Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Mark Hebscher: Toronto Mike'd #112

Episode Date: February 27, 2015

Mark Hebscher tells a series of awesome stories. Mike also talks to Hebsy about the David Clarkson trade, Dean Blundell's new morning show and the Mike Wilner episode.

Welcome to episode 112 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything, often with a distinctly Toronto flavour. I'm Mike from TorontoMic.com and joining me this week for the second time is television personality Mark Hebbshire. Second time is the best time. Mark Hebbshire. Second time is the best time. On that note, I have to tell the Hebsey fans that if they're looking for the A to Z bio of Mark Hebbshire, they got to go back in the archives and dig up episode 89. That's the magic number.

Was it that long ago? That seems like a long time ago. 89. 89. And that's where you can hear how Hebsey got his gig at Sportsline and all the cool inside stuff. Yeah, how Hebsey got his groove. How Hebsey got his groove back.

You're coming also. This is an exciting day because this whole city is euphoric over the great David Clarkson trade. It's like we got a guy who will never play again, and we've never been happier. This is a fantastic trade. Yeah, this is undoing a mess that should have been undone long ago. I often wonder, had David Clarkson been jettisoned out of town

while Randy Carlisle was still coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs, might that have made a difference? Like we'd make the playoffs this year? Yeah. I mean, you look at the record without clerks and in the lineup and it's pretty good. I think, I mean,

I look, I don't know enough about it, but I think that his lack of production brought the entire team down. And I, I mean, on many levels, I mean the expectations, Hey,

a 30 goal score, maybe he'll score 20 for us. Maybe he won't fall down all the time. But I think in that locker room, I kind of envisioned there being a divide because of David Clarkson's lack of production and also the way he started last season when he came off the bench in a preseason game

to take on John Scott and miss the first 10 games. So right off the bat, he was in trouble. Yeah, this is one of the greatest mismatches because, I mean, I don't know, he's a local guy, hard worker. The Sun called him Wendell Clarkson, for goodness sake. He takes 71, which is the inverted 17. Well, which is also Mike Foligno's number.

He was a spark plug. He was a spark plug former 30-goal scorer. Yeah, he was a good player. That's the difference. But Clarkson only had one 40-point season. Forget 30-goal, one 40-point season. David Clarkson, the Ricky Romero of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I was trying to think.

Is it like Bill Cottle? No, Bill Cottle was effective for a while. He was. Do you think so? My memory's a little hazy. I don't remember him ever being effective here. Well, because when he would blow it, he would blow it big time. Right?

But, I mean, I think overall, like anything else, when you're the stopper, the closer, you're supposed to shut him down every single time. And Bill Cottle, unfortunately, would walk in there against teams like the Detroit Tigers at Tiger Stadium and not be able to get the job done. But you know what? I think the Cottle and Gary Lavelle kind of era wasn't so bad, except our expectations were, look, these guys are free agents.

But was Cottle a trade from Oakland? I think he was a trade. A trade from Oakland. That was back when a million bucks meant something. It's like Austin Powers, like $1 million. That meant something. That's right. And he had credentials.

He had saved 30-some-odd games in Seattle and in Oakland. Yeah. And he was a character. He was Rolaid's Relief Guy of the Year in my sticker book. Fireman of the Year. He was in my sticker book, my Panini sticker book. Fireman of the Year, where they had a special. It was saves, less losses, plus wins, times 22% times nine because of your innings and all that stuff.

Someone told me recently that my audience skews older because I'm talking too much about the 80s. And they said, I lost some poll in blog TO because apparently the average blog TO audience, I was told, is like a 20-year-old. So basically it was a demo mix-up and I was wondering, I guess that's right because I talk about what I care. Bill Cottle,

I'm just wondering what percentage of these listeners know Bill Cottle. Well, my son's 19. He listens to the podcast, so he might be right in there. But also, he likes to hear good stories. I heard your son on Humble and Fred's podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's doing comedy. He's in the comedy program at Humber, right down the street here. You know what it is? People like to hear a good story.

If you're at a party, hey, why do we gravitate to that guy over there sitting in the corner? Well, he's a good storyteller. He's got good stories. He's engaging. So I don't care what your age is, and I don't care what the era of the story is, a good story is a good story. Oh, I'm so on board with that. What's the name of the guy who used to run 60 Minutes? He passed away a couple years ago. Anyways.

Oh, Mike Wallace? No, he used to. Oh, Don Hewitt was the executive producer. He had a quote I read once. It's basically, all 60 Minutes should be is tell me an interesting story. Tell me a story. You're back, okay? A lot of people are like, how does hebsey get a second appearance on toronto

mike is that what they're saying that's what they're saying there's a buzz out there and i'm like the man two things one three things one is i'm a big fan from way back but two is uh you tell a great story and three is that you have great stories to tell that's what i'm looking for you can move in down here if you want and come on every day if you want. I do want to ask you though about, did you, did you or your son or both listen to the Mike Wilner episode? I did listen to it. Yeah. Cause I played your clip.

I did. I found it very revealing. You know, Mike's, uh, yeah, look, Mike knows his stuff, but Mike, you know, you, I don't think Mike ever wanted to be involved in a controversy. Right. But sometimes you get involved, you know, Oh, like the CETO thing. Yeah. You just don't want to be part of it,

but you end up being part of it, right? And it's unavoidable. So in that particular case, you know, with CETO and then later with, you know, some of the other things that were said, the questions always come up, you know, okay, you're a journalist. Do you favor a particular team?

Well, sure sure why wouldn't he favor the blue jays if they do well it's better for his business and rogers so we went through all of that kind of thing i thought like you know what there were times when i was part of the story and i didn't want to be right like when mike milbury told me to f off right who hasn't he told in front of a bunch of cameras and i'm like now i'm part of the story because it was why'd you ask him that and stuff and i look at that right i didn't have anything to do with it. I just sort of asked a question just like Festchuck with Phil Kessel. He didn't want to be part

of the story. He got a little flack for asking that question, but I think you have to ask that question. And the first question was who was the reporter that asked the question? That's what everyone wanted to know. Who was the reporter that dared ask Phil Kessel? He's a polarizing figure himself. I got a lot of people tell me they hate him. Really? Yeah. Hate's not a good thing.

You know, in that kind of a relative. Like hate, like I'll never read him or I'll flip him off. Yeah, they're just not, you know,

but I used to get that about Wilner all the time and then people listened to the Wilner episode and most people said that they sort of understood now where he's coming. He seemed like less

of an asshole. No, no, you know what it is? He's a human being. Yeah, it turns out he's a human being. Yeah, right. He's not just a baseball. But Damien Cox, is he a human. No, no. You know what it is? He's a human being. Yeah. It turns out he's a human being. He's a, yeah, right. He's not just a baseball.

But Damien Cox, is he a human being? First of all, I didn't like the fact that he wasn't even paying attention to the opening music. That bothered me. He wouldn't put on his headphones. Why? Why? That's great music, man.

You know what? Thank you. I know he's a Hamilton guy. I dig that. And I know I've known Damien for many years, but man, you got to be part of the whole scene. You got to have the headphones on to hear the opening music. He refused. To get the vibe.

And I said to him, like I said, you're the first guy who refuses to wear the headphones. And he goes, I don't wear them on the radio either. I mean, I guess he's telling the truth, but he wouldn't put them on. But because he didn't have them on, he couldn't hear himself, which meant he kept trailing away.

He kept talking from over here. Yeah. And it just drives me nuts when I'm compressing the file. So he won't be on a second time? He doesn't get a second invite, no. You know how few people get a second invite? Hey, listen, you got Strombolopoulos. That's great.

Did that? You got Elliott Friedman. Oh, the Fridge. Yeah, the Strombol episode was, well, Fridge was great too, but Strombol was like magic because I didn't know he was coming over. He came over. It was Christmas time. Right on.

He just shows up. That's George. Yeah. He shows up at the door. I hear it. You know what I heard? I heard Metallica blasting from a truck. And it's like, I said to my wife, I think that's got to be George.

Like in this neighborhood, it's a pretty quiet neighborhood. This thing was just pumping. He once approached me on the street in Montreal outside the Bell Center. Okay. I'm walking back to my hotel. Two guys are behind me. Right. It's George Strombolopoulos and it's Bob Makowitz, the third or Bob Makowitz, the fourth.

Bob Makowitz's son. Yeah. The one who's on now with Matthew. He's very funny. This was years ago. And I didn't, I had heard of them. They were doing overnights on the fan or whatever, four in the morning. And like, oh, hi, we like your stuff and all that.

And we had a nice little chat and all that. And now I'm like, these two guys, I knew them when they were a couple of, hey, can we talk to you for a second? And stuff like that. They were young, budding superstars. Who knew? And if you throw Merrick in that mix.

Yeah, Jeff Merrick too. It's like, yeah, these guys all overachieved, right? Your words, not mine. Straubel's on CNN, for goodness sake. He's on everywhere. You know what? And my daughter, I think my daughter, I was quite proud of the episode because I liked how it turned out. So I was just telling my daughter about it.

She's 10 and a half years old. And then my wife made a joke about how George is my, my boyfriend or whatever, because Canada's a boyfriend. And now every time George's face is on the TV, my daughter tells me my, my boyfriend's on TV. Like this is the big ongoing joke. And it turns out he's on TV a lot, or I watch too much hockey, one or the other.

