which is basically like everything you wanted to know about legal weed, but were afraid to ask. And Andy's with Canna Cabana there. They've got more than weed. They've got bongs, pipes, vapes, dab rigs, grinders,

anything a smoker could want. I urge all FOTMs to go to canna cabana.com and sign up for the cabana club because there's always a sale going on. You'll be first in the know. And it's awesome to support a fantastic new sponsor of Toronto Mic'd. And because we were talking about bars, the question is...

I'm going to read it because I didn't write this one. It seems that sports writers of a certain generation have a reputation of late nights in smoky bars with plenty of adult beverages. I think he means beer. In every city around North America. Is this a dying phenomenon? I can't see, and again, this is not my words.

I can't see Arash, Shai, Hazel, et cetera, closing down a tavern at 4 a.m., but it seems the legendary sports writers are all on a first name basis with the bartenders everywhere question are why does this seem to be more common or unique to sports writers as opposed to reporters in other genres and does doug have any legendary road trip tavern stories he'd like to share? I don't know about... I'll tell you why, but first off, Arash has

closed out many of our... I know! That's why I say it's not my words. I don't want to put... You can't wash or you can't put Arash in that group. I'm sorry, man. He's too much a late night, out with us kind of guy. Giant Hazel, I can't attest to, but Arash,

that's bullshit. He doesn't go hang in bars. But yeah, it's a different era. The young crowd doesn't go out after games until 3 in the morning anymore for whatever reason. Maybe it's not how they're wired. Maybe they got... There are more guys now who go to gyms than go to bars.

And I think that's wrong, but that's just me. Would Ryan Wolstad join you at a bar after a Raptor game? We've had a couple in different spots, yes. He's a whiskey-bourbon kind of guy, too. He's a hip-hop head. He is.

We have all kinds of favorite dive bars around the league. There's one here called O'Donoghue's right across from Target Center that I'm sure I'll be at in six hours. Well, maybe not. We might still be talking in six hours. No, I've got to cover a game, but after that.

It's because it's not a generational thing. Maybe it is a generational thing, but we work late. We're done. We're not going to go to bed because we're a little bit hyped up, And we want to go tell stories with each other. And sometimes they're the same stories, but they're fun stories. And I think it's a relaxing kind of way to live. Well, Doug, I love these stories. So there's

going to have to be a sequel here because I just want to collect these fantastic stories. And you were there. You were there for every year of the toronto raptors existence since 1995 and i just love i love this chat about uh about raptors and about your career and i appreciate it man i appreciate it i'm glad i'm glad it finally happened and i uh i'm really looking forward to getting back on i'd love to do not not 1999 so long before that but i'd like to get back do you on the way out here do you uh because we did not talk i I'm sure you're sick of talking about the, you know, the current Raptors team, but do you want to just give us some thoughts on what you think happens with

this current squad? And I'll timestamp this because sometimes people discover these episodes years later, but this is February 16th, 2022. What does Doug Smith say? Oh, I think they'll finish somewhere in the 42 to 47 win area. I think they'll finish somewhere 5th or 4th or 9th or 8th in the East, and I think they'll win a playoff series. And I think this is the start of a trajectory like 2016, 2017 was.

I don't know what will end, but I can't say it's going to end with a championship, but I can see this team growing pretty good in the next couple of years. Well, I like the sounds of that, Doug. I've been living off the fumes of that 2019 championship run, so at some point I'm going to need another hit. And my Leafs haven't won a playoff series since 2004. So at some point I'm going to need a, another hit. So, woo. And you know,

my Leafs haven't won a playoff series since 2004. Yep. I do know that. Ed Belfort was in net and Pat Quinn was behind the bench. That I did not know. The late great. I thought it was Bruce Gamble. That's right.

That's right. And that, that, That's right. That's right. And that... That brings us to the end. What are we at here? Our 999th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Doug is at Smith Raps. R-A-P-S. Smith Raps. Follow him on Twitter. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery. They're at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U.

Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH and Canna Cabana. They're at Canna Cabana underscore. Tomorrow, episode 1,000 drops. See you all next week.