Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Laura Armstrong: Toronto Mike'd #440

Episode Date: March 12, 2019

Mike chats with The Toronto Star's Blue Jays beat reporter Laura Armstrong about her career, Vladdy, and more.

Welcome to episode 440 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, ATM Canada, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, Buckle, and Camp Turnasol. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week from the Toronto Stars Blue Jays Beat... You're not from the Toronto Stars Blue Jays Beat Reporter. You are the Toronto Stars Blue Jays Beat Reporter.

Welcome, Laura Armstrong. Thanks for having me. I butchered the intro because as I warned you, you're my guinea pig. No offense. That's okay. I'll take it. This is the first episode. So this is episode 440.

The first 19 episodes actually were recorded at the Humble and Fred studio. So take those 19 aside. Then I bought what I'm pointing to now and no one else can see, which is this mixer here. Every episode since has been recorded with that. This is the first episode of Toronto Mic'd

recorded on this brand new Rodecaster Pro. What do you think? It's so cool. It kind of looks like a child's toy in some ways. Like there's a lot of bright lights in different colors. I'm glad you mentioned a child's toy because I was doing a little test on the weekend with my four-year-old. So he's getting better at being on that mic.

So I hardly had to remind him. But the four-year-old and I was just talking, like not just to record something to test all this stuff. And I mentioned to him who my next guest was. And his reaction was really interesting. And I want to play his reaction for you. So this is my four-year-old on the weekend. Laura is a Toronto Star reporter. What is a Toronto?

A Toronto Star? Yeah.... What is a Toronto? A Toronto Star? Yeah. That's a newspaper. So she writes for a newspaper. Do you know what she writes about? What? The Toronto Blue Jays. Whoa! Oh, you're jazzed about it. I like that. I like that enthusiasm. So anyway, Laura Armstrong

is over here on... I love the Blue Jays. Oh, that's so great. i don't know if you've ever had a reaction like that no that's not usually the reaction that i get i'm surprised i don't know i guess the word blue jays triggered something in him like he's been like groomed to think he should cheer for blue jays yeah sure that's that's the way it goes around here right so um yeah so he's excited to listen to episode 440 so great and i'm excited to to record it here with you but and excuse me if i get distracted like i butchered that opening because uh i'm all over here and you're right

it looks like a kid's toy like it looks like i should dim the lights and this would be like a disco yeah very cool maybe i need to introduce introduce like a video camera to the operation so people can watch the excitement live or something like that. This is all food for thought. But welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you for being the guinea pig. I actually have a song for you. Oh gosh. Do you know this song? No, I don't think so. I know Laura by Scissor Sisters, and I know Tell Laura I Love Her.

This one I do not know. Well, you would never remember the early 80s. I can tell by looking at you. No, I didn't know. I was not around at that time. Let's let it sink in a bit here. This is called Think of Laura. Maybe I've heard this song? I don't know.

Okay, it's Christopher Cross. do you know this guy he's like the sailing guy sailing and this is like 82 or 83 or something and i was like oh what a nice sweet song like think of laura like it felt like a love song yeah and then i googled it okay oh god it's okay like there's laura was like a collegiate lacrosse player who was like killed by a stray bullet in a game. Oh no. This is just like Tell Laura I Love Her where it's a guy driving a race box car and he gets killed. And it's like, tell Laura I love her. Tell Laura not to cry.

My love for her will never die. I don't know what it is about my name that brings up such sorrow. It's true. All the songs about Laura are kind of of sad in fact okay so this song here again christopher cross think of laura i'll bring it down because uh it was remade by boys to men for like you might you might have heard this because you yeah i would have been closer to boys to men for sure. Laura, I need a moment to get it. Okay, so I don't... Hold on here.

Let's do this again. This is how the sausage is made here. So almost there. Going to bring this guy down. Load this guy in my soundboard. Where are you? There you are. See, play by play because it's audio here

okay that wasn't so bad uh this is the version boys to men made uh based on that song we just listened to Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Every once in a while, I see a smile. It turns my day around. A girl with those eyes can stare through the lens and see what your heart will say, think of Aaliyah, left don't cry. Think of Aaliyah.

Yeah, yeah. And we all know the story behind that, so that's not ideal either. No, it's always sad. All the Laura songs are sad. But I mean, I'm inspired now to write one that's positive because you're such a delight. So I will see if we can get a good Laura song.

You're not the first Laura to appear on Toronto Might. Have you ever met Laura Dyken? No, I have not. But there are a lot of us. When I was in the seventh grade, there was like a Laura A, a Laura B, and a Laura M. And my teacher put us all in the same row. So I think that she knew that if she called on Laura, she'd get at least one of us to answer. I have a theory on this.

Yeah. I think that there was a very popular soap opera storyline involving Luke and Laura. You ever heard of this? No. And I'm going to put, someone's going to yell at me. Is it either, it's like General Hospital or Young and the Restless?

It's like one of these big ones. I mean, I was a Days of Our Lives fan when I was a kid and I can tell you they're not on that. No, but I think a lot of, like, I think if you spoke to whoever named you, your mom or something, I think a lot of Laura's and Luke's, I mean, Luke's already kind of coming out of Star Wars, I think.

But all the Laura's are coming out of this storyline with Luke and Laura. I was named after Laura Ingalls Wilder. Oh, my God. Little House on the Prairie. Yeah. But I can see where that's coming from. One of my good friends, she's a Kayla, but she was named after a character on Days of Our Lives. So I think that maybe around that time it was a thing.

Yes. There's been two Kalas on Toronto Mike. This will just be you name names. Kayla Williams and Kayla Gray. Okay. Those are two people that have been on Toronto Mike. Okay, I'm bringing down Boyz II Men. And that's Think of Aaliyah, obviously, for Aaliyah.

Do you watch jeopardy uh no my parents have recently become really big jeopardy fans again again so they they left it and came back yeah i guess my mom says there's nothing on tv except jeopardy i always like jeopardy like forever like i like trivia yeah i like jeopardy uh Of course, I'm saddened by this news. Of course. Of course. He's a great Canadian. Did you know that? From Sudbury.

Yep. And I love Jeopardy, but I also love Alex Trebek's cameo on The Simpsons. So I'm just going to play that because I love it so much. There's only one way out. We've got to give this greedy town its money back. Well, we don't have $15,000. Unless...

Aren't we forgetting something, Marge? You were down $5,200. But Mr. Trebek! I asked you before the game if you knew the rules, and you said you did. Judges? Red Mom! She ain't getting the home version. The home version.

One of my favorite Simpsons cameos. Yeah, he's fantastic. You know what? When I saw that video, obviously it's very grave news but when alex trebek tells you that he's gonna beat cancer there's something in you that you're like absolutely he's gonna beat cancer if anybody's gonna beat cancer it's alex trebek because he's an authoritative figure yeah he's always correcting us yeah and he correct he's been correcting us since 1984 and we still love the guy so that's how endearing he is so yes alex chebeck that's sad news but uh speaking of sadness so it's all about

sad news on this episode laura so we have all these sad laura songs about people who passed and alex is going to beat cancer we're all rooting for him but we uh who he did not win his battle is luke perry did you ever watch 90210? Did I ever? 90210 was like a little bit past my time as well, but when I was in high school, I bought all the DVDs and watched them on repeat, and I was a big Dylan fan. Because he was

brooding? Yeah, but deep down like a good guy, right? Like, yeah. I always felt he was like the james dean or whatever oh yeah absolutely he was and also i think i knew this like he was way older than the other actors 30 years old or something he's in high school uh he was also a great guest of uh star on the simpsons because he was sideshow luke perry in uh i don't know if you watch the simpsons, because he was sideshow Luke Perry. I don't know if you watched The Simpsons, but he was sideshow Luke Perry. I wondered if you were a 902.

I watched 90210 as well. Did you know Steve Sanders, the guy who played Steve Sanders' dad, passed away this week as well? Yeah, I saw that. He didn't get as much attention. Was he on your soap? I heard he was a big soap opera actor. Oh, I don't know.

I think I really only went through a Days of Our Lives for one summer when I was in ninth grade or something like that. One o'clock. My mom watched a show called Another World. Okay. And she had this crush on a character named Cass Winthrop. So as a joke, like whenever her birthday came around or something,

I would like, this is early days of the internet. I would get a picture of Cass Winthrop and like print it on a card or whatever. And like, like she loved this guy. That's Cass Winthrop from another world. That's a show's long gone.

I got the full version of the 90210 theme i bet you didn't know there was a full version i didn't i had no idea i want to ask you your first question from uh a guy named uh keegan math oh who's that never heard of him he wants to know what's your favorite type of bird and why yeah so i have like a real fear of birds like a very deep-rooted fear of birds um and the guys on the blue jays beat ironically uh like to make fun of me for it particularly for covering a team that um is called the blue jays right um i'd probably like a hummingbird because you can step on it and kill it oh my it my. It's so simple. I know. Just to continue the sad, the death theme of this episode. What a harmless bird.

I know, but it's just like, it's so small. Also, it probably wouldn't bug me that much. But if it did, then I would have the upper hand, you know? Where does the fear come from? Like, were you attacked by a bird at some point? Yeah, I think so. Like, a couple things like when i my my grandfather had like a a farm or has a farm and uh when i was a kid he used to have an aviary and my brother used

to like lock me in it that'll do it yeah and just like i feel like i've had a lot of incidents with birds since then let's consider this therapy laura we can fix this. Let's talk about hypnotherapy. I have always presented that to the star as like a possible story. Send me to hypnotherapy. See if it works. I'll write about it. Yeah. And the life section or something. Yeah, exactly. I'd be down. So I'm going to give you a pro tip. Avoid the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Birds. Okay. Just avoid that movie. It won't be good for you. i haven't seen that but there's one there's an edgar allen poe oh the raven the raven i've seen that that was like a four i tried to get out of like grade 11 french class because i didn't want to watch that and we were reading it in

french for some reason and yet they wouldn't give me a sick pass didn't work but you had a note from your psychiatrist that laura needs to avoid exposure to birds. Yeah, no, I just whined. Also, have you been inoculated against the bird flu? I'm just now thinking of things you should do. Like, did you get that? When the avian flu was going around, did you get that vaccination? I don't think I did. I see you should have been first in line. Yeah, first in line. Absolutely. That's funny. I can't believe you're going to step on a hummingbird. Like, I don't even know if I can continue this episode. I just have no sympathy for them.

I think that they have beady eyes. Like, I think they're satanic as a human, as a species. I'm thinking now, if the Jays are playing the Orioles or something. Yeah, and then there's like the signs at Oriole, like Camden Yards at Oriole Park, where it's like, welcome to Birdland. And I'm like, this is the last place that I want to be. But they have a lot of ice cream at Camden Yards. So generally we get along pretty well.

Their snacks, their press box snacks are great. Good to hear. Now, Keegan asked that question when I recently, you know, you have a question for Laura Armstrong. He chimed in. But actually the first time I asked Twitter if they had a question for Laura Armstrong, Keegan had one then. His then was, how much has Keegan inspired you on a daily basis? Like, do you want to give some love to Keegan?

I feel like he needs it. No, that's fine. Okay. Now, when you're on this, we're going to dive deeper soon. But when you're on the Jay's Beat, likeays beat, you said, can you name the regular beat reporters that you would be crossing paths with while you're covering, for example, spring training? Can you run off a name?

