Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Mark Hebscher Returns: Toronto Mike'd #475

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

Mike chats with Mark Hebscher about Hebsy on Sports, cheering from the pressbox, the Toronto Raptors and George Washington Orton.

Welcome to episode 475 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, StickerU.com, and Capadia LLP CPAs I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me is the host of one of Canada's most popular sports podcasts and the author of The Greatest

Athlete You've Never Heard Of Canada's first Olympic gold medalist Mark Hebscher. I'm going to get the book. I'm going to get a copy of the book in there. Any free plug that I can get in. Thank you, Mike.

Who said it was free? Welcome. Who was the last one to sit in this chair? It's just all. Oh, it was me. It was some guy doing Hebsy on sports. So, yeah. So, let's peel back the curtain here.

And as I peel back the curtain, anyway, what we're going to do is tell you what's going on here, which is that we just finished recording episode 109 of Hebzion Sports. Phew. And on that note here, actually. Yay, is that my music? What song is this? It's called Do the Murray. By Los Lobos. By Los Lobos.

By Los Lobos, yeah. They let me use the song as the theme. I don't have to pay for it. I have a similar arrangement. I know the guys who wrote the song, so I said, I like that. It's an instrumental piece. Would I be able to use that on my podcast?

And they went, yeah, go ahead. And Steve Berlin, he's a pal? Yeah, Steve's a good friend of mine. Cool. And that's amazing. I mean, you've kicked out the jams here, so we already know you're a big music guy, but I don't think I've ever played

your Hebzion Sports theme song on Toronto Mic before. The cool thing is that there's a band, a house band, a cover band down in Niagara, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Welland down there, that does a version of this song. And a kick-ass version of that. Because we used to use this song as the opening to the show Sportsline

on CHCH-TV, myself and Bubba O'Neill. So I took this along and sort of hung on to it until we began this podcast over a year ago now. So it's just a great little piece, and it's an instrumental. And they never play it at concerts. It's pretty much David Hidalgo on the lead guitar

and the other guys. But it's a good little piece. like it and so i just said you know can i use it and they said sure well it's really good for theme music because you said instrumental and uh we could talk over this and now when i hear it of course it's like pavlov's dog i think we're starting an episode of hebzion sports but uh yeah fantastic i don't know if we ever talked about it and on that note a little more about the podcast so. So you just recorded episode 109. So congrats on hitting the century mark. That's significant in the podcasting world. Is it?

How many podcasts do you think hit the 100th episode? How many are there? How many podcasts are there? 700,000? I'm going to say 5,000 podcasts have hit the 100 episode mark I'm just going to say just arbitrarily I know Mark Maron of course and Joe Rogan

and yourself and all the big names but like Serial for example in the States doesn't have anywhere near that number of episodes it only does like 10 episodes a year the other one that I like is Malcolm Gladwell and he does like 6 or 8 maybe he does like 8 podcasts a year so these. The other one that I like is Malcolm Gladwell. He does like six or eight, maybe does like eight podcasts a year.

So these guys haven't even gotten to 100. It's going to take them a decade to get to that kind of number. Now, not that, of course, your quality, we don't only go by quantity here, but it is interesting, I think, and I don't have the numbers, I'm making this up,

but it's probably 1% of podcasts will ever see 100th episode, something like that. Okay. Something like that. I feel pretty good then. Thanks. And it's been over a year, I guess, to get to that number if you do twice a week.

Yeah. So you've been going over a year. So Hebsey on Sports, you want to tell us, tell the audience how it's working out for you? Maybe do a little boasting or promote? You know, I'm pretty happy. It's not like people stop me on the street and go, hey, are you the guy that does that podcast? It's not like people stop me on the street and go, hey, are you the guy that does that podcast? That's happened a couple times, which is weird,

but mostly they recognize my voice or my face from television because I worked for Global TV for a number of years. I guess I've been in Southern Ontario media for, I don't know, since like the late 70s. I can tell you. So, yeah, it's cool to do a podcast. It's great when someone says i listen to it and i like it um but when you least expect it someone recognizes you for something that you don't think they're back it would be like someone saying hey toronto mike you know you remember

you cleaned out my gutters when you were working in high school back and you know you for a painting company or something like that right well i figured if anything you might know me from my years of podcasting but so you kind of get tripped up there. But it's nice. I like doing it. I like not having a boss is the most fun at this stage. And being able to say what I want. Like sometimes I'm agonizing.

What am I going to talk about on my podcast? And then I go, wait a minute. I can talk about anything I want. Anything. Because it's my podcast. It's what I watched. It's not like I better talk about soccer because there's soccer fans out there. If I didn't watch the soccer.

Or that you're the, or you're the company you work for has the broadcasting rights. So focus on this because we have the Canadian, we didn't, for example, on 109, and I don't think it was intentional.

I'm sure it'll come up next week, but we did not talk about Canada, Canada's women's soccer. Because they hadn't played a game yet. And there was so much else going on that to, you know, to talk about the group stage of the Women's World Cup, where Canada hasn't even played Cameroon

in their first game yet. But if we were a TSN podcast, Oh, we'd have to. it would probably be the lead story. Well, no, it wouldn't be the lead, but we'd have to talk about it. That's right. We'd have to talk about it.

And that's the other thing, is Canada's two sports networks are sharing the NBA Finals, for example, right? Like, is tonight's game a TSN game? Is it a Sportsnet game? Is it in 4K? Is it on home? Is it on the road?

Is it Matt and Jack? Is it Matt and Leo? Is it Matt, Jack, and Leo? Is it Rod Black and Kate Burness? Yeah, where's Eric Smith? Is it Eric? You know what I mean? So where it used to be, like, you'd put the game on,

and it would be the same people. It would be the same every, you know, it was Bob Cole and Harry Neal every Saturday night for Hockey Night in Canada for every Leaf game. If it was a midweek game, it was Joe Bone and Harry Neal. Maybe it was Mark Hepsher doing the hosting. But the same kind of cast of characters. Right.

You know, now the TSN Sportsnet thing is such that, you know, who's, like, if I said to you, okay, I'm going to name you two hockey panels. There's the TSN panel. There's the Sportsnet panel. Name everybody involved. Name them. Go for it. Me, right now?

Yeah. Okay, TSN, it depends which panel. No, no, but who's the host? Hockey. Go for it. Me, right now? Okay, TSN, it depends which panel. No, no, but who's the host? James Duthie. Always, right? Always. And for CBC, generally speaking, it's Ron McLean. Sometimes it's David Amber, the late game, he's done some, but generally it's Ron McLean

and the panel, and it's James Duthie in the panel, and you know the panel with James Duthie is always Bob McKenzie, pretty much always Jeff O'Neill. Does Drager get to get in there? No, Drager's not there. Drager is usually somewhere else reporting. So they've got Dave Poulin will be there.

The O-Dog will be there. They'll bring Craig Button in there, that kind of a thing. But your general guys for sure, McKenzie and Duthie are there. And then, of course, when it comes to Sportsnet slash CBC, it's Ron McLean, it's Kelly Rudy, it's Nick Kiprios, it's Elliott Friedman for the most part. Chris Johnson's in there sometimes. They'll bring some other guys in.

But that's kind of your thing. But when you're doing a series, like a seven-game championship series, and you've got to figure out each night where the game is, is it TSN, is it Sportsnet tonight? TSN has games one, three, and seven, and Sportsnet has games two, four, six, and five. It's kind of confusing, so it's one or the other. So like a few times I flipped the TV on,

thinking that here's the pregame show, which means the game follows. And in fact, it's the pregame show, and then it's plays of the week. Have you watched any games on ABC? I have. Okay, can you tell, because I did watch the first half

of the first game on ABC, because I just wanted to feel it different, like to feel this big event happening. And then the rest of the way I've gone with TSN and Sportsnet. Yeah, well, I like to hear the American perspective. And there are times too, as a journalist, where I like to hear what I consider to be a more unbiased broadcast. And so even though I love the Raptors and cheer for the Raptors, and I can cheer for

them, I do like hearing the non-cheerings broadcast. I don't find ABC is cheering for either team. They're down the middle. They want to see a good game. And look, and believe me, if I'm Matt Devlin, Leo Routens, Jack Armstrong, naturally I want to see the team win. I've been doing every single one of their games. And I don't believe either of those fellas that I mentioned are considered to be or expected to be, like have, as a journalist,

to not favor either side. It's obvious this is the home broadcast and of course they're going to favor the home team and I get that. But sometimes I like to hear a perspective from someone else. So if Danny Green's 0 for 8 shooting threes and Jack Armstrong's lamenting the fact that he isn't getting his feet set, I kind of might want to hear, you know, whoever's doing the ABC game. And here their

perspective, Van Gundy might say something like, oh, he's having trouble coming off a screen. So I want a different perspective versus the cheerleaders perspective. And again, Jack Armstrong is a great analyst. But if he's a, if he's cheering for the raptors as well and he's only looking at the raptor players because it's a raptor broadcast he might miss out on something a key point that i would get on the abc broadcast and one thing about jack who i i adore jack armstrong but when the if it's a bad call or a non-call that goes against the raps he's really emphatic and passionate and kind of going like how does a rep miss that he was he was a lot of contact there blown blowing call but and when it's the other way he just mentions it briefly in

passing like oh raps got away with one there and that's it like it's sort of like that's okay i don't mind raps got away with one there because as a home guy you're like oh jeez you know we're lucky we didn't get nailed on that we're lucky but again who's paying your salary and what is your job function if your job function is to broadcast the game comment on the game and and favor the home team when you can because all your viewers are fans of the raptors that's different abc is going to every major market in the united states and internationally, I guess, too. I don't know if they have an international feed, but anyway. So naturally, the guy in Louisiana who's a Pelicans fan

or the guy in Oklahoma City who's a Thunder fan wants a different perspective because his team isn't in it, but he's watching good basketball. So he doesn't, I don't think that person would want to hear the home broadcast. But everybody in Canada that watches TSN and Sportsnet is a Raptors fan. I'm pretty sure. There isn't one person in Canada that's going, I don't want the Raptors to win.

And find me that person. Find me that person. Because I want to have a talk with that person. Janine, I'll hook you up with her. She's rooting for the Warriors. Is she really? Yeah. In love with Steph Curry.

And is wearing like Golden State Warriors garb to work and stuff oh my gosh I see her every morning she's gonna get attacked she's gonna get beaten up there's always one

like my buddy Kasha who decided he was gonna be a Bruins fan this is when he was very young but he continued this even though he was Toronto born and raised and I never understood it

so he's wearing the Bruins hat is it hatred of the Leafs I don't know do you think it's like I was sick and tired of all these maybe he was Cam Neely or something or a Rebork or something like that could have been or could have been something simple the Bruins hat. Is it hatred of the Leafs? I don't know. Do you think it's like I was sick and tired of all these years cheering for them? Maybe it was Cam Neely or something

or a rework or something like that. Could have been. Or it could have been something simple like Cam Neely signed an autograph and smiled at him and said, are you a Bruins fan? And he went, I am now.

Like something like that could be the little thing that turned you into a fan. I will say the next, so people, a lot of people your age, you're a tiny bit older than me, are Bruins fans because of Bobby Orr.

Like Bobby Orr brought him over, if you will. Okay. No, not you. No, no, I'm not. I know a guy. I can see how. Bobby Orr is a spectacular player.

And if you didn't have a favorite team at the time or your favorite team wasn't playing that well at the time, could you be persuaded to go over to the dark side? Right. See, that never occurred with me. I was never, mind you, I was a Leaf fan growing up because I'm from Toronto and naturally my team,

they were on every Saturday night, blah, blah, blah. But I had a new found appreciation for the Montreal Canadiens. I hated them when I was a kid because they would win all the time and they had Jean Beliveau and they always had the best player. Right. Toronto never had the best, until Kawhi Leonard came along, Toronto never had the best player in whatever league. They never had the best player. They never had the best player inwhi Leonard came along. Toronto never had the best player in whatever league. They never had the best player.

They never had the best player in the NHL ever in baseball. I would say Roberto Alomar for a few years. There might've been the best player in baseball. If you were to take an individual and take all the skills combined, Roger Clemens was the best pitcher in baseball. Best pitcher in baseball. Yeah. Okay.

I'll give you that, but he only pitched every five days. And Joey bats had a moment where I would say he was probably the best offensive player in the game, no? Like when he was... Home run hitter, yeah. Best offensive player, no. Tough, that's a tough call too. But your point's valid.

But the absolute best player in the NBA is Kawhi Leonard, and we have him in Toronto, and that to me is, I've never felt that in all my years of being a Toronto sports fan, that we had the best guy in the league. We never had Sidney Crosby. We didn't have Gretzky. We didn't have Orr. You know, in baseball, we didn't have or you know in baseball we didn't have and again baseball is a tougher we didn't have a rod when he was in his prime for example um and in hockey we had matt sundin and we had

dave keon and we had daryl sittler but they weren't the best player in the league so we now have it so it's pretty cool pretty amazing now um i have a question so obviously you grew up in toronto so there's already uh there's already a maple leafs and an argonauts but of course the blue jays arrive in 77 what was your team before the blue jays arrived oh my team before the blue that's a good question the baltimore orioles oh i love the orioles and even when even when the blue yeah even when the blue jays came that was tough because when I was a kid, I became an Orioles fan. I would have been pretty young. They won a World Series.

I was a Dodger fan because of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. And then they got beat. They got swept by the Orioles. That was Sandy Koufax's last year. He retired right after that game. They got swept by Baltimore in 1966. I kind of like Baltimore, but I think I like them because I like the orange,

like I like the orange bird for the logo. Sure. Now, when you're a young kid, that makes sense, right? Like, I like the logo. Like my kids love the San Jose Sharks logo. They didn't know anything about the team, but they like the teal

and they like the shark biting the hockey stick. Well, I like the Baltimore Orioles, the sort of happy orange bird. So I like the team. And then of course, you know, Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Paul Blair, Boog Powell, you know, Jim Palmer. I just really loved the team. And then when they won the World Series in 1970, I was just gaga over the team.

I kept their, I had all their baseball cards and really wonderful. And then, of course, when the Jays came along, I loved baseball. And so I became a Jays fan, but I still liked the Orioles. I was going to ask you, like when in the early days when the Jays were not very good, like they are now, when the Jays would play the Orioles, did you ever have any part of you

that was still kind of clinging to that childhood team? Oh, not by then, no. Because by then I was a journalist. Well, could I say that? By then I was in the media. I was, I had started to come. So no cheering allowed.

That's right. I had started, and I found that out the hard way too. You know, you're in the press box. Yeah. You know, when Doug Ault hits the home run, they're looking at you. You can't do that here. And I found that out the hard way too. You know, you're in the press box. Yeah! You know, when Doug Ault hits the home run, they're looking at you. You can't do that here.

And I just remember going, what do you mean? Like, I'm born and raised in Toronto. Yeah, but you're representing, you know, whatever radio station it was at the time. And you've got to be... Do you remember? Was it Metro?