Yeah. I know probably a combination of both, but listen, George is, uh, he's omnipresent as it should be. Speaking of, uh,

his old radio show on the fan, uh, there's some big changes at the fan before we go into some great hebsey stories what do you think of the new morning show on the fan 590 are you aware of this i am of course damien cox claimed to i've never heard of or not know anything about this and dean blundell i can see that damien would have never known about dean blundell uh i just you know know, could never picture Damien going, quiet, I got to put the edge on, quiet.

Let me listen to this. Hang on a second. We got Bizarre Love Triangle. We got the EP. That's right. So, no, I could see that. But, I mean, yeah, of course I had heard of it. And I was like most people like, whoa, really?

Wow. Man, I wonder, because the ratings were good with Brady and Walker. Yep. But, you know, when Howard Stern first came on Q107, the guy he replaced in the mornings was yours truly.

I was on with Rory O'Shea and Tony Daniels, Tony the cheap voice guy. We were the morning show. Okay. This would have been after Jesse and Gene were gone,

after Brother Jake were gone. So we had been doing it for several months. And then the word was, well, you know, come the spring, there's going to be a change. Come the fall,

there's going to be a change. There's fall, there's going to be a change. There's going to be, ah, there were rumors. Jesse and Gene are coming back. Gene without Jesse's coming back. Brother Jake's coming back. Everybody's coming back. Derringer's coming in, all that. And it ended up being Howard Stern. So I was the last, I was part of the last morning team on Q107 before Stern arrived. And everyone was like, Stern? And I knew about Stern. And I thought, man, what a great move. Because you had seen private parts.

Oh, no, way before that. I used to listen to him when he was in Washington, whenever we were on road trips. When I was on road trips, I'd hear about this guy and he was terrific. So I understood. But this was a bigger shock. So I'll be interested to hear how it sounds. But most interesting, I'll be interested to see what the pulse is like at the fan. Because the way I understand it is not a lot of people at the fan

are really supportive of this move, even though he hasn't even been on the air yet. And that's a tough way to start. I don't care who you are, but now you've got to prove to people in your own building that you know sports and that you're good and this is right for you. And just what everyone says, it's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong, it'll never work. And you know what? I think that you're good and this is right for you and just what everyone says it's wrong it's wrong it's wrong it'll never work and you know what i think that

with the right people and the right supporting cast it'll work so they announced today i was reading who this i can't remember you know i didn't take notes on this and i can't remember the name george russik does that sound familiar okay am i saying that right yeah yeah george russik okay so he i know he's so I know he's on the fan sometimes, like in the Ben Ennis camp and one of those guys. That's right. Yeah, he fills in on afternoons and on the weekends. So he's going to be on the morning show.

Right. And a young lady whose name I can't remember right now. That's terrible. Why is it terrible? Just that I can't remember. Because you don't know who this person is, right? I do not know who this person is, right. Right.

So they're joining Dean. And originally the press release had walker staying on in the mornings and then that changed originally walker was gonna stay on and then what happened was the way i understand it was they did a month's worth of test shows this month of february and walker was supposed to be part of those test shows and for whatever reason he said well i want to keep doing the mornings or i'm not ready to do this or you know what's gonna happen with greg that means g is going to have to have different co-hosts the last month that he's going to be on, Greg Brady,

before he goes to one to four and who's going to be with him and all these questions. So, yeah, it'll be real interesting to hear. But apparently, the way I understand it, again, is there's a lot of, hmm, we're just going to have to see if this works out. It's not, woo-hoo, we can hardly wait for Bundell to go on. It's going to be fabulous. It's more like, yeah, we'll hardly wait for Bundell to go on. It's going to be fabulous. It's more like,

yeah, we'll just have to see. That sounds a bit like Lorne Michaels there. Or are you doing a Dr. Evil? I don't know if I was doing anybody.

I think that's me. That's you. It works. Oh, and an aside, by the way, my son's, I told you my son's in the comedy program

at Humber. So one of his instructors is Robin Duke, the great Robin Duke. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's telling stories this week about what it was like

going to New York for the 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live and running into all the people that she worked with and didn't. Oh, Eddie Murphy. You know, this is like 30-some-odd years ago. So when she came back and told the stories, all of the students are kind of like,

well, we knew that you were big, and we knew about SCT, but we had no idea that you were, like, are you kidding me? You were at the Saturday Night Live. Well, she was there. She was a cast member for like four years. Yeah years yeah absolutely so they were just blown away with that like oh my god our instructor is like was on saturday night live for years that's uh that's super damn

cool uh so okay so we'll see what happens with dean blendell uh yeah walker and you know like when i was on i don't know on the cox the cox episode i called it uh brady and lang i called it like twice, I think. But Cox did not correct me. I don't think he was paying attention. Yeah, or he doesn't listen. But I sure heard from Walker afterwards. I'm like, I'm sorry.

It's one of those things, you know, it just stuck in your head. I know. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Did Andrew take it personally? I think he did. Yeah, so this time I want to make sure I said it right.

It's Brady and Walker, 1 o'clock. But what happens, because there's a big gap before Tim and Sid go to TV. So does Brady and Walker, they just sit on the sidelines and have like a vacation? That's a good question. Yeah, it's a good question, because I think there's at least a month. It's not like Monday, Tim and Sid are on off radio. They'll be on radio for like another month. Another month, that's right.

So I think this month here, the month of March, is where they say to Greg Brady, now you can take your vacation. Well, he's got the March break with the kids. The long vacation, right? The long vacation. And then when you come back, you come back as a mid-afternoon, 1 to 4,

and that kind of thing. So, I mean, I've never run a radio station before, but I don't know what's going on in you know, in the ivory tower at Rogers, but it's kind of like, who's on today? Oh, God, we forgot about Blondel. Like, they're going to wake up Monday morning and go, Jesus Christ, we forgot. Did you see the ad where he's got duct tape on his mouth

and it says reprogrammed or something? No, I haven't seen it, but I have seen the new Q107 ad and it's awesome. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fantastic. It's far better than I thought it would be. It's a very good ad. Yeah, it's a really good ad

and, you know, so what am I going to do Monday morning, man? What am I going to listen to? You've got some decisions to make. But I am curious. I don't actually listen

to morning radio right now with my lifestyle, but I... Understood. You're not in the car in the mornings, are you? Yeah, exactly. And the kid,

my alarm clock is the baby and then I play with him until I sort of start at work. You don't have to apologize. So I just feel bad that I haven't been listening to a morning radio. You don't have to apologize. I just feel bad that I haven't been listening to enough morning radio. You don't have to apologize. That's for Matt Galloway because he's coming on soon.

Matt's great too. Love Metro Morning. I know. See, that's the other thing too is that there's so much variety and everyone's so good in the morning. There's no hacks in the morning. You notice that, huh? You don't have any hacks.

If you're on in the morning, you're good. If you're Aaron Davis, if you're Stern, if you're John Derringer, if you're Matt Galloway, if you're Dean Blundell, if you're, I don't know who the new morning person is now at the Edge, I haven't listened in a long time, if you're Roger, Daryl, and Marilyn. Darren and Roger, Roger, and Marilyn. Is it Fearless Fred?

I don't know, but anyway, you've got to be good. You've got to be darn good to be on that early in the morning, okay? Absolutely. That's the dichotomy of the whole thing. You've got to get up at 2.35 in the morning, but you're fabulous at 7 a? Absolutely. That's the dichotomy of the whole thing. You've got to get up at 2.35 in the morning, but you're fabulous at 7 a.m. That's right. Oh, by the way, for you,

does going back to radio intrigue you? Oh, absolutely. I'm a creative guy. So if someone says, look, there's a lot of creativity involved, especially nowadays. Yeah, I love radio. And radio is where I started.

And radio is way more fun than television. Is that because you have room to tell a story? Yes, exactly. Television is, you know, your tie isn't straight. There's a hair in the way that never comes up in radio. And let me tell you, I've worked with enough people in television

that are obsessed with their looks. They're obsessed with their looks anyway, but as soon as they got into television, oh my God, I work with one particular person, I won't give you a name, that is so obsessed with his tie knot that it's like three seconds, two, one, and he's still fiddling with the tie knot, right? And now it's like I've forgotten what I'm supposed to say, what I'm going to present to all my viewers because I'm worried about my tie knot. That kind of a thing.

I can't. In radio, you don't have to worry about stuff like that. So are you making calls? No, I don't do things like that. You just wait for somebody to come to you. Believe me, I'm very happy in what I do. Very, very happy in what I do. And I'm not out there to say, hey, look, if you're on something, my plate's pretty full.

But look, if someone came along and said, hey, you know, how would you like to try something like this? If I could fit it into my schedule, I would, of course. I like being creative. Yeah, I'm not kissing your ass here. This is exactly, I think, the second time I've met you, I believe. Second episode, second time. Yeah, this would be it, yeah. And I think you tell a great story, and it's always interesting,

and there should be a place on radio for you if you want back in. I appreciate that. I think I'm the last of the reporters who, when we reported, we could actually go up to athletes, go up to people and ask them, talk to them as one-on-one without the scrum situation, without having to go through the PR department. I won't say I feel sorry, but I'm glad I'm not a reporter today. It's so much more difficult it's so much uh less

personal well the sound bites are all useless because they seem all they're all the same got to give got to get out get more effort out there like all that yeah what do you call it platitudes yeah but even that even it's even like you know you might the guy might look you in the eye and know who you are might oh yeah you're the guy who writes for the star sun globe national post oh you're the guy who blogs for blah blah blah oh you're the guy who's on radio or is it what what platform are you on and that's the other thing it used to be oh you're you write for the globe you work for cbc you work for global you work for and it's just now different and there's so many people so many people that the average athlete can't keep up. You know, he knows the faces of the entire scrum, but he can't individually say, oh, yeah, I know your work specifically.