Like in terms of the Toronto guys? Yes, yes, Toronto guys. Oh, yeah. We had, well, I guess last, when I was there at the beginning of spring training, it was like Shai Davidi from Sports Night, Keegan Matheson from Baseball Toronto, Gregor Chisholm from MLB.com, Scott Mitchell from TSN,

John Lott from The Athletic. Who else would have been there? Ben Nicholson-Smith. Yeah, Rob Longley was there from The Sun. Ben Nicholson-Smith showed up towards the end. And we're all sort of take, we take shifts, right? Arash Madani from sports at hazel may it was there from sports and as well so um it was a pretty pretty decent group pretty good

size group and then we'll take shifts and like i'll go back next week why not like finish it off like a reality show called the beat you know i just think that that crew you named there like it's kind of i think it'd be fun to watch. I swear I've proposed it before, but we think it would be funny. And then we realize all we really do is complain and eat. We eat a lot. Now, I guess this is a question for Keegan, who's coming on in a couple of weeks. Sure. So Keegan is an independent.

All of you guys belong to like mainstream media organizations. Like you're at the star or whatever. But Keegan, like he's baseball Toronto. Like we say that like it's Sports Illustrated, but he invented this. Yeah, he did. Yeah.

I don't know how he does it. I mean, it's very impressive to sort of have the balls to do it in my opinion because I would not be able to go out. The job of even like a freelancer, like I have so much respect for them

because they've got to work. And not that we don't have to work. No, but they don't get the dental plan either. Yeah, exactly, right? I can go get a massage on my benefits once every three months or something. Like when you're in Dunedin or whatever, you got a hotel room, motel?

Yeah, hotel. And you're expensing this. Yes. Is Keegan sleeping in his car? I'm being serious. I think he slept in his car when he was driving to Florida. I think if you go back on Twitter, I don't think I'm telling

any secrets here because I'm pretty sure he tweeted about it. But he's staying at a very nice Airbnb, which I think also you could find on Twitter because I think he's very proud of how fancy it is. He's got subscribers. Yes. You mentioned John Lott.

At least John Lott, he's with the Athletic, which has a lot of funding behind it. Lott actually quite a few rounds of real dollars thrown at it and building the subscriber base uh i don't think there's any uh investments in the keegan matheson enterprise like i think and i i really i should point out i'm i'm so respect this like you're on toronto mic'd right now

keegan and i have this in common like we're you know we built it with our own hands yeah absolutely whatever uh not that i can afford to even sleep in my car but that's another story but uh i just think that's such a cool story like yeah i mean i think that he keegan's story is so interesting because he just he followed his passion right and he i think walked out of a bank a bank teller job in nova scotia a couple years ago and decided that he was just gonna cross the country and become a baseball writer and I mean I don't know how you have the confidence to do that but he certainly has and I think that you know he's definitely made a name for himself the number of people who want to meet Keegan at the Rogers Center who he like goes down and says hello to

is incredible is that right yeah he's also friendly. Like he's kind of grumpy a lot of the time, but he's extremely friendly too. Well, he's a Maritimer. Yeah, exactly. So he, yeah, he's, he's, he's maybe the new form of journalism. I don't know. I guess we'll see. We're at like an interesting time.

Well, we're all rooting for him. Yes, we are. We're not rooting against you. I want to point out. No, I think there's room. Yeah, I think there's room for all of us. If we were rooting against him, I wouldn't say nice things, right? Or if we were pitting ourselves against each other. Well, I'm always going to be nice to Keegan because I have these Toronto Mike listener experiences. In fact, Laura,

the next one is June 27th, which happens to be an off day for the Jays so the Jays are in New York on the 26th but that's a getaway day or whatever so they play like a one o'clock game right the best days right and now of course some people will probably linger in New York like because you're in New York quite possibly

you might do that I'm not sure I'll be there so we'll see that's right if I'm not there then i won't be lingering i'm dating myself to a time when beat reporters went on the road with the team yeah then we might we might do a little more the the travel this year which will be good but i don't know if i'll be at that particular trip i've never covered a game at yankee stadium

well let's except a soccer game i covered a soccer game there once randomly. Oh, like Red Bulls? What do they call those? New York City FC. Okay. And was that fun? It was really cold and I whined so much

that one of my colleagues bought me a blanket. That's a good move. I don't know if Keegan could get away with that. No. Okay, so what was I saying? June 27th. June 27th. I would like for you, because all, this is key,

you have to be a listener of Toronto Mic'd, a sponsor of Toronto Mic'd, who should also be listening, by the way, and or a guest of Toronto Mic'd. So I'm not even going to put you on the spot and ask you if you've ever listened to this podcast. I don't even need to know. I don't know if you listened to the Kevin McGrann episode.

I don't need to know, even though I think you were name dropped. I haven't listened to that,. I don't even need to know. I don't know if you listened to the Kevin McGrann episode. I don't need to know, even though I think you were name-dropped. I haven't listened to that, but I will now. I didn't even need to know that, Laura. It's between you and your guide. On June 27th, I would love for you and all the listeners and guests to come to Great Lakes Brewery for

TMLX3 because the headlining band is going to be, I mean, the Royal Pains are going to open and they are a fantastic band that does 90s covers. Sometimes they leak into the 80s, especially for like a Guns N' Roses jam or whatever.

But the headlining band on June 27th at Great Lakes Brewery, which by the way, there's no cover charge and your first beer is free. Like that's ridiculous and you get to hang out with me and all us cool people. And I got to this topic because Keegan Matheson was at the second one. That's what started me on this.

So Keegan's always going to have a warm spot in my heart because he and Mike Wilner showed up at the event, even though there was a Jays game going on there. So they were over there. So no pressure. You should come too. It's going to be that. But lowest of the low, lowest of the low are going to perform. So they were over there. So no pressure. You should come to it. It's going to be that. Okay. But lowest of the low,

lowest of the low are going to perform. I have a jam here. Lowest of the low, one of my favorite bands of all time are going to perform. Laura, put it in your calendar.

Everybody else, get it in your calendar. June 27th, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. There's no Jays game. You have no excuse. That's exactly right. The Raptors will be done by then. They'll have won a championship

or something, right? That's how that works. I believe we'll be celebrating a Stanley Cup and a NBA championship at this time. There you go. It'll be a great party. And Andrew Stokely, if you're listening, you won't have to be doing the audio for Sportsnet because there's no game. So come to see one of your favorite bands, Lowest of the Low.

And Laura, not that I'm trying to bribe you, but there's a six pack in front of you. Yeah. I even added, you're the first time I've added for a guest a cozy. I love cozies. I thought you might be like a cozy person. I am a cozy girl. I buy them at all the country music concerts that I go to. We'll add that to the collection.

I sure will. And speaking of country music, we are going to kick out A-Jam at the end of this episode. A-Jam. Just to include the sad tone of this episode, we'll be ending on a similar note. I'd be glad I didn't play the other Laura song, because I actually

had a Frank Sinatra doing this Laura song in the 50s, and it's sad too. My goodness. Just consider yourself lucky lucky so enjoy the beer thank you there's also a lasagna for you amazing frozen lasagna you told me i asked you uh laura meat or vegetarian and you said surprise me so surprise surprise i like it is that okay good because if you didn't like it, I'd be so angry. You should have just said you wanted it.

Why don't you tell me the type of lasagna you want? I don't like making decisions. Clearly. What are you drinking right now? Tea. How did you decide which flavor? I get the same thing every day. And what is it?

It's English breakfast. One tea bag. A little bit of milk. You're consistent. The way to my heart. I like that. Yeah. English breakfast. One tea bag. A little bit of milk. You're consistent. The way to my heart. I like that. Yeah. I'm wired the same way.

So enjoy the lasagna. I was actually at. Thank you. Thank you. I was at Palma Pasta yesterday. I biked over to check it out. I tweeted some photos. I saw.

They look delicious. Yeah. Yeah. It's really cool. And I was. It's very photogenic because it's very. There's really good natural light in that new building. They just built that building. Oh, OK. And it's like.ogenic because it's very, there's really good natural light in that new building. They just built that building.

Oh, okay. And it's like, yeah, photogenic. If a retail... Of course, absolutely. So it's quite nice to be in there. And I encourage everyone,

I actually met a listener. I want to say hello to, so I'm in there to meet Anthony who is, his family owns Palma Pasta and we're having

a little meeting. And as I'm leaving to bike home, I bump into a guy. He goes, there's Toronto Mike. And I go, hi, who are you? He says, I'm Neil Lewis. And he listens to the show. And he was there because they sponsored Toronto Mike. Amazing.

From Regent Park. Like, this is not like. That's not, no, that's a hike. Right. Hi, Neil. Hello, Neil. I hope you're listening because there's your shout. And I can't remember the name

of the woman that was with you, but I say hi to her as well. Although we started talking about Jays and then the woman said, I'm leaving now because it's Jays talk. Yeah. So she's not a big Laura.

A lot of people do that. Oh, my favorite part. Hold on. I take it you're too young for Lois de Vaux. You're not a... No, I have terrible taste in music. Like, it's well known. Everybody knows how terrible my taste in music is. That explains the country stuff, but we'll get to that.

So I still, this thing is like 91 and I still dig it, so I'm stuck in the 90s. That's better than being stuck in the early 2000s, which is pretty much where I'm at. So it's all Sum 41 all the time? All NSYNC, all the time. NSYNC.

My wife would leave me for Justin Timberlake, I think, in a heartbeat. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a fair assessment. Would you leave me for Justin Timberlake? Yeah. Only if he's got the frosted tips. Yeah, there you go, the curly Qs. Oh, yeah, that looks like ramen noodles. That's right.

So, palmapasta.com, obviously, to find other locations. Hi, Neil. You got your beer. You got your Palma's Kitchen. Now, speaking of going back in time, let me say goodbye to Lolo here. Let's go back in time 20 years ago today. Laura, this was the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 exactly 20 years ago today. Laura, this was the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 exactly 20 years ago today.

Even I know this song. Feel free to shout it out. Don't know if I could tell you the name. Do you know the artist? Just give me a minute. No Googling. No, I don't have my phone. Angel of Mine?

That's correct. Yeah. I don't know who it's by. Should I know? Yeah. You should know, because this is in your wheelhouse. I feel like 20 years ago was a big time. 20 years ago would have been, what, 98?

Yeah, I was peaking, really, at that point. Right. It's been all downhill. This is Monica. Okay, I was going to say Brandy or Monica. Because they had that, the boy is mine. Yeah, oh yeah. That's on my playlist.

I can tell you that. So I do this feature for Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. And I actually really enjoy this feature because it makes me go, like, what was number one 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago? But sometimes you get a song that's number one for like three or four or five weeks, right? So you don't want to play the same song in two episodes. So it really messes me up. So that Monica Brandy song, I think, I don't want to say this wrong. It might have been number one for like 12 weeks or something.