Yeah, it would have been 1430. CKFH at the time. CKFH. So they had the rights. But I'm like still a Jays fan. And I think everyone want anywhere everyone who covered the toronto team wanted them to win but you can't show that no there's a book called no cheering in the press box by jerome holtzman who was a chicago writer

for years and the basic rule is is you're there to report on the game you're not there you can't cheer for one team even though you want them to win you can't outwardly cheer for them so i learned that at the age of like 20 when i was in the press box he's hey you can't do stuff like that but i was still a fan but you have to sort of temper your enthusiasm and you have to look at the story from two sides you can't just be a fan and be umps are ripping us off you know wait a minute are the umps making the same calls against the opposition right you're playing boston are they looking at it objectively the same ump looking at is his strike zone the same for the red socks as it is for the jays or are you just looking at it as a blind uh blue jay loyalist right the answer was i'm looking at it like a blind blue jay loyalist

so i have to look at things differently i have to have a different perspective now than just being like giving the home team the benefit of the doubt because i love them so so i haven't been able to cheer in for a toronto team like really cheer for them until now that i'm not working in the business in the industry where you've got to be a journalist here you know i can cheer outwardly and i can but i don't want to be blind to the fact that there is another side to the story but i understand blind love for a sports team means that every call that goes against you you don't consider that they might be calling it the same way against the other team, but I have that perspective.

So I have to say to someone, wait a minute. Instead of saying that the Raptors are getting ripped off by the refs, let's look at the calls they've missed on both sides. Right. I'll show you this, and then you'll go, oh, yeah, maybe it's the refs that suck. And then you can continue to go, you refs suck.

Because maybe they do for both teams. But when it happens for your team, you're not objective. And you've got to be objective if you want to be a journalist or you're not going to be a journalist. Okay, so the no cheering in the press box thing. Yeah, right away I learned that,

sorry, put those loyalties behind. You're there to do a job. So where's the line change? Like we've just talked about, for example, Jack Armstrong. So Jack Armstrong's not a journalist then. Like where does the journalism end? talked about for example jack armstrong like so jack armstrong's not a journalist then like where does the journalism end and the broad like so i so let me ask you the names that we know uh eric

smith been covering this team since its inception is eric smith the journalist i think eric is a journalist because i think eric looks for the truth in the story now it may have more of a Toronto Raptor slant to it, but not necessarily of Toronto Raptors fans slant to it. And if it is, he has to balance it, and he will, by giving you the other side of the equation. Okay? If he was strictly to only tell the Raptor side of the story and never give you perspective, context,

then I would say he's not a journalist. He's there. He's a play-by-play guy, and he's a host, and he's there to bump up the ratings for the local broadcast. But I think Eric has, I mean, I think Eric asks the questions that a journalist would ask, not necessarily the softball questions, but he'll get in there. Because he's, I mean, maybe not on the telecast, although you could pull some clips and it would seem that way, but I follow him on Twitter.

He's clearly rooting for the Raptors to win. Like he wants the Raptors to win the championship. Yes, yes he is. But if that carried over into his interviews and the questions that he asked, if he wouldn't ask a question that a journalist would ask, then I would say you're right, you're correct. But I believe Eric does want to know the answer to a question

that might be a tough one for Raptor fans, but he's seeking the truth not just one side of the story because i'm just i'm that personally interested in like where is so we could say today today it's much more difficult mike because today like for example today as we're recording this there are many so-called journalists that are not being journalists they are being fans they want the team to win their reports are based on not asking the right questions and getting to the truth but getting the reaction of the fans and being caught up in the giddiness and the excitement of it all as you know kevin kevin

mcgrann is a friend of yours kevin mcgrann from the toronto star yeah yeah and he's told you i believe and then i followed up because i got this from you and then I asked him when he came on Toronto Mike basically that you know he he basically writes for clicks like everything's page view slash click driven and it's been determined through analytics that you have to write about you know Marner or Matthews or Tavares and now you've got to write about Kawhi right Surge and whatever and if it's the Blue Jays you've got to write about Kawhi. Right. And Serge and whatever. And if it's the Blue Jays, you've got to be writing about Vladdy Guerrero Jr. Or no one else.

Or no one else. Those are what give you the clicks. And he's exactly right. So you have to tailor, you have, instead of assuming that you might draw viewers or listeners because of your subject matter, you've got to go with what works.

Right. And that is Marner, Matthews, Nylander, not Freddie Anderson, not even Morgan Rielly, Tavares. I think Morgan was bubbling up to be in that group. But the big ones are for sure Matthews, Marner, Tavares, Nylander. You're right, that's the big four. That's right.

If you mentioned if you were going to do a big feature on Jake Muzzin, you weren't going to get enough clicks. So why bother? But my concern now is that the line is being blurred even with like so-called let's you could take the finest journalists out there the most unbiased people okay you've got there has to be some bias i mean we're human beings we must favor in our minds even though we want to be right down the middle and completely objective what about steve simmons ste Steve Simmons is a good example.

Steve Simmons wants the Raptors to win, but Steve Simmons is not going to ignore anything that a journalist would ignore when it comes to getting a story, whether that's, is Kevin Durant playing tonight? Whether that's, does the NBA consider this series if the Raptors win to put an asterisk next to it because Golden State didn't have all their star players.

Like nonsense like that. So he's always looking for the truth. But to say, you know, to say, do you think Steve Simmons doesn't care who wins? No, I think he'd want to see the Raptors win. But because it would be a better story? Would that cloud his judgment as a journalist? I don't believe so.

I don't think so because he did that whole thing about the raps going through the casino at night remember like he's definitely not playing like he's a fan boy that's for sure no but a good journalist will look to seek the truth and that the truth is both sides of the story who what when where why and how and also both sides of the story a good journalist would never give you only one side of the story right could give you the raptors like if the rapt win, he could quote every single Raptor guy, but he would have to go to the, or one of his colleagues would have to go to the Warriors dressing room. And, and, and for example, go to the Warriors dressing room and say,

well, this is what Pascal Siakam said about you guys. He said that you're a good team, but your three point shooting was terrible and that's why they won. And then you would get a reaction from Steph Curry saying, well, oh, is that what he said? Well, you know, he's kind of right. And if we would have hit some threes, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now you've got some balance. You've got one guy saying something

and someone else corroborating it. Or maybe Steph Curry said, he doesn't know what he's talking about, Siakam. He's full of it. Our three-point shooting was fine, and what killed us was our defense. That's a balanced story. You went to both locker rooms.

You talked to both coaches. You got a perspective on both. You wrote your story. Now, at the end, you could say, I'm glad the Raptors won because I've been a Toronto fan for years. My kids are Toronto fans. My grandkids are Toronto fans.

We have Toronto stuff. We're happy they won. I'm from Toronto. I've been a Toronto sports fan for years. Good for them. As long as you were objective about the story and you weren't just a fan because the fans don't care but raptor

fans don't care about what you know the perspective of a golden state fan or what effect it's going to have on the bay area's market or or how about this one um this year the raptors decided that they were going to have a contest in conjunction with mcdonald's yes you hear about this are you kidding me i've been eating fries all year please continue so the deal is this is they came up with this figure they said they wanted to do it with hockey at first they wanted to have a deal with the maple leafs and it was something to the effect of um every time a maple leaf scores four points in a game let's say they would uh mcdonald's give away free french fries but you had to download the mcdonald's app in order to win and they found out that Maple Leaf fans are less likely

to be digitally inclined than Raptors fans. Is that right? Oh, because they're older. By far. Because they're older. It's the only reason. Your words, not mine. It's got to be.

Okay, go on. Right. You've got to download the app in order to take advantage. You can't get the free french fries unless you get the app. So what they really wanted was people to download the McDonald's app. So what happened was, before the Kaaii lender danny green trade mcdonald's made a deal with the raptors the deal was this if the raptors would hit 12 three-pointers in a game in any game everybody would get free french fries the next day only right but you had to download

the mcdonald's app right so the leaf thing wouldn't have worked for two reasons one is what's the equivalent of 12 three-pointers for a team 12 three-pointers will happen far more frequently than a player will get four points in a game right but so it wouldn't work i just use as an example i don't i don't know if it was the four-point thing but let's say it was if maybe if the toronto maple leaf scores six goals in a game right let's say, or more, free French fries. Would that be the equivalent of 12 three-pointers? Let's just say.

Anyway, they went with the Raptors one because they felt that the Raptor fans would be more likely to download the app. They're more digitally inclined, which apparently they are. The other one was, last year, the Raptors averaged 11.8 three-pointers per game made. Now, that was with DeMar DeRozan, not a very good three-point shooter. Jakob Pertl, not a three-point shooter at all. Who I think is in town tonight, I think. But I think Jakob's here.

I know, I was so passionately to tell you about that. Jakob's going to be there tonight. We're going to cheer him like hell. There you go. So what happened was they made this deal believing that the roster that the Raptors had was, you know, included Kawhi, not Kawhi Leonard, of course,

but DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Pertl. A few days after the deal was made and the number was agreed upon of 12 three-pointers because last year they averaged 11.8, they acquire Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. And Danny Green, one of the great three-point shooters in the game and Kawhi pretty darn good too. So now suddenly they're like, oh geez, like, oh my God, my god is 12 gonna because they had projected to sell 700,000 fries a giveaway 700,000 fries yeah which is worth like two point whatever billion million dollars right so now the trade is made yeah and now the guy at mcdonald's kind of goes like who's kawaii leonard like who is this we just traded tomorrow who's kawaii leonard and they're going well it's

pretty and danny green's pretty good and now they're going, well, he's pretty good. And Danny Green's pretty good. And now they're going, oh, is this going to be a problem? Because now, instead of averaging, you know, 11.8 three-pointers per game, the Raptors this year are averaging like 14. And they're giving away, like after every game almost,

they're giving away French fries. Also, we went out and got Marc Gasol, which actually, that's- Also not a bad three-point shooter. But also, his presence and his passing actually a bad three-point shooter. But also his presence and his passing

actually increases your three-point percentage shots made. But that's a great story though. And they're on board. So who knows how much money McDonald's is going to lose on this deal? Oh, man. Like millions of dollars because they got to give away free French fries

to like 2.2 million orders of fries versus the 700, 000 that they had projected so my wife and my daughter my oldest daughter uh have the app and yeah i'm telling you straight up i enjoyed more free fries this it was wonderful promotion i'm telling you there you go and it reminds me of the simpsons i don't know if you're a simpsons fan but i love the simpsons they did that promote thing where if america if usa won a gold medal at the 1984 olympics right crusty would give out a crusty would give out a crusty burger whatever and then the boycott happened and he just took a huge bath on that boycott the boycott actually was the summer olympics of 1980 right and then

the summer olympics in 84 was the los angeles olympics which were boycotted by the eastern bloc nations and russia right that's where canada won a bunch of those medals, like Victor Davis in swimming and Alex Baum in swimming and stuff like that, right? Yeah. Because the Eastern Bloc countries weren't there. Right. There's no, by the way, there's no asterisk next to that. There sort of is at the bottom,

not attended by Eastern European nations. But still, think about this. If you're ever going, like it's like the Raptors tonight. If you're ever going to win, you'd like to be able to win when the other team isn't at its full strength. If you ever wanted wanted an opportunity if ever there was an opening to win a game or win a gold medal or whatever it was and the best available weren't available and that was your chance you're going to have ever had a chance to win a gold medal this would be at no eastern

Europeans no Russians let's go especially because the eastern east Germany for example and Russia they were all doping big time. So they were actually, they were powerhouses because they were cheating. Yep. Yes, they were. And the funny part of that story is when Alex Bauman won his, his gold medal in swimming, he, like every other competitor had to take a urine test and he couldn't go. He just couldn't go. and so he started drinking and so he's drinking beers and he drank a beer and he still couldn't go he drank another beer and he still couldn't go and he drank a third beer and he still couldn't go and then somebody realized that he was underage that he wasn't legal age to be drinking alcohol in the state of california 21 he was 19 right and then they went oh geez we made aia 21 he was 19 right and then they

went oh geez we made a mistake and they switched to coke and then he ended up going to the bathroom and he was positive and he was negative so he ended up winning the goal but that was that was a great story to me but that wouldn't have happened he he didn't admit it but he basically said listen had the eastern germans and the russians been involved i might not have won this gold medal he never did say it but i think he had a pretty good idea a lot of the world's best athletes he wasn't racing against the best in the world right does that won this gold medal. He never did say it, but I think he had a pretty good idea. A lot of the world's best athletes were not there. He wasn't racing against the best in the world. Right.

Does that mean his gold medal is tainted? Does it? Tiny bit. Really? Kinda. Kinda. So if the Raptors win, and they don't have Kevin Durant,

the Warriors, let's say, is it a tainted championship? No, of course not. What's the difference? You're not playing against the best. Why is that different to me i let me think really pause think really hard okay uh it just seems like uh that's that's different like uh when when the lebron james cavaliers lost to the golden state warriors and

it was lebron and deladova or whoever was the number two remember when i remember that season you know what i'm talking about. Love was gone. Irving was gone. Anyway, you don't get an asterisk for that, but I feel like if all these countries, their athletes didn't come, that it's different. It's not a true representation of the world's best.

Right. But it happens. It happens on many occasions. What if a guy gets injured? What if a guy gets injured in tennis and can't complete the final? Yeah, that's just bad luck. Yeah, it's bad luck.

Look at Felix Auger-Eliassime a while back, lost in the final at Lyon, and afterwards was revealed that he had a strained grain muscle. A strained groin muscle. Right. And even the fellow that beat him, and I can't think of his name right now, sort of mentioned it in the post-match ceremony,

Benoit Paré. He said, look, I can't think of his name right now, like sort of mentioned it in the post-match ceremony, Benoit Paré. He said, look, I know he's got a groin injury. So he knew it, but did he let up on him because of it? Did he say, oh, my poor opponent is wounded, and so I won't try so hard. No. No, of course not. You go at him even harder.

Sweep the leg. Right. Exactly right. And then if someone says, oh, well, look what you beat. You beat an injured player. You didn't say, tell the guy, F you f you what were you doing that was my only choice i didn't say i'd rather play someone who's healthy how about that no no i don't want to play this guy he's got a strained groin get me someone who's healthy no it doesn't work that way i'll tell you what raptors you know

what let's wait a few days till kevin durant's better then we'll schedule game five how about that you think anyone's in agreement with that? No. No. No, it's just shit out of luck. Now, lots to cover in this episode. And I want to start with some Raptors talk here, though. Firstly, before the Raptors arrived in 1995, you couldn't cheer because you were broadcast. So before you were not allowed to cheer for a basketball team anymore,

who was your basketball team? Oh, who was? Did you have a team growing up of course i did i'm just trying to think now um like i love see i liked players more than teams see i loved will chamberlain i just thought man this guy is just he's superhuman and then of course when i found out about the book that he read that he vetted 20 000 women i just thought he was i did never no but i had never seen anything like it and And of course the legend of a hundred points a game and 50 rebounds a game and being the most dominant player in any sport.