You were, you know, unless he happens to follow that media. You know who is an interesting quote, though? It's Shaquille O'Neal. Love him. Love the Shaq. Did you see him last night? Did you watch the basketball game? No, I didn't watch.

Oh, my God, he's the best. He still thinks he's an athlete, right? So he jumps up from the desk on nba halftime and runs over listen i could dig up a scrapbook from when i was like he played his first game for the magic and he got 10 points and i literally cut it out of the star and put it in the scrapbook that's right kids don't have scrapbooks anymore right for the magic that's right yeah 10 points game one because i thought and i mean it turns out i was I mean, everyone knew it because he was just like highly touted, clear number one, he's going to be a superstar.

And he was just too nimble and fast for that size. He was just, he was amazing. He was, he was terrific. He used to kick it out to Nick Anderson for the threes. That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why. And when Penny was there, that was a great time. They were, and it was very exciting.

And Orlando is such a, I don't want to say backwater town, but it was so. Dizzy? So, you know, Orlando is such a, I don't want to say backwater town, but it was so... Dizzy? So, you know, Orlando is, it's not even the most, it's like the fourth most popular city in all of Florida. Think about it.

Like Tampa, St. Pete, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, right? And then, oh yeah, Orlando. Kind of, it's near Disney, that type of thing. But Shaquille O'Neal, I had met Shaquille o'neal uh when he'd come into toronto um and wanted to do an interview with him wanted to talk about

something that no one else wanted to ask him i wanted to ask him about if you remember his first game in the nba and just like i was doing a radio thing uh that i wanted to get syndicated never did and it was called uh sports flashback where you go to people and you say look you're a superstar now but when you weren't a superstar, what was it like when you played your first NBA game? I dig it. Or what was it like when you first stepped on the court for whatever, who was your first roommate?

And that, you take the athlete back to when they were just hopeful and wishing that they could make the pros. And those memories are vivid of that first game, of that kind of a thing, who their opponent was. They know it in detail, in absolute detail. Like you, like we know everything about the, the, the birth of our first child,

the time, that weight, their height, everything, where you were, what you had for breakfast that day. Well, the athletes are the same. So I wanted to do a thing with Shaquille about that. And when he was in Toronto, he said, look, man, I'm kind of busy. I don't know what I'd love to do it. Uh, if you're ever in LA, look me up. Right. Well, a year, a couple of years later, I'm in LA, you know, and I go to the Lakers Golden State game at the Staples Center, right? And I see him before the game and I, hey, Canada.

So he remembers you. Talk to you later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah. Talk to you later. Okay, great. So now the game's over now and the media, and I didn't realize this in L.A. too,

but there's more media in L.A. than anywhere else, especially when it comes to the Lakers. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's interesting. It's unbelievable. And if I tell you media, all sorts, okay? They'll give media credentials to anybody that breathes, anybody with a pulse.

So I walk into the locker room, and there must be, seriously, 70 people standing in the middle of the locker room on the Laker logo on a rug. They're not allowed to approach the players. Players have beautiful lockers. OK, so imagine you're standing in the middle of a room and you're looking at the backs of all these players who are sitting on easy chairs facing their lockers, facing away from the media. And I'm looking at this going, I'm not going to wait around like this is ridiculous. away from the media and i'm looking at this going i'm not going to wait around like this it's ridiculous and remember i'm from old school like you know you could walk up to somebody and go hi can i get a few words with you so i thought well i'm either going to stand here with these la media i don't know them and they don't know me and i'm never going to be back right or i'm going

to take a chance so me i walk right over to shak shak is like everyone else is facing away from from the media. I walk up from behind. I don't want to startle him. I'm going, excuse me, Shaq? And he kind of turns sort of half around. Imagine this, right? And I'm going, hey, Mark Kepcher from Toronto.

Remember, we talked about you. Hey, hey, hey. And then he kind of gives a look over my shoulder to where the rest of the media is and notices their faces, like, hey, hey, what's this guy doing here hey and he says man i i can't talk to you man like he's like man and he's very soft-spoken man i can't talk to you here now i can't i said listen i just you know i'm not gonna be here for that long i just need a couple minutes your time i want to ask you about your first nba game and he goes and

he puts his hand on my shoulder mike like i mean the guy's got huge hands he puts his hand on my shoulder and with a gentle squeeze he goes man i'm gonna get in trouble with all the rest of the media if i talk to you here now and i say to him shack i'm from canada in canada we walk up to people we ask them politely for a few minutes of their time and they either say like yes or they say we'll do it some other time so what are you telling me he's going man i'm telling you you got to go back into the middle of the room with the rest of the media pack and i'll talk to you later i'm going what does that mean later can i get a one-on-one he goes man and now he's squeezing a little bit harder with the hand because all the other media is going what's this

shack dude talking who's this guy here right right and i just said man you gotta give me a couple minutes now i said to him i'm not. Right? And he rolls his eyes. Right? And he goes, okay. And I've got my little tape recorder, my little, not an MP3. The microcassette? No, I don't even remember what the format was. I don't even remember, honest to God.

I'm trying to think what the format was. But I've got a little microphone, and it's audio only. So I'm asking him about this first game, and he's telling me, 10 points against the… Yeah, I got the got the clipping anyway so at the nuggets as he's telling the story i'm sort of looking over my shoulder and i see all these media members and they're breathing fire they're like who the hell is this guy here and they're really upset and you can tell as shack is telling the story that he's he knows he's in trouble with the rest of the media but he's being nice to the canadian. He's nice. Got my interview.

I said, thanks very much. He goes, man, you got me in trouble. And he's sort of having fun with it. He's like, you got me in trouble. And he's sort of sheepishly. And so I leave. But a little later, I notice that when the media horde has come around his locker, right, there's like 20 microphones in his face.

I'm glad I got that. I could have not waited around. He was very, very nice about it. but I understood his predicament, which was, if I talk to you by yourself, then the rest of the media is going to be, you'll have anarchy because there's a system. Right. And you, and as you said, the clips that he used one pool reporter, one guy with a microphone could have gotten all those clips and then said, okay, guys, here's what he had to say. But instead everybody's there to get the same clip. You know, I'm glad that he was a nice guy

because he seems like a really, like, humble guy. Wasn't he, like, a volunteer sheriff or something like that? Yeah. Like, this is, like, not normal stuff. Oh, yeah. He was once caught driving too slow on a highway outside of Orlando, listening to, you know, Foo Schnickens and all that.

Oh, yeah. And he was driving 15 miles an hour, and they pulled him over. What did you think of his rap? Not so good, right? No. And his acting's even worse, maybe? I heard he's in something new.

But like Shaq vs. was a great show. That was a great show. The concept was great. I'll take you on. Oh, whatever you want to try. I'm a big guy. I'm an athlete. Try me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Try me. So he's one of my personal favorites. I really, I do like the guy. What do you think? That's amazing. But tell me what you think of another big personality, Bill Parcells. Bill Parcells, when he was coaching the New York Giants,

had the biggest ego of anybody. I don't care, player, owner, any sport. He was the big, had the biggest ego. And I liked him for that because he was cocky. But I think he took a football team that I thought the New York giants were a good team, but not great. And I think he did whatever he could do and he led that team to the Superbowl. It was his coaching, some brilliant play calling some,

I don't know if you remember much, but man, he, he was the guy that had the razzle dazzle plays before anyone. He was the one who pulled off the fake field goal. Hostetler passed it down the field to Zeke Moen. He had some wild and wacky kind of plays. But one time, we were covering the Super Bowl. Global always had the Super Bowl for years and years. And part of the lead-up was we would go and we would cover the two teams prior to the Super Bowl.

There was a two-week gap. We'd go to their training camp, and we'd do previews of the Super Bowl. So this was the year that I believe the Giants played Denver. tatty went out to denver to do the broncos and i went to new york to do the giants preview and then we would edit it that week and would air ahead of the super bowl so we go into new york so myself and a cameraman and a producer go in there and now so what we're doing is we're getting all the interviews of the giants players you know we're getting carl banks and we're getting elvis patterson and we're getting sims and we're getting all these jim bird who is from buffalo who is a big favorite of ours and we're getting Parcells who's

really really cool anyway so we do the interviews and now we're not allowed to shoot on the field while they're practicing so it's called b-roll we can't shoot any b-roll of them practicing it's against the rules so I'm like we I said look we didn't come all the way to New York just to get interviews we got to have some action of them practicing. We've got to have something. So I remember saying to Parcells, I say, can we just get a couple of shots of you guys, even if you're walking towards the middle of the field? And he goes, no, get out of here.