Not at all surprised. What a jam that was. It's a juggernaut so much attitude in it see this song was not in my like i really this i would have like uh ignored this song yeah because it doesn't have anything for me in it like there's no cool there's no hip-hop element no there's no rock element no there's not even like a folksy like there's there's nothing that i would like be able to like sink my teeth into it's just kind of there yeah but do you like it yeah i mean it's fine it's not like a song it's not on my playlist also i feel like it's one of those songs where they're just basically saying the same line over and over and over again which i don't love but you do order the same tea over and over you do

I really do every day of course I mentioned remember the time is brought to you by fast time watch and jewelry repair I should point out Milan from Fast Time has a question for you about the Blue Jays that I'm going to play for you later in this episode. Milan's got a great voice. He should be podcasting. Fast Time has been doing quality watch and jewelry repairs for over 30 years. You might remember, you might not, Laura,

but people might remember the watch repair outlets in Sears Canada stores. That was actually Fast Time. So Sears, Canada, uh, stores. That was actually fast time. So Sears up and left the country, but fast time started opening their own locations. They have a new one in Richmond Hill. If you go to fast time, watch repair.com,

you find out exactly where they're at. you, you can also mention Toronto Mike and get 15% off any regular priced watch battery installation. So I urge everybody who has jewelry or watch repairs required with the band or you need a new battery, whatever, get your butts to fast time. There you go. I'm breaking up on me. I'm so emotional about this. I'm so appreciative. So fast time watch and jewelry repaired. I have another question for you, Laura. This is from Daryl Terry. Daryl's asking, what's it like to live in Toronto?

And I don't know if that's like just, that's the question. Like for me specifically or in general? Are you new to Toronto? Not new, new. Maybe I'm, maybe he's from Barhaven. Maybe that's why Daryl's wondering. If you're from Barhaven, which is in Germany, right? Yeah, definitely in Germany. That's a callback to a joke that was unrecorded.

I should stop doing that. Tell us where Barhaven is. Barhaven is a suburb of Ottawa. It is also where I was born and raised. I would say that it's like a smaller version of Mississauga, but it seems more like farm farmlandy because it's on the other side of the green belt so you gotta pass a bunch of farm fields before you get to Barhaven where is it in like relation to Kanata it's like just a little bit um east of Kanata

it's west of downtown Ottawa so it's kind of it's not in the middle it's closer to downtown Ottawa. So it's kind of, it's not in the middle. It's closer to Kanata. Like my fam, my parents work in Kanata. My family, a lot of my family lives in Kanata, which is about 10 minutes west. Kanata is actually the Mississauga. Yeah, Kanata is probably the Mississauga.

And we're like, Caledon? I don't know. I don't know. No, uh, where is that place? Uh, Milton.

Maybe. I don't know. I don't even know my GTA. I can tell you that. Do you know where you are right now? Sort of. You're in new Toronto. There you go.

Then no, I did not know that. Do you know Sean Fitzgerald? Yes, I do. Too well. He busts my chops. I was going to say breaks my balls,

but this is a podcast and I'm too, I'm too, uh, politically correct. I think I already used that word. Sorry. You said someone had balls and I was thinking, but Laura doesn't have balls.

And I was thinking, I can't say that. No, he busts my chops about claiming that I live in Mimico, but I do not live in Mimico. And now as these words are coming out of my mouth, I realized that this is going to help with everyone playing Toronto Mike bingo because there's a Toronto Mike bingo card thing. And one of the squares is when I discussed Mimico versus new Toronto.

Oh, there you go. Okay. There you go. And the one I, and I realized though, like, cause Al,

for example, we'll do the bingo and then he'll tweet at me how he did. Like, uh, he hasn't been doing too well lately. And I see the center square, which helps you so much in bingo, the center square.

I almost don't want to say it. if i say yeah don't i now can like purposely never mention this uh former cp24 anchor ever again oh there you go because she's the center square you shouldn't have shown it did you ever watch hollywood squares yes i did i will say that sean fitzgerald doesn't think barhaven's a place, so I feel like you're sort of one-upping me in the sense that at least he acknowledges that where you live is existing. He's like Nixon refusing to recognize

China. But Barhaven does not exist. That's funny. Yeah, Sean's at The Athletic now. Athletic's got a number of mentions already, but it's John Lott. He's the chap who's, he takes great photos.

You ever like wandered around John Lott's Flickr page? Yes, yeah. I particularly enjoy it because I'm living in the past. I enjoyed his photo set of Exhibition Stadium. Oh, I haven't wandered that far back. No, I encourage you to to do so uh you know john lott and caitlin mcgrath they have two baseball writers at the blue jays writers at the athletic they're a good team yeah you know hey one day you might work there who knows i don't

want to anyways we'll see how things work uh so that's daryl, I guess. So living in Toronto, did you want to tell Daryl how it's going? Daryl, living in Toronto is great. I like taking the subway, surprisingly. The TTC does not bother me nearly as much as it bothers some people. Are you taking it in rush hour? No. See, that's the thing for me. I never take anything in rush

hour because my job is not Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, start a gig. So the only time that I really don't like the TTC is when I'm coming back from Jay's games. It's like 11 o'clock. There's a lot of drunk people on the streetcar and I'm like, you're having fun and I'm going home from work, you know?

How often do you, and I like to ask, like Ed Keenan's been on a bunch of time. He kicked out the jams and stuff. He's a cool friend of the show. He's told me about his past DJ days. Yeah. He's got good taste in music though. Like it really aligns with mine.

And so it's like, not, you know, when I kick out this one jam with you later, I'm going to have to pretend I like the song. You don't have to do that. Okay. I haven't heard it yet.

So I will listen to it for the first time with you, but I got a sense of it when I was loading it in. So I don't know. We'll talk about that later. But so I always was curious, like how often would you as a writer for the Toronto Star who covers a team that, you know, plays out of the Rogers Center,

like how often do you have to go to one Yonge Street? Very, very seldom. I mean, in the off season, I go a little bit more. So like, but last week I went four days, four of the five days and it was insane. I usually, I have a calendar that I have to change like the blocks in. And usually there's like a couple months that go by between going to the office. Usually to do my expenses. I have to do my expenses. I have to do them in the office. Yeah. Uh, who's here? Steve Buffery was just here

from the sun and he says like, he's only going in the office now to do his expenses yeah pretty rarely yeah uh do you have good coffee at the toronto star uh well we have starbucks downstairs oh you have to pay for that you don't have it yeah but i don't drink coffee so i'm a bit of a high mate well in that sense it's good but well they say the way they roast those beans i mean i drink a coffee every morning so but the way they roast the beans there's something some chemical gets added to the beans that's a carcinogen it starts with an a and i can't pronounce it but i mean there's a lot of things that are carcinogens i don't know but uh anyway i'm i still drink my cup a day uh you know roll that dice it's i feel it's worth it i don't know i have no idea um what gets you you're in Barhaven. Where did you go to school?

I went to the University of King's College in Halifax, which is why, I mean, Keegan Matheson and I get along so well. Halifax is a lovely city. Our maritime connections. Yeah. Halifax is a lovely city. Until you have to go that bridge from Dartmouth to Halifax and they make you cough up a loony. Yeah.

I never really went over to Dartmouth. Like maybe once a year. There was like a big mall that we would go to really went over to Dartmouth, like maybe once a year. There was like a big mall that we would go to every once in a while, but not often. I had an Airbnb in Dartmouth. And then of course I wanted to do a bunch of stuff in Halifax. Yeah. Yeah. You got to throw a loonie in the bucket. What's that about? Yeah. What's that bridge called? The Angus L. McDonald Bridge or something like that, I think. I'll take your word for it. Yeah. I think that might be it. So you went to school in Halifax when did you like when do you have this uh epiphany that you want to be an ink-stained

wretch like where does that come from I like don't remember a time when I didn't want to be in journalism I think that like my idea of journalism probably changed along the way you know I used to think it was like a just like being a magazine editor or something um which now I think to myself oh I would not want to do that. Just it, it would be too stressful. But yeah, never other than my like period where I wanted to be a lawyer because I

wanted to be like Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. I've always wanted to be a blue, not a blue Jays writer. Well, sure. Okay. Well, how's that?

Like originally were you like, I want to be Woodward and Bernstein or whatever. Like, no, I always wanted to be in sports. I would say that wasstein or whatever? No, I always wanted to be in sports. I would say that was the biggest change for me. I always wanted to be in sports. I used to watch soccer on the weekend, like James Sharman, Christian Jack, Jerry Dobson, and Craig Forrest.

And I always was annoyed that there wasn't a woman on it. I think it was still early days for that kind of thing. But is there a woman on it today? No, there isn't. It's still early days for that kind of thing. But I. Is there a woman on it today? No, there isn't. Still early days. Hello, I'm here, you know. But no.

And then I got into journalism. The first, my first day of journalism school, a prof told me to stay, told our class to stay in school for 10 years because we weren't getting jobs. I was like, well, that sounds great. I'm looking forward to this. And yeah, it worked out for me along the way, but I did news initially. Like I was in news, um, at the Ottawa citizen. I was in news at a place outside of Ottawa called the Kemphill advance of Metro paper. And then I started in news at, um, the star and actually really loved it and decided that, uh, that was a path that was okay for me. And the sort of sports thing a little bit fell into my lap. Okay. Well, let's rewind there and find out

how do you end up at the star? Because last time I checked, this is the largest newspaper in the country. Yes. Is this still the case? Yeah, I think so. Largest daily, as far as I know. I think, I think for sure. Yeah. It's, it's. It's a shrinking pie, but you still got that biggest slice. Yeah. I got in right before sort of the last couple of years before the internship program sort of went kaput. So that was how I got in. I was a summer intern. And then when I was a summer intern, I got hired on for the one-year contract. And then towards the tail end of my one-year contract they had 10 full-time jobs go up so I got one of those 10. On your by the way on your Toronto Star quick quick aside here on your Toronto Star bio it says you speak French. Yeah. So are you bilingual? Oh I mean I have a

French bilingual certificate I did French immersion through school I can still understand it really well. Speaking it now that I haven't done it in a while is not so great, but I could fake it. My children are in French immersion. Smart idea. Smart idea is right. If I ever have children,

they will also be in French immersion. When you have children, no pressure. If I have children. Of course No pressure. If I have children. Of course. Mom, don't get crazy. If you should ever procreate and be responsible for another human life. Yeah.

I highly recommend that you send them to French camp because what you do is you send your kid to French camp in the summer and they basically, their French skills blossom. Yeah. Sure. The best one in the GTA, best one in the uh gta best one in ontario is camp turnasol okay camp turnasol has 15 campuses across the gta you can go to camp t.ca and see what they offer they have several overnight programs they have uh programs for francophone children french immersion children or even children with no French experience. Not only

the overnight camps, of course, they also have the day camps as well. So go to campt.ca, check out their programs. They've introduced this new one. They call it Love My Planet. It's like an eco-camp. This is the new offering. But check out what they have at campt.ca.

But when you register your son or daughter for the French camp, use the promo code, Mike, 2019, Mike, 2019. Cause you'll get 20 bucks off your order.

When you do that, camp tea.ca Laura, if we could build a time machine and take you back and send you to one of these camps, you would not hesitate when I ask you if you're fluently bilingual, cause you would be fluently bilingual. I'm like a three of five. Let's go with that.

I'm off the charts. I know some grade nine French, but very little of it. And it's because I never went to Camp Tournesol French Camp. So you're at the Toronto Star. Yes. And how do you end up in the sports department? and how do you end up in the sports department? I had an editor who

Jennifer Quinn she was paired with me before she was a sports editor as my mentor we all got paired with a journalist I think she was a foreign reporter technically at the time was she a good mentor? great mentor, to this day is a great mentor

had dinner with her last night, continues to be a fantastic mentor last Great mentor. To this day is a great mentor. Had dinner with her last night. Continues to be a fantastic mentor. Last night you had dinner with Jennifer Quinn. I did. Yeah. Had dinner with her last night. She's fantastic. Is she going to listen to this? I don't know.