Right. This was before Gretzky and as great a player as Gordie Howe was, or Bobby Hull or Rocket Richard was, they didn't dominate the sport the same way Wilt dominated basketball. They had to change rules because of this guy. So I loved Wilt Chamberlain. So I became a, I was a war ward i became a lakers fan when he joined the lakers i liked and i liked jerry west and i liked elgin baylor so that was kind of my team

but after that yeah uh it was more it was more the players like i never liked the boston celtics i just didn't like them until they got larry bird and then i liked larry bird i just liked the way he played i just liked everything about him you know slow white guy and he was always getting hassled by the black players, like who great white hope and stuff like that, but man, he could play. And so I didn't like the Celtics because they won all those championships, but I liked Larry Bird. And I kind of admitted to liking John Havlicek, the late John Havlicek before that. So it was more players in basketball than teams that I liked. I know I disliked the Celtics because I disliked, and I also in college basketball,

I disliked UCLA because they won every single year. Kind of like the Golden State Warriors. I don't, I disliked them because they've been there enough. Enough's enough. I don't hate them. I was the same with the San Antonio Spurs.

I don't hate them, but like enough's enough. Let me see some new blood, some fresh blood. So I'm that kind of a guy when it comes to basketball. I'm more of a, I like the player more than the team, except for the Raptors.

But I have to tell you that this season, I always liked Marc Gasol. And when I found out he was coming to the Raptors, I just thought, oh, the possibilities. Because he's a good player. Sublime. Good passer. Can shoot if he needs to.

Can rebound. Can block some shots. Might be a bit past his prime but still an effective guy so i like that when i heard of course you know this but when i heard that they had gotten kawaii i believe i was one of the first and only at the time to go wow we got the best player in the league and everyone else was going we're losing tomorrow we got a guy who played nine games last year and he's only going to be here for one year and i remember saying folks if you haven't seen this guy play,

if you haven't followed his career the way I have, and I remember him from college at San Diego State under Steve Fisher. What a player. But I just remember the size of his hands and the fact that he was the finals MVP a few years ago. And I said, you're getting, you have no folks. You are getting, I don't care if it's for one year. This is now a championship team. And this was before they got Gasol.

This was before they even got Gasol, which made them even better. So the Raptors had to have the right guys. I have to tell you, I did not like the Raptors with DeMar DeRozan. I never did. I never thought DeMar DeRozan was the player everybody thought he was.

Because Kawhi Leonard's a five-tool player in basketball. He can shoot the three. He can rebound. He can play great defense. He can score sometimes at will, all right? And he's a smart, smart player. He just knows the game. And DeMar De Rosen, to me, was like a two-tool player. He was a pretty smart player, and he had a great mid-range jump shot, but that's it. He wasn't a good ball handler. He was not a good three-point shooter. He was not a particularly good defender. Wasn't a good rebounder. Wasn't a he couldn't he wasn't a good ball handler it was not a good three-point shooter he was not a particularly good defender wasn't a good rebounder wasn't a shot blocker

wasn't a rim protector but he was demar de rosen and he averaged 20 odd points and he got the raptors as far as he could in the playoffs and he was buddies with kyle lowry but i was not a big raptors fan with demar de rosen i didn't realize that until they traded him and purtl for danny green and kawaii and then i, whoa, this team's going places. Now, there's a little, just there's a little bit of like hindsight being, and I do know what you thought at the time, and you're being sincere with us. But let's say Kawhi doesn't hit that basket

at the end of the game seven against Philadelphia. Let's say Philadelphia wins in overtime, okay? And let's say Kawhi bolts to LA uh whatever it is july 1st or whatever uh you that you would say you would definitely have maybe uh not be so enthusiastic about this because it was only it is only a one year window and of course now when were we talking this is this i've been you and i we i've been following this team you've been following this team for 24 years like this is a very special day this is this is it's unbelievable to me that tonight there's an opportunity for the Raptors to win the NBA championship and the Larry O'Brien trophy.

I bet you most people. I told you about that one. Yeah. You like that. I wasn't sure. Who the heck is Larry O'Brien? Like who is Larry O'Brien? Well,

that's like someone in hockey going the heart trophy. Who's, who's Cecil Hart? But that's different because that's not the trophy, you know, and. Con Smythe. Remind me,

what's the name of the World Series trophy? What's that? World Series trophy? Is it called the World Series trophy? It doesn't have a name? No, it doesn't. I don't believe it does have a name.

I can see it, but the, the, the, the Super Bowl trophy is the Vince Lombardi trophy. Right, the Vince Lombardi trophy, but at least we all know who Vince Lombardi is.

Right, and the Stanley Cup is named after Lord Stanley of Preston. Of course, everybody knows him. No, no, right? But yeah, okay. And well, the Grey Cup is another big one. It's at Earl Grey oron. Of course, everybody knows him. No. No. Right? But, yeah, okay.

Well, the Grey Cup is another big one. It's at Earl Grey or whatever. Not the guy from Tea. Is that the same guy? No, he was a governor general. Okay. Okay, I wasn't sure about that. Grey Cup.

Okay, the Larry O'Brien trophy. I mean, we could win this tonight. Like, you had your Raptor. I'm so jazzed about it. I can't even speak here. And now I've completely forgot where I was going, but. That happens sometimes when you're so overcome. I'm really like,

I do cheer. I'm not a journalist. Like I know you can hardly wait to end this so you can get prepared for, for, for the big, like for championship Monday. That's what I'm calling it. It's championship Monday.

Promise. It's that because it, the game doesn't start till like nine o'clock tonight. Yep. And so you've got nine o'clock or eight? Nine o'clock. Right. So you've got all day.

You've got all day to, you know, to be nervous, to be excited. Well, my son's got soccer. When am I going to eat? What am I going to eat? When am I going to eat?

Here's the other thing. So superstition. What did you do for the last Raptor win? Are you going to eat the same meal, the same pregame meal? No. Are you going to wear the same We The North shirt

that you haven't washed since they got into the playoffs? Fresh out of the washing machine. How much superstition is it? You washed that? Yeah. Did you wear that when they won game four? I don't have these superstitions. Did you wear that when they won game four?

No. Okay, because if you would have worn it and they won game four and you washed it, man, that's bad. That goes against superstition. Sure, everyone's got their superstitions. Everyone's got their, where am I watching the game? Am I going to be with the same person i was when they won their last game and by

the way if they had lost the last game do you get rid of everything like okay this is what happened i sat here i ate that i'm not going to sit there i'm not going to eat that because they lost a lot of people are like that but those people are stupid they think no they're not they think they have an effect they're the same ones who sit behind the basket at raptors games and when the opposition is shooting a free throw they honestly believe that hitting those thunder sticks is going to make the opponent miss the free throw. If I may, not even the same thing. The guys who are making the noise behind the net,

in theory, possibly, they actually could have some effect. They are actually doing something that's seen by the guy taking the shot. How would you know? No, you would never know. But if that's the case, though, why, if you take a jump or a three-po seen by the guy taking the shot or at least- How would you know? No, you would never know. But the guy at home- If that's the case though, why if you take a jump or a three pointer with the game on the line,

why wouldn't everybody get up and bang their thunder sticks while you're taking that shot? Wouldn't that distract you too? Wouldn't it? But wouldn't it? Here's Lowry trying on three. We can't let him make this.

As he's releasing the shot, let's all bang our thunder sticks. That super fan throws up, he throws a football in the air. Now, listen, listen, I know on your show, once you said that was, you know, everyone does it, but okay. I don't like it. Okay.

The difference is the guy who's wearing the lucky underwear at home. It thinks he's having an effect on something. It's just, to me, it's arrogance. Like no way does the universe doesn't care about you and your underwear. This is not having any, there's no butterfly effect here that the underwear you chose is affecting the game tonight. No, no. It's like, it's like, it's like,

it's like holding the rosary. It's like, if you could have any effect at all, why not try it? Like, why not try? And why not feel as if you're part of it? Just even if it's a tiny, like you're the tiny grain of sand in the biggest beach in the world,

just to be a part of it, just to say, you know what, I'm wearing my lucky underwear tonight. And if they win, I may have had something to do with it. I get credit. Think that way. It's okay to think that way. It's a good feeling. It's a good community feeling.

If everyone in Canada wears their lucky underwear tonight, the Raptors will win. I'm going to wear no underwear tonight. Justin, who's a listener of the show, says it would be cool to hear Hebsey reminisce about covering the Raptors in their early days during the Skydome era. What was the basketball landscape

like in the city back then? Oh, I hated it. Hated it. Nobody knew about, no one knew anything about the sport, really. I mean, you had your diehard, you had your, whatever number, 10 or 20,000 to 25,000 diehard basketball fans nba fans but what i didn't realize at the time was all the kids all the youngsters that were growing up at that time and this was before vince carter the first few years was damon stoudemire isaiah thomas

was the general manager jean tabak doug christie and all that kind of stuff uh they played in the dome which was horrible but we're excited. Who's coming into town. Oh, look, it's Isaiah Thomas. Who's not Isaiah. He was retired by then. Michael Jordan's coming into town.

Oh, wonderful. So that part of it, it was, you wanted to see the visiting team. And also too, you were experiencing the national basketball association for the first time, a pretty cool league with a hip commissioner,

you know, David Stern and, and, and, and, and growth. You had a lot of international players. And at the time, if I'm not mistaken, I do believe the world basketball championships were going on here in Toronto. I think the year before the Raptors

came, I'm going to say 94. Is that right? World basketball champions who were in Toronto. Cause I remember Greece playing Canada and everybody cheering for Greece against our Canadian national team. Right. So the basketball we knew we had a national team. They weren't very good. They didn't make it into the world, the world championships very often. They weren't part of the Olympics ever. They, you know, they weren't that good, but, but we had a couple of younger, we had a Leo, Leo Routens and we had Mike Smrek and we had some guys that Greg Newton. Wennington.

Wennington, the guys would go on to the NBA we had some guys, Greg Newton. Wennington. Wennington. The guys would go on to the NBA, had some pretty good college careers. Wennington went to St. John's. The guys, you know, Newton went to Duke. Guys like that. So you kept an eye on guys like that. Did we count Rick Fox? Well, I don't think we counted. Yeah, we didn't count Rick Fox until he ended up in the NBA.

And then somebody went, hey, wait, he's Canadian. But no, but back then, and remember too, you're talking about a couple years removed from the Jays winning the World Series. Yeah. And the Leafs going to the finals two years in or the semi-finals two years in a row so it was a little bit more difficult um um market to crack and at the time the nba was you know look where it is now 2019 but in 1995 it was still you know uncomparable to today's n. There was no social media.

It wasn't quite the same thing. So it's an unfair comparison, but it was exciting to have another pro league in Canada for sure. And a chance to see all these superstars that you had never gotten a chance to see playing right in front of you, right before your very eyes.

So that was exciting. But at the same time, you felt as if you were, like we used to run highlights on sports line all the time all the time you know and there were a lot of arguments sometimes well who cares about portland against the seattle super saunas who cares about well it's professional basketball and these guys are really good deadlift shrimp and and on right and on every single uh driveway remember on every driveway there was a basketball net even before the raptors came there were tons

and tons we were all big jordan came, there were tons and tons. We were all big Jordan fans. But there were tons. The Bulls were huge. Every playground had basketball nets. There were kids who were always playing basketball. High school basketball was big.

You know, everyone played it, but we didn't have a professional team. Well, once we had a professional team, of course, it really exploded

because kids wanted to be the next Vince Carter or the next Mighty Mouse or whoever, Charles Oakley, whatever the case was. And the more times that it was being shown on sportscasts and the more that was being written about it in newspapers,

the more people became interested in the purple dinosaurs and stuff like that. I wanted to be the next Oliver Miller. That was the goal. You wanted to be the big O, did you? All those free fries are helping out. Yeah. So that, and I think that also made, excuse me, made Toronto an international city. I think once we had an NBA team, it was up. Okay. are helping out yeah so that and i think that also made excuse me made toronto a um uh an

international city i think once we had an nba team it was up okay we got we're in that we're international now we're we got people from all we got people from all over the world coming here the best basketball players in the world the top media in the world were coming here not that often but they would come you know the local broadcasts would come here and sometimes the national broadcasters would come up to canada here we broadcast would come here and sometimes the national broadcasters would come up to Canada. Here we are in Canada, home of World Series champions

from a couple of years old, Toronto Blue Jays. And in the same building, here's the NBA's Toronto Raptors. And I remember the name of the team thing too. Sure. You know, it just so happened, Jurassic Park happened to be a very popular movie right around that time.

Timing is everything. Who knows if the Raptors would have existed in 1990, they would have been the Toronto Goodfellas. I'd root for the Goodfellas. Great times. Now, follow-up, great follow-up question by Sean Hammond, who listens to the show. He says, if the Raptors win the NBA title,

and you said it's going to happen tonight, because you said that on Hebsey on Sports. I did. You still believe that, or have you changed your mind? Absolutely. I can't see anybody. I believe it too. Their defense is too good.

Defense doesn't slump, Mike. I don't know who told me that. I don't know who mentioned it to me many years ago. I don't even remember what the sport was. Defense never slumps. The Raptors have the best defense. They've held the best teams in the NBA to 10 points less than their regular season average of scoring. I mean, the Warriors averaged 117 points a game.

They're averaging 107 against Toronto. The Bucs were averaging 116.8. They averaged 106. That's got to tell you something about great defense. You stop the other, even if you miss five shots in a row, if you can stop the other team, not a big deal. The other thing is, when the other team comes down court and they go, how are we going to score on these guys?

They're swatting shots away. They're in our face on our three pointers we can't do that's got a front but then what happened in game two it's only one game i know but it's one okay i think we're gonna win today i'm just being devil's advocate okay so sean hammond says if the raptors win the nba title which would be more significant the jay's first world series win or the raptors nba title And he says in brackets, just so you know, consider the times. So it's of its time.

Like, was the 92 win bigger, the 92 win in 92 or the 2019 Raptor win? Which would be the bigger? You're talking bigger for the franchise, bigger for the city, bigger for the country? Well, he leaves it open here.

He says, which would be more significant? So you can answer any way you like. Yeah, it was the Jays in 92. For sure. You're talking about, first of all, basketball was invented by an american or canadian rather okay so we sort of had that part about we had a little bit of dna huskies and 46 huskies and 46 didn't last but still but the invention of basketball so basketball had roots in canada i mean baseball really didn't have roots in canada we played the sport for many years. But the fact that we got a major league team, and we won the World Series before Montreal did, who had had a team for eight

years prior to us, and we became Canada's team. At that time, it was extremely significant. People poured out onto the streets. It was wild. Games had big ratings. You have to understand too is that the Sky Dome set set a record a major league baseball record by selling out like three years in a row four million fans it was unheard of 50 000 fans a game for 81 home games four million fans over a whole season that's how much buzz there was every day about the blue jays every day now as good as the raptors are there wasn't an everyday buzz about the raptors since the beginning of the season there was enough of a buzz but there were leafs and there whatever but that baseball season which started in april of 1992 and ended in october

that whole season was in 92 was was blue jay crazy nuts and then the following season when they just were already the defending champions and they put another four million fans in skydome like the the brand new skydome right that will never be done again in sports that whole phenomenon of an entire country riding the wave of the blue jays every single day look at the players they've got look how good they are and they're playing the yankees and they're playing the red socks and all of that was magical, was spectacular. They won it on the road in Atlanta. I was there and, um, which, you know, was great, but in 93, when they won it here in a walk-off style, I mean, how are you going to beat a moment like that? Well, let's

find out if tonight is equal or better too. There was no social media back in 1992, 93, but believe me, the fan fervor was just as high. The excitement level, the knowing of the players. Oh, everybody knew who Joe Carter was. Everybody knew who Paul Mulder was and John O'Rourke and Roberto Alomar and Devon White. People could list off the entire starting pitching staff and the relievers and the pinch hitters. They knew them all. That's how a city in a country gets engaged is they know everything about that team. There were some Johnny-come-latelys, but just remember, very few because that team was headed to the top all season long.