Those were his exact, no, get out of here. So he actually watched us. He sort of escorted us out of the area, out of the coach's office and out of the locker room area. All right, you guys got to go now. Thanks, goodbye. You know, okay, coach, good luck in the Super Bowl. So as we're sort of leaving and at the giants offices you have to walk through their offices out to the parking lot at the meadowlands okay i say to my cameraman dave perot dave we're not we've got to get some footage he goes well he just told us to leave i

go we're never going to be back what's the worst thing that can happen like i said to him what's the worst thing that can happen now when you say that to a cameraman and there's a fire he goes well you know we could burn to death but when it's when it's shooting football players and what's the why i say what's the worst thing that can happen i said look let's pretend we're going downstairs to the parking level let's instead take the elevator up to the concourse level of the stadium and let's see if we can't sneak a couple of shots of them practicing so sure enough we go upstairs there's nobody in 70 000 seats there's nobody up in the stadium we figure you know what we'll go find a quiet place no one will ever know wow and and so the the the um the tripod has extra long sticks right so you could conceivably

make the tripod go seven feet high mount the camera on top of it bring the um the viewfinder down to your level and shoot something that was way above you. So that's what we did. We set it up so that it just snuck over the corner of the, over the edge of the ledge. Like a sniper. Yeah, yeah, like a sniper, right?

He got that thing and now he's shooting and he's going, oh, they're practicing a play. I'm going, great, great, fabulous, right? Rolling. We get them practicing this fake field goal play, right? It's Hostetler. He fakes, they fake the field goal. Ali Haji Sheikh, I think it was.

He throws it downfield to Moe. And he goes, I got it. I go, that's fantastic. So we've got some B-roll now. And then all of a sudden, we hear, hey, hey, who's up there? It's Parcells. He's on the field. He's going to have you shot, man.

He's on the field. And he sees there's some activity. He sees the lens of the camera. I don't know. He sees everything. Hey! All of a sudden, two coaches come running i mean from the field up the steps and we're probably 45 rows up at the concourse right up the steps they're running to take us out and i'm like let's go to dave bro he grabs the camera he doesn't have time to readjust the sticks right so he's got a

seven foot long tripod with a camera attached to it that's still rolling, and we are running to the elevator to get out of there because these coaches are going to take us out. And now you know, of course, when you press the button to the elevator, if you press it fast enough and hard enough, it gets there quicker. And we hear the guys running up the stairs. Like, oh, my God, you're going to catch us, right? Ding, the elevator door opens up we go we run into the elevator the elevator isn't big enough to hold a tripod that's seven

feet long so oh my god he has to you know snap a couple of the elevator doors close we go down to the main level we get out and we are running through the executive offices out to the parking lot right running like you know and we're thinking these guys are going to come after us, into the car, drive away, never to be seen again. P.S. We run that on the special. We run the fake play. They run it in the Super Bowl, and it works. That is amazing.

My heart's pounding just telling the story. It was, oh, my God, they're going to get Bill Parcells. He's going to break the video cassette. He's going to take it, and he's going to go. I think you're lucky it was just Bill running after you. I could see like some super security guys just coming. No, there was no security guys for that that I knew. And I think one of the coaches.

That's amazing. Belichick, I think. And they ran that play successfully in the Super Bowl. They ran it beautifully successfully. And you had it in the pregame. We had run it. We had run it in the pregame. I don't think the Denver Broncos were watching Global's pregame Super Bowl show to see that.

You know, in this day and age, somebody would have a YouTube of that in the coach's pocket right before the game. No, we had the only copy of it. And yeah, so there you go. And I bet the Giants and they won the Super Bowl last year. That's amazing. So that was the Bill Parcells. That's good shit. You know, I always wear number 11 when I play.

I play some slow pitch and I play hockey. Always number 11 because I grew up loving George Bell. George Bell was my guy. Coincidentally, my son now plays hockey at George Bell Arena, but it's a completely different George Bell. But I like to pretend it's the same guy. George Bell. What a guy.

George Bell won the MVP of the American League in 1987. Fabulous season for the Jays. The 87 year was the year that they blew it against the Tigers. Last six games of the American League in 1987. Fabulous season for the Jays. The 87 year was the year that they blew it against the Tigers. Last six games of the season, all they had to do was win one. They didn't win any.

It was a whole thing like that. But Bell had a fantastic year. Real tough ending to that. I thought they had a great team in 87. 47 dingers. Fabulous. So that year, I happened to be on my honeymoon

in the Dominican Republic. We're in the Dominican, and guess who's being fettered that weekend as the first Dominican player in the history of baseball to win the MVP award. The first on the entire island, right? Juan Marichal had won a Cy Young,

I think, but I mean, not George Bell. And man, it was a party. It was an absolute party. And I'd run, hey, congratulations. Hey, man, you'll have to come out and see me, all right? The first part of the story is that he kept inviting us out to his place, and we never saw him. He had other things to do do our time means nothing to those people uh in the dominican i mean right um but anyway the following year at spring training jimmy williams is the

manager yes and george bell everyone arrives this is what this spring reminded me of everyone arrived early okay the reporting date for for players was whatever the third let's say sure but everyone was there by the first except for george bell so everyone is waiting right george bell mvp a whole it was a whole big deal and jimmy williams had suggested that george bell might be doing some dhing in 1988 because he wanted to break in strong suggestions rob ducy or whoever the left fielder was going to be i don't know somebody else candy malt somebody else, yeah. Candy Maltz. No, whoever it was. Whoever it was, George didn't like the idea that someone else might be playing left field.

No, he didn't. But he showed up on time. But it appeared as if he was late because everyone else was there. Right. City TV had a reporter named Russ Salzberg. Russ the Dodger. He was from Brooklyn, New York, and he was on City TV, and he was down at spring training. And at City, they said, we don't care.

You are going to beat Global. You're going to beat CFTO. they said, we don't care. You are going to beat Global. You're going to beat CFTO. You're going to beat CBC. You're going to beat CHCH, all of them. You're going to get the first interview with George Bell when he gets to Florida. So what they did was they staked out the airport. They actually were on the tarmac when George Bell got off the plane and got the first interview and aired it that night on City Pulse News.

And my boss called me to say, oh, the hell is City? Get that story. What the hell is going on? What are you doing? So the next morning, we all gathered waiting for George Bell at the complex, right? And so the deal is everyone waits outside. You can't go into the clubhouse to do this. Everyone waits.

And then Bell comes out and he does the scrum with the media. So we're all waiting outside. All the writers are waiting. The broadcasters are all waiting. And nothing. He doesn't come out. There's nothing. So I go inside just by myself without my cameraman to see what's going on and as i walk into the clubhouse joe

tilly of cfto and his cameraman rob mulligan and i who i both know very well are interviewing george bell solo interviewing george bell and i lose it yeah i lose it i grab the mic from tilly during the interview i say hey what the hell's going on you're supposed to come and talk to all and now i'm yelling at george bell you're supposed to come and talk to all of us. And now I'm yelling at George Bell. You're supposed to come and talk to all of us. What's all this about? And Tilly is freaking out. And Mulligan, his cameraman, and I go to Howie Starkman, who is the PR guy,

and say, this isn't fair at all. We're all waiting outside for George Bell. We should all have equal access at the same time. And now Tilly wants to fight me. He wants to fight. That's funny. Right? He's, like, really enraged.

I think he had just started at CFTO. You could have taken him. I don't think so. He was a Golden Gloves champion. Is that right? I didn't know at the time. But anyway, so now there's yelling and screaming back and forth. And Tilly's like, oh, kick your ass.

And I'm like, oh, yeah. Well, guess what? I got a family of lawyers. I'll sue your ass. And the late John Robertson had written about it in the Toronto Sun the next day. Anyway, Bell was sort of at the end. Bell found it very amusing that we were all upset over him. So when he finally does stroll out, he answers some questions.

And now he goes out to one of the diamonds to work with Cito Gaston, the hitting coach. And he's still upset at a few things. And I say to my cameraman, I don't care. You follow him as far as you can go. He goes, what if he goes on the field? Follow him. What if he goes out to left field? You follow him.

You follow him until you're physically taken away. I want this footage. This is what you can do when you're a reporter. You say to the cameraman, this is what I want. And if the cameraman says no, I said, look, I'm going to get you fired. You have to do what the reporter says. That's your job. So my cameraman, Paul Materiuk, who was a good guy and had, you know, balls, steel balls. He goes, oh, I'm right into it. And he follows George Bell. And all George Bell kept doing was turning over, said, get that camera out of my face. Get that camera. Get that camera out of my face.

Materiak is rolling the whole way until finally George takes his glove and puts it right into the lens of the camera, get the camera out of my face, and leaves it there. Well, guess what? Materiak keeps walking. And just through the webbing of the glove, you can still see images of George.

That's funny. It was great. And that's good footage, too. All the other cameramen were like, hey, man, you can still see images of that's funny it was great no that's good footage all the other cameramen were like hey man you can't do that i go oh yeah watch me because i wanted to get i didn't want the same stuff as cfto or cbc i wanted my own stuff and that's where you say to your camera get me a shot that no one else can get and it got good footage and you know what george George loved us after that. He was not camera shy at all. So was he a nice guy? Because you get conflicting reports. He was, but he was just a different kind of a guy.

He was a nicer guy than Dave Steve, for example. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. See, Steve later in his career tried to make up for it, but it was too late. Oh, yeah, you told a great Steve story in the first round. Yeah, yeah, he tried to make up for it. Brian Troche was the same as a hockey player,

a real SOB. And then when he was in his last year and he realized that he wasn't gonna be playing, he suddenly turned into a nice guy. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't like that.