Maybe not. A good mentor would listen. Yeah. I mean, she's pretty busy. She's a pretty busy lady. I'm sorry. If I mentored anybody and they were doing like a podcast, which was all about them, a deep dive, I promise you I would listen the moment it was uploaded to the internet.

Well, I'll tell her. I'll tell her that. I'll mention it. I don't know. Maybe she'll listen to it. I think that her husband will. He's like, he's like, it's like tag team, you know? Hey, Patrick.

Does Patrick, Patrick Quinn might be the most Irish name I've ever heard. No, he's not a Quinn like it's like tag team you know hey patrick does patrick uh patrick quinn might be the most irish name i've ever heard no he's not a quinn she's a quinn so yeah that's patrick oh something okay so tell me patrick o'leary yeah no um so she was um my editor in or my mentor as when i was an intern and when when I got the year long contract, she said, we don't have a sports editor right now. When you, when we get a new sports editor, because I guess they were in between sports editors, she said, you should pitch the sports editor to go to the women's world cup next year. You know, soccer, and we don't have a sports reporter who's going to be able to cover it. And was the 2015 world cup here and so then a few months later she became

the sports editor and i was like so about that pitch that you suggested to me do you think that we can do that and she we did it so that was my first assignment was covering the women's world cup which was awesome still the best assignment i've ever done. Because you love your, I could tell even just your eyes light up when you talk about soccer. This is your passion. This is my passion. Yeah. So,

uh, for a woman who's got such passion for, for soccer. So did that lead to covering TFC? Yes, that led to covering TFC. So at the end of the summer, at the end,

that was around the time right after the women's world cup is when the jobs came up and, um, the end that was around the time right after the women's world cup is when the jobs came up and um they were looking for someone who could cover soccer and do other things as well but um be a soccer reporter um and that's when i that's when i joined that fall of 2015 2015 feels like a long time ago well you know it's funny you're You're saying 2015. I'm thinking, isn't this 2015? Yeah, I know, right? Like, we're... I'm like, oh, no, this is 2019. I know. Oh, it's a long time.

Well, I'm still... This is a... I'm sure there's a name for this phenomenon. But if I think of 1999 as a few years ago. Yeah. The car... I don't know. Did you drive here?

Yeah. Did you park in the parking... In my driveway? No. Okay. You could have. I should have told you that. That's all right. But I don't like to assume you drive here? Yeah. Did you park in the parking in my driveway? No. Okay. You could have. I should have told you that. That's all right. But I don't like to assume somebody can afford a car.

Like I feel like not that there's some people who choose not to own a car, but I noticed this is no offense to you at all, but there are some young media people who simply like a car would be like saying, do you own a mansion on the waterfront? Yeah, no, I got rid. I don't have. I used to drive a star car here. I got rid of my car when I moved to Toronto. i didn't think i needed it my brother drives it does it have i borrowed it like a decal on it like no it does not it's a it's just a or something i think don't they have a car called star something star like a mini man or something something star anyway um

okay i was gonna say that you the car that is in the driveway right now is a 1999 car. Like, I really am having trouble with the idea that when I do a song that's 20 years old, it's from 1999. Because that, yeah, that Monica song is 1999. Yeah. I find it very unusual covering athletes now who are, like, born in the 2000s. Like, that I don't love. Anytime somebody asks me how old I am, I tell them I'm 22, which is a big lie. Like I haven't been 22 in six years.

Oh, I just figured out your age. Yeah. But that's what, yeah. That's about the level of my math right now. Okay. So Zuby Zorn. Zuby Zorn is somebody on Twitter. It's a great, great handle though.

Sure. Yeah. Says this is all, I just said question for Laura and then he replies or I don't know he or she, I don't know what a Zuby is. Yeah. No. Covers baseball, but loves soccer with a question mark. Yeah.

I don't know why I saw like a few questions like that. Like first baseball versus soccer. I don't really think of it that way. Like I, I do love soccer. That's what my dad's a Brit. I did not have a choice, you know? That's how I was raised. But it doesn't mean that I can't love baseball, too.

Who's got the TFC beat right now at the Toronto Star? We don't have one. So I'll go to the home opener on Saturday, and I will show up every once in a while. But we generally leave our coverage to Neil Davidson at Canadian Press who is in my opinion the best TFC writer in the city though Steve Buffery has been doing a great job I he's not been on it for a long time and I'm seriously impressed he well he was here like a week ago yeah uh and yeah last week and he told me that

when he was at the game in Philadelphia he says he was the only Toronto person there. Yeah. Which is. Very few media outlets have the, that's not, that's not unusual for Toronto FC. Very few media outlets have the, the budget, I guess, to cover Toronto FC. It's just not, unfortunately, it's just not a,

it doesn't get, it's got, it's very not unfortunately it's just not uh it doesn't get it's got it's very like dedicated fan base but when you look at like clicks which is unfortunately where we're dominant what we're dominated by these these days that Toronto C clicks just aren't there yet I say yet because I hope that one day they will be who's got more clicks uh TFC or or argos i think tfc i need this is important for my ongoing debates yeah i think tfc but like maybe argos fans buy more newspapers i don't know well they're older yeah that's a complete stereotype but i like anyone who buys a newspaper so i'm not saying it in a rude way but how much is my digital subscription right now for the star 15 or something right yeah something like that.

Yeah. It's reasonable for sure. By the way, you mentioned, so it's not unusual for you to send a nobody to a TFC road game. Um, but who would, so who would,

would anyone from the star proper go to a BMO field TFC match? Sometimes, sometimes not. Okay. Who's the guy from the CP you mentioned? Neil Davidson. His wife was in here recently. Oh, yes. She writes for the Toronto Sun. Yeah, she's great.

She mentions, she writes about music. Yes, she does. Jane. Jane Stevenson. Jane Stevenson, yeah, she's great. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Neil Davidson was at the Women's World Cup with me when I was there in 2015.

And he, I wouldn't have lived, I wouldn't have survived without him. He just got me from point A to point B so that I could just focus on writing stories. And he's a Brit. He is a Brit. He's a, yeah. So you already have an official, you feel like a paternal, there's a paternal thing with British accents? I guess so. I guess so.

I guess so. Does your dad have a British accent? It's not, it's kind of gone, but he had uncertain words. Like he'll say like raspberries and blueberries and weird stuff like that. He has like a couple of beers and it gets more, more pronounced.

I'm watching this. I'm almost done. It's very short, but this Ricky Gervais series that just dropped on Netflix. Is it good? It's not bad. I'm a big Ricky Gervais fan and it's not bad. I actually preferred Derek. I don't know if you saw Derek.

I think he did for BBC or whatever. This is not bad. It's all about loss. Mourning. It's not bad at all. I'm still with it. I don't know about you. I want to hear about you in this regard. I start a lot of stuff and drop it very quickly i have a hair trigger on dropping a series it's tough for me to stick with something no i have to watch it all the way through so if you start it's like even if i hate a book and i'm like halfway through the

book i have to read it and i'm just like frustrated that i have to read the end of it because I don't even want to but I have to do it I think that's a mental illness like I think your inability to your time is valuable like yeah if you're not if it's not working for you abort and do to try another one in a lot of ways I just don't this that sounds terrible in a lot of ways I just don't try new things um just re-watch like the office and i have a real i think i'm the only person in the world who still watches gray's anatomy i've never seen the british which i think is ridiculous because i love british humor and it's ricky gervais and it's ricky gervais i had this conversation with a friend the other day that you know i've got to start watching it so i promised i would so i will but when you

watch the u.s office because i i watched it and it's when it was real like when it was happening and then I revisited it with my wife and uh the first time I watched it I stopped watching when Michael Scott leaves yeah it gets worse I came back for the finale yeah but I that's two seasons I did that about the same but the second watching with with uh with monica not monica from uh friends no angel of mine this is a different monica but uh i decided let me see what i missed and we did the whole thing and you could i think i'd recommend somebody just skip them like i don't yeah no i i went back and watched i find this with binge watching more like when it's an uh you know, a Wednesday night show or something, I'm much better at leaving one because I just

can't get home in time to watch whatever. And I don't have the technical technological capability to record shows, which I guess is like makes me a dinosaur of some description. But I, in terms of the binge watching like i have to watch every single episode and i did sit through all of those episodes and i agree with you they're not ones that i would go back and choose to watch no because michael scott michael scott was the sole yeah sold that show yeah uh and i can't even remember how we got oh yeah this is so i'm watching this ricky gervais show and i'm reminded that the brits call trucks lorries so like if your dad's on the 401

or something uh does he say would he refer to the truck as a lorry or a truck no he would refer to as a truck he came here when he was 14 and immediately like attempted to get rid of his accent because he didn't want to be the kid in high school with an English accent. Like he actively tried to get rid of it. So it, I feel like he's become more, almost become more back to his roots as he gets older. By the time he's like 80, he'll be like thick British accent and we'll be like, who are you? Yeah, exactly. Or the other one is like, they don't call it an elevator. They call it a lift. Yeah, exactly. Or like, you know, don't call it the washroom. So you're going to the loo or whatever the case may be.

Right, right, right. Okay. So I just wondered if when you hear the accent, it gives you this feeling of comfort and security or something. Yeah. I'm doing this as a therapy session. Yeah, right. Throw it in the pile. Okay.

So you're at the star. You love soccer. Love soccer. You're covering soccer were you upset when they did somebody like tell me how you end up covering the blue jays well i got laid off oh yeah so good this is good when did you get laid off i got laid off in 2016 uh august of 2016 and wait is that the same layoff that gets Sean? Yeah. So Sean and I are both laid off at the same time with our friend Chris O'Leary, not Patrick O'Leary, who is now a fantastic writer for the CFL. And so we got laid off at the same time.

But I signed my contract a little bit earlier than them and eventually got brought back. Like the last day, the day before we were supposed to be laid off, I get brought back. And the baseball job just sort of coincidentally opened up. Brendan Kennedy, who'd previously been on it, moved to a different section of the paper. And I just thought that, you know, in this business, you can't be, there's no guarantees, right? We're all lucky to have jobs and there's not necessarily any guarantees, especially at a union structure where you're sort of on a, on a number, on a numbers basis. Right.

So it's like a last in first out. Yeah. And I'm the last in. So at that point, I don't know if I am anymore, but close to last in. And so I just figured it would be good to have another, um, to have another sport on my resume. Also maybe one with more clicks. Yeah, exactly. More clicks and more eyes on you. And I like swear the day that they announced that I was a Blue Jays reporter, I got like 5,000 Twitter followers. I was like, I'm not ready for this you know TFC's come a

long way yeah absolutely solid fourth I'd say in this market but those big those big the first three are so ahead of yeah everyone else yeah and I always find of those big three I mean this is they always say this is a hockey town or whatever and I'm sure even when the Leafs suck they're always gonna have the numbers or whatever but like when whatever. But like when the Jays are good, like they were in 2015 and 2016, the appetite for Blue Jays coverage in this country is enormous. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Even you saw it with TFC when they were championship teams for those two years. I covered one of them straight and one of them sort of half.