They just got better, better, better, acquired key guys, you know, down the stretch, David Cohn, Ricky Henderson, whatever. And so that was magical because that was every single day they played baseball every day. So that was the most significant. Yeah. Okay, great answer. Now, this next Raptor question is going to come from Brian Gerstein. He's a real estate sales representative

with PSR Brokerage. So here's Brian. Property in the six dot com. Hey, Hebsey. Brian Gerstein here. Sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. And yet to miss an episode of Hebsey on Sports. Less than three years ago, one of my clients bought a condo in King West for $308,000.

It's now worth $550,000. And I'm working with her today to use that equity to move up to a townhouse with a yard for her dog. The condo appreciation has made this all possible. I can crunch the numbers for you too. Just call or text me at 416-873-0292. Hepsi, Raptors are about to make history. And while not over yet, the odds are heavily stacked against them blowing a 3-1 lead in the finals. Even if Kawhi leaves, do you expect Masai to have a much easier time in attracting free

agents to Toronto as NBA champions and with Pascal Lakeley being an all-star next season? Thank you, Brian, for the question. I think it'll be difficult to attract free agents to Toronto. I think that even if Kawhi goes there, might be there, and there's a couple of camp issues and such, and even winning a championship, or even if they, God forbid, blow it, I'm not sure Toronto is as attractive as you may think to other potential free agents.

We've always struggled to get free agents to come here. Remember what free agents have come here. I was trying to think. Remember, Kawhi didn't come here. What about the second Antonio Davis, the second time? Might have been. The fact that Dear de rosen wanted to stay and did not want to um did not want to go free agency and wanted to sign a long-term deal is probably the closest to the you know who wants to sign here for a long long time right he wasn't a free agent he was going to be a free agent they said let's let's get a contract together and they did so that to

me would be sort of the equivalent of choosing Toronto for a long period of time, was DeRozan getting the contract extension. I don't think it's, I just don't know. I can't put myself in the head of any potential free agent, but I'm not sure that Toronto is, even with the success here and playing for your country, I'm not sure that it's attractive enough.

Sorry, that's my opinion. Is it one of these three things you tell me? Is it the metric system, the weather, or the taxes? Which one? I think the weather and the taxes combined. I'm not convinced that if you're going to be here all winter long, you're going to be walking the streets. But at the same time, I don't believe you're going to want to spend all of your time indoors and walking through the pathways of downtown Toronto without being exposed to the elements. But New York and Chicago have been able to attract. New York's weather is not nearly as cold as Toronto's weather Chicago a different story if you're from

the Midwest and Chicago's pretty big town so hard to say but I just I think there's a fear and I think the fear might be something like well man does that mean I'm gonna have to get a different phone you know what I mean it could be something as simple as that like just the hassle of having to get a different phone or not being able to see. Remember they always wanted to see ESPN. Yeah. How come I can't get ESPN? So stuff like that. So if you,

if you're from a country where, Oh, here's your choices, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Charlotte, whatever. And then Toronto in another country.

Um, and I don't know if I'm going to take my family up there and what's the dollar like up there. And is it get too cold up there? And all those questions that may be the, I don't want to say the average American, but in this case the average nba player who isn't from canada and you know didn't sit and talk for an hour with nick stauskas or jamal murray or somebody about the the benefits of the country of canada might just kind of say i don't think so not worth the hassle

but the one i heard the best was the phone those guys came up and said what do you mean my phone doesn't work what do you mean i have to be on a different phone system what like just a little thing like that and now the guy's wife is like I don't I don't like it here because I can't my phone doesn't work properly or they don't have ESPN or it might just be a little thing you'd be surprised at what could be a deal breaker and if some if a player or someone in his family but why do the Blue Jays why are they always able to attract they they've been attracted some top free agents in their uh franchise history the jays what's the difference i don't know who did they what free agent no there's a number and i'm not telling me i'm gonna fail but a number of free agents came here when they were uh i can't answer that because well maybe if you know being

part of being part of a team of 25 players might be different than being on a team where there's only you know seven or eight guys. Even Roger Clemens, we mentioned, you know, he chose to come here. Yeah, yeah. Well, he was here for a few years. Two years. Statistically, the two greatest years of starting pitching.

I can't answer that. I do think this, though. I think that this inferiority complex that we have here in Canada is about to be busted up. And I think that once the Raptors win the championship, a lot of us aren't going to feel as inferior as we used to as a nation. And perhaps that superiority complex that we're going to have now might attract more free agents.

It might be, hey, you know what? Toronto, Canada looks like a pretty good place to go here. Charles Barkley says it's the best city in the world. And there you go. I mean, listen, I mean, there might be an NBA free agency in there right now sitting on the fence and then going, you know what? If it's good enough for Charles Barkley and Shaq, well, I'm going to Toronto. Maybe that's enough.

Maybe that's enough of an endorsement. Awesome. Awesome. Let me give you some gifts here before I continue. Okay. Now I did my best to load up your Great Lakes beer with as many red leaves as I have left. Sweet.

Because that's your go-to. I love it. That's your favorite Great Lakes beer. So there's a... You know that if I go in any of the local watering holes and I ask for the red leaf and they don't have it, I leave. I did not know that.

I leave or I drink water. Did you know Dannyy graves serves uh he serves uh great lakes beer at his uh parkdale motel motel bar it's at dundas and just a little bit uh west of dufferin dundas west of dufferin what's it called motel bar i have to go yeah he serves red leaf great lakes i i gotta does he have red leaf there i gotta find out but he's definitely got octopus wants to fight like that's definitely got Octopus Wants to Fight. Like, that's for sure. That's pretty good.

It's not bad. So I just, I thought of him because I know that the Watchmen at one point were managed by Jake Gold, who's still your buddy. Yeah, absolutely.

And did you watch, and I was going to cover this earlier, but while I just thought of Jake Gold, it'll make him feel good to know I'm thinking about him, but did you manage to watch any of the games so far, the final games in 4K? Yep.

Yeah. Only the home games, right, are in 4K. So game two, we watched in 4K, which they lost. And game, let me think about this one. Game four was in Golden State. So it was just game two that I watched in 4K. Okay, so you didn't see. No, games three and four weren't in 4k but one was one was on you didn't see game one i guess uh not in 4k i didn't watch game one in 4k and that's just to let people

know in the milwaukee series i watched uh two or three of the games in 4k okay and your hookup for 4k is it jake's brother yeah jake's brother howie jake's brother how he lives around the corner from jake so what the thing to do is always get someone else to buy stuff. Like, you know, expensive stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Always get someone else to buy leading edge stuff. Right. And then go over and sample it, you know, if in this case a television.

And then after you've seen it in action, then you can determine if it's worth it for you to buy it or to be friendly enough with this person to be able to go over for the big games. the only games that are broadcast telecast in 4k are the home games and so you got to pick out the okay so in we like howie a lot i like him even more because he's got a 4k tv and he's a raptors fan tell us normies like us normies uh what's the how much of a difference is it like huge oh my god what a difference it's like you're watching tv from the 70s if you're watching your regular hd channel versus 4k wow it's unbelievable beautiful it almost looks like a video game you go whoa is this real but is it like 8k is already here is this right like that's what i hear that's what i hear but i mean i'll give you an example the the

the contrast between black the colors black and white on an HD TV versus 4K, no comparison. It's startling, the difference in 4K. Startling. Okay, that's exciting. But only, as you mentioned, the reason for only home games being in 4K is that it's the Scotiabank Arena that has the infrastructure. Yes, their cameras are 4K cameras, and their board, I guess their control board in the control room is all set up for 4K telecast and delivery. Whereas on the road, if they're playing in any other

place, whatever cameras are there are not in the States for example. Those aren't 4K cameras. They don't broadcast much in 4K. Yeah, like ABC is not broadcasting in 4K. No, they're not. They're not broadcasting in 4K. There isn't a 4K ABC channel, but there is a 4K TSN, and there's a 4K Sportsnet channel, and if you broadcasting in 4K. No, no, they're not. They're not broadcasting in 4K. There isn't a 4K ABC channel, but there is a 4K TSN, and there's a 4K Sportsnet channel.

And if you have a 4K receiver, and the game is being telecast in 4K, you watch it on that channel, it looks fabulous. Now, you're... Not enough games are being broadcast in 4K. You're a big Tragically Hip fan. I am a huge Tragically Hip fan.

And this is your favorite Tragically Hip song. This is... I'll Do the Rolling, You Do the Details. Thugs it's called. It's a really good tune. Does Bob McKenzie open his podcast with thugs? I haven't listened to Bob McKenzie's podcast. Well, it's not as good as Headsie on Sports.

No, but I don't know if he does or not, but if he does he's got, I know he's got great taste and he's a huge hip fan as well. Yeah. You know, a lot of times it's the deep cuts. It's the deep cuts. I saw the Gordon Lightfoot, um, um, documentary the other night.

Is it good? It's really good. It's called, if you could read my mind, but in it, and I didn't realize it is that, um, the tragically hip covers some Gordon Lightfoot songs.

Uh, deep cuts though, right? Or yeah, real deep cuts. And I had forgotten. And then when I saw the document, whoa,

pretty good. So, um, just to throw it kind of that. No when I saw the doc, I went, whoa. Pretty good. So just to throw kind of that out. No, the more music, the better. We can't just do sports. We have a lot to cover in this show. I feel, okay, so that's, I was clear the six pack is from Great Lakes Brewery. It's yours, Hebsey. Thank you.

Are you coming to TMLX3 on June 27th? Is that on the calendar? Was I not the first RSVP? You told me about it before you had even sent the invite out. Was I not the first to say I'm there? June the 27th. You were in second. My wife was first. You were second, I think. I'll be lined up in the parking lot. I was told

by, who is it? CrunchyPix on Twitter says that he's going to camp out on the 25th of June. On the patio, there's only so many seats and then it goes into the lawns. Somebody said, what is this? The Molson Amphitheater? I'm like, no, this is the Great Lakes stage. That's what this is.

But yeah, so June 27, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Throwing everybody out at 9 o'clock? I think, you know what? I actually talked to Sam over there at Great Lakes, and they're going to get, they already got it. It's an SOP, some kind of a permit, like from the LCBO or whatever. That means,

because normally at 9 p.m., the reason they shut you down is so hard. It's residential around there, right? Not that so much as, no, I don't think it's that. They represent the Gardner, man. I think that's okay.

There was an alcohol, their licensing didn't cover beyond 9 p.m., so no one can have any drinks. Anyway, this time we won't be- Is it enforceable? They don't want to risk it.

Why would they risk it? That's what they do. You're right, you're right. Why would you risk it? I don't know. But this time we're going to have a permit that allows us to... So yeah, we still end at 9, but if it's spilled into 9, 10, 9, 15, 9, 20, no one's going to lose a license or anything.

You know, the liquor board won't be at the door. So it's going to be amazing. Lowest of the low. We're going to hear some hip covers by the Royal Pains. Oh, they're awesome. They are good, eh? And the Lowest of the Low are really good too. I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing them perform as well. Absolutely. How did you get these

guys, man? And they're going to be on Toronto Mic next week as well, Lowest of the Low. Is that part of the package deal? Well, their new album just came out, so we're going to play the new album and talk about it. And yeah, get people psyched for TMLX3 and I can't wait to see you there. Will you bring copies of your book?

This is a big question. I am. I'm going to bring copies of the book you're allowing me to, which is really nice. And thanks. I just think that a lot of people that will be attending that would be interested in the story of George Orton, which is, he's the subject of my book.

And we're going to talk about George soon. George Orton. And I think if you like what you hear about George Orton and why wouldn't you? This is neat. Like if you come to TMLX3, Hebsey's there. So he will sign a copy for you there. We can take pictures if you want.

Like get a selfie with Hebsey. Holding the book. An autographed copy. Sign it for you. Of the book with Hebsey. Like this is all like this bonus. This is all like just you got to come to TMLX3 just to meet Hebsey and to get a copy of his book signed.

You read, like, when I did the manuscript, right? Like, before it was even done. And it's autographed. That's right. I autographed a manuscript for you. Like, when that's a big movie or whatever. It's going to be a movie. I can't wait.

It's going to be a movie. So, beer, Palma Pasta. Oh, yeah. Lasagna is yours, Mr. Hebhire uh you've already had a scored a couple out of palma how is my neighbors love me because they i can't eat the entire pasta the entire uh lasagna so when i make it i make it for you know a number of people but also for like you know here you go take some home with you that kind of thing so my son first of all loves it because you know he comes over for some lasagna and that's like, look, I got this big thing from Palma Pasta. Like, do you want some of it? Do I

want some of it? Are you kidding, dad? I'm glad you mentioned your son because this weekend coming up is Father's Day. Yeah, it is. And I, you know what? I completely forgotten about it. I just, I don't consider Father's Day to be anywhere near as significant as Mother's Day. In fact, it really flies under the radar. Like if you're a dad, you're like, oh, I just want to spend time with my family kind of a thing. Like, I just, you know, I want the time. But the idea of like, oh, what am I going to get for Father's Day? Like, my father, my father.

Nah, in our family, it's like, let's just spend some quality time together, have a meal together. But of course, on Mother's Day, you really got to go all out because it's, you know, moms do way, way more than dads, of course, and should be respected more than dads. Way, way, way more than dads, of course, and should be respected more than dads. Way, way, way more than dads. Controversial, real talk right there.

And also Mother's Day comes before Father's Day, so you really got to go all out for Mother's Day. You don't want to be screwing around with your mother on Mother's Day. Whereas on Father's Day, you can get away with not being as attentive and give great gifts and stuff like that. And most dads will go, hey, it's cool. As long as your mother is, you know, as long as you look after your mom on Mother's Day, most dads are cool.

Most dads I know are not expecting a lot on Father's Day. Like, give me a hug. Give me a hug and let me play golf kind of a thing. Let me do my own thing on Father's Day and I'll be fine. But generally what happens on Father's Day is I do all the cooking, the barbecuing, the whole thing. Because I want to spend time with my family. So I don't want to say, I'm not doing any work today.

I'm going to sit on the couch. I'm going to have a beer. Or watch the US Open. Because it's Father's Day. Right. But you should be entitled to do whatever you want. Just like, you know, moms should be able to on Mother's Day. Right.

So yeah, it is this week. And I'm not prepared for it at all. I'm not prepared for my dad. Well, here, I'm here to help you, man. I'm here to help you. Good. I need the help. Ready?