As a diehard George Bell fan, I remember that off season so well because yeah, Jimmy was going to DH him and he didn't want to be DH'd. And it was a huge story. And the best part is opening day as a designated hitter, George hits three homers. In KC. In KC, yeah.

That's right. And then later that year gets Jimmy Williams fired. Yes. The Jays, I think, were 11-24, and Bell was playing left field for Minnesota. I would say 12-24. 12-24. Bell was playing left field in Minnesota,

and he uncorked a throw. I can still see the throw. He's trying to get a runner at the plate. Not only did he not hit the cutoff, man, the throw would have gone into the 20th row behind the plate it was eon cork the worst throw ever and it was tailing away too like even if it was on target it wouldn't have been there and i just remember the look on jimmy williams's face like i've lost this guy like i can't i tell him what to do he doesn't do what it's tough for a manager when you go at the star it's tough because but that changed of

course we did win the pennant that year so it it was under Cito. That was the big change. And when did we move into Sky Dome? Was it that year? No, the following year. Next year. Oh, 88. No, wait a second. That was 80.

Oh, yeah, it was 89 we moved into Sky Dome. Maybe it was 89. You know what? We did not win the pennant in 88. No, it was 89. That's right. It was 89 spring training. We had an odd year thing going for a while.

Like 85, we should have won 87, didn't. We won in 89 in the 91. That's right. That's right. It's all a blur now. You know what? What the what the years were right because we were unsuccessful for a number of years won a division almost won a division in 87 yes won a division almost won an 89 got killed by oakland yeah right that's right killed killed and then in 91 we got uh twins what happened yeah we we we lost because uh yeah and then then, of course, 92, 93,

we win the World Series, and we haven't been back since. True. Are we coming back this year? I don't think so. Mind you, having said that, I don't think the rest of the East looks very good at all. I mean, the Jays could win by default in the East. Nobody's.

Saunders tripped up on a, what did he have? Sprinkler head. Sprinkler head, yeah. It's the Mickey Mantle injury. Yeah, that's right. You know, the famous Mickey Mantle injury. Yeah, that's right. You know the famous Mickey Mantle injury was? Yeah, yes, yes. Played right field.

Joe DiMaggio was the center fielder in his last year. Mickey was a rookie. Everyone was talking about Mickey Mantle. And DiMaggio was the type of guy who wouldn't say, talk to anybody. And Mantle was playing right field at Yankee Stadium. And there's a looper hit into right center. And Mantle was running full speed. And he's going to make the catch full speed.

And at the last second, DiMaggio goes, mine. mine which means mantle has to back off yeah that's and he was running so fast that he went to put the brakes on slipped on a uh sprinkler head tore up his knee was never the same the mickey man there you go but i don't think michael saunders was going to do that much anyway i'm sorry to say yeah no but what he's going to replace melky cabrera somebody made a good point like if this if this throws off your season then you weren't built to win. That's right. Exactly right. And if you're going to get injured like this, better you do it before spring training even starts.

Right. So that maybe by June or July, you're at back and full strength. Yeah, we'll have you back by at least, yeah. We don't want the Brett Laurie type injury where, you know, you're gone during the time. Or the Edmund Encarnacion injury, where in the middle of the season when you're playing well, you know, you lose your best hitter. We don't want that. Right. You know, I like to think of George Bell as the great one,

but there's another great one. Gretz, the greatest hockey player and maybe the greatest sweater. Like a guy who sweats. Oh, yeah, okay. Maybe. I didn't notice that. I interviewed a lot of hockey players. First, I have to tell you that when you're playing hockey,

and anyone who's ever played knows this, when you you in between periods or even when you go to the bench you realize when you take your helmet off how much you've been sweating it's crazy right right well gretzky could sweat like the best of them and look he got worked hard why not right but when you come between periods and you're in a hot little studio well a little dinky studio with hot hot lights right and now you come in and you take your helmet off. Right. And you're you and Gretzky came up. I interviewed him between periods in Los Angeles. So and he knew I was I knew he was obviously. So we come between periods and you've got, I don't know, five or six minutes, let's say. Right. So he comes in and the first thing he does is he takes off his glove and shakes my hand. OK. And the glove has been, you know, so it smells.

It's awful. But the other thing is you're sitting very close together because you both have to be in the two shots that the camera's taking. And what's happening is as I'm interviewing him, I realize that he's sweating. Yeah. And the sweat is dropping down onto my new pants. That's like holy water, man. It's dropping and it's wet and it's ugly and it's dropping. And I've got the microphone I'm holding and he's sweating profusely.

So not only is he sweating all over my pants, but he's got a ball of sweat that starts in the middle of his forehead and ends up at the end of his nose. Picture Gretzky's nose. Kind of a ski jump there, a little bit of a ski jump. But this ball of sweat would not leave the end of his nose. And I just remember being mesmerized by the ball of sweat at the end of Wayne Gretzky's nose.

And while the interview's going on, and he's saying stuff like, well, you know, 100%. Nobody can give you a good between. Yeah, he's into platitudes. You're into that kind of thing. And I'm thinking to myself, I says, Wayne Gretzky's sweating all over my pants. I can't move.

It's soaking me. And I'm looking at this ball of sweat, and I want to flick. I literally want to reach three inches and just flick that ball of sweat. That would be good footage. Or get something to get Wayne to get rid of that ball of sweat.

Because I know everyone watching at home is not listening to a word he's saying. They're looking at that ball of sweat. That would be good footage. Or get something to get Wayne to get rid of that ball of sweat. Because I know everyone watching at home is not listening to a word he's saying. They're looking at that ball of sweat at the end of it. At the end of the interview, if I tell you, man, my pants are soaked. Soaked. And then, of course, he goes and he gives me the big handshake. Right? He gives me the big, big handshake at the end. Yeah.

And then just as he's leaving the studio, we've gone to commercial break. He picks up his stick and his gloves. And he goes, good to see you. And he whacks me with the stick. And I mean, he hits me hard with the stick in the shins. You know, like you would do to your teammate if he had shin pads on. But I don't have shin pads on. And now I'm hurting. I got his sweat all over me.

My hand smells because he took his hand out of his hockey glove. And there's my Wayne Gretzner. That's my Wayne Gretzky. Nicest guy in the world. But between periods, ugh. That's a great Gretzky story. Oh, oh. And now when I see him now, I go, oh, you have no idea how much that guy used to stink. Did it leave a mark on the shins? You got a Gretzky bruise

out of that or what? That's amazing. And then, no, no, but then I would see him occasionally after that and whenever I would be doing a stand-up, you know those live stand-ups at the game where it was like, on Global, it was like, hi everybody, Mark Eppenshire

at Maple Leaf Gardens and then in the background you've got the gardens and I'm standing in location and all that. Well, we would do it down at the end where the visiting team

would come out and whenever Gretzky would see me he would always whack me with the stick. He would either whack me with the blade of the stick in my rear end as he was going by

or he would drop the stick right on my toe as I'm live doing a stand-up. So imagine going, hi everyone, welcome to Maple Hair. Come to, ow! Like that kind of thing. And they loved to do that. When they would see you on the air live, oh, they would just love to screw you up. They loved to screw you up.

That's great. I don't know what the status is right now of the, I think they restored Joe Paterno's wins. Did they? They restored it? They took it away. They gave it back. They did.

Joe Paterno was a real interesting guy. I was always a fan of him as a coach, you know, legendary coach and all that. And I figured I'll probably never get to meet the guy until a kid from Hamilton named Pete Giftopoulos got a scholarship to Penn State. Great name. Pete Giftopoulos got a scholarship to Ohio, to Penn state. Great name.

Pete Giftopoulos was on that fantastic Penn state national championship team that beat Vinnie Testaverde and Miami in the Fiesta ball in 1987 around that. So I had gone that year. I had convinced Jim Taddy. This is great. I convinced him. I said, look, this is a great story.

Let me go for a week to state college, Pennsylvania. I'll do a story on Penn state football. I do a profile of Giftopoulos. Who's a local kid, right? Hamilton guy. I'll get an interview with Joe Paterno, the great Joe Paterno, and just what the atmosphere is like around a college town

prior to the big Penn State pit game. You know, I'm going to come back with four good stories. Okay, he says. So he approves it, so off we go. And I have my same cameraman, Paul Materiak, the one who would chase George Bell. Fearless. Fearless.

So now we're going to State College Pennsylvania. We fly to Pittsburgh. We drive from Pittsburgh to State College Pennsylvania. We hook up with Giftopolis. We didn't know it at the time, but we violated NCAA rules. We bought him a meal. Can't do that. Can you imagine? Sorry, you're out of the

Fiesta Bowl because you bought it. So at the time, we didn't even think about it. After we went, jeez, you know, he wasn't supposed to. He wasn't supposed to accept that. But he accepted it. He accepted it. He was starving, the poor guy, right? Talking about from meal. So anyway, we do the stories.

We get there like on a Tuesday. So we do a Giftopolis story at practice. The next day, we do a story, an interview with Paterno, who's great. And the next day, we do a story about the town and the college life. And then Saturday is the game against Pitt. So what they do is, it's called the world's largest cocktail party. It's at State College, Pennsylvania. Everyone's in the parking lot by Friday afternoon.