From that year, I really split the TFC Jays coverage. And because the Jays coverage. And, uh, because the Jays were out at the end of September, I had three months of long, long TFC playoffs to deal with. But, um,

even then you could see like the rest of the city getting on board and people are just like galvanized. I think this is why people love sports, even fringe people. It's like you can come and you can join in on the party basically and there won't be too many parties in blue jays land anytime soon uh well we'll find out but uh before i get to that uh richard griffin what's what kind of guy is richard griffin uh good guy good guy yeah very good guy um because he was like forever he was yes he was a blue jays columnist for 24 years yeah he was uh he was um i mean he was an institution at the paper ultimately and

it was sad to see him go so he do you have any uh and i'm curious how honest you'll be in this regard but uh so he obviously got a job offer from the toronto blue jays to well he did this for the expos right yes he did yeah he did it for the expos before he was at i think he was at the expos for like 22 years as their pr guy and then he came to the star and did uh baseball colonizing for 24 years and then he left um in february to go be the jays director of media yeah whatever pr media i don't know what a specific title is like what kind of loss was how was that felt inside the not that you're at one young street too often but uh this sounds to me like a significant departure yeah it was absolutely it was um anytime you lose somebody of that magnitude, anytime you lose somebody whose readers have been connected with that person for a couple of decades and Griff really knows his stuff, right? He knows baseball. So that, that makes it that much harder. And it's not, I mean, he's not a guy that you replace. I don't think.

You can't afford to no probably not but i i mean that's not my that's not my area of expertise but he's not a guy that you replace in the sense that like he just has such institutional knowledge that um there's there's few people left i think in the industry who are like that and if if they you, the people who are sort of on his level, I mean, they're not, they're not going to leave where they're from to come. Well,

I mean, to be specific, like when I think of that level you're referring to, like I'll think of somebody like a Bob Elliott, for example. So Bob retired from the sun. Yeah. Now he writes for baseball Canada.

Yeah. Hi, Bob. He's going to come kick out the gyms. Hey, Bob. He loves country music. Yeah. I know that about Bob. Did you know, hi Bob. He's going to come kick out the gyms. Hey Bob. He loves country music. Yeah. I know that about Bob. Did you know, uh, what kind of music, did you know Richard Griffin

is a hip hop head? Yes, I did. I did know that when we, we made him like a, when you, when a journalist leaves a place, you make them like a front page. So like a Toronto star front page and everybody writes little blurbs about um when special moments that they remember with griff and my blurb included the fact that when i arrived at spring training i didn't really know him in 2017 but he came and picked me up from my hotel because we were going to like a barbecue and for the first few days he had to drive me around i didn't have a rental car and um he started with this like really like like bumping hip-hop channel and by the time he and i liked it i actually do like hip-hop um i enjoyed it but he asked me what kind of music i liked and i said i like generally liked country music and by the time like the few days that he was driving

me around was over he had changed the radio station just like slyly he didn't do it in front of me but the next time he picked me up the radio station was country and i was like this is a good guy this guy's got my back you know yeah it was a real class he's definitely um but like yeah he's a big hip-hop guy i learned that from ryan walstat yeah uh who's also a hip-hop head oh i did not know that about laws you know the know, the Waz. Yeah, I do know the Waz. I know you've never heard an episode of this podcast because you're so busy. Finishing all those shows you start on Netflix or whatever.

But the Waz's episode of Toronto Mic'd, where he kicks out the jams from a very specific, like three or four year period in the nineties. And his favorite hip hop jams from, I think it was like 93 to 97 or something like that. Interesting. What an education. I didn't know the Wads was that cool. I never said he was cool. Okay. He does know his hip hop and you should listen to that episode. And I need to get Griff. I realized Griff, Griff, I may call him that. I don't know if I can call him that, but I think other do i don't see why why not so i guess okay i'm gonna finish that thought i need

griff on this podcast that's gotta happen sure um but maybe like in the off season i think he'll be pretty busy until september oh he'll maybe then on june 27th yeah tmlx3 uh what i was gonna say oh yeah what's it like now like what's it gonna be like now when you you were working with him at the star and now you'll be dealing with him uh on the other side is that a fence like the other yeah it's weird i mean it's weird to see him like in blue jays gear obviously as sports writers we don't wear like you're not supposed to cheerlead no so it is weird to see him but i don't know i i thought it was gonna be more weird i don't know why i like i've seen him i was at spring training with him

for a couple weeks and maybe it's like more of a big full year thing but like i thought it was gonna be more weird and i just i don't i just he's in a baseball environment and ultimately like that's where he's meant to be on paper he would be the ideal candidate for this job. Like, it's, like, it makes complete sense why the Jays would hire him. And then, again, this is me talking, not Laura, but I would think if you had a good opportunity like that with the Blue Jays, you would, you might take it at this point, considering all the, the shrinkage of the newspaper industry like that might be a good career move as well yeah for sure but i wonder now like will you get any preferential uh treatment uh with the blue jays like from a pr standpoint no i think that the way that like the beats

especially work is that what it's like you're competing against the guys from your and gals from your um from the other media outlets but in some ways or in a lot of ways in most ways they're closer to you than your colleagues at the star so like griff is just as close with everybody on the beat i would say as he is with me um so i don't think that there's any preferential treatment coming my way. They relocated. Or anyone's way, let's be clear. For the record, I'm very careful these days. You know, I've been accused of slander.

I have to be very careful of what I say. What do you think of where the media now sits at Jay's Games, right? They relocated. Yeah, I haven't seen the new press. Well, I've seen it, sort of. They, like, redid it or they're renovating it or something, I haven't seen the new press. Well, I've seen it, sort of. They like redid it or they're renovating it or something. I haven't seen it since they renovated it. I think they're going to sell your old seats. Yeah, for like a bunch of money

like $24,000 a season. Cool. Great. That place looks great. I would love to work there. So where will you be? Left field. Okay. And you're, I mean, not that you have a say in the matter but you're relatively indifferent to that you have a say in the matter but uh you're relatively indifferent to this or are you disappointed do you have any uh any thoughts on this when were you

when you when were you we were like our seats behind there were prime they were great and i do understand that like i understand the decision business-wise i wish that they hadn't done it but at the same time like it's not I wasn't there long enough almost to have like you know my feathers all ruffled oh you don't like what's the word yeah I don't like birds I kind of got like in the middle of that I kind of felt like wrong about it so I just why didn't you just say knickers in a knot yeah that would that would have been better I don't want to hear any bird yeah yeah Yeah, no, exactly. So that was really against my brand for sure. Now, Griff, you mentioned he was with the Expos.

I mentioned it. I'm going to give myself credit. We talked about him being at the Expos. I think that's a good segue for this question from Brian Gerstein, who is a real estate sales representative with PSR Brokerage. So this is Brian. Oh, okay. Propertyinthe6.com

Hi, Laura. Brian Gerstein here. Sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mic'd. March break will be over this weekend. The weather is improving and the spring market will be ready to take off. Now is the time to contact me for a free home evaluation if you are considering selling your home. Of course, you can also call or text me at 416-873-0292 if you're interested in the Galleria Mall condo redevelopment this spring. Laura, are you looking forward to the two exhibition games later this month in Montreal when the Jays play the Brewers. A lot of the wind has been blowing out

of the sails, though, with Vlad Jr. not being available to play, so attendance will take a further hit. Have you been to any previous games of the Big O, and what do you think of the Expos' chances of getting their team back? So much to unpack. There is a lot to unpack there.

Here, let me help you let's start with let's leave the vladdy thing yeah till later yeah we'll get so brian we're gonna cover vladdy yeah are you going to montreal no i have never been to montreal for a blue jays game that was always griff's thing right because he is exposed no i'll be in florida when they're in montreal. Okay. Is anyone from the Toronto Star going to Montreal? I don't know. Possibly. Interesting. Yeah. Do you have any insight or thoughts on the Expos returning to Major League Baseball?

I still think that it's kind of unlikely. I think that Major League Baseball still sort of wants to try and revamp the teams that they... That exist? Yeah, I guess, which makes sense, I guess, although going to, you know, the trop is such a depressing thing to do. But yeah, I think there's, I still think it's a long shot, but I think that the best way to get that back

is to show that there's a fan base there. And I think that Montreal does a pretty darn good job of doing that. And we won't like, we're going to leave the Vladdy. Oh yeah. Let's yeah. We'll do the Vladdy thing soon. Very,

very, very soon. Uh, I'm sure that's, uh, the number one, like click clicked thing going on in blue Jay. Is anything Vladdy related?

Is that fair to say? Yeah. So let me, okay. Two things I want me, okay, two things. I want to, like a PSA for listeners right now is, and we talked about this off the top, but this is the first episode in Toronto Mic'd history that's being recorded in this completely different manner. Like there's a completely new piece.

And this piece, one of the things that's different about this new setup is there's now a compressor. So like our voices are now going through a compressor before showing up. I'm going to point to the waves over here, but nobody, I need to put a video camera in here. What's going on. But I noticed when listening to Brian,

I have a lot of like, I myself will be listening back to this episode and taking notes to make adjustments and stuff. So I need to know not only like how Lauraura and i sound but uh that i noticed brian he might have been a little over modulated possibly with the jingle and stuff so i need to know how that sounded so i guess this is a call for listeners to share feedback with me either via email at uh go to uh mike at toronto mike.com we'll do it you can send me feedback on how it sounded compared to other episodes or other podcasts you enjoy.

And of course, you can always tweet at me at TorontoMike. So this is just like a PSA. I need some feedback on the audio quality because my guinea pig, Laura Armstrong, thank goodness she's a guinea pig and not a bird. This is a significant differentiation. So thank you, Laura, for being a guinea pig. But the other thing is, Laura,

what part of the city do you live in? Like what part of the GTA are you living in right now? I live in the Annex. Not so far. Spadina and Bloor area. Okay. Is Papa Chio's, oh, that's more like college in Spadina.

Okay, nevermind. So Spadina and Bloor area. So near like the art gallery is not, where are we then? A little bit further up there, yeah. Okay, Spadina Bluer area so near like the art art gallery is not where are we a little bit further up there yeah kind of near like the Bata shoot museum of course I went to U of T and U of T yeah

have you ever been to the Galleria Mall like does this name mean anything to you Galleria Mall I think that there's one in like every US state that I've ever been to Buffalo, Galleria Mall? I think that there's one in like every US state that I've ever been to. Well, Buffalo's got one, right? Yeah, I don't know that I've been.

To the one at Dufferin. Dufferin and DuPont has a Galleria Mall. Oh, no. And you don't know it, so I won't ask my follow-up questions. But there's a big, massive, I think Brian alluded to it, but there's a massive development,

like they're going to build condos where the Galleria Mall is right now. And Brian's brokerage there, PSR, has like exclusive rights to sell this thing. And this is like a hot, exciting new thing. But all my follow-up questions, I'm going to just put them on the cutting room floor because Laura Armstrong doesn't know.

She's from Barhaven, doesn't really know what's going on around here. She's from Germany. That's a long way from the Galleria Mall. So good. Let me ask you a couple more questions here what's going on around here. She's from Germany. That's a long way from the Galleria Mall. So, so, um, good. Let me ask you a couple more questions here from, uh,

listeners or Twitter followers. Maybe Eric Grossman. Oh yeah. Wants to know who your favorite PR person is. Now this is a little tough for you to answer because we just talked about Griff being now a PR person. But, uh, is Eric in your top 10?

Yes. Eric is in my top 10. Former Blue Jays PR man, Eric Grossman, is definitely in my top 10. Okay, now my tough follow-up question is, have you ever been to a Wolfpack match? Not yet. Not yet. But I have to get out there.