And it's funny because I'm giving you a lasagna today when you leave. But if you go to Palma Pasta. Yes. Good. I need the help. Ready? And it's funny because I'm giving you a lasagna today when you leave. But if you go to Palma Pasta, they have a Father's Day special. The large lasagna, which is what's actually in front of you right now, the large lasagna is only $26.99. This is actually a huge bargain. You could feed a family of eight with this thing and still have leftovers. So take advantage of the Father's Day special at Palma Pasta. They have four locations in Mississauga and Oakville.

Tell them Toronto Mike sent you. Go to palmapasta.com to find out exactly where they are. They're on Skip the Dishes as well. And yeah, take advantage of that Father's Day special. That's a killer deal. Man, that's great. And you know what? Tonight, this is a perfect time for a Palma Pasta

because this is where you want to make a good meal here. You might be eating a little bit later tonight because the Raptors game is at 9 o'clock right this is awesome stuff really delicious and also you know i've lost weight actually eating poma pasta because it fills you up so much that you don't eat for like hours and hours it sticks to your ribs right so like you have the hemp and then eight hours later you're you're not hungry makes sense to me i can't believe we waited this long for me to give you one of these. I can't believe it. Everybody's excited about the Toronto Mike stickers from stickeru.com.

So Hebsey, there's a Toronto Mike sticker. I put mine on my bike. Yeah, I got to put mine on my bike too. Oh, I've been doing some great biking too. What's your favorite trail? You've inspired me. Thank you. Your ability to go out and bike in nasty weather and for long distances has inspired me.

I've been running a lot lately, but I've been biking and really so your running inspires me yeah we're inspired my running was inspired by george orton right greatest athlete but but but the cycling part is like you know when i moved back into the city and i sold my car and i bought a bike i didn't realize how great it was to bike around i mean i was like oh i need the bike in case i need to go certain places or get some exercise but i I never realized how great the Humber Trail was or the Waterfront Trail and just, and all the bike lanes that are available in downtown Toronto. So you're not fighting the traffic. You've actually got your own dedicated bike lane. And I want to see more bike lanes in Toronto. And in fact, I believe that bike lanes are good for business, better for

business. Because biker people, when I'm on on a bike i'm more likely to stop somewhere right and spend some money at a store along my bike route yeah much more likely to do that i don't need to go to the supermarket in a big parking lot so i've got a place to put my car but as on a bicycle man i'll stop oh yeah i'll stop right here you know set up the bike lock up the bike against the thing good bakery over there, grocery store over there. Right. Now, when it comes to the big supermarkets, you know, not too many cyclists that I know park their bikes in the parking lot at, you know, Costco, for example, or something like that.

But as far as, you know, along the city streets, you know, Bloor Street or College Street or whatever, I bike a lot. And I, you know, when I go to the Chinese market at Dundas and Spadina, I leave my bike there. I go in, I buy my veggies and my fish and my fruit and whatever else and then back on the bike and off I go.

Instead of other people who I see are looking for a parking spot, where am I going to park? Park illegally. Man. Yeah, a whole thing like that.

Have you ever preached to the choir? I love it. I love it. And tonight, this is my plan. So tonight, let's say around 1130,

let's say the Raps win tonight. Bike downtown. I'm biking downtown. You may not have to downtown 100 you may not have to go you may only have to go within the vicinity of jurassic park because i'm wondering if you spend all that time in jurassic park or whatever is the mob the mob's not the right word but in this case are the is the are all the you know the masses the human masses are they all going to kind of like uh uh make their way to young?

Well, that's what they did in 93. Well, that was 93 though. I know. Because I'll tell you why. There was no social media. Now, for example, let's just say after if they win. I'm getting ahead of myself here, but so what? It's fine.

So what? So suppose somebody important tweets out, hey, we're all meeting at blah. Everyone, big party at Nathan Phillips Square. Or Young Dundas Square. Let's say party at nathan philips or young dundas square let's say a party at young dundas square yeah and let's say ron hawkins of lowest of the lowest let's go and moe berg of the pursuit of happiness let's go and jeremy taggart and all these say let's go we're just gonna have an impromptu dave badini and all we're gonna have an impromptu raptors celebration and they're gonna go out all night long and it's at Young Dundas Square or it's wherever.

Yeah. That would be awesome. Moberg's a big Raps fan. That would be awesome. See, and I think that, you know, we didn't have that back. Everyone was like, oh, let's go to Yonge Street. You're right. Which is natural, you know, from the sky.

But I just think that, I don't know, man, you might have different, like, if you've got that many satellite celebrations going on, it just might evolve into something huge huge it's sort of like wildfires have broken out in toronto but not fire human human kindling you know rubbing up against each other have you ever been to one of those i think so they shut down young street i know it's great yeah it'll be a mess oh we're getting ahead of ourselves i can't wait let's get ahead of ourselves though i mean don't you think that would be it i mean it's something like some dude goes hey hey, look, Kawhi Leonard just tweeted out, I'm throwing a party and I'll be on the

55th floor of the Scotiabank Center and, you know, dropping Raptor caps or something. Or Drake! Drake tweets out, party at my restaurant. Everybody welcome. Oh, yes. Madness. He's got a few followers, too. That'd be great. So, Hebzy, actually. He's got a few followers too.

All right. That'd be great. So, Hebzy, actually right after this recording, I'm going to bike to Sticker U in Liberty Village and pick up some more stickers. So, Toronto Mike sticker. There's actually a temporary tattoo. We know how you like to rock the temporary tattoos. How do these work, the temporary tattoos?

You got to wet them. So, you just put it on. You moisten the back and then you peel it off on your skin. So water is the key. You moisten this part here? Right, yeah. So you put it on like that and then you wet this part

and then you peel it off when it's wet. Like you get like a sponge or something and you do it. My kids love it too. And there's a CN Tower sticker for you because you're a Toronto guy.

Your hood, what's the name of your neighborhood you're living in? Little Italy. That's the real Torontonian there. Little Italy. So enjoy the stickers,

sticker you.com order one or as many as you want. Custom stickers or decals, or you got to get some Hebsy on sports stickers. What else? You can do buttons. You can do anything. Iron-ons, anything that sticks.

Thank you. Sticker you. Thanks. on anything that sticks. Thank you, StickerU. Thanks. Hepsy loves his jersey there. What is your take on Drake?

A lot of people seem to think he's making it all about himself. Oh my God, he's a phenomenal musician. Come on. The guy is so good. I mean, his beats are great. It's so well produced. It's so professional and just, it's excellent. I just got turned on by, I mean, I like Drake.. It's so well produced. It's so professional and just, it's excellent. I just got turned on by, I mean, I like Drake. You know what I really like is I just started listening to Anderson.Paak.

I don't even know Anderson.Paak. Oh my God, seriously? I know Freddie Anderson. Oh man, look up the album Malibu by Anderson.Paak. Brady Anderson? P-A-A-K. Okay. Anderson.Paak.

Oh, he's good. Yeah, I watched a NPR Tinypr tiny desk concert have you seen those i'm aware of them yeah they're awesome so yeah i'm a big fan so i downloaded like three is three albums and i'm a big fan i i like i like a lot of the i really do like a lot of the beats there's a lot of stuff i listen to that i'm not sure who the artist is like i like this though well you give me something with a great beat and I'm there. Yeah. Actually, I think a lot of people will be surprised to hear you're a fan of Drizzy's work. I do.

I'm happy to hear it. I like him too. Look, as a person, and I probably felt the same way about Noel and Liam Gallagher and the guys in Led Zeppelin. You know, there's always been musicians that have been known as, you know, hard asses or not easy to get along with or whatever.

And if I take that part out of it and i only care about the music i just want the music with drake unfortunately in my case he sort of permeates the everything you know especially the raptors thing but strictly as a musician yeah man i'll listen to drake as often as i can i like his music i'm not crazy about some of his stunts but i still like his music and i'm sure if you ask drake and said you know hebsey buys your music he He's not crazy about it. Drake would say, that's fine with me, man. As long as he likes my music, I'm okay with that.

And we're both Raptor fans. Right, right. Now, since we know you love music, let's go way back before your time. Let's go in the time machine 60 years ago. So 60, six zero years ago this week, this was the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100.

60 years ago? 6-0. That would be 59. 1959? This was number one? Yeah, this was number one. I know. it's funny. You get some interesting songs.

It's Wheat Kings by the Tragic. It does, I know. It sounds like Wheat Kings. It sounds like... You know, they didn't have the rights to use the loon in the opening of Wheat Kings. You already know this story, though, probably. Oh, most...

Woo! In 1814, we took a little trip Woo! Yep. Have you ever heard this before? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is Stonewall Jackson, Johnny, what's his name? Johnny Horton. Johnny Horton, right. Johnny Horton was a pretty popular guy.

Yeah. Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. Coming back to Hempsi now. This is called The Battle of New Orleans. Yeah, I wasn't familiar with The Battle of New Orleans, but number one on this week. Johnny Horton. Johnny Horton.

I don't know if he's related to Tim Horton. No. No. Remember the Time, Hebsey, is brought to you by Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. They've been doing quality watch and jewelry repairs for almost 40 years. If you mention you heard about them on Toronto Mic,

you get 15% off any regular-priced watch battery installation. So visit FastTimeWatchRepair.com for a location near you. If you need any jewelry cleaned or watch repairs done or batteries installed or get a new band for an old watch, Milan at FastTime will take care of you. He's your guy. Goodbye, Johnny Horton. Number one on this 60 years ago.

You just went from Drake to Johnny Horton seamlessly. Well, here's, I was going to. Oh, yeah. It's my favorite Rolling Stones song. Oh, I know. This is not a coincidence. My absolute favorite Rolling Stones song. This, you've got Keith Richard.

And not just Keith Richard, but you've got the other guy that like Ron Wood replaced many years ago. Mick Taylor. Mick Taylor, yeah. Playing guitar also. And Bobby Keys on sax. It's fabulous.

You've got satin shoes. From Sticky Fingers. I want people to go back and listen to the very first Kick Out the Jams episode of Toronto Mike. Number one. I think we're at like 70 or something, but number one was Mark Hebbshire. And we played this. I hope so.

Of course. And we played this and we played, I didn't even refer to it, but early on I played Viking. Oh, yeah. In the background. I don't know if you picked it up in the background there. You know why I like that song?

You know why I like the song Viking is they used it on an episode of The Sopranos when the strippers came out at the Bada Bing. Bada Bing, yeah. And there's a scene in there, and the strippers are all dancing to the song, Viking by Los Lobos. And I remember calling my buddy Steve saying, I'm watching The Sopranos. And the album had just come out or whatever.

And they're playing Viking, and it's the strippers are all dancing to it. Like that kind of a thing. And I always wondered, you know, the producer of a TV series kind of goes, we need some music. And then he hears something and goes, that would be great for when the strippers are on stage

at the bottom of Bing. Right. So we know, Hebsey, we know you're a sports guy and we know you're a music guy. What's your favorite TV show of all time? My favorite TV show. I just mentioned The Sopranos. I can't consider that to be a TV show only because it... But it is a TV show.

And here's why. I know people that binge watched it. So it's like, it's sort of like you could watch it as a movie, right? But back in the day, you could only watch your show because it was on once a week if it was a weekly show. So I would have to say MASH was my favorite show

because I would wait every week for the next edition of MASH. And then when it was in syndication, you could watch it every day. But why are you imposing this strange qualifier? I mean, The Sopranos is a television series. No. Of course it is.

No, it's not. Sopranos to me. This is the most shocking take. Yeah. Sopranos to me is not a television series in so much as it is a just a long running movie that you can watch in segments. Wow. Like I said before, most people I know that watch The Sopranos did not wait, did not have

to wait a week. But I waited a week. I watched it. When? I mean. When did you watch it? On TMN. Like I'd wait for the episode on a Sunday or whatever it was, and I'd watch it like the way you watch MASH back in the day.

Right. But not as many people. Most people have now watched The Sopranos at their leisure. The entire box set. Geez, I remember when the box set came out on VHS for Kanye West. So you could watch as many episodes as you wanted at a time.

And a lot of people watch more than one at a time. I'm shocked by this. The binge watching kind of takes away to me from the actual TV show, meaning something you could hardly wait for the next episode.

But someone right now is going to binge watch MASH. There's somebody somewhere. I don't know. But when it ran live, you had to wait every week. I could say The Ed Sullivan Show. I could wait every week. I could say The Ed Sullivan Show. Okay. I'd wait every single Sunday night to watch The Ed Sullivan Show.

It was my favorite show on TV. Because the anticipation of waiting for the next episode. People had that for The Sopranos. No, they didn't. Not the same. Not the same because you could just watch it. Millions of people did. You could watch it right again.

Right there it is. Well, now you can. But it used to air on HBO once a week. Thursday nights. Okay, Thursday nights. Every Thursday. I had to wait a week to watch The Sopranos. Why do you think it was Sunday?

Okay, okay. I had to wait a week because it was probably Sundays on TMN. Okay. I had a big dish, everything. I got it strictly for these shows. Sopranos, Six Feet Under. Yeah, I love Six Feet Under.

And I had to wait a week until the next episode. And then eventually, I could watch back-to-back episodes, three episodes, five episodes in a row. And then CTV would run The Sopranos. They would run them all night long. Start Sunday night at 11, and they'd run episode after episode after episode after episode after episode after episode after episode.

It's not the same as waiting a week for your favorite TV show. Look, The Flintstones was on every day at 1230. They just ran. But originally, it was a primetime show once a week. Right. So to me, the difference between a television show that you had to wait once a week for and a show that you could now

watch like you watch 15 of them in a row, there's a big difference. So I'll say my favorite TV show was MASH. I look forward to MASH every week. And now since the appearance of digital channels and the HBOs of the world, I would have to say The Sopranos

because The Sopranos, I could watch every episode right now. If you said you got two days off, right? Here's why I'm shocked by this opinion here because every show right now is streamable and bingeable. I'm not talking about right now, Mike. You asked me what my favorite TV show was. Yes, but when do you think The Sopranos aired? Not my favorite streaming show.

90s show, right? Not my favorite streaming show. My favorite television show. In other words, you have to turn the television on to watch this show. It's required viewing at a certain time, right? That's a television show. It's on at a certain time right that's a television show is on at a certain time that's the difference all right you asked me i know i gave you my answer i wasn't expecting the question i didn't think you were going to disqualify this disqualifying anything i'm telling you that

back in the day when i watched television right where a show was on live on your tv at nine o'clock and if you missed it you missed it right that's different from being able to watch a show where oh i missed the first eight minutes i'll just rewind or i'll watch seven in a row or whatever that's different and by the way yeah the reason i mentioned that is this show that i'm watching now barry on hbo right is i could not wait a week to watch another episode and by by the way, the show is like 22 minutes long, 24 minutes long. It's fantastic. But to me, this was a movie that the guy made. And he said, man, it's a six-hour movie.

Can I cut it into 30-minute segments or 25-minute segments? And instead of dissolving to the next scene in the movie, we just dissolve right to credits, right? And we run the credits. And then if you want to watch the next scene in the movie we just dissolve right to credits right and we run the credits and then if you want to watch the next little episode you can just push a button and you can watch the continuation of this movie that we've cut into nice 22 minute segments because that's the way people watch television now like we used to before a little so the show barry is not a television show by me this is just something that's out there now i can watch how many do you want to watch you want to watch five episodes in a I can watch. How many do you want to watch?