The game's not until Saturday at 2 o'clock. Friday afternoon, they start gathering in the parking lot, and it's a weekend of partying, and they go all night. And then the next morning, they get up with their Coleman Stoves, and they make pancakes and stuff like that, and they come out with their outfits. It's terrific. And then around noon, they pack up all the food and all the booze,

because no booze allowed in the stadium, and they all go and watch the football game. So we're covering the world's largest cocktail party. We're doing some interviews. And then we have access. My cameraman has access to be on the field, on the field during the game, because he wants to shoot ISOs of Giftopolis,

and he wants to get shots of DJ Dozier and stuff like that. Now, ABC's covering the game. so ABC is also on the field. So my cameraman figures, you know what? How are they going to know if I'm ABC, I'm not ABC? I've got a camera on my shoulder. So he gets right in there. So while the game is going on and a sideline cameraman, a guy named Mike Freeman, one of the best for ABC,

is two inches from Paterno's face getting those close-ups, who's right next to him? My guy, Materia. He's right in there and no one's questioning him. He's getting shots. I'm watching from the press box. This is fantastic. There's one play that gets called back.

Paterno is upset as hell. He's enraged, and he goes onto the field. He walks five or six yards onto the field, and he's giving it to the refs. Well, guess what? There's a cameraman out there with him on the field. He's on the field. He's two inches from Joe Paterno,

and the guy down the way is going, oh, he's two inches from joe paterno and the guy down the way is going oh there's a cameraman i've never seen that before and i'm like that's my camera that's funny and he's rolling and he's getting great stuff right and he doesn't get kicked out or anything like that just hey you're not supposed to be here and he goes because i told him just tell him you're from canada yeah that's it's a cultural thing you're from canada and this is what we do in canada and no one's going to question you. So what happened was, they kind of went to push him away, and Giftopolis, who's on the defense for Penn State, goes over to one of the guys and goes, hey, it's okay, he's with us. Like that kind of thing. He's okay, he's with us. And so anyway,

we got some sensational, some fantastic footage. But that line about Canada worked anywhere in the world, but especially in the United States. Because they look like we're from Canada. And every American goes, oh yeah, they're from Canada, they're polite, they're gentle, they couldn't possibly be doing anything wrong. There's no jails in Canada, is there? There's no bad people in Canada. They don't lie if they're from Canada, do they? So we take advantage of that, and it

worked. No, I can imagine. That's genius. Yeah, and after the game, Paterno was like, was that your cameraman that was out there? He goes, he's not supposed to be out there. I go, I'm sorry, coach. That's a story. That out there. I go, I'm sorry, coach. I didn't get the story. That's funny. I'm a tiny bit younger than you, which means I have like no memories

of the Lanny McDonald, Daryl Sittler years. Like when I look back, the first year I can remember is like 1983. Yeah, the Lanny McDonald era, the Leafs of the mid seventies, right? Were just becoming a good young team. You know, Ian Turnbull, Borea Salmon, Lanny McDonald, Daryl Sittler, Mike Palmatier in goal.

You had a good nucleus. You had good coaches. Red Kelly was a really good coach. And he got jettisoned for Roger Nielsen, who was a good coach as well. So you had a stretch there of, I would say, five or six years where the Leafs were a darn competitor. If it wasn't for the Montreal Canadiens and then later the New York Islanders, who knows?

But still, they were a pretty competitive team. They had some good, good teams. And Lanny McDonald and Daryl Sittler were the two superstars. When I started in radio, my first job in radio was what is now the fan, was called CKFH. They were the rights holders for the Blue Jays and for the Maple Leafs. They had all the live sports. But it wasn't a sports phone-in-show type station.

I think it was country music at the time. But this is not 1430. This is 1430. It's the KFH. So they were the – and the studios were right across the street from Maple Leaf Gardens. Gotcha. Right. Foster Hewitt owned the station.

So in those days, you could request an interview through the PR department or you could go up to the guy by yourself. Well, I was just starting. I was 21 years old. And I wanted to do an interview with Lanny McDonald, right? So how do I go about doing it? I don't know. So I went to the PR guy, the late Stan Abodiak. I said, I'd like to do an interview with Lanny McDonald. He goes, when do you want to do this? I go, whenever is convenient for him. He goes, give me your phone number. Right. We'll set it up and I'll, you know, I'll set it up and give me your number and I'll call you. Cool. All right. Great. Terrific. So now I'm living at home with my parents in North York.

Right. I haven't moved out yet. I'm just starting this gig. Hey, I'm 21. Cool. All right, great, terrific. So I'm living at home with my parents in North York, right? I haven't moved out yet. I'm just starting this gig. Hey, I'm 21 years old. So anyway, I get home one day, and my mom says to me, some guy claiming to be Lanny McDonald phoned. I go, what? She goes, some guy sounded like him, but he left the phone number, but I don't think it was Lanny McDonald.

I'm going, someone's goofing around with me. Someone has to be goofing around. Why would Lanny McDonald call here? so um and he leaves a number so i phone this number and i hear hello i'm going uh hi i'm looking for lanny mcdonald yeah speaking oh hi it's mark heffner he's going yeah hi mark called you earlier today when do you want to get together and i'm like wait a minute that's awesome lanny mcdonald called my house so imagine drawing up as a leaf fan, a fanatic. Right.

One of your heroes is Lanny McDonald. You watch him play all the time. Right. And now he's just called your house and your mom has entered. Yeah. Probably invited him over for a tuna salad sandwich or something like that. That's funny. So Lanny McDonald.

So anyway, I make arrangements to do the interview next day. Do the interview with him. And then after the interview, I say, do you think Daryl Sittler would mind? Like, I'd like to interview Daryl Sittler as well. Right? And so he says, yeah. He says, he's gone now, but I'll get him to call you. I say, do you think Daryl Sittler would mind? Like, I'd like to interview Daryl Sittler as well, right? And so he says, yeah, he says, he's gone now, but I'll get him to call you, all right? And then the next day or two days later,

Daryl Sittler calls. My mom answers the phone. My mom was always the first to the phone. Right, right, right. No cell phones. On the first half ring, hello. No call ID or anything like that. Hello? Hi, is Mark there?

Yes, can I tell him who's calling yeah tell him it's daryl siddler so this is my mom puts her hand over the uh phone receiver mark daryl siddler's on the phone and my brothers are like daryl siddler's on the phone ah right and same thing so this would to me well you would never have this now no not at the home phone not with your mom answering landy mcdonald and daryl Sittler called my house on consecutive days. From that moment on, to me, they were the classiest guys. If all athletes were like these guys, gentlemen, returning your phone calls,

acknowledging your presence, a 21-year-old, my girls, wonderful guys. I've heard nothing but good things about those two, but all my Lanny memories are him with the flames. Calgary, yeah.

Which are good memories. It was terrific. What happened was it was such an untenable situation in Toronto that Punch Imlach said, I'll get you, Sittler, because Sittler wouldn't waive his no trade cards. I'll get you. I'll trade away Lanny McDonald. Traded him to Colorado. Such a terribly

run organization. Oh my God. Oh, the Rockies, yeah. We got Wilf Paymont back. 99, right? Yeah, we got Wilf Paymont back. Wilf Paymont, when I first met him, was smoking Export A's and drinking straight scotch. Oh, it's a different era, man. Or a hockey player. Oh, you're a hockey player, are you?

You know, I don't know. I don't think I told you, but I visited Harold Ballard's grave this last summer. Why? Just because it's local. You know, I was on my bike, and I knew because Jeff Merrick buried him in Park Lawn Cemetery. Right, yeah. Jeff dug the grave. Yeah, and so I just had Jeff in here,

and he was telling me the story. And then my buddy happens to be buried in the same cemetery, so periodically I would kind of go to his spot. And then I phone up, or I texted Merrick, and I'm like, where is it? Like, I can't find Harold Ballard. And he gave me great directions, and I took some photos, and I blogged about it.

And I just felt like, since I was there, check out Harold Ballard's grave. Yeah, he was quite a guy. Quite a character. Loved to get his name in the newspaper. Loved to be part of a controversy. Would create a controversy in two seconds flat if you gave him the opportunity,

which many people did. Right. And was universally disliked. Yeah, the players will tell you they love the guy. He was like a father to them, treated them well. And a lot of people will tell you they love the guy he was like a father to them treated them well and a lot of people will tell you

that he very quietly would give to charities and stuff like that but as the owner of the beloved Toronto Maple Leafs there were a lot of questions surrounding his

I can imagine Gord Stelig's gonna come on soon and I got a bunch of questions oh Gordy knows well Gordy knows all the Harold Ballard stories from the inside

because he worked for him I might have to give him a second appearance there may be one out, Gordy knows all the Harold Ballard stories from the inside because he worked for him. I might have to give him a second appearance. There might be one out there. Gordy's got lots of stories. Lots of stories. You have a great story about Chicago cabbies. Okay, so when I was working for Global, Global had the rights to something like

35 or 40 Leaf games a year. This would have been from the mid-80s through to the mid-90s. I was out global from 84 to 95. Oh, Jiggs McDonald and stuff like that. Well, Jiggs was one of them. Eric Thomas would do play. Eventually, Joe Bowen did it. But we had, yeah, Jim Hewson, I think, might have done a few games.

Yeah. He did my video game. My favorite hockey game, I played it like crazy, had the voiceover by Jim Hew hewson yeah jim's great just throwing it out there go ahead jim jim started as a leaf broadcaster yes right started on chch doing leaf games after danny gallivan had taken over from bill hewitt early 80s well that's another story there so anyway um so we're in chicago um global's doing the games and we're in chicago we all stayed at the drake hotel in chicago which is nowhere near the chicago stadium

because there's no hotel near there because it's a terrible area. So we would always, you know, take a cab out. So, you know, you're usually around five o'clock, the team bus leaves. And around the same time, you know, you grab a cab, a bunch of guys jump into a cab, take you to the stadium. So I just so happened that I was waiting in the lobby and there's Harry Neal and there's Ron McClain

and there's Don Cherry and there's me. Let's grab a cab together. Okay, we grab a cab together. So I'm in the front seat with the cabbie. McCl cherry and harry neal are in the back wow so and it's about probably about a 25 30 minute cab ride right rush hour traffic plenty of time to tell stories the guys are in the back telling stories i'm prompting them we got stories amazing fabulous stories stories stories harry's a great storyteller don's a great storyteller ron's pretty much a good listener in that particular way there, right? But great stories. And I'm sitting

in the front seat with a Chicago cab driver, a big black guy, okay? And he's listening, not saying a word. And I'm listening. Anyway, we stop at the Chicago stadium. They all jump out, right? I'm paying. I'm on an expense account. Not a problem. The station's paying for it. So as I'm going to pay, they've all left. As I go to pay, the

cab driver goes, that guy in the backseat there. I go, yeah. That guy, the hockey guy. I go, yeah. And I think he's talking about Cherry. I go, yeah. He goes, is that Harry Neal? And I go, yeah.

He goes, I hated him when he coached Vancouver and he used to come into Chicago. I hate that guy. I hate him. If I would have known it was him, I wouldn't even have given him a ride. I go, seriously. He goes, yeah. So anyway, I go, harry because he's still 15 feet away he's just left the cab i go harry you gotta go harry harry comes back to the cab i go say to the cab driver tell him what you told me he goes harry i used to hate you and harry's got his eyes are bulging out

he's what he goes man i remember that time behind the bench where you tried to stick it to you know keith magnuson or whatever the heck it was and harry was just like i can't believe that this guy like of all the things to recognize this he's recognizing harry neal that's funny and it just goes to show you chicago is a sports town right and you can't look at someone and say he's a cubs fan he's a white socks fan he's a bears fan he's a blackhawks you just don't know he's a chicagoan he knows what the hell's going on and that guy who was in the backseat of his cab, he hated that guy. That's great. It was a good story.

Chicago had a rough two-hour period. Did they ever? Because within two hours, Kane goes down and then Rose. Yeah. Yeah, just devastating losses. Well, Kane goes down, Rose goes down. And the Bears should have signed Jacoby Jones, and they didn't. Or gone after A.J. Hawk.

So, yeah, all that thing. But Chicago is as passionate, if not more passionate, than any sports town. And just, I don't know, the history of sports there. I mean, the Bears for many years. You know, they haven't won a Super Bowl since the days of Walter Payton. But still, they're huge. The Cubs since, you know, for eons. The laughable Cubs.

The White Sox, they won once back in 2005. Yeah, they got the one. The Blackhawks lately have done terrific. The Bull The White Sox, they won once back in 2005. Yeah, they got the one. I guess people have forgotten that. Yeah, yeah. The Blackhawks lately have done terrific. The Bulls, of course, as well. Six. But yeah, Chicago sports is awesome. I love it. Absolutely.

And speaking of Harry Neal, when Harry Neal was with Bob Cole, that was, to me, that was the greatest. They were great. They were great. And good guys to travel with, too. Really good guys to travel with. So you couldn't stick Bob Cole in that cab, and then you'd have the whole...

No, but Coley is not a storyteller in the same way. But even if he throws in an old baby, old baby... Yeah, but Bob wasn't like that. Bob was always looking for a place to have a cigarette. Gotcha. That was Bob Cole. Always looking for a place to smoke.

Did I tell you the story at O'Hare Airport? Him and Pat Burns and I were all smokers at the time, and he is dying for a cigarette, you the story at O'Hare Airport? Him and Pat Burns and I were all smokers at the time and he is dying for a cigarette and we're at O'Hare Airport. You can't smoke in the airport. He goes, I'd do anything for a dart. I know. Burns knows some guy, sees some guy, and he says,

well, let's ask that guy over there. We asked the guy. It just so happened the guy recognized Pat Burns. This is another thing. In Chicago, he says, look, where can we go for a cigarette he goes well you can't smoke he says well could we he says well you can go down those stairs there go down onto the tarmac but don't go in like right at the bottom of the stairs and just wedge the door open and you can go down there so sure enough at o'hare airport we decided okay fine we go the jet away goes this way to the plane and then down these stairs we're on the tarmac at o'hare having a smoke you know it's minus 20

outside having a smoke and oh this is great bu minus 20 outside, having a smoke, and oh, this is great, Bob Cole. This is terrific. Fabulous. Suddenly a guy comes along. What are you guys doing here? Get the hell out of here. Chasing us back upstairs. Cole won't go. He hasn't finished his cigarette. Hasn't finished his Belvedere yet, right? So he's standing there, and he's defiant.

Well, just hang on a second. And he's taking one more drag and one more, and now a deep, deep Newfoundland drag. Before he finally flicks the cigarette and runs up the stairs with us. And I just thought that was funny. I mean, where else? You know, you're looking for a, you want to have a cigarette. You're at O'Hare airport.

What do you do? Oh, that's good. I think you blogged after Pat Burns passing or something. I think he wrote a great blog entry about that. That's fantastic stuff. Yeah. And Dominican pops, pops, Dominican cops. Right.

So we're the first TV crew to go into the Dominican Republic to do stories about the Blue Jays, Epi Guerrero's famous training camp where all the Dominican, young Dominican players. And in those days, I think it was just the Jays and the L.A. Dodgers that had a real good camp set up in the Dominican Republic. This is the mid-80s, right? Yeah, this is the camp. This produces like Damaso Garcia and Tony Fernandez. Tony Fernandez, George Bell,

all these guys. Joaquin Andahar, Rafael Ramirez, all these great players are all from the Dominican, right? So the Jays have a pretty cool complex run by Epi Guerrero. So again, I go to Taddy, I say, look,

I want to go to the Dominican Republic for a week in February, January, whenever it was, in the wintertime. And I want to do stories. I want to do one on Tony Fernandez. I want to do one on Dominican baseball. We want to go to a game, find out what the culture's like. And we want to do one from Epi Guerrero's establishment.

Just the visuals of it, right? Cows grazing in the outfield type of a thing. hazing in the outfield type of a thing. So anyway, our tour guide is Epi Guerrero's son, Sandy Guerrero, who is the first base coach now, I believe, for the Milwaukee Brewers. Okay. And I think he threw batting practice at the All-Star game last year for somebody.

I can't remember. Anyway, but he was our guy. He's a young kid. We're driving along, trying to get to the complex. We get pulled over by the cops, by the Dominican police. Okay. All right? Unbeknownst to me, Sandy Guerrero,

Epi Guerrero's wife, is related to the former Trujillo, the former dictator of the Dominican Republic. She's a distant relative, but I don't know this at all. The cops pull us over, and of course, all in Spanish, I'm not understanding this, and they're angry. Out of the car.

We're going to Epi Guerrero's thing. Out of the car. Let's go, okay? I'm worried here, and I'm looking over at Sandy. And he's just a kid. He's 19 years old. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. And he's like pleading with these cops.

Please let us go. They're from Toronto. They're shooting video. Blah, blah, blah. And the cops are defiant. No. And they line us up against the side of the van. And I am freaking out.

Freaking out. And I'm saying to Sandy, what's going on here? And she's like, shh, quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet. And the cops are going on, going on. And in their hands, they're holding these huge hunks of wood, like tree branches. They're sugar cane stalks. And they're sucking the sugar out of the sugar cane stalks.

This is like getting high for them, right? And they got these sticks and that kind of thing. And they want to take us into the station. They want to confiscate our equipment. They want to do of that right and sandy guerrero says to me says if you got any baseballs and i we do we had packed them for because they're worth gold right and we had new baseballs brand new worldings baseball so i reach into the bag and i put take out a couple of baseballs and these cops are like their eyes are popping out of their head. Bellota! Right? And now they want to post for pictures with us.

They want to be our best friends. They give us an escort to the Epi Guerrero complex now. And it just showed me that baseball is like the unit. They love baseball more than anything, more than life. It's more than a religion there. Two brand new Rawlings baseballs will get you out of any situation. Buy you freedom. Will get you out of any situation. We'll get you out of any situation. Any situation at all.

But here's the topper to the whole story. These cops are on duty, but now they want to watch the baseball. They want to go into the complex with us, and they want to see what we're seeing. Forget that they're on duty. So they come in with us. They escort. They got M16 rifles, and they're escorting

us into the baseball complex and sitting around with the M16s watching Geronimo Berroa, Damaso Garcia, all these guys. And I just thought, man, this is like wild. What do they tell you? They say to their chief when they get back, they go, Chief, we have something for you. And they give him like a baseball, right?

Like, you know, he's the godfather. Sorry, but we had to, you know, do some business. If W.P. Kinsella hasn't written a story about that, he should, because that sounds like a Kinsella story. right you know he's the godfather sorry but we had to you know do some business if a wp cancella hasn't written a story about that he should because that sounds like a cancella story i feel like i've read something like that it was it was thrill of the grass it was pretty well i got some pictures something it was pretty wild and then they wanted to post for pictures with us right but these guys you don't know when they're speaking another language and they're yelling you're thinking oh we're dead now yeah we didn't do anything wrong but oh you're not in canada

anymore that's right as you can't run that line in the Dominican. Hey, we're from Canada. We thought it was okay to do. No. No, it doesn't work there. Speaking of Canada, you and Taddy went, you and Jim Taddy, yes, guy, went to Ottawa. So I started on Global in the summer of 84, just before the LA Olympics. McCowan had started the show in November of 1981. Half hour all sports show. And everyone

said, no way will it last. No way. Half an hour of sports? No chance. That's funny. And I remember being one of the few people to say, I think it will, man. We love our sports here. And we have a baseball team now. So then we had baseball and hockey and football. The Raptors hadn't arrived. Anyway, the show did very, very well at 11.30 at night

as you know. Jim went on sorry, McCim went on uh um sorry uh mccowan went on to uh he left the show uh and tatty was already there was supposed to be bob's co-host i think and i don't know it didn't work out or bob didn't want it or whatever the case was bob left i got a phone call saying hey how would you like to do sports line i watch the show every night so now and i'd known jim from city okay we you know we just hit it off about a year later a sponsor asked us if we would uh wouldn't mind going up to ottawa during winter lewd their big winter carnival skating on the redo and and ice sculptures and all that and representing this company um while we were there uh all expenses

paid you know and we'll pay uh and you and give away some hats and some shirts and make an appearance in front of the sponsors kind of a thing. So we fly up there. But we didn't think that people in Ottawa watched Sportsline. There was no email. We didn't get any letters. So we had no idea. We thought people in Toronto and southern Ontario, we didn't know. So unbeknownst to us, it's Ottawa, right?

So we did our day of work and met the sponsors and then went for dinner. And then afterwards, the Leafs were playing the Habs on Hockey Night in Canada. And we asked the guy at the restaurant, where's a good place to go to watch the game? You know, a sports bar. The guy tells us about a place up the street.

Okay, so we go. We walk up the street. We walk in. We open up the door to this bar. We walk into this bar and we see, I'd say, two, three hundred guys drinking beer big screen over on this side with the leafs of broadcast and a big screen on the other side with the french broadcast the montreal broadcast we walk in uh one steamboat two steamboat all of

a sudden oh everybody in the bar knows who we are we're completely taken aback. Everybody, oh my God, the guys from Sportsliner are here. And like, wow, it was stunning. Everyone knew. And then we found out, of course, that every night at 11.30, that bar would put on Sportsline because we had all the highlights and they'd watch their favorite teams.

The Senators didn't have a team at this particular time. Right. And it was just, it blew us away. We had no idea how the reach of the show, the popularity of the show, the popularity of the show, outside of where we lived. Would it break your heart to know that that's your first rerun story?

We got that story in episode 89. I remember it vividly. It's okay. Every story- You would ask me about stories. I didn't recall telling you. I just remember looking at Jim. I just remember looking at him going,

holy shit. No, it's a great story. That's worthy of you believe that and that's when i think that's when we were like oh my god this is you know it's like it was a cult type of a thing you know like people what a great show i thought it was a cult what a great show what a great it was fun to do it was a lot of fun to do fun to watch you know me and my brothers didn't miss it unscripted i mean except for okay you got the leaf montreal highlights I mean, except for, okay, you got the Leaf Montreal highlights, and then you got this highlights, and then you got basketball highlights, but the rest of it unscripted, and never once was there ever a meeting

to say, oh, you got to do this, or you can't do that. Never. It's the good old days. Those were the days. Now there'd be lots of meetings. Oh, my God, it was so many meetings. Did you just say the words? You're not allowed to use that word.

What does that? Oh, Fisneris. What does that word mean? Sure, and there's probably going to be like, oh, in our our testing it shows that when you use words that this demo doesn't understand they tune out and there'll be a whole bunch of like analytics and that was the problem with stewart scott the late stewart scott at espn is a lot of people didn't like the fact that he was making references to cultural references to what he knew oh see i like as a young black man from north carolina went to north carolina and he would make the, you know, booyah and whatever. And a lot of people were like, wait a second, you,

that's very regional or that's very young or that's very urban, hip, whatever, whatever it was, that was him. And I admired him for trying. That takes a lot of guts. And I had been there before. You're trying certain things against conventional wisdom. So a lot of people were like, Hey, you can't talk like that. Old white guys don't know what you're talking about that's right you know what though even though we didn't get the exact reference we got the spirit yeah and it brings you into it like to me i i like that stuff i love it i might not it might not be but then you sort of learn and uh he was uh as cool as the other side of the pillow as cool as the other side of the pillow and you know that expression came from that's a very very very old expression, well before Stuart

Scott made it popular. I had used it, but I got it from Gary McCord. His first year that he was doing golf. And I don't even know who the golfer was. I don't even know who the golfer was. But I just remember him going, look at him. He is as cool as the other side of the pillow. And I just went, that is a great one. Yeah, it works. You've got to write that one down.

Henri Richard. How's my French accent? Okay, Henri Richard. one down uh Henri Richard how's my French accent okay Henri Richard I had known Henri Richard for many years prior to doing an interview with him because I lived across the street from Brasserie Henri Richard all right on on Rue Blurry uh in Montreal he had a brasserie and he was like the bartender there he was there a lot man you know he had retired from the game he'd been retired for five or six years i guess and i run into him all the time they made the best burgers the best so i would go over there and it was brass for your army richard uh anyway the story of course was that our richard won more stanley cups than anyone as a player he won 11 stanley cups right so when i get to interview

him on global years later we're in montreal the leafs are playing montreal my between periods guest and now we welcome ari Richard, owner of 11 Stanley Cup rings. So this is on camera. And as I'm saying, owner of 11 Stanley Cup rings, he's shaking his head. No, no, he's going like, and I catch this out of the corner of my eye. No. And now I'm fumbling with my notes. What do you mean? No. 11 Stanley Cups. I'm sure I read it on more than, you know, and I'm not panicking now on the air. And I said, Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was 11. I thought, I thought, I thought you had 11 Stanley thought i thought i thought you had 11 stanley cup rings i i thought you won 11 stanley cups he goes oh i won 11 stanley cups but i don't have 11 stanley cup rings now i'm kind of oh thank god for that yeah he goes you see back in the old days in

the 50s when we won the stanley cup they would give you a frozen turkey and you cannot put a frozen turkey on your finger it just doesn't fit That's kind of the way the interview went. And it was the first time that I was on the air where I was so nervous that I had made a factual error. Right. And that right with the guy sitting right next to me. And he was just kidding around. Sure, it was like semantics. And the funny thing is, I knew he had a good sense of humor,

but I didn't think he was going to do it during a live interview. It just completely caught me by surprise. I'm surprised that the burgers were so good. Yeah, I had no idea. Oh, yeah. You know what? Back in those days, the two best places in Montreal were Brasserie Henri Richard and Toblake Tavern. If you were a hockey star in Montreal,

you could open up your own place and people would just flock there. Toblake's Tavern was a good spot. Toblake's Tavern, no women allowed. Is that right? No women. A tavern. A tavern? A tavern in Quebec, no women allowed. I think they were allowed, but I think they were discouraged against. Let's put it that way.

I don't think you could say no women, but I think the idea was no woman would want to go into a place like this. They made you feel very uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. Very, very uncomfortable, yeah. Is it okay if you come back a third time and bring up some more stories?

Sure, yeah. So now that I'm recording this, you've got to say yes, otherwise you come off as a bit of a jerk. No, no, I'd be happy to. There are many stories to be told. You know, it's funny. I've been in the business, radio and television, for, I don't know, like 40 years or whatever.

But back in my early days, I did a lot of traveling and saw a lot of games and covered a lot as a reporter. Now that I'm old, I'm a, I'm a desk guy. Now, you know, I don't go with all the other reporters and stick a microphone in.

I don't have to put those two minute stories together. I'm, I'm more of an observer now, but the stories, the days of traveling with the teams and meeting the players. And I mean, you know, back in the day,

I used to sit next to the players on the team plane. You know, I, Doug Gilmore was my regular seatmate. 5C and I was 5B. I want Doug Gilmore to call me. Do you want Dougie to come on? Would he?

He's a good storyteller. I would love, you know, Dougie, I have his jersey upstairs. He's my guy. It would be like when Daryl Sittler called your home, how you felt, that's how I'd feel getting a call from Doug Gilmore that he's coming over to chat with me in my basement what if he just sent you a text that would be the modern day equivalent i'd accept that i think so too i'm not sure i don't know he's into it but you know what i i

see him every so often uh i know where he uh he lives he lives in burlington and kingston he's got a place of course but uh i'll mention it to mention it because I was sincerely a big-time fan. He was my favorite Leaf. The human x-ray, Doug Gilmore. Did you know that at the end of the season, he would be down to like 135 pounds? Well, I remember those two playoff runs. He looked like a skeleton, okay?

But a nice guy. I want him in here. That'd be fantastic. I'll do what I can. You were fantastic, and I can't wait for the next episode. I'm going to selfishly just make you keep telling me stories because I love it. I love telling them. And that brings us to the end of our 112th show.

You can follow me on Twitter, at Toronto Mike, and Mark Hebbshire is at Hebseeman, H-E-B-S. B-S, is that on purpose? H-E-B-S-Y-M-A-N. See you all next week.