Yeah, I know. I have to get out there. I love rugby. I once had lunch next to the Wolfpack. Does that count? All of them? Yeah. They were like, they walked off the practice field at Lamport and into the place that I was having lunch. Were you there to cover like an Argos practice or something? No, I think I was just having lunch. I don't think that I was. Are they, they're large men. They're very large men. Boisterous men. Yeah, they're very loud.

Well, they're mainly British guys, right? Yes, they are. Although I think I read there was an Albanian on the team. But yeah, they're mainly British guys. That would be fun, I think, to eat with a bunch of large Brits off of rugby practice or whatever. I have a number of friends who go to Wolfpack games and say they're great. So I got to get there. to go to Wolfpack games and say they're great.

So I got to get there. The Blue Jays schedule doesn't really like necessarily work with the Wolfpack schedule. No, but if the stars ever align. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Maybe Eric can hook you up with your media pass. Maybe, yeah. So hello, Eric.

Hi, Eric. Peter Richards says, pretty sure I know the answer, but what would mean the most okay here's your options okay peter richards a raptors championship yeah a blue jays world series victory or england world cup england world cup that's uh because of your father yeah that's like a personal thing though like like imagining watching it with my dad, like he can still tell you where he was in 1966,

the last time England won. So like watching it with my dad, that would be, but I mean, I would be happy to see the Jays and the Raptors win championships, mostly because they both, I know lots of people in both of those organizations and I would hope that they would succeed. And for me as a reporter, it would be fun.

Well, it's a very personal question, as you said. So your answer is the World Cup. Now, he has in parentheses there, Peter asks, will you see all three in your lifetime? I feel like we have, I think that the one that I would like to have pin most is the one that has would like to have pin most is the one that has the least chance of happening. So I feel like that you'll see a Raptors championship. Yes, definitely. And I also think that we'll see another Blue Jays championship at some point,

maybe a little bit later than the Raptors championship, but I, the England world cup, I don't know. Well, it's tougher for that because it's only every four years. Yeah. So you have a, yeah, true. True. There you go. That's exactly it. I'm excited that you told me. Now, you're a lot younger than me, and women live longer than men anyways. So I don't know. If you being alive for a Raptors championship and another World Series, I'm not too sure that means I'll be around.

I think that it might happen sooner than you think. Which one? The Raptor one? Yeah, maybe. What's going to happen? So Golden State are going to disband the dynasty and then we're going to have a shot. Yeah, that's exactly it.

Yeah. And Kawhi is going to re-up. Is that what you're telling me? No, I'm not telling you that. Who's covering the, who in the Toronto Star sports team is covering the Raptors right now? Doug Smith.

Always. What happened? This is my way to talk about the podcasting strategy at the Toronto Star. Is there one? No. But there was like, there was, I was,

I heard. We had a podcast. Doug Smith and I had a podcast. It was great. We loved it. I'll have another Monday mornings. We drank beer. Yeah.

At an incredibly early time, like 9 a.m. drinking beer. But that was sort of a one-off, I guess. And then I got laid off, and then it got put on hold, and then the producer who was running it ended up leaving the star not on the layoff just for another job. And we never really picked it back up. But Doug and i miss it quite a lot we love doing it well i mean i'll state the obvious which is like if you miss it and you love doing it uh you could do it again yeah we we have tried we'll see it's all it's an ongoing discussion i would say doug uh and i via twitter we i invited him on this uh program and he was enthusiastic about it and into it. But we have yet to sort of like pick a date and make it happen.

Doug is a great storyteller. Yeah. A really fantastic storyteller and has great stories. Maybe that's part of being a great storyteller. How's he doing? Because he had, of course, he had a heart episode. Was it a heart attack? Yeah.

And how's he doing? Good. He's back at it. And chair number one. Chair number one. Chair number one. And the podcast, like the Toronto Star is a newspaper, of course. So there's a digital content, 15 bucks a month, whatever.

Yeah. But I guess, is there ever any talks about like a, because you're a media company, have you ever had discussions about an actual podcasting strategy for the Toronto Star? Like, is this something that you've ever heard in a meeting? No, I mean, not necessarily, no. I wouldn't be in those kinds of meetings. It hasn't got to you yet. It has not got to me.

That's not to say that they're not thinking it. But I don't know. Gold Daddy. I have to say. Plead ignorance. Yeah, sorry. That's okay. Gold Daddy is on Twitter and asks,

if Laura could follow any championship beat in history for the season, he asks, which would it be? His options are. Oh, I have options. Two options only, actually. Okay. The 92 Jays. Yeah.

Oh, there's three options, but I don't understand the second ones. I'll read it as he wrote it, and then you can tell me what the heck this is about. Okay. The 92 Jays, the Invincibles. Okay. I know what that means.

Or the 67 Leafs. So before you answer, can you explain to us what the Invincibles. Okay, I know what that means. Or the 67 Leafs. So before you answer, can you explain to us what the Invincibles are? What's the Invincibles? The Invincibles is a team that I follow. My favorite team, soccer team, is called Arsenal. And in 2004, 2005, I believe it was they um went a whole season without losing a game like the miami dolphins did uh so they went undefeated sure i mean i don't know if we have to compare arsenal to the miami dolphins but yeah they went undefeated i think it was it

ended up being 49 games they lost the 50th game to man united which was a very bad day in my life i would still say the 92 jays and i mean this in like i don't want to slight arsenal because they're you know my pride and joy and my dad tried to name me laura arsenal armstrong and my mom said no and then like 10 years later we had a real fight about it because i was like why didn't you let him oh that's funny yeah but um he I I like I like separating what I love from my job I love my job but I just I don't think I'd want to I'd want to have the chance to be a fan of the invincibles right because if you're covering the team you can't you can't express no you can't go sit in the fan in the stands and drink a beer and like be a maniacal crazy person you have to rein it in but i have on a good authority that there were at least in 93 when joe carter hits the uh walk off to win the

93 world series there are reporters covering the game who did big fist pumps. Oh, interesting. I don't want to name any names, but I've got a good authority that that has happened. But yeah, that must be tough, right? Like I always wondered what that's like when it's a championship moment for the team you grew up loving and you're covering it like,

Hey, it must kind of suck. Like you said, you just don't get to enjoy it in the city. You enjoy it. It's not to say you don't enjoy it. I enjoyed coveringfc and i enjoy the jays in a very different way than i enjoy being a fan of arsenal and i would say that like me the jays in a lot of senses are um it's a more it's in a lot of ways it's more personal because it's my life you know versus

arsenal which is kind of you know you're not you're not actually involved in any way shape or form um but when arsenal wins something i really am pretty ignorant here but they're in the it's been a while since they've won anything but yeah but if they win something yes it's not like this city has a parade no or we're all like honking our horns or whatever no so you can go to like a pub and they're like there's an arsenal bar up at saint claire west i don't know what it's called right now they've changed ownership a couple times but it's like a two-story bar and it's packed to the gills with arsenal fans so you get to like go and be part of that and i kind of like that i kind of like the

expat vibe you know it's like all of these people who maybe would never have known each other um get together in a bar because they're brought together by this team that they all love and they meet new friends and they make new acquaintances and all that stuff and I think that's really fun this is like when you hear for example about how like the tragically Hip would be playing somewhere in California, like a really small venue or whatever. And then the crowd is all expats. And it's like all of a sudden you're like,

yeah, it would be kind of that vibe. Like you're with fellow Canadians. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, it's great. That's a good question, Gold Daddy. And I'm glad I got to learn about the Invincibles. at Gold Daddy and I'm glad I got to learn about the Invincibles. By the way, if the

2019 Blue Jays go to the World Series, do you have a guess how many bodies the Toronto Star would send to the away games at this World Series? I'd say two or three. Probably we're still traveling for playoffs pretty

well. I think the plan for the Raptors and the Leafs is to send two. I don't know for sure, though. No, I know. I'm only curious because I asked Kevin McGran to tell me about the 92 World Series in Atlanta. And I cannot remember the number, but it might have been something like 23. Like 23. We don't even have 23 people in our sports section.

I can tell you that. It's a different time. Kevin, if I butch, I'm pretty sure that was the number. I remember it being like Michael Jordan's number. Yeah, and it is crazy but it's such an interesting like. It's a different world these days.

Nobody, the whole, I would maybe other than Sportsnet who would have to staff it's a different world these days nobody the whole i would maybe other than sports net who would you know have to staff it in a different way but if you take away like the sports net television people right i don't think that you'd have 23 people from all of toronto media that would go i think you're right and that's or maybe you'd have 23 but that would be a lot but it's very interesting how times have changed in that regard. Okay, let's get back to Brian's question, and he was asking about Vladdy. So let's talk about this.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has been diagnosed with a left oblique strain. Yes. Oblique is a fancy way of saying ribs? Pretty much, yeah. It's a muscle on your side. In 92, when somebody had an oblique strain, they called it a rib, his ribs hurt. Yeah. That's how they used to say it. Okay. So let's start by, I don't know, what can you tell us about this? Like, what do you know about the Vladdy injury? Well, it happened last Friday, uh, in a game against Pittsburgh.

And I guess he felt like a sharp pain. It's a grade one strain. So it's pretty mild, um, which is good. And they say that it's going to take him three weeks to get back to play. So three weeks will be just after the Blue Jays season has started, which means he is not breaking camp with the Blue Jays as we all expected he would.

I got a bite in my lip there. Yeah. But it's a tough one, to be honest. Like, I wonder how, like, genuinely wonder how long it will be. I don't know that it will only be three weeks because, I mean, Steve Pierce had, I think, an oblique strain last year and he was out for like six weeks or something like that I don't think that Vlad's will be um that that significant but you're you're making this rotational movement when you're swinging the bat and that can irritate the the oblique so I think it is like a fairly tough injury to treat I don't want to like send people like into a frenzy I'm not saying that

Vlad's going to be out until June or something like that, but I just think that like, you could maybe see it having to take a little bit longer than three weeks for him to like get totally back to rehab games or back to Buffalo or wherever he's going to be. I can tell you. Maybe he'll be a Fisher cat. Who knows?

I have no idea. Maybe, but I will say on behalf of Jay's fans, I would say because none of us have even a sliver of expectation that we compete for a playoff spot this season, I would say don't rush him back. Like if he's the future. Yeah, I don't think they should rush him back either.

Bring him here in June. I'm okay with that. But I always, so this is interesting because you, what was the date he could play and we still keep it? April 12th, I believe it is. 176 days then. So the best part of the oblique injury is that we can stop talking about that.

Oh God, yeah. And Atkins can stop like lying to us. Yeah, I mean, it's such an awful situation. It's not Atkins' fault. like lying to us. Yeah. I mean, it's such a, it's such an awful situation. Like what are, it's not Atkins fault. It's the fact that these are the major league baseball rules and there's a problem with these rules. It shouldn't be the case.

Um, I don't think personally. Is, is, is, is Atkins allowed to say no comment or does he, I guess, I guess he could like when MLb asks him for example like is

guerrero gonna you know yeah be the blue jay on opening day i always wonder like uh has he been given like some legal advice to to tow that company line instead of like saying nothing like yeah i think that that's probably the reason which means we can't blame Atkins for lying to us if it's part of his job to lie to us. It's just unfortunate this rule exists that we have to have Atkins lie to us. Yeah, exactly. It's unfortunate that we have to have this conversation at all, right?