You want to watch five episodes in a row, three episodes in a row. Do you want to watch half of it now? Half of it later? You couldn't do that. I couldn't do that with Mary Tyler Moore or MASH. You have to watch the whole thing. And I didn't accept phone calls during the course of the show.

Whereas now if the phone rings, I'll just hit pause. I'll answer my phone call. Do what I have to do. Take a shower. Come back. Pick it up where it used to be. How old were you when you got your first VCR? Or not how old, what year was it?

1981. So you could have recorded the finale of MASH and watched it and fast-forwarded the commercials and all of that jazz. Yes, I could have, and I may have done that back in 1982. I don't recall. No, I think I watched it live. I'm pretty sure I watched it live at a viewing party. But also, too, what was the other show uh dallas dallas would have been i

think 1980 i didn't have a vhs but yeah that's when you was like what do you mean you can record what do you mean you can record how about this you could record something while you were watching something else yeah that was like whoa yeah because what i would do is if i went out i would say okay i'm just going to record this particular channel, but I couldn't record this channel and then change the recording to switch it to another channel later. That came later with VHS.

Originally, the VCRs, you could only record off of one particular channel that you set up. So you just let it record the whole night. Like if Global had whatever the shows were and then Sportsline and then Mary Tyler Moore and then David Letterman,

you'd go out, you'd put Global Channel 3, you'd hit record, it would record for six hours while you were out, you'd come back, you'd have the whole recording. Right. So it was different, but you're right. Once you could record a show, you know, but you still would have to wait a week

for that show to be on. That's true. Join us next week for another exciting episode of The Sopranos. And by the way, The Sopranos was part of, first of all, Thursday nights, it was,

um, it was dream on in the Larry Sanders show. And I think you're right. You're right. It was, it would have been the Sopranos on Sundays. My mistake. Cause my memory is Sunday.

The best hour of comedy was on Thursday nights. It was dream on followed by the Larry Sanders show. And then Sundays is correct. Sundays was the Sopranos and six feet under. Excellent. Excellent. Wow. On HBO. Also, that's my favorite series finale of all time

is the Six Feet Under finale. Oh, my God. Spectacular. Spectacular. But how about the very first show of Six Feet Under? The very first one. Yeah, with Nate Fisher Sr. Yeah, fantastic.

Big fan of Six Feet Under. A lot of time for Six Feet Under. Okay, we got to get to George Orton. So here's what we're going to do. M, fantastic. Big fan of Six Feet Under. A lot of time for Six Feet Under. Okay, we got to get to George Orton. So here's what we're going to do. Malfurious. Hepsi's watch is making... That watch is going on. Is that a breaking news on... Oh, do you want to get that?

Somebody from New York, New York called. New York, New York is calling Hepsi. Maybe that's a deal. No, it's the movie deal for the book. Well, they probably are watching. Well, Mr. Hebsey, we called you and you didn't respond.

And so we've given, I'm sorry we've chosen another book to do the movie with. Had you responded to our call? But I was on with Toronto Mike. And you said it's 2019. Nobody answers phone calls anymore. Malfurious wants to know,

what brought you, and I think we covered this in a previous episode. You've been on before. But what brought you to CHCH in the first place uh what probably decision in the first place let me see here now what year would this have been um i uh i'm trying to remember here now i was working for headline sports which became the score then i I went to Sportsnet. So I was working for Sportsnet when they first began 1999. Yeah. Yeah. So I was there. I think, I think they'd been in operation for about six months

and they went through a ton of people. They just went through like a number of anchors and reporters and executive directors of sports and news and news directors. And then Scott Moore took over and offered me a job. I was working at The Score. It was called Headline Sports at the time. And I was anchoring in the evenings. And Scott Moore approached me and said, hey, we'd like you to come and work for Sportsnet

and we want you to anchor the 630 sports. It was. TSN had a lock on six o'clock. Sportsnet was just starting and they were going after TSN, obviously, right? And so they hired me to do that, paid me some pretty good money for that um went and did that deal there uh that was a one-year contract they did not renew my contract after one year and i was at first i was like hey but then i realized i was probably better that way because sports net kind of took a bunch of people threw them them together, tried to make a team.

You know, some of it worked, some of it didn't work. Oh, like Vance and Van Horn and things like that. Yeah, that was after me, but that kind of a thing. And I was used to working, you know, either with a partner or kind of freelancing and doing my own thing and improvising in that. And they sort of put some restrictions on there. they sort of put some restrictions on there and of course you had to cover the sports net uh the stuff that sports net had the rights to before you could cover anything that tsn had the rights to which made it kind of difficult and restrictive and and they didn't have the rights to much stuff and i wasn't used to that stuff and i and also doing the 6 30 sports uh there's nothing there's

no highlights unless there was an afternoon game you're regurgitating the highlights from the night before and you're previewing the games that night so what happened sports night that's right sports that had a hockey package sports net west had the vancouver canucks uh sorry sports net pacific had the vancouver canucks sports net west had the oilers and the flames and the jets i think were part of that region sports net ontario was the uh leafs and the senators sportsnet east was the habs so you had all this mishmash of now you're going to be talking to people from the from the prairies so here you are sitting in a studio in toronto trying to figure out what the lead story would be to somebody sitting in winnipeg or calgary or edmonton or regina that's a pretty big region

ontario you were pretty sure that you had most of your viewers were into the Toronto teams. The Pacific region, you're pretty certain that they're following Vancouver sports. But the Sportsnet West thing of, well, what are they thinking about in Winnipeg? What are they thinking about in Edmonton? It was just ridiculous. So it was difficult. I never really got settled in that. And then after that happened and I left there, I got a call from CHCH saying, we know you're a sports guy, but what do you know about other things? And I said, well, what do you know about politics? What do you know about the environment? What do you know about business and news and that kind of thing? And I said,

I know a fair bit. And so I took a job there doing a show called Square Off, which was a current affairs show. And then eventually, after a few years, they said, let's bring Sportsline back. So they put me and Bob O''Neill together and we did sports line, uh, at five o'clock in the afternoon for a number of years. And then I left under mysterious circumstances. Well, which in episode,

because David Schultz was my last guest and we joked again about how, uh, you joined in on our episode one 50. You asked me to. I did. I, of course I left, of course. I left the door unlocked.

The day after I got fired by CHCH. Right, and you came and told the story about being in the wrong room, which is one of the great Toronto Mike stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there was writing on the wall that things weren't going well at CHCH television. And the day that it all happened,

that morning, everybody got money put into their, their paycheck put into their their paycheck put into their bank accounts even though it wasn't payday wait a minute did you get yeah i got something in my um bank account too oh why are they paying us it's not payday and then of course all day long the rumors and then later in that day as we're preparing to put the show on the air um there was an announcement uh sort of an in-house announcement saying ladies and gentlemen we've decided to cease operations. And then they gave, they basically called out the names of all the employees who were at this meeting.

I wasn't in the meeting. And they called out everyone's name and you were either going to Studio A or you were going to Studio B. And so what happened was they passed my office. All these people started marching towards Studio B. So I wasn't aware that there were two groups of people, and I just followed everybody up to Studio B, and they told us that the station was going under, but they were going to reinvent themselves after a few days.

And if you wanted to work for the new company, you had 48 hours to sign this agreement that you would come back with the new company under different circumstances blah blah blah so you know it's like whoa geez wow that's pretty bad but okay i guess it's better than nothing and just as i'm getting you know sort of um resigning myself to the fact that it's that i've still got a job but i get a tap on the shoulder from my boss who says you're in the wrong room we're in the wrong room what do you mean and then i realized and then i

found out that everybody who wasn't going to be kept was basically sent to the gas chamber and no no severance no and you never saw any severance uh no i yeah we got we basically ended up getting like i got nine percent of my severance because they basically said look uh you're not going to get any severance you might get something you know and it's going to be kind of a take it or leave it thing and i wanted to leave it because i thought we should sue for our severance go for the but everybody else was like no i need something anything because i don't know what to do and blah blah and then of course they capitulated and then i i realized that the union that was representing us uniform was in a conflict of interest that they

were supposed to look after the union members who had been fired, but half of those union members had not been fired. They had been retained under different circumstances, and management of the station wanted the union to represent them as well, and they cooked up some kind of a sweetheart deal saying, look, tell your union members that have been fired that they're not going to get any severance unless they agree to this. It was a whole schmuzzle. How did they get away with this? You know, the more I think about it, the more angry I get about it. I've put it past me, Mike. I really have. And I think the most important thing, and I've seen people hold grudges, and I still see people that are holding grudges. I used to be like that. I'm not like that in my old age anymore.

You do seem happier lately. I just thought it was the Raptors. Thank you. But I also feel that, I mean, if you could fight and fight, you could fight till the day you die and maybe never, even if you got something, it would never be enough to make up for the anguish and the pain that you went through and whatever. Yeah. I'm way past that.

I was past it after a couple of weeks because I needed to move on with my life and I felt that I wouldn't be able to if I stayed on this, you know, get your money that you're deserving and fight for it and sue and fight and civil lawsuits and class action suits. I thought, you know, do I want to do that? Do I really want to do that? So I kind of, I capitulated. Uh, and I, uh, at first I felt bad about it. And

then I realized, Hey, something's better than nothing and move on with your life and start doing stuff that you love to do, as opposed to getting up every morning, dreading what you're going to have to do, which is fighting and arguing and being remorseful and and being angry at people and like if i would have seen these people on the street i might have hit them like i might have physically assaulted someone that's how angry i was at the time when was the last time you punched a guy last time i punched a guy yeah i was 14 okay i was 14 years old he i was in grade uh nine i think and this guy was in high school john tansley was his name he was like grade 11 grade nine high school grade nine i guess it depends where you grow up i think great no grade nine would have been junior

high yeah seven eight nine well see i didn't have that system so okay my wife always tells me these stories about her high school starting in grade 10 and i'm like wait because my high school is in grade nine but okay everyone's got different wait, because my high school is in grade 9. But okay, everyone's got different systems, I guess. I went to junior high, grade 7, 8, 9. Okay. And then high school, grade 10 was high school. So I was 15.

Yeah, my wife had that. So it's about an Alberta thing. But I knew. No, no. Okay. Junior high school. What's junior high? There's no such thing in my neighborhood.

Oh, you went to one of those JK to 8 schools, right? Yes, that's right. JK to 8. So you stayed in the same school for like nine years, right? Yeah, yeah. You spent nine years at the same school. I switched schools. And when you left the public school, you were top of the heap.

You were king. You were a grade eighter, right? Yeah. You had no fear. Right. And then as a little pipsqueak in grade nine, you ended up going to the big high school. Miner, niner. And suddenly they stomped all over you.

You were a punk again. Yeah. Well, with junior high, you get two transitional periods. You get to go from grade six to grade seven. Big shot at grade six. You're, what, 11 years old, 12. And then suddenly you're in grade seven.

You're a little squeaky voiced punk with acne. Right. And these big grade niners who are 14 are pushing you around. You spend three years there. You're in your final year. You're now in grade nine. You're a big shot.

You're pushing around the grade sevens. Yeah. And then you have to go through another transition where you're in your first year of high now in grade nine you're a big shot you're pushing around the grade sevens yeah and then you have to go through another transition where you're in your first year of high school at the age of 15 in grade 10 and these men who are 19 years old in grade 13 yeah are walking the same halls as you pushing you around i only learned about junior high from degrassi like i watched degrassi i'm like oh this is different we don't have this by the way uh this is a really good opportunity to tell you, Hebsey, about Capadia. Because when you're going through,

let's say your place of employment is like a CHCH, and you get that folder, and now you know, what do I, what's next? Wish I would have got a folder. No folder. No folder. No, because there's, yeah, there's like, They towed my car away, Mike.

They towed it? They towed the car away, okay? You're fired, and within half an hour, you go to the parking lot, the car has been towed. Your car. Okay? You're fired and within half an hour you go to the parking lot. The car has been towed. Your car has been... No severance. And by the way,

we're going to just give you one more kick in the ass as you go. Your car has been towed. So if you have to go through something like that, take a deep breath and call Rupesh Kapadia.

Kapadia LLP CPAs. He sees beyond the numbers. There's a free consultation. Actually, this is available to you and anyone else listening. Have 15 minutes to just tell him what's going on, things you're considering. Get his advice, best practice,

because he is the rockstar accountant. And you would, I'm a rockstar accountant and you're the rockstar sports guy. So Rupesh Kapadia, who sees beyond the numbers, is there for all of you. Let me know if you want me to hook you up with Rupesh. He'll take care of you. But let's hear from Rupesh.

Hey, hey, hey, this is Rupesh here. And did you know that you only work for yourself and not for the government right after June? And it's called the Tax Freedom Day. So the Tax Freedom Day was June 10th on 2018 and we don't know when is it going to be in 2019. But let's hold on and just wait and pay all our money earned so far to the government

and wait for sometime in June to get a Tax Freedom Day for 2019. Could be today. Could be today. Rupesh Kapadia, I'll hook you all up. He's fantastic. And this is for you as well. You can,

if you watch something on your phone, it sticks on the back of your phone and then props it up like it's a little stand or something. I like that.

Kapadia. Serves a dual purpose. Right. By the way, Malfurious wants to know what your favorite place to eat in Hamilton is. Do you have a favorite place

Oh, in Hamilton? Yeah. It's called the Bonanza. Speaking of great old shows, on the Ponderosa. Now, the Bonanza is a, first of all, it's in a part of town

that you likely wouldn't go to. It's hard by the Barton Street Jail, but it has the most phenomenal sandwiches. It's a Portuguese sandwich place. It also has a hot table. And if I tell you in all honesty, like there's nothing, it's. It also has a hot table. And if I tell you in all honesty, like there's nothing, it's like three bucks

for a phenomenal sub on fresh Portuguese bread. You know, anything you want. Line up, always lined up, always busy. Like just a fabulous place. I mean, really, it is Hamilton. I mean, there's lots of great restaurants in Hamilton, but this is a place where the commoner

will stand next to the guy in the silk suit. Is Tom Wilson, would he go to a place like this? Oh, for sure Tom knows about the, but everyone who's from Hamilton knows the Bonanza. Now, having said that, I mean, that's not really a restaurant. I mean, that's like a pickup place. As far as a restaurant goes, I mean, that's a good one. There's lots of great places in Hamilton.

I'm not sure I could pick just one. I would say probably if I were to choose a place it would be um the winchester arms in downtown dundas winchester arms is a great sounds fancy pub no it's a pub winchester was a mash character yeah charles winchester but this has got hot chicken pie and all the great British dishes, but the good ones like chicken pot pie and steak and kidney pie. Oh, kidney, yeah, yeah. You know, fish and chips. I don't know.

I guess I don't have real high standards because Because it's more of a, I guess, a place where you meet interesting people and the food is good versus a place that's like, the food is spectacular and it's just the presentation is wonderful. The atmosphere, the vibe is great. The color scheme is awesome. When they greet you at the door they take your coat from you and they hang it up on 17th century hooks in the shape of gargoyles and the water is the pure spring water from the avion kind of like okay but like i'm going to eat yeah so there's a difference between like let's go for a great place to eat versus a place that's just got the wonderful vibe that makes your dining experience a wonderful one. So in Hamilton,

baby, you go where the good food is. Sounds good to me, man. Winchester arms and the bonanza for sandwiches. Yeah. Sounds good to me. Hope that answered your question there.