Do you think Atkins injured Guerrero? Do you think he injured Vlade? Oh, yeah, that's exactly it. No, I don't see why the Jays would want their top prospect to be injured. I don't think the Jays have any qualms about it. Other than the fact that they keep getting asked about it, I don't think they have any qualms about bringing Vlade up in the middle of April or later.

I wouldn't have been surprised if they didn't bring him up right away, obviously, with Chris Bryant. They brought him up the day after, and there's a grievanceance in place so i don't think the jays would want to do that they'd be a little bit more like a little bit smarter about that i wouldn't have been surprised personally if they didn't bring him up till may um and so i definitely wouldn't be surprised if they brought him up till in may now um just to like hold off a little bit longer and make sure that it all looks sort of squeaky clean especially if the team is not really I mean if the team's competing by some grace of God like

then sure bring him up but it's not like he's going to be it's not like that he's going to be the make or break player necessarily in like a championship run or even a playoff run. Now the Vlade hype is so insane. There's a couple of things I'm going to ask you on behalf of Jays fans. One is about the fact he, he had an underwhelming spring. Like, like,

I mean, it's spring training. I always say this. Cause I remember like for those world series years, I believe we had terrible spring training. So it's like, there's no correlation. I don't,

I know there's no correlation between like how a team, a team's record in the spring versus like how it. Yeah. Fine. So I don't even care that the Jays are having a great spring. But, but I, no,

and I don't, I want to tell that for the record. It means nothing to me. Yeah. But the, uh, lack of pop in the bat of Vladdy is a little surprising considering we're all ready for him to hit like

90 homers or whatever yeah i mean i think he hit what 244 over the course of spring something which is less than his weight yeah that's true that's my next question by the way so maybe you can i'll throw them both in there and you can answer but like i guess we shouldn't care because it doesn't count or uh i don't know that i that you, there's been a couple of times that you have like watching Bobble balls or boot balls at their base that I think is probably more concerning because that's the area of his game that he certainly still needs to work on and needs to improve. I mean,

he's got the bat. I don't think anybody, you know, it's just that that's just, you ask anybody and he's got the bat. Anybody you talk to knows he's got the bat. So I just don't think that like, that should be something that you worry about, especially when, you know, he's not necessarily getting like everyday reps. He's getting every second day reps, but they're not everyday reps. You listen to him take batting practice and like,

it sounds so cheesy, but it sounds different i've been hearing this yeah and so he's making contact in batting practice i i don't necessarily think that like and there's been a couple at-bats at-bats that he's worked that you know he's gone down in the counter whatever and he's managed to get back up and a big part of his game is his you know understanding of the strike zone and the fact that he strikes out just about as much as he walks, which is so unusual, and that's a testament to his brain. And I think that he has, in some instances this season, shown that, which is important.

I think that the big thing for Vlad is that you don't want to see him booting balls at third base. But at the same time, I don't know, maybe I haven't really paid that close attention to the game since I've been gone, to be honest. But maybe Justin Smoak booted a ball at first base. It's spring. They're all going to do it.

Should we be concerned about the size of Vladdy? Like his physical stature. They call him now, they listed him at 250. Yeah. Is this a concern at all well i think that one thing is that like to be clear he's always been about 250 it's not like he suddenly gained 50 pounds because last year he was listed at 200 now he's or two maybe i think it was 200 which i thought was insane but maybe it was 220 but either way he hasn't gained 30 or 50 pounds

like he's always been this size yeah of course like he doesn't have the traditional um baseball body necessarily I think a lot of his power comes from his legs so even if you wanted to get him to be smaller like you don't want to get him to be a lot smaller and he does have like when you look at his body he's got long legs so I think that probably is a good thing like I almost feel like he has his dad's legs but like maybe his mom's torso or something like that um which I think is a good thing for him but yeah you don't want your baseball players and especially like Gibby said John Gibbon said at the end of last year that like all these um prospects are going to come up and they got to watch what they eat. Cause they start eating big, big food and it's significantly different than what they were eating in minor

leagues. Now, maybe that's not the case for Vlad. Cause I hear he pretty much just eats his grandma's cooking. So maybe she comes up, he eats the same thing and he's not at risk of like snacking in the back of the clubhouse. But yeah,

I mean, you can't not be concerned about a guy. We don't want him to be skinny. Like we like that he's thick. Those thighs. He is very muscular, but there's definitely like areas where you could lose 20 pounds. Yeah. And I'm not even hitting a panic button here, but 250, six foot two or whatever is one thing.

But if it goes, he's 19. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? In fact, when is his birthday? He when, if it goes, he's 19. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? These, in fact, when is his birthday? He's 20 on the weekend, I believe.

So happy birthday, Vlad. And Vladdy, if you're listening. Yeah. If you're listening, happy birthday from us. I hope you're recovering from your left oblique strain. Yeah.

So, and he won't be in Montreal, obviously. He will not. And do we know if he'll physically go to, on that trip? I would presume not. I would presume the same.

I don't know why they would bring him. I always thought that it was going to be like a weird thing if they were going to bring him anyways, because obviously business-wise he sells tickets, but you're going to send him back down to Buffalo. Like that's, I don't know if that's a great look. Especially if he goes and hits another home or an Olympic stadium. Where to be honest, I don't think any athlete should be playing. I think that the turf there is so terrible. I remember covering a soccer game there and there were holes in the turf.

So I don't think that any athlete should be playing there. And if somebody breaks their ankle, it's not going to be a great thing. But I warned you. I totally dig these two questions that Milan from Fast Time is about to ask you. So let's hear from Milan. Hey, Toronto Mike. It's Milan from Fast Time, watch and jewelry repair. Hello, Laura.

I wanted to commend you on the excellent work you do with the star. Two quick questions. As a Blue Jays insider, I was hoping you could provide some insight into why one-time best friends Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez are no longer on speaking terms. And two, wanted to know your thoughts on the media's coverage on Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins. It appears that Rodgers' personnel sing his praises, while non-Rodgers members of the media have been extremely critical of the duo. Keep up the great work. Thanks, Laura and Toronto Mike.

Oh, one of the big guns, eh? He's bringing the heat, and I can't wait to sit back with my popcorn here and watch you answer. I do not know why Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez are no longer friends. The breakup actually predates me. I was not around when it was a thing. So I can tell you that it is sometimes a hot topic of conversation where we discuss it and are like, what happened?

But I don't know the root of the deal, unfortunately, because I would like to know. Now, what about this this i don't know i don't know how uh i think it's very interesting the way that ross atkins and mark shapiro have sort of structured the way that they talk to the media like we don't see mark shapiro that often um pretty rarely actually i think last time i saw him was in december maybe early January, when he was talking about the Dunedin renovations.

But he's not necessarily always around, whereas Ross is pretty much out there every day, which maybe is the right way to do it. I think lots of GMs pick different things. The GM at the Raptors, Bobby Webster, I never hear him talk. It's always Masai. So I think it's just internally how they suggest what they're doing. I don't know if we cover them differently than Sportsnet does.

I wouldn't necessarily be, I mean, they're owned by the same company, but I don't think that Sportsnet has, or Rogers necessarily, has editorial control over what a guy like shy to VD or Ben Nicholson Smith or Arden's dwelling is writing. I don't. Um, so I don't actually know how that works. It's not like an insider,

um, thing for me. I wouldn't say that. I generally think that sports net goes like soft on them. Um, that wouldn't be my opinion, but well, we only be my opinion, but. Well,

we only want your opinion. Right? I can only speak for myself. One thing I'll say, and I'm with you, like I've had a lot of these, you know, Roger Sportsnet people on the show.

Yeah. And, you know, people like Stephen Brunton stuff will tell you straight up like there's, there's, there's no such, no influence. They can write what they want. They're great writers,

whatever. And I would just say that uh this if this exists in any way it would be an unwritten like self-policing thing whereby you might and i'm not speaking about a stephen brunt necessarily but somebody more junior for example might might not bite the hand that feeds like they might self-censor possibly and the only evidence i have that this could occur would be the fact that at one point uh mike wilner was critical of uh cito gaston and how he handled the bullpen and he was uh suspended with uh for a couple of weeks and it was like a shot across the bow and all of the above is just to say that it's possible optically that people may perceive that the Rogers Sportsnet personnel

are kinder to Shapiro and Atkins than they need be. And this is all speculative and just feelings. There's no smoking gun here. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's not something that I feel like we go harder at those guys necessarily than any of the Sportsnet writers or broadcasters that I deal with, and I have huge respect for what they all do. So, yeah.

No, fair enough. Good. But what do you think of Milan's pipes? He should host something, right? Yeah, yeah. Every time I hear it in the headphones, I go, that enough. Good. What do you think of Milan's pipes? He should host something, right? Every time I hear it in the headphones, I go, that guy's good. His voice is nicer than yours or mine. I can tell you that. It's hard. Most voices

are nicer than mine. I'll be the first to admit that. But your voice is great. I've been listening to it in the headphones with the condenser. I'm hoping the MP3 sounds as good as it does in the headphones because you sound great thank you you should have your you should be making appearances on uh primetime sports on tsn radio you should be doing hits on radio stations uh sports sports stations how come uh do you sometimes yeah okay so when 590 i was gonna say why haven't i heard

you on primetime sports and i thought well maybe she is showing up on fan 5 so when... Fan 590. I was going to say, why haven't I heard you on Primetime Sports? And I thought, well, maybe she is showing up on Fan 590 and I just missed it. Fan 590 sometimes. TSN in Ottawa every once in a while, which is very exciting for my friends and family. For sure. Yeah. Cool.

Yeah. By the way, sorry, Kevin in Alberta. I see now that Kevin in Alberta wanted me to ask you about Vlad's injury, but I actually asked it and then I realized I stole his question because he wanted to know when you think Vlad will make his MLB debut. And you said, don't be surprised if it isn't like late May or.

I don't know if it's going to be late May. I would think it was probably like late April, early May. I don't know what the schedule looks like. At one point I had thought that it was going to be the Minnesota twins, Oakland athletics away series, like our away road trip at the end, like at one point I had thought that it was going to be the Minnesota Twins Oakland Athletics away series like our away road trip at the end or like the 20th of April around just after Easter I believe or right before 420 yeah but I think it might be like a little bit further back now that

would just be my guess I have no that's a guess a complete guess will the star send you to the vlad debut if it's on the road uh i hope so i hope so okay good yeah good ask the tough questions yeah uh there was a car accident a scary truck crash uh biggio uh right right uh so what happened there and uh from what i gather from the reports from deneden bigio got into a car crash maybe got t-boned i don't know if that's but he and he was driving along and got in this accident and then he pulls over the side of the road it sounds like his car was pretty totaled and uh next thing you know anthony alford pulls up just to help like didn't know his cabin bishio's car he was just being a good samaritan and suddenly there's like anthony alford who of all of the people in the blue jays clubhouse would be the

guy who would stop i feel like it would be like him and then like charlie montoyo that's amazing yeah that so since nobody was heard in this story it's very good and heartwarming yes good story yeah absolutely anthony alford is a lovely guy who I think everybody like across the board wants to see in Toronto this year doing well. Okay. So we all want to see him do well, but I have to ask my final Jays question and then we're going to kick out a jam here. I need to know if my, if I was going to say my dear friend, I've had DMs, I've had Twitter

DMs of the man and that makes me think he's a dear friend. I'm a little delusional there. But Dalton Pompey, can he make this team out of spring training? I don't think it's like a complete no. I do think that like as I think he was sort of leading the pack at the beginning of spring training, and now I feel like Anthony Alford's come up behind him a little bit, and like that's not good for him.