Malfurious. Malfurious. It's a great handle too. Why did we think George Washington Ordon was American? Like why did we not know he was Canadian? just the name though um maybe give like like i know i know that the book has all this stuff in great detail you did a lot of research it's fantastic but the i've heard you say many times that george washington orden for for decades we thought we were we thought he was an american runner or american and he ran in the olympics for canada he didn't

actually oh okay tell us he didn't actually see what happens is is that now when we see in olympics uh any competitor has the name of their country next to them yeah but when the olympics began 1896 would have been the first of the modern olympics in athens and then the second olympics was in paris in 1900 and george orton ran in that he was from canada he went he was born and raised here he fell out of a tree when he was three years old doctors said you'll never walk again it was a terrible crippling injury he overcame his disability which also included his a dead right arm when he fell out of the tree he uh he suffered a blood clot and the arm never fully developed it was like a shrunken arm he couldn't do anything with the arm.

And he can still run fast with that. Yeah. Because don't you need your hands? And also win a gold medal in the steeplechase, which is a lot of jumping, and the 400-meter hurdles of bronze, which is a lot of jumping. And so I think he was probably told from a young age,

look, you're never going to, you know, you're damaged goods or whatever it was. You're not going to walk and you'll never have the use of your right arm. Yeah. And he persevered. And eventually this blood clot absorbed when he was about 10 years old and he began to walk. He couldn't,

part of that, he could barely stand up. And then he ran and ran and ran. And by the time he was 19, he was the world champion. Okay. Wait, wait.

Okay. Yeah. So between the ages of three, when he falls out of this tree, and 10. In Strathroy, Ontario, he fell out of an apple tree in Strathroy, Ontario. There were no x-rays in those days. The doctors said, man, you're crippled. You're never going to walk again.

At the age of 10, he starts to walk again. But that's seven years where he's lying down or whatever. Pretty much, yeah, pretty much. He's lying down. And he never talked about this or any really any other uh facets of his life he was a i guess nowadays you'd say a tough interview a tough nut to crack like hawaii leonard uh yeah in some ways yeah um but what happened was he just kept a lot of things to himself now that is that could be a very uh endearing quality in a person

people you know people like this mike they don't talk about themselves they like asking questions about other people they're interested in other people but like jim tatty they're uncomfortable talking about themselves and their accomplishments right they just are right so uh he was one of these types of guys uh from a protestant background where you just didn't pat yourself on the back you didn't talk about your accomplishments and in his case to a fault because had he told some people about the remarkable stories they might have written a story about him and you know i wouldn't have had anything to write about but as it happened this fellow was all over the record books for years

and was and in canada was a superstar before the term was invented he would have been canada's first great athlete with all due respect to ned hanlon the rower and louis sear the weightlifter or whatever uh george orton back in the 1890s while attending the university of toronto was the greatest athlete that this country had ever seen before and in his years at the u of t set uh many canadian records and ran before thousands and thousands of fans who paid good money to watch him run. So in 18, and this is all in your book, of course, but in 1892, while Ordon is a student at U of T, where I went, he set a mile record.

It was 421. 421 and eight tenths. Correct. And that record lasted for 42 years. That Canadian record. That was a canadian record so a canadian running in canada on canadian soil that record lasted until 1943 i believe it was yeah so that and and by 1943 the world record was getting close to four minutes because the first four minute mile was in 1954. So a little over a decade prior to that, I believe the world record was somewhere in the neighborhood of, you know,

like four, let's say 410, 408. And at that time people said, oh, there's no, I mean, that's the fastest a human being can go. They said, there's no way it's physically impossible. They said for a man to run under four minutes. So a decade before Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile, doctors were saying, experts were saying, it's not unlikely, it's impossible for a human being to break the four minute mile. So imagine 60 years earlier, 60 years earlier, 62 years earlier, running four minutes and 21 seconds in canvas shoes, not on a cinder track with proper equipment and training, whatever.

That's quite remarkable. No, it's all remarkable. In fact, I'm going to just read a blurb just to give people a little, because of course, the vast majority of people listening have never heard the name George Washington. Well, no, I guarantee you haven't heard the name.

Because if you would, I'd like to know what you know about it because I don't know where you read it because there was nothing written about the guy. So he was, so basically, okay, so he won a record. It was a Venn record. 17 national titles in the US. Correct. Seven in Canada.

Right. And one in the UK. Yes, he won the British two-mile steeplechase. He was the first North American ever he won the British two-mile steeplechase. He was the first North American ever to win the British two-mile steeplechase. He won the US one-mile championship six times, the two-mile steeplechase seven times, the cross-country,

I don't know what it's called, the cross-country twice? It's called cross-country. And remember, the other thing with that, for example, and I hate to interrupt because you're doing oh no go ahead i'm glad i'm reading that part is in those days they didn't always run the the event every year this was in the earlier stages right so like for whatever reason the cross country when it began i believe orton won the first two runnings of this right the u.s

national cross country and then when they decided to not run it anymore because Orton was so dominant wow so they didn't run it for five years and then cross country became very popular on the collegiate level and Orton was responsible for that he said rather than running around a track four times or whatever let's run across the meadows and let's you know what I mean cross country right let's do that it's a much more enjoyable run you get to see some scenery pacing is different you know you're not on the guy's shoulder on a lap you're not kind of you know you're not running in your lane stuff like that and so he popularized it to the point where uh the u.s uh the aau in the united states said let's bring back cross country in 1898 let's bring it back after a five-year hiatus and then they they

did it and of course orton won the first so had they run it in those five years that they didn't he likely might have won it a few more times and had more national championships there were a lot of events that they didn't run every single year had they run them every year like they do now yeah he might have won many many more even that's great perspective there because uh to put this in the context because in total george orden won 131 races including a staggering 33 national and international championships right so he's world champion several times he was olympic champion once there was only the only olympics he was in british champion european championships and of course the championships in the u.s and in canada and this guy's from strathroy ontario yeah he's He's born and raised. He's not like Rick Fox who,

you know, no, no, no, no. He was born in Strath, this is the thing. He was born in Strathroy,

Ontario. He left the family left there. He was about four or five. We're not probably around four or five. Uh, and they might've left because he was, had been crippled in this, in this injury,

paralyzed, paralyzed in this injury. And, and you know, so how was he going to get to school every day? And his a carriage maker stuff so anyway they ended up going back to his father and mother's neck of the woods where they were from which was eastern ontario winchester ontario the home of the great larry robinson the hall of fame hockey player a very small town close to the quebec border uh not that far uh and and uh that's where he spent his, you know, his most of his years until he went to the university of Toronto at the age

of 17. So there's a gap there where we couldn't find anything about him. We don't believe he, I don't believe he went to school there. I believe he was homeschooled likely because of his disability and the fact that the wheelchair had not been invented yet either. So it would have been kind of tough without automobiles to tote a young man who was uh disabled around uh you know to school so i think that what probably happened we think what probably happened was the family most of the family

certainly him was homeschooled in the in his father's which was far more common back then way more common back in those days but obviously they put a premium on education because he entered the university of toronto at the age of 17 and they put him in the second year arts program he went right to the second year arts program wow that's how smart he was and then went to u of t and set all these records and they and the university would charge admission to see him run and of course they took all the money he didn't get a penny he was an amateur so he was a superstar and then when he graduated U of T at the age of 20, and he said, okay, Canada, I want to run for our country. I

want us to be, I want to be me and the other Canadian athletes want to represent our country internationally. And Canadians basically said, Oh, we're sorry, George, we're trying to put us country together here. We don't have time for athletics. Right. Canada at that time had no, basically no system for athletics, unless you were quite wealthy and belonged to one of the upper crust clubs. There was no athletics. There was no PE in school. There was no phys ed. There was none of that stuff,

no organized sports. But the, the, the, like when was the Stanley Cup first awarded? First awarded? Late 1800s, right? 1893.

Okay, so we're starting to have a. But the Stanley Cup was only for Canadian-based teams. Right. Only. Right. No American team, no none of that stuff. Like the Vancouver Millionaires or something like that. Yeah, but there were no American teams allowed to compete for the Stanley Cup.

Okay, gotcha. Because Canadians felt that it was just for them, just teams in Canada. So they had a league and they also had a play-down type of system that they came up. So hockey was just becoming popular. But at the time, football was pretty popular. Basketball had yet to be invented or just had been invented. Yeah, there was an Argonauts football team. That's right.

Baseball was pretty popular, but baseball was, there was cheating in baseball. There was gambling in baseball. There were, there was booze and cigarettes in baseball. Baseball players were undesirables and they were professionals. and cigarettes in baseball. Baseball players were undesirables and they were professionals. And in those days, if you were a professional, you were not considered to be a straight up person

because professionals were the ones that would fix sporting events, you see, because they could. There was money involved. So for example, a Ned Hanlon, who was a terrific rower, was a professional. He raced for money. And what he could do is he could get lots of bets going as well.

And he could bet on himself. And if the odds were too great in him, he would bet on his opponent maybe, or get someone to bet on his opponent, and he would lose the race on purpose. Now in amateurs, that never happened because there was no money involved. Amateur sport was pure. You ran or you competed for the love of sport not money but if you were a professional money there was always and remember look at the black sock scandal that was in 1919 right you weren't being paid enough money you needed money you could cheat you could throw

the game you could fix the game and so when Hanlon raced there was always somebody who was an organizer that was in on it they were in cahoots with Hanlon raced there was always somebody who was an organizer that was in on it they were in cahoots with Hanlon right the organ the promoter the organizer would and Hanlon would get together and they'd fleece the audience and after a while the public became very wary of these uh professional uh people so for pure sports you needed to look to the amateurs you had to be and that's why of course olympics was for amateur athletes. Completely for amateur athletes. Although you weren't flying. Obviously, like you mentioned, when Ordon's at the 1900 Olympics in Paris,

he's not representing Canada. He's representing himself, I guess. Well, he's actually, see, in those days, you represented the group that you went over with, the delegation. So he was part of a delegation

from the University of Pennsylvania. There were no delegations that came from Canada, but he had gone to the Canadian authorities saying, look, myself, the Grant brothers from saint mary's ontario a fellow named ronald mcdonald from anti-canish nova scotia who was a boston marathon champion okay okay uh and fellows like that um uh were from canada and orton wanted canada to chip in something and even though they weren't represented in the Olympics as Canadians,

they would be down there as Canadians. And the newspaper writers might go and cover this great Canadian runner running against the Americans and the rest of the world. So in 1900, when he won his gold and bronze medal, they just put George Orton down. And then in 1908, when the IOC decided that we had better make sure that every competitor has a country next to him they went back they saw george orton's name and the americans went wait

a minute he's an american so they stuck usa next to his name right so he was known as george orton usa so in the record books up until the 1970s he was george orton usa now nobody from canada that had written about him when he was at u of t and was a superstar bothered to follow up on his career. I think they basically said, look, you're leaving Canada to go to the United States. To Pennsylvania. We're British. Okay. We're United Empire loyalists here in Ontario.

And you're going to the United States who fought the British. That was pretty much the attitude. You're right. Because that was 18. Yeah, you're right. So this would have been, you know, around 1893. Right. Fine. You're right, because that was 18... Yeah, you're right. So this would have been around 1893. Fine, you're going to the United States, off you go. And they stopped writing about him

to the point where when he became extremely successful in the United States at University of Pennsylvania and beyond, they referred to him in Canada as George Orton of the University of Pennsylvania. They never said George Orton, Toronto boy, born in Strathroy right they never referred to him that way and many years later when they wrote books and the great writers like jim coleman and foster hewitt's father uh w.a hewitt bill hewitt not bill hewitt the guy we know

but his grandfather right who was a tremendous writer and and was the editor of the montreal star and all that even even hewitt wrote about about George Orton saying there was a great runner named George Orton back in the 1890s. We think he became a doctor. We think he became a medical doctor. Like Moonlight Graham. Now all you would have had to do is pick up the phone, and they had telephones back in the 30s and 40s and 50s, and pick up the phone and followed up and said whatever happened to this guy, they would have been able to find out that he had a remarkably successful career in the United States, set all these records, and actually won gold medals right they never bothered to okay so when we thought that george orton was american because it was it was documented as such because some guy named like you said a

george washington orton representing university of pennsylvania yeah representing university of pennsylvania at these olympics probably american stick it and he wasn't a guy who talked about himself and everything. Correct. So, okay. So he's misidentified. So forever, who did we believe was the first Canadian to win a gold medal before we learned that George Orton was Canadian? Like what was the answer to that trivia question? First Canadian to win a gold medal.

First of all, the correct answer is George Orton. But if you were to look now at all of the sources in Canada, they would still say that it wasn't George Orton because either he wasn't george orton because either he wasn't canadian which he is or because they put usa next to his name in the olympic books record books for 70 years that they didn't bother even noting the change that's bullshit it's exactly as bullshit and part of the book is basically trying to restore his great name as a canadian there's a great story by the way as the the CBC made a gem movie, like, you know, they got the streaming service.

I got to make some calls on your behalf. It should be a, we should celebrate our history. But, but not only that. So not only does he not talk about his accomplishments and even mention them to his family, when they just, when Canada discovers that there might be, because remember the first Olympics in Canada were 1976 in Montreal. So a few years before that, it said, okay, we're going to have our first, the first Olympic gamesics in canada were 1976 in montreal so a few years before that it said okay we're gonna have our for the first olympic games are gonna be in canada

let's find out more about former canadians that competed at the olympics right natural of course and then there was a rumor at western university in london that someone from that area might be Canadian who won a gold medal in 1900. A rumor. Do you get that? It was out there. 70 years later. People were talking at the bars and stuff. They were saying.

Not quite, but some researcher went, wait a minute. Orton, hang on a second. Orton, Orton, Orton. I said, does that name sound familiar? Or something. And their interest was piqued. And someone said, is it true that there was this guy? And so they wrote a letter to the University of Pennsylvania,

where he'd gone. Right. And the letter basically, and I have a copy of the letter. The letter says something to the effect, we're putting the Olympics together for 1976. This was from 1973, I guess, this letter. And we were wondering if you could provide us any information on a fellow named George Orton,

who we believe might be from Strathroy near us here in London, Ontario. And could you provide any information? And so the University of Pennsylvania saw this and okay, went into their record books, found a picture of a fellow named Orton who ran for the Penn track team, right? And sent this picture. it was actually a team photo of the 1904 1905 pen track team of which orton was not on right he was he had graduated before that and the person who was responsible the archives i guess figured this this is the guy orton the track guy and they sent this picture to i guess the london newspaper or whatever anyway for years since then the picture attached to george orton's name is actually not a picture

of george orton it's so obscure it's a cowboy bob orton it's a picture of his brother his brother yes who also ran track irvin orton at the university of pennsylvania and ended up becoming a dentist in syracuse uh in rochester new york so so not only this poor guy gets shunned by canadians and they don't write about him for years and they don't, they don't identify him as Canadian. Not only that, but when they finally do find out that the guy's Canadian and they want to fet this guy and they want to make a big deal about him, they got the wrong picture of the guy.