I think that there's a reason he's still on the 40 man. There a reason they just dropped dwight smith jr you know they could have dropped him um but i almost part of me thinks that they would have done something about it now before like by now if they were gonna if he wasn't gonna break camp in some ways because i have that same feeling like the fact he's, and he has played very well. He has played very well. I mean, he's an asset, right? And they would prefer, I think, to get something for him at this point.

Yeah, because they're out of options. Yeah, they're risking losing him whatsoever. So I don't know. I think that like if he and Anthony Alford, but then you've got Billy McKinney too, right? It's not like, I feel like this conversation, we just forget got Billy McKinney too right it's not like I feel like this conversation we just forget that Billy McKinney is around me because he's very quiet but like I think he's almost a lock so are they going to carry five outfielders how are they going to make this work now the reason I'm so interested in Dalton Pompey is not just because he's a

Mississauga boy but his father and tell me if you know this, and I'm not going to play it. So people, you're not going to hear Summertime, Summertime. But if, by the way, if Dalton makes the team, I will play it on that episode. But are you aware that Dalton's father was a dancer on Electric Circus? No, I had no idea. That is not something that I knew. And he recorded a 12-inch single called Summertime, Summertime. Oh. And if you wanted to hear it, I would load it up. But you'd have to want to hear it.

Do you want to hear it? I don't know. Like, kind of? Before we kick out. So tell the people, I don't know, what your favorite food is or something like that. Tacos. I don't really. That's just like such a bad answer

you're trying to cue something up and i'm like i have this one word answer can you vamp tacos they're my favorite with a side of margaritas and some chips and guac that's a perfect night in my opinion although this lasagna box looks great so that'll be a good saturday palmas pasta good people yep Loading it up right now. Let's do it. I don't know. Oh, wow. So is he singing?

You're going to hear him soon. This was his single. This was his single. Feel free to dance, please. Yeah, no, that's okay. I have no dance skills. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. See, this feels like to me, it has to be Dalton Pompei's walk up song. That's why I DM'd it.

Right? Did you? Yeah. So bring it just down a little bit. But his name is Kendrick but his name is Kendrick. His name is Kendrick, but he went by Kay Pompei when he recorded this song. Okay.

And he was known as the cowboy when he danced on Electric Circus because he wore a cowboy hat. Yeah. So when I discovered all this, I was very excited. And I realized that, and this is when,

I don't know, I guess Dalton was in Buffalo or something. And I realized that this has to be his walk-up song at the Dome. So I had DMs with Dalton in which he agreed. But then it was a long time between then and his next appearance at the Dome. And then by all accounts, it was not his walk-up song. Right. Was it a Drake song?

I can't remember what it was, but it wasn't. So, I mean, if he makes the team, I'm going to revisit this. Right. I it a Drake song? I can't remember what it was, but it wasn't that. So, I mean, if he makes the team, I'm going to revisit this. Right. I'm actually Campaign. Well, his mom is a Twitter friend of mine. Okay. Val. Okay. And I'm, you know, of course, his brother is going to be an MLB

player. Yes. Which is exciting. Yep. What's his name again? Tristan. Tristan Pompe. So, my goal in 2019 if I'm lucky enough that Dalton is on the Blue Jays is to get this played at the Dome. Yeah, for sure. Maybe if Dalton doesn't

do it, then Tristan won't. You've got to have a two-prong approach here. Backup plan. No, that's totally my backup plan, but Tristan's not a Blue Jays. At least on Father's Day, you know? like backup plan. No, it's totally my backup plan. Tristan's not a blue jay. At least on like Father's Day, you know? Absolutely.

And one other thing, since Griff is now kind of, I don't know if Griff has any influence over songs that get played, but if we could just get this played, even if it's not his walk-up song, but it gets played somehow like before a game featuring Dalton Pompey. But anyway, it's nothing like your jam, so I'll bring down Kay Pompei.

No, it's not like my jam. And we're going to play yours. Ugh. I like you. I just, you were like, what's your favorite song? And I swear I called my mom in a panic, and I was like, I don't know. I don't have a favorite song.

Tell me. This song makes me think of sports and journalism. Back on the radio dial, a fire got lit inside a bright-eyed child. Every note just a rattle, rattle, rattle. You don't have to pretend to like it. I don't hate it yet, though. Okay. I'll let you know when I hate it. Okay.

I saw the way to rock and roll. Oh, I can hear them playing. I can hear the ringing of a beat-up old guitar. Oh, I can hear them singing. Keep on dreaming even if it breaks your heart. There's nothing wrong with this jam. It's a nice song. Right?

All right. It's catchy. with this jam. It's a nice song. Right? All right. It's catchy. Yeah, sure. And if you didn't have the twang or whatever, it would be like a pop song, right? Yeah, probably. So tell us who's... It's pop country. Who are we listening to here?

This is Eli Young Band. I think it's called Even If It Breaks Your Heart. I hope that's what it's called. Even If It Breaks Your Heart. Yeah. Kind of reminds me of sports, right? Like, you'd love them, but sometimes they break your heart. How old is this song?

I'm part of the ignorance. Oh, it's pretty old. Not pretty old, but like, well, no, it's not that old. Maybe like 2014, something like that. It's not that old. That sounds like yesterday. Was this a hit? Like, is this a country hit?

Yeah, it definitely was a country hit. Eli Young Band. I think they're like popular. I don't even know who's popular in country music. That's the problem. Is Kenny Rogers still popular? No, but I like Kenny Rogers. I like Kenny Rogers too.

Who else do I know in country land? What about those Sugar something? Sugar Land? Yeah. Is Travis Tritt still doing something? I don't know anymore. Yes, I think so. This part I like. So, was it just that in your Beer Haven or was it Beer Haven?

Barhaven. Barhaven, sorry. In Barhaven, was country popular? No, I don't know where the country music came from. I used to listen to a lot of Carole King when I was a kid. I feel like that sort of translated. Yeah, that's one of my like five, you know, the like five albums you would take to a desert island like that's one of mine unbelievable album yeah absolutely i tried to find one on there that i like specifically liked to send to you but then

i couldn't pick just one so i just didn't poor carol i know right now like what are your five albums that you bring to a desert island uh it takes a nation of millions to hold us back by public enemy yeah i would put um up to here maybe by uh the tragically hip uh i really hadn't again we're stuck in the 90s okay so don't judge me but uh i think i i think that the rage against the machine self-titled oh okay yeah i'm still crazy about that and again i haven't thought of this is off the top of my head uh but i'm thinking of stuff i still return to but i mean i really like like i like dookie by green day oh okay and i really love uh pearl jams 10 10 or maybe even Versus or even No Code. Can I take greatest hits compilations?

I like Neil Young's Decade, the double. You are way past five. I've violated some rules. I need more time with that. How about this? Okay. Did you have a good time? I had a great time.

Would you at some point, should your schedule allow for it, would you return of course because we could kick out the jams yeah we can do it no eli young not that you have to leave that song off but that's fine i'm i you know to be honest like that's not that's not like my song you know i just panicked that's such i have such bad taste in music and everybody knows it but are you afraid we'll judge you like you would pick a song and we'd laugh at you like you'd pick like I just panicked. I have such bad taste in music and everybody knows it about me, so I just panicked. But are you afraid we'll judge you? Like you would pick a song

and we'd laugh at you? Like you'd pick like Who Let the Dogs Out? That happens all the time. I wouldn't pick Who Let the Dogs Out, but like maybe something from that generation.

Well, this is where you need to take a page out of the Mike Wilner playbook here. By the way, is Mike Wilner a nice guy? Yeah, Mike Wilner is a great guy. I think Mike Wilner is having a birthday soon too, so I think we should

shout out to him. I think that's soon. He's a definite friend of the show. He's been on several times. No, I'll come back. We can kick out the jams. Because Mike Wilner kicked out the jams and he had no shame. This is the Duran Duran song I love

and if you judge me, if you will, but this is what I enjoy. I wish you had sent me your real favorite. I just don't know what it is, you know? It's like not one. Like my Desert Island playlist is like the first Spice Girls album, Carole King Tapestry, the Stone Roses, Stone Roses. There's no shame in that.

No, that's a great album. Are you kidding me? And like probably two country albums, Miranda Lambert Vice and the new Kacey Musgrave. Which is, I saw her perform at a couple of things recently, including the Grammys and maybe Oscars. Did you remember that? Yeah, I think so. She's unbelievable. Yeah, she's fantastic.

Dave Hodge did his favorite, 100 favorite songs of 2018. And she was, I think, number one, maybe songs of 2018 and she was i think number one maybe yeah and she's like killing it on the indie charts too randomly yeah she's like injury she's like indie country she's a crossover for sure for sure for sure all right before we we play before i play you off uh how old is your car my car oh, you don't own a car. No, I mean my car that is at home in Ottawa that my brother is driving is like five years old. When that car needs servicing and for anyone out there who has an automobile that needs some servicing done, some repairs done, go to buckle.co B-U-K-L.C-O. You go there, you enter your make model year, the service you need,

and you get instant quotes from shops in your area. You can book an appointment right away and then you just have to bring your car in to get it serviced and you just drive away. You're automatically charged. It's completely seamless. So give buckle dot C-O a shot. B-U-K-L dot C-O.

Laura, we're going to write a song about you that's sweet and loving and not sad because this was a delight. Congrats on getting the Blue Jays beat. I think there's a lot more clicks. Hope so. It's all about the clicks. Keep clicking, you guys. I saved you from my rant how clicks are ruining journalism. I don't disagree with you. Let's all about the clicks. Keep clicking, you guys. I saved you from my rant about how clicks are ruining journalism. I don't disagree with you.

Let's do that next time. Okay, it gives me time to shape it. It's really coming together. The word click, it's awful. Yeah, and I don't want anything to be chosen because it gets more clicks. Otherwise, you're going to end up talking about how one of the Kardashians

is possibly dating a Blue Jay, and that're going to end up talking about how one of the Kardashians is possibly dating a Blue Jay and that's going to be your story when we need to hear about what's really happening with our team. We'll try and keep it on the straight and narrow. And that

brings us to the end of our 440th show. That was the number that Jake Gold wanted very badly, 440, and I gave it to you. S our 440th show. That was the number that Jake Gould wanted very badly, 440. And I gave it to you. Suck it, Jake Gould. Suck it, Jake Gould. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Laura is at Laura Army. Is there a reason you chose that handle? No. I didn't put any thought in it. If I had thought about it, it might not have been that. So you're not a big fan of military or... That's the thing. Well, I worked at a military newspaper for a while you're not a big fan of military? That's the thing. Well, I worked at a military newspaper

for a while. I am a big fan of military, but... That's why you chose it. Yeah. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptor's Devotee. That was a tough night last night. Tough, tough night. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta.

Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repairs is at Fast Time WJR. And Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol. See you all next week. And I don't know what the future can hold or do for me and you. But I'm a much better man for having known you. Oh, you know that's true because everything is coming up rosy and gray. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow won't stay today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't stay today and your smile is fine

and it's just like mine and it won't go away cause everything is rosy and gray well I've been told that there's a sucker born every day but I wonder who

yeah I wonder who