So this poor guy has been misidentified in more ways than one as an American and as somebody that's not him, it's his brother. Wow. And he's long since been dead at this time. He died in 1958. He was 85 years Wow. And he's long since been dead at this time. Yeah, so when about did he die? He died in 1958. He was 85 years old.

And he spoke and wrote eloquently about the great Canadians that had preceded him, not just on the track as runners, hockey players. He invented hockey in the city of Philadelphia. Okay, so let's see, because he's known as the father of Philadelphia hockey. Father of Philadelphia hockey, with all due respect to Ed Snyder,

who was the guy who, you know, owned the Philadelphia Flyers when they, you know, they became an expansion team in 1967. And this guy, George Orton, built the first arena. It burned down. Built the second arena.

It was torn down. Started the first team. Captained the first team. Coached the first team. Managed the first team. He was the father of hockey. He had the arenas built there. He was told by many people, hockey will never go in Philadelphia. He was persistent. And eventually what happened was he ended up hiring the likes of John L. Heisman, Heisman Trophy guy, to coach football at Penn. He, in fact, coached the hockey

team at Penn for many years. And they had an arena built for his class, which was the class of 23. So he coached the Penn hockey team in 1919. And that class was the class of 23. So they went 1919, 1920 was their first year. 2021 was their second year. 21, 22 was their third year. And 22, 23.

So they were known as, it's your graduating class, the class of 23. Well, the arena for the University of Pennsylvania hockey team is called the Class of 23 Arena. Wow. It was named after that team that George Orton founded and coached at Penn. And he's in the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame

because he was the director of the Philadelphia playground system. He was the athletic commissioner of Philadelphia. He was one of the founders and the um manager of the famous pen relays big deal pen relays huge deal uh the father of the pen relays he also introduced lacrosse to the city of philadelphia and he's the father of cross country wow the father he was the one who basically said look i told you this running around a track let's do cross country so and he was the one who came up with the idea of putting numbers on football jerseys

in 1914, 15 years before baseball ever did it. He said, Hey, the track bibs that we have in track and field have a number on them. Right. That's how you can identify the competitors. Why don't we do the same thing with football? And he, there was a lot of opposition in those days. They didn't want it because they thought if you had a number on a guy, it would give away the play. It was like a secret play.

And he had direct links to Teddy Roosevelt so that he arranged for the Army-Navy football game, which had been canceled. In fact, they weren't allowed to play. Army and Navy were not allowed to play football after the first few years because the President of the United States, Grover Cleveland, declared that it was too dangerous,

that too many people were getting killed. Wow. Killed in the football field. And the final game between the two in the 18, I believe 1891, ended with a army general and a Navy admiral dueling at center field. They literally, folks, you know what a duel is?

Like duel at 10 paces. Like you go back to back, you each have a weapon of some sort. You walk 10 paces, you turn around and you fire at each other or you fight each other. That was a duel. That's how heated it got. So they canceled.

They said, Grover Cleveland, the president said that army and Navy are not allowed to play against each other in football ever again. And so the army Navy rivalry kind of fizzled out in the 1890s. That'll do it. And then Orton wanted to find a place where Franklin Field in 1895 was built, where you could have a big football game.

So in the spring, you would have the Penn Relays, and in the fall, you would have the Army-Navy football game, and he needed Theodore Roosevelt to help him with this. And he got Theodore Roosevelt, who was Secretary of the Navy at the time, to agree to a meeting, and they went to Army, and they went to Navy, and they said, let's get this game back together again with rules no more dueling but let's have it at a neutral site and philadelphia is about halfway between um annapolis maryland and west point new york and the trains all ran there and so he managed to get the army navy game to be permanently

to to be played in philadelphia where it's been played virtually every year since then, in Philadelphia. That was Orton going to Teddy Roosevelt saying, he wasn't the president at the time, but we need this. And Roosevelt was a huge football fan, and we're not for Roosevelt. And the fact that he wanted America to get fit

and get into sports, right? That was a turning point for 20th century sports in America. Real renaissance man. I was reading about the books he read, right? That was a turning point for 20th century sports in America. Real Renaissance man. Like I was reading about the books he read, right? Like he wrote the definitive training manual for runners. It's called Distance and Cross-Country Running. But not only that, Mike, he not only wrote the book, but it was the first literal step-by-step book with photos,

with actual photos, how to do this. Wow. So think of now, think of it now. You can go on YouTube and you can see anything done, how to put together a wall unit or wall unit or whatever anything build a computer in those days there was not a there were no picture books whereby it would show you the proper technique how to run hands this way head held high even though he had a bum arm yeah right exactly so he was the model for that book that first in 1903, he was the first to write a book

about the proper technique, not just running, but hurdling pole vaulting, broad jumping, right? Discus throw, all that. Yeah. He wrote the definitive book, the definitive step by step manual. Remember, we're talking about training for running step by step with pictures, an innovator. No, I'm far. Unbelievable.

He also came up with a way, the broad jump, which is now called the long jump. In those days, they would take the tape measure all the way back to the starting point. After every jump, each competitor got three jumps. They would take the starting tape all the way back and they'd grind it out to 20 whatever feet. He said, wait a minute. Why don't we find a way of shortening things? Because people are getting bored watching 25 jumpers take three jumps each. It takes hours.

Right. So he had this board embedded into the sand with the edges facing up. Duh. And then instead of taking the tape measure all the way back to the starting, the launch point, you just took it to the edge of the pit and you measure. And it took no time at all. Now, I don't want to give away anything in the book here, but can you share with us, like when you were researching this book?

First of all, I was researching, it was a documentary that I was doing. This was never going to be a book. This was a documentary because what did I know from writing a book? I'm a TV guy. I know pictures and sound. So the idea was, let's do a documentary on George Orton. Easier said than done. No pictures of the guy in the picture I did have wasn't even of him.

So when you see, when you do, on a quick aside, when you see the improper photo somewhere, like you're still seeing it, right, in the mainstream media. I changed it on Wikipedia. Okay, good. You can do that. I went into Wikipedia.

I wiped out everything that was in Wikipedia, which was virtually all of it was wrong, including the picture. Wow. And I just put in a correct picture of him. And then for all the sources i just put my book yeah you can cite your own my own book here anything you want to know is in the book and what happened was i got him i mean i got him he went to university of toronto for three years

and he was at university college and they have a thing called the alumni of distinction award and i um nominated him for an alumni of distinction Award because he was responsible for having the first gymnasium and track built at the University of Toronto. Wow. He was so popular there that they didn't have a place to run. He had to run at Rosedale Grounds, which is a lacrosse grounds near the Rosedale subway station, actually. And there was no stadium at the university.

There were no athletic facilities at the University of Toronto. They didn't know anything about physical education at that time. And so he basically had the gymnasium in 1893 built uh and he was on the gymnasium committee from the time he was in his first year at u of t and he had this a real cinder track an actual cinder track built a 400 meter you know a quarter mile track built well because of him because of his success athletics there were no athletics at the U of T, really. He started the first hockey team at the U of T. They had never played hockey, organized hockey at the U of T in 1891. He said, let's put a team together.

And they had what was known as a residence team. Wow. If the weather was cold enough and you could make ice, they would play hockey. And if not, I guess you weren't playing hockey. So he was like a real innovator. Did you meet any members of Orton's family when you're researching the book he had uh george orton was one of six children he is brother ervin the one whose picture was circulated and he were the only ones to father children he fathered three daughters

his brother ervin fathered two sons neither of his two sons had any of their own children and orton had three daughters and only one of his daughters had children and her daughter the great would have been his granddaughter constance meanie is still alive today is in her late 70s lives in san francisco and i did track her down it took many many months to track her down because she had been married three times and changed her name every single time right very difficult to find her when i finally did and went to san francisco with a documentary crew we recorded uh interviews with her a lot um she said that she i said do you happen to have his gold medal because i thought originally the idea for the documentary was where where is that gold

medal canada's first gold medal at the olympics way so i wanted to find the gold medal? Canada's first gold medal at the Olympics. So I wanted to find the gold medal. And I envisioned, remember Al Capone's vault? Of course, Geraldo. I envisioned this thing, this buildup where you're going to open up this, you're going to find this box and you're going to open it up and there it is, this beautiful, shiny gold medal

from the Olympics, the first one ever won by a Canadian. Right. We're going to make a great story. So I had asked her if she had any of his medals and such. And she said, yeah, I've got something up in the attic attic i got some boxes of pictures and that newspaper articles and yeah i got some i got some medals and i just about shit when i heard that oh my god i just yeah the money shot exactly uh and i won't tell you much more i mean you'll have to read the book but it was

quite fascinating to meet her and a lot most of his accomplishments she was not aware of he just didn't speak now mike if i won a gold medal at the olympics i'd be walking around with it around my neck i was gonna say i would walk around saying hi mark hepscher olympic gold medalist how are you i would right um he never mentioned it he never he just didn't include that in all of the stuff he's a modest guy extremely modest of all the things stuff he wrote. He's a modest guy. Extremely modest. Of all the things that he wrote, he never wrote about his accomplishments. And if he did, he wrote about them in the third person. So he would write, George Orton was the winner of the 2,500 meter steeplechase. Not myself, George Orton. And he would even apologize at the end of stuff that he had written by saying, the reader excuse uh the the mention of my name

in the list of the great runners of the generation uh had i not put my name i would not be giving you an accurate uh account like that kind of a thing yeah so modest so when his granddaughter found out about these some of these accomplishments like he could speak nine languages she was blown away she thought she knew a few things about her grandfather, but she really had no idea. I can barely handle one. Her family never spoke about it. She would ask about gold medals and stuff like that. Family, they didn't know.

They were in awe of him, not for so much for his athletic accomplishments, but for the fact that he could speak nine languages and could do calculus in his head. Mike, he was the first to time his intervals in racing. When he ran in the 1890s, distance runners would run as fast as they could for as far as they could until they collapsed or quit. They didn't know from pacing. Go, run, keep running, run, run, run, run, run until you can't run anymore. Well, Orton figured out, wait a minute. What if I pace myself? What if I run a certain distance in a certain

amount of time will i have enough energy left at the end of the mile or the two miles so he was the first to actually use time as intervals and he did so in a very primitive way because there was no such thing as a stopwatch in those days you had what were called railroad watches which were pocket watches which you take out of your pocket and you flip open the lid and it would give you the time. And trains always ran on time and they were all based on, you know, that that's why time was important because that's the trains ran on time. Sure. And so what Orton did was you couldn't read the second hand. It was just a tiny little thing. And so you would have to, he would time his intervals so that he knew how, how fast he could run, how slow he could run at the beginning of a race and have enough energy to run the final quarter faster.

So he invented that. So he would be the grandfather of perfect pace as well as all these other models we've given him. That's remarkable, Mike. You're talking about a Renaissance man. This guy was so innovative and inventive and really should be in the Canadian history books. I should have read about him when I was in grade seven or nine people should know his name and i'm glad you

wrote this book and the forward by the way is ron mclean a friend of the show now uh obviously we told people you'll be at you know tmlx3 at great lakes brewery on june 27th where they can meet you get a photo with you buy the book and have you sign it. If they aren't able to make it because they're somewhere else and they need to get a copy of this book, how should they go about doing that? They can always get in touch with me on social media, at Hebseyman, H-E-B-S-Y-M-A-N. And on my podcast, our podcast, Hebsey on Sports, you can go to Hebseyonsports.com, and you can leave me a message there.

And look, I'll get you the book. I'll sign it. I'll engrave it for you, well i'll get you the book i'll sign it you know i'll engrave it for you i guess uh however you want uh you'll send me some money and then back and there you go you'll have a personally autographed copy of it uh or you can go to uh indigo or chapters or uh amazon or any place that you can get books online and order it there it's available there's an audiobook coming out as well you can and you're doing the reading of the audio i have read the audiobook it's i've actually finished the narration of the audiobook the thing with audiobooks i found out mike was i believe i'm the first canadian

to read uh an audiobook uh his own audio book in canada i don't believe any canadian author has read their own book on audio books audio books i guess amongst canadian authors are not a big thing like audio books are pretty big around the world but maybe not as much so most of the audio books are read by actors most yeah and when an author wants to read their own audio book generally the publishing company says no like stephen king you're a great writer right man you can write the hell out of this book i'm thinking can you speak can you speak and keep an audience's attention reading or telling of a story or are you and most i would say 99.9 of authors write a great story but could not articulate that story verbally the same way to hold the listener's attention.

I'm thinking of somebody like a Jeff Woods. Like he wrote a book. But is his book an audio book? I have to find out. I don't think so because I've looked and there's not a lot of audio books that are produced in Canada by Canadians. So this is another thing.

And it was very enjoyable for me to do the audio book because it's my story. Of course. I told it in documentary form. I wrote it in book form. And now I'm telling it, articulating it verbally in audiobook form. You said a minute ago that it's our podcast,

Hebsey on Sports. Will we rename it the Hebsey and Toronto Mike on Sports? We can name it Hebsey on Sports with Toronto Mike. How's that? Because remember, didn't the fan had a show? The fan had a show. It's the Andrew Walker Show with Ben Ennis. Do you remember for a while there? Yes, I do. They had that. Because remember, didn't the fan had a show? The fan had a show. It's the Andrew Walker show with Ben Ennis. Do you remember for a while there? Yes, I do.

They had that. They sort of added the name. So we can call it Hebsey on Sports with Toronto Mike. I'm perfectly fine with that. Would you say I'm the Jim Taddy of podcasts? Is that fair? No. Is Jim Taddy, just on the way out here, you and

Jim Taddy, would you ever do something together again? Can we make that happen? Is that at all possible? Look, if the situation presented itself and it was amenable for both, I would see no reason why. I'd like to think Jim would give you the same answer, that if it was a good show to do

or a good project, right? You know, the history of Sportsline, the documentary or whatever, I don't know. Oh, we're going to get Stu Stone to make that. I don't know. we're gonna get stew stone to make that i don't know but anyway yeah no listen i have nothing but admiration for jim he's a terrific broadcaster i listen to him now he's authoritative he knows what he's talking about he does his research he knows his shit and so you know i would never turn down an opportunity to be reunited with my partner of 11 years on sportsline on global tv despite what you might've heard or read.

I'm way past that. I don't hold grudges. I don't think Jim does either. If there even was one and we were damn successful for a number of years, I'm going to try to reunite you guys. I got Jesse and Jean together. I'm going to get you guys together. I'm going to do my best.

And that brings us to the end of our 475th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Hebzy is at Hebzy Man. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptors Devotee. Man, Brian, I know you're excited about tonight. We've waited 24 long years for this.

It's happening, my friend. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Get the Father's Day special. Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair is at Fast Time WJR. Speaking of Father's Day specials, they have some specials on watches there you should look into. Sticker U is at Sticker U. I'm heading there right now on my bike. Capadia LLP CPA is at Capadia LLP.

They're going to help Hebsey with his CHCH situation there. See you all next week. And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day But I wonder who

Yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand