Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Mark Hebscher: Toronto Mike'd #89

Episode Date: August 29, 2014

Mike chats with Mark Hebscher about his years on Global's Sportsline, his relationship with Jim Tatti, his recent feud with Mike Wilner and more.

Welcome to the 89th episode 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 is broadcasting legend, Mark Hebbshire. Wow. You look uneasy with the legend handle. I'm uneasy with the fact that it took you 89 episodes before you finally got to me. And don't think I don't know who everyone was on the previous 89 episodes going, why, how did that guy get a call? And I didn't get a call.

But thank you. I had to make my way west to Hamilton. I understand. I understand. So you're like a Hamilton mark. Am I? I don't know. Do you live in Hamilton?

I live in Dundas. Dundas? That's like a block away here. That's pretty close. Dundas Street? I understand. I understand. So you're like Hamilton Mark. Am I? I don't know. Do you live in Hamilton? I live in Dundas. Dundas? That's like a block away here. That's pretty close. Dundas Street? No, no. Dundas Street, which becomes Highway 5 the further, you know, as you go west. But Dundas, Ontario is a nice little 30,000.

It's just past McMaster University. It's in an area you wouldn't get lost and end up going through there. But that's not Hamilton. This is outside of Hamilton? Well, no. It's part of the GHA. You know what the GHA is? Greater Hamilton Area. Yeah! Yeah! Burlington,

Hamilton, Anacaster, Stoney Creek, Dundas, you know, that kind of thing. The last guest came from Burlington. Well, Burlington is only five minutes from Dundas. See, I'm making my way west. Alright, I got you. Next will be St. Catharines. Oh no, let's not get crazy now yeah you got to get to grimsby first that's that's right i gotta learn my uh my uh geography um so thank you very much for doing this sure long time fan

i bet you get that from a lot of like 40 year old guys like me will tell you that they sort of were raised on sports law yeah this was the uh the go-to show for me and my brothers, Can't Miss TV. Yeah, I get it a lot, and I'm flattered. I'm most flattered when women come to me and say, you know, every night at 11.30, my husband would pay attention to you and Jim and not pay attention to me. That's right.

That kind of is accusatory. Were you not doing the right things to your husband, or did he find that watching Sportsline at 11.30 was more interesting? Maybe if you would have done something, I don't know, maybe if you rubbed his balls or whatever, he wouldn't be paying attention to me and Jim at 11.30. He'd be paying more attention to you. But thank you for the backhanded compliment. There you go.

Now, how did you get into television? I want to go back to the origin of Mark Hebster on TV. I was working for the Blue Jays Radio Network doing a show that Mike Wilner now does, Blue Jays Today. Jays Talk, or did they have a different name back then? Yeah, I don't remember. It was a long time ago. Blue Jays Banter?

No, it wasn't Blue Jays Banter. I think it was Blue Jays Central or whatever it was, but it was the pregame and the postgame show, which the broadcast never had. I mean, originally it was like, hey, everybody, Tom Cheek, five minute pregame show, you know, maybe an interview with a player from the day before. Right. An early win in the early days didn't do much except for just smoke cigarettes and drink and go, that was a fastball.

So I think it was in 1983 or 4, but they said, you know, hey, would you be interested in doing the pre- and the post-game Blue Jays show? I'd just been fired from my radio talk show on 590, which at the time was the only talk show, sports talk show in town. Okay. And they fired me as some lawsuit thing, defamation.

And this was like CKEY? CKEY, yeah. So now I'm out of work. And then I get a call from a fellow that I knew late Len Branson who ran the radio network there. And he said, how'd you like to come and work for us to the pregame and the post game show for every blue Jays game.

And baseball was my passion. So I took that job. And while I was working there and I guess the J that was the year that Jays, the Tigers ran out to a 35 and 84 and the jays were a great team but they were nowhere near as good as the tigers but there was interest every day that was the first season where every day from the beginning of the season there was tremendous interest in the jays they were just turning the corner they were good belfio you know i remember i lived it well 83 was like the year you saw there was some hope and then 84

you know even though tigers got off to that start, we closed that gap and it became something interesting. And we finished second in the division. That's right. But from day one, everyone knew that the Jays had a good team. They were on their way. So I was doing the pre and post game show and getting a lot of recognition. And I got a call one day from a fellow named Ray Hurd from Global Television.

Hey, Mark, have you ever heard of Sportsline before? What do you talk? I watch it all the time. Bob McCowan. Are you kidding me? I'm my legendary Bob McCowan. I, he was my first, my mentor in broadcasting. Sure. I've heard of it. Well, how would you like to do that show? And I thought, well, what's going on? Like, you know, and I, you know, long story short, I guess things didn't work out with Bob. Jim Taddy was already there. I guess he was doing sportscasts

and weekends and that type of thing. And they wanted it to be a two-person show, which had never really been done before in radio for sure, but not on television, two people. So they asked me if I wanted to do it. I knew Jim. We got along well. And he called me up and I said, like, I already have a radio gig here. And he was basically, well, if I ask your bosses on radio for permission,

could you come and work for us and maybe you can do both for a while. That's how it started. I'd never done TV before. I'd done one thing for Johnny Esau on Wide World of Sports, motocross racing, where you stand there and go, hi, everybody, welcome to the motocross here at the C&E. And guys are going in the background. They're jumping.

And so that was the only thing I had done for television. And I didn't think it was much. And then he said, would you like to do this show sportsline i was like yeah and this is 85 84 this is during the 84 olympics actually in los angeles right that's when i started so the summer of 84 august of 84 i guess it would have been so is that when you started on sportsline yeah that's when sportsline now sportsline had begun in november of 81 with mccowan right there was no satellite technology at all if you remember the show was his producer i don't remember bob mccowan at all doing sport i'm a little bit young i remember

you and jim tatty are all i remember from so bob did it for a couple years two three years i guess and uh it was just sort of gaining speed a lot of people said a half an hour show on sports in 1981 are you out of your mind but clearly there was clearly there was an appetite for it. Yes. Now, so it was, I remember it being at 1130 every night. That's right. And I remember, I guess you discover it at night. It was on Global, of course.

And you and Jim Taddy. And then I had two younger brothers. And I introduced them to this because we were big Jays fans. We loved all sports. Leafs, you know, Wendell Clark in 86 had the big season in the playoffs and we went around as i remember it was all happening and it was like you guys were our like source for sports because you guys made it fun like it was it was like it was fun and cool and uh the hebsey awards so you came up with the hebsey awards i came up with it and with it. I don't think the concept was mine. I'm sure that Warner Wolf back in the day on Good Morning America,

CBS This Morning or whatever, he did a weekly thing. The Plays of the Week, I guess it was called. I think the original title of the first blooper reel was The Plays of the Week. And Marv Albert had the Albert Achievement Awards, which he would do on Letterman in the early 80s. But I was doing something on radio at the time. The Hebsey Awards actually started on radio because there were a lot of radio bloopers, a lot of playbys. Now, you had to get the tape or the cassette or the reel-to-reel copy of it.

But one time, I'll never forget one time, I'm driving home and I'm listening to 99.9, right? Which was CKFM at the time, Standard Broadcasting. And they had a girl on the weekends doing the news, weather and sports, eight o'clock in the morning on a Sunday. This is generally where when you first start in broadcasting, this is your shift. Yeah, you cut your teeth. You cut your teeth. You're doing overnights or you're doing like Sunday mornings at eight o'clock because she's doing reading the news and then she reads the sports and said, now in sports, in the NHL last night, Chicago three, Montreal two, Detroit seven, Pittsburgh one,

NHL last night, Chicago three, Montreal two, Detroit seven, Pittsburgh one, Bostonio, Toronto nothing. Oh, I'm sorry, Boston 10, Toronto nothing. And I almost drove off the road. And a buddy of mine who was an engineer there, I called him. I said, can you get, please get me a copy of that tape, right? And I don't even remember the girl, the young lady's name, but I remember that her mistake and the pause and everything was a perfect blooper and that's sort of where the hebzies began were these audio play-by-play screw-ups or an announcer messing up a name or whatever that was the the original idea was somebody screwed up but it was funny let's have some fun with it but let's not make the person feel horrible but let's all sort of laugh together yeah no so it's great now and i remember uh can you remind me was it the hebsey awards was it every night or weekly?

It was every Monday night. Every Monday night. That's what it was. I think we started on Tuesdays. Eventually, it was every Monday. Sort of the weekend wrap-up of all the stuff. And now, of course, everyone does it. And why not?

You've got content to fill. The plays of the week. Yeah, they're fun. Plays of the day. Misplays of the day. I mean, there's a million of them. And also, too, let's face it. If you're watching 10 or 12 ballgames, you're going to get some good material.

Yes. Back in the day, we didn't have that. We had to depend on the feed that we were getting from Westinghouse or ABC to send us a highlight package. Occasionally we would record the entire game and we'd have a guy watch the entire game and pick out the highlights. Tony Gwynn just hit one off the wall that so-and-so made a great catch on. It's in the fourth inning, 27 minutes in, and then you'd have to physically find it. Wow. So really, technology has made it so that it's easy to do a blooper reel now. Yeah, and in technology, I think this perfect storm of sports line, like if you say 84 to 95, we'll get to this later. 84 to 95.

For you, yeah. It's sort of pre-internet. I don't remember, like, I mean, there was TSN and stuff, but it wasn't the same kind of sports desk. It didn't have the same kind of feel. It just seemed like it was... Because they were run by... See, the thing is, when you're running a corporate type of thing

where everyone has to wear the same clothes, and if you remember on TSN in the back of the early days, they all had to wear the TSN jacket with the TSN logo. Just the blazers, yeah. Blazer with the logo. Right. And I think the yellow tie with the white shirt too that was sort of a uniform i can see gino retto's mustache wearing that outfit sure yeah so that was the early the early days of tsn was remember you're trying to get subscribers people were the jays were part of tsn in the early days and sports desk which it was called that's right was sort of finding itself it

was michael landsberg and brandon connor they were also they put them on at 11 30 against us which was a mistake and they realized that i think shortly and said let's let's put it at 11 let's get it ahead of them um but tsn was very corporate and and global was not we could wear what we wanted to i wore an earring for crying out loud for years that's right hey you got an earring on there and uh bolo tie and collar tips and whatever the fashion of that leather tie, that kind of a thing. And they didn't. They had to wear a uniform on TSN. Jim and I

could wear our hair the way we wanted to. Adornments. Not that he was into adornments as much as me. You know, back in those days, tattoos weren't popular. Had they been? Who knows? We might have, you know. Could have had that Mike Tyson face tattoo going on. Who knows so i could ask though in 84 when you start sports like how young a guy are you uh if you don't mind me asking how young am i now well how young were you in 84

and then we can all do the math let me see in 84 i was uh 28 okay 28 i was 28 years old and now it's like oh you know you're gonna be and when i was 26 i had a full-time radio phone-in show cool the only one in the city so if i look back i said man i was really young i mean i was maybe was i too young to be doing stuff like that full of myself but now that i think of it boy 26 is pretty like a 26 year old now to have his own show for two hours a night you know taking phone calls about sports and kicking you you know, kicking butt and stuff like that is pretty difficult. But now there's so many talk shows that I'm sure there's a lot of young guys. Andrew Walker's a pretty young guy. Yeah, he just turned 30.

Yeah. 30? Yeah. That's good. Yeah, he just turned 30. He's doing major market radio, morning show, successful. He got the call. Good for him, man.

Working with Greg Brady. Right. He was in, it was Calgary and he was on his way to Vancouver and he got the magic call. Good for him, man. Working with Greg Brady? Right. He was in Calgary, and he was on his way to Vancouver, and he got the magic call. There you go. It's like the big smoke needs you. Let's go. Beautiful. And you know what?

You need that. I mean, I'd worked in small towns, too. I worked in Niagara Falls. I had worked in Kitchener. I worked in Montreal before I came to Toronto back for the second time. But you've got to earn your stripes. Right. You've got to get your chops down.

A lot of kids, I've never worked in radio, but I'm around people who are trying to get into radio, and they all want to start in Toronto. I mean, people seem, as far as I can tell, you've got to go to a small town somewhere, make no money, and learn a lot, as much as you can, and then sort of work your way to Toronto radio. Now, there are great success stories,

and there are many of them, where people didn't go out of town and they got discovered in Toronto and they started at the very bottom and worked their way to the top. That's another way to go, because there are way more broadcast entities now. I mean, imagine Sportsnet going,

I'd like to get into Sportsnet. You probably have a pretty good chance. See, there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people they need to hire or bring over from other networks because they have all this programming that they have to do lots of entities but not very many companies if you will like they seem to be there seems to be like i'm gonna say three companies three companies if you will here's the way i look at it if something came up whereby the wife of the comptroller of rogers or bell said i don't like that guy How long before that guy is out?

How long? We didn't make it through the shift. You know what? Tells the husband who says to somebody else, this is somebody else. And that cuts you off from like one third of the entities. My wife doesn't like that guy on the air. You're out of there.

Yeah, I can imagine. Now you left in 1995. You left Sportsline. I did. Why did Mark Hebzer leave Sportsline? I got offered a fabulous job to do what I had always wanted to do. I think, I don't know what the shelf life is of sports casters, for example, but after doing 11 years of desk work and working every night

till past midnight and not getting to bed till probably 3 a.m. And with two young kids and a wife, it started to take its toll, right? And I was doing a fair bit of traveling as well. The irony was, is that I wanted to do play by play. I felt that I had done all I could do as a sports caster, you know? And I really wanted to do play by play. It was my first love from the time I did road hockey games when I was a kid. And I announced the road hockey games.

You're going to be a play by play guy. So I love doing that. And look, I was a fan of Foster Hewitt and Bill Hewitt and Danny Gallivan and Tom Cheek, Dave Van Horn, that type of thing. So I had an opportunity to go to Q107 and AM640 and do play-by-play of the Argonauts and originally play-by-play of the Toronto Maple Leafs, which is what I wanted more than anything, radio play-by-play every game. So I accepted the job, handed in my resignation to Global, went off on a couple weeks holidays, right, after signing my deal with Q107 and 640.

And then while I'm on holidays, I get a call from my new boss to say, really sorry, can't give you the Leaf play-by-play job. We can give you color commentary. I said, oh, that's not what we agreed on. We signed a contract. Well, yes, but you know, Joe Bowen is very, very popular. And you know, the Maple Leafs do not want to lose Joe Bowen as their play by play guy. Would you be okay with that? Sure. I mean, I totally understand. I mean,

why would anybody get rid of a guy who had been there for years and the voice of the Leafs and take on a guy who is known for the Hebsey awards and being flippant and obnoxious and stuff like that. So I accepted the job as a color analyst where really I had no business being a color analyst. I'm not a former player, right? It's true. And I had, and the contract was a four year contract. So I'm, I had signed, I'm kind of locked in. Okay. Um, so that's why I left global, uh, for this play by play gig. And I also did morning sports on QN07 and 640.

So my plate was pretty full. The money was much better. And the opportunity to do play-by-play was something I couldn't resist. I was almost 40. I was 39 and done, you know, what there was to do as a sportscaster. So now is the time to be a play-by-play guy.

Well, that does sound like the dream gig. Yeah. I would consider giving up Toronto Mike to the podcast for that gig. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there you go. that does sound like the dream gig. Yeah. I would consider giving up Toronto Mike to the podcast for that gig. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there you go. I feel better now.

Yeah. Like, I don't know, not many guys could turn that one down, I think. That is the dream gig. So the money was good and so I left

and what I found, the most interesting thing was is when I ran into people, they were mad at me. Why did you leave Global? I was mad at you. There you go. Now, you were mad at me because you're leave global i was why did you there you go now you were mad at me because you're a selfish bastard yes who only cared about your own interests being

entertained at 11 30 at night that's right you didn't care what mark hebscher thought if he had a family a wife kids if there was financial stresses or anything you didn't care did not care he only cared why the hell would he do that to me why are you messing with something i dig so that's what i got for years even Even the newspaper writers who wanted the interview would say, why would you leave that? What a great gig that was. Because think about it. They would watch every night and say,

this guy's having the time of his life. He is enjoying himself. I'm enjoying watching him in gym. Love the sports. Love the attitude. Why would he go? So that's what I got. Not good luck with your new gig, you idiot.

Why would you leave television for radio? And that's what it came down to it wasn't leaving television it wasn't leaving one medium for another medium it was the gig yeah no it makes sense hearing it now but i think i'm gonna lose this anger i've had towards you since 95 i think i feel it leaving because a lot of people were that that's the way it was oh man you should have never left and even rob And even Rob Longley of The Sun had written, he should have never left. He should have never left because I guess after a year of doing radio and play by play, he had decided that my career move was a mistake. Right. Right. And look, if you can't please Rob Longley of The Sun, oh my God, you know, but I think the same thing. I think Rob tuned in. And when he saw Jim with Gene Principe, for example, he's like, I like Gene Principe, but why did Mark go? The fact of the matter is, I can speak as a fan, it was never the same. It was never the same sports line after Mark Hebster left.

Well, I called Gene his first night on the air, and I just said to him, I wished him the best of luck. I said, Gene, I wish you the best of luck. I mean, you know, I did that thing for 11 years, man. So, you know, you're going to be compared to me. Just let water off a duck's back. Put an ear earring in be thick-skinned do your thing but yeah it must be difficult to take over in a situation like that and have certain expectations so i wish them the best of luck uh and from what i could tell he did a fine job um and he wasn't me and you know well yeah and

and do you know how long sports line was on the air until they canceled it? Do you remember? Yeah. You see, that's the thing is that I'm kind of blurry there because I know that they sort of canceled Sportsline, but Jim stayed on. And then the way I understand it was Global really treated him terribly. And a lot of people were really terribly, terribly there. When you give that many years, 20-odd years of service, and you're basically told you've got to be out of here in 15 minutes, man, that sucks. That does suck. And I had gotten out several years before that i could see the writing on the wall

and when you can see that when you can see this they're not sending you to spring training every year for four weeks anymore then it was three weeks then it was two weeks then pretty soon it was we're not even sending you guys to baseball spring training we're going to hire a stringer down there who's going to shoot video so when you see those things happening you see the writing on the wall and you say you know it's not going to be the way it was it's never going to be a stringer down there who's going to shoot video so when you see those things happening you see the writing on the wall and you say you know it's not going to be the way it was it's never going to be the way it was maybe i should keep my eyes open for something and i think that's what happened there i think you know at global they were going you know we got there's tsn and now here because a sports net and oh my god and we're trying to put a half hour sports

cast together that was once the the shining jewel the brightest jewel of sports and now it's battling with these other channels so they decided i guess you know that they were going to get rid of it and that's tough you take people that have been there all those years and say you know thanks for all your years of service now get the hell out so 15 minutes say it's one of those uh hr puts you in a room yeah horrible way to treat somebody who like i gave his life as well 20 it was over 20 years that jim was there right and um so i'm glad i wasn't part of that i felt bad for all the people that i'd worked with there that were basically given the bums rush but the same in all the other jobs i had eventually what happened was there was a changeover of ownership a format change something happened

where people were out the door you know all kinds of people like that yeah we're having a meeting oh we're having a big dinner. Oh, here's your envelope with your severance package. You hear the stories. Yeah. Yeah. So you hear about that. It's a tough business.

It's a really tough business. Now, just before Jean Principe was hired to take your spot, essentially, we had a previous guest who, because I was making my way west, was Barb DiGiulio. Yeah. And she spoke quite openly about the fact that she had these uh tryouts i guess for the position yeah auditions yeah right auditions right and i believe at least one made the air but uh she felt you know it caused her some trouble with her boss at the fan 590 she was telling me but it's she really thought she had this gig and then uh at the end

of the day she obviously did not get the gig now you were not there anymore do you have any insight as to what happened just only uh curious because i think one of the ways you could kind of replace a mark hebbshire who is so popular of that role would be to go completely different let's bring in a female for example you know who won't be compared to you in the same way so when michael strahan took over from regis for example. That was a bit of a departure. But they needed to have two people together that had chemistry. I hate to use the word, but that's the word. That's the word. Jim and I had known each other before we ever worked together.

We had been, I won't even say rivals, friendly rivals. He worked for Citi and I worked for Ray. But we knew each other and we knew each other's passion for sports. And so when Sportsline was developed with the two of us, it was different from when Bob was doing it by himself. Obviously, there was banter. We slotted in time.

Our producer, Mark Askin, who produces all the Leaf games, he slotted in time after a particular story so we could chat about it. You have to have, real quick aside, really quick, when Greg Brady was on, he was talking about how Brady and Lang was the morning show and had some good numbers but he quite frankly said it was uh chemistry he they wasn't the chemistry he needed and that's when walker was brought in and they had the chemistry so please continue chemistry is very important when you have the duo going back and forth and you know the other thing too is that you're dealing with egos right everyone has an ego and you know times come where one guy says hey this is my story i want the lead story and the

guy goes well it should be mine. Yours was the last one. And then you start counting. And you hear the stories of, well, this person had more time on the air than I did. And that's a common thing. Because you believe that you deserve so much time on the air. The other person, you split it halfway. It's up to the producer to say, OK, there's your half and there's your half.

So occasionally that was an issue. But I think with anything anything else when you're dealing with two people that have egos and you're trying to play off of each other for the greater good and one of them has a an award show on a monday where everyone goes hey i love the hebsey awards and i'm sure they went to jim and said hey jim love the show love the hebsey awards and i don't know how he would take it i know if it was me i'd kind of what about my contribution to it as well so uh the fact that we lasted 11 years together and didn't kill each other and at the same time the numbers were good and the show was very popular i think it's a testament to both of us to be able to you know put the ego aside and go on the air and do 30 minutes of dynamite television and whatever happened off the air we should have nothing to do

with that at all it's what you do on the air so when you hear oh off the air hey where's jim stuff like that i said well you know we don't live together you know we don't we we don't and that was that's difficult for people to fathom you know you guys get along so well i think you're earning in birth yeah but you also think that you guys get along famously every every waking hour so because this is i was going to get to this a little bit later because i got and when i opened Yeah, but you also think that you guys get along famously every waking hour. So, because this is, I was going to get to this a little bit later because I got, when I opened up, I asked if anyone had questions for Mark Hemsher. Nobody did. Nobody had questions.

I had a bunch of them. And a recurring question I kept getting was the relationship with you and Jim Taddy. Yeah. So, right now, clear up. On the air, you had great chemistry. How was your relationship off the air? It was up and down. But because we were both going through off the air, various things going on in our life. Children, divorce, you know, working odd hours, and trying to maintain a relationship with our families, as well as growing our brand on Sportsline and spending eight hours a day together. So sure, there were some times, but I think like anything else,

I mean, 11 years of a marriage, 11 years of a business partnership, you're going to have disagreements. For sure. So we had disagreements, but it never affected the show. I'm proud to say, and I think Jim would agree with me, it never affected the show. The show was the thing, and we could have been at each other's throats or we could have been not on great speaking terms for that day,

like you might be with your spouse. But when the light came on at 1130, we were awesome. I don't mind saying it people would always tell me afterwards and you'd say oh yeah thanks very much I never watched the show I never watched Sportsline why would I? I was on it all the time

do you tape yourself? I said never I never watched myself on tape I don't want to know I've got a twitch in my right eye my smile is crooked this silly little show you're on right now, I will listen to each episode once just because I'll hear myself do too many ums or I'll give myself tips for next time.

And I got better each one by actually, I think I got better by listening and sort of being hard on myself. Right. But you never watched yourself? No, I never did because I know I would be really critical. And I can't be like that. If I'm on camera and I'm thinking to myself, don't smile crookedly.

Oh, you're overthinking it, yeah. Don't smile crookedly, right? Because I have an image of myself with a crooked smile because people have said to me, you have a crooked smile. I would go nuts. I'd go out of my mind trying to fix that crooked smile. And it would affect the program

because people would be going, what's he doing? Right, okay. So never watched and just did my thing. So yeah, we were on for 11 years and we kicked ass let me tell you right now i can tell you for a fact over at tsn before keith pelly and scott when they were juniors editorial assistants right used to come across the train tracks to where the global studios were to eat in our cafeteria that's a long time ago now right

they were just starting at tsn tsn was just beginning. Global was already established. Sportsline was established and we were the go-to place to go. And people would say, oh, you're going to watch TSN or you're going to watch Global. What are you kidding? We're watching Global. We're watching Jim and Mark. Nobody has chemistry like these guys. Nobody can get away with saying things the way these guys can. And our bosses encouraged that. They never bugged us about it. It was never, oh, you can't say stuff like that. Before the days of political correctness, we would say all kinds.

I would say the most outrageous things. I can't believe I would say them now. But there was a pitcher named, oh, I can't even, a Japanese pitcher. But I would do an impression of a Japanese. Sure, sure. And you can't do that now. You can't do it.

But back in the day it was fun and even um asian people would say oh mark i love it when you do that that's so funny my dad laughs his head off it's like when russell peters does an impersonation of his father right everybody laughs well we used to be able to do it you can't do that now you cannot do it because if you offended one person that's one too many they're gonna call someone hr is gonna call you right you can't do that today you're right you just can't so but back in the day it was like yeah he's having fun he's not he's not a racist like an equal equal opportunity offender he's not a racist at all so it was a different time but um okay so so with you and jim uh so obviously on the air and i agree

as a fan fantastic chemistry right and that's all you should care about. That's all we care about. Thank you. Period. The end. But I owe a service to these question askers. So would there be any, would you guys hang out off air ever? Or was this sort of like you just sort of like worked together and it was fine, but off air, maybe you weren't each other's cup of tea, potentially?

Here's the thing when you're finished work at midnight and the bars are only open till 1am, which they were back in the day, right? Not a lot of opportunity to like, okay, off the air over to wherever the keg or nearby and pound back a couple of drinks.

Had we worked in an environment where we finished at five or six o'clock every night, I think we probably would have afterwards, you know, go out for a beer with the rest of the crew early on. We um uh i was i think we were both single anyway uh but we did early on but you know life gets in the way you know life and the kids are at home you've spent a long day together you just spent eight hours with you now i gotta spend enough but we did we we went to ottawa one time uh early on and uh we were flabbergasted by the number of people who watched our show there

we once walked into a bar on a saturday night in ottawa we had done a a thing at winterlude for gm um they flew us up there and we stayed up there and on the saturday night after we had done our obligations with the sponsors we said you know let's go and watch the leaf game right so we don't know and we go to this bar we walk in the bar We didn't realize it was half Montreal fans, half Leaf fans. And we walked in and the entire place, hundreds of people turn around and they're staring at us. And I remember looking at Jim going, Oh my God, you're rockstar. And they were all like, Whoa, it's a market. Jim, come sit with us.

We'll buy you a beer. That's when I think we both first realized the power of the show and the reach that the show had and the passion that the viewers had. There was no email in those days. We didn't we'd get the occasional you know handwritten letter or offhanded comment it's true you're right but we had no idea had there been twitter and facebook and all social media i you know i'm sure everything we did on the show every observation somebody would be saying did you hear what mark just said see what jim just said all that stuff but it didn't exist then is it it true that every time somebody met you and Jim, they would say to Jim, yes, guy? Was it every time?

Pretty much. Pretty much. Because you might have had the Hebsey Awards, but he did have yes, guy. Yeah, yes, guy was a great one. Yes, guy was, and I don't know who invented it, but around the global offices back then in the mid-80s, whatever, they were, yes, guy. And then eventually we wanted to be bilingual, were you know yes guy and then eventually we wanted to be bilingual so it was we gee and we would have fun with it but the yes guy

you know took on a life of its own it was it's a great salutation do you know what's funny is my son yeah started using that when he was about 15 or 16 i go where'd you get that yes guy from he goes all my friends talk that way i go do you do you know who originated that? And he goes, no. I go, well, man, let me give you a little lesson here. A little history lesson. And he said, what are you talking about, dad? I go, son, back in the 80s, yes, guy was a catchphrase. I used it. No, in the 80s, I used it all the time.

I've been using it. I still use it occasionally. It's a good one. It's a great one, yeah. It's sort of like the Hank Kingsley, hey now. Hey now. Oh, this was well before Hank Kingsley. Oh, yeah, way before.

But that was off of... The Larry Sanders show. Yeah, but that was imitating Johnny Carson's sidekick, Ed McMahon. Ed McMahon, hey now. Hey-oh. Hey-oh. Hey-oh. Or what was his other one?

I did not know that. You know, all those kind of things. But yeah, I guess they all found their way somewhere. Yes Guy was a beauty. Absolutely. No, stellar. Now, Jim Taddy, I've been doing the Toronto Mike blog since 2002.

At some point post Sportsline, I discovered Jim Taddy had become a real estate agent. This was news, so I remember blogging about this. Jim Taddy is now a real estate agent. He had a real estate blog, I think. Jim Taddy was a real estate agent. We'll be very brief on jim tatty and then we'll get back to you of course but why isn't jim here but you know what i had uh i had a but my buddy

il duche his family owns palma pasta i don't know if you ever do a palma pasta location but very good very good pasta okay um he wanted me to have jim tatdy come out and I didn't think it'd be fair. I just didn't think it'd be fair to you to sort of blindside you like that. It wouldn't be, listen, it wouldn't be unfair at all. Well, here he is. Jim, that's fine. Jim, whenever I turn on the radio, he's on. Yeah, so he's on TSN 1050. He's on all the time. He's

on morning, night, afternoon. He does a golf show early in the morning on Saturday and Sunday. He's, yeah, so great, man. He's so good. When was the last time you spoke to Jim Taddy? When did I last talk to Jim? I'm trying to think. I communicated with him within the last year or so.

When did I last speak to him? Jeez, when did I see him in person last? It's been a few years. It's been a few years. So post this, he went career change, I guess, real estate, and now he's back doing sort of Toronto media because he is on 1050 radio, TSN radio. He's on a lot there. He's a really good host.

I mean, you know, Jim, that's his gig, man. He's a great host. And when you're a host, you've got to be a traffic cop. You've got to know how much time is left till commercial. You've got to move the program along. If the interview is running along too long, you've got to cut it off or change it and move it in a different direction.

So Jim certainly has all of the capabilities to do that, and he's very good at it. I think TSN's lucky to have someone like that. Now, my last Jim Taddy point is that I want to know, do you know if he's been held prisoner by Frank D'Angelo? Does he owe Frank D'Angelo money? There's nothing there. Wink if you think he's in trouble.

I don't know. Okay, so Frank D'Angelo, do you know him at all? No. Okay, so he's like a... I've got to be careful because he'll send his head to me. Wait a second. Hang on a second. We're going to go after a guy here that you're afraid... I'll be very careful, yeah. I'll tread gently. By the way,

this is Toronto Mic'd, the podcast. I believe this was on. I have nothing to do with it. Sign off on this. But I believe that he would buy airtime on CHCH. I believe Frank D'Ang I have nothing to do with it. Sign off on this. But I believe that he would buy airtime on CHCH. I believe Frank D'Angelo would buy airtime. So I'm told. Late, late, late at night. Late, late at night.

He'd buy airtime, and he'd have his own talk show, which is like paid programming, and he'd have his own talk show. I tuned in once because my buddies Humble and Fred were on this show. Yes. And they were on Carla Collins, so I tuned in one time.

Train wreck of a show. But the guy just kind of smiling in the background with the band is jim tatty so he's just he's just there kind of smiling away and i just wondered how what the heck happened jim tatty says you don't have no idea all i know is this all i know is this is that when you lose a job and i don't care what business you're in right you still got to put food on the table you got to pay bills you got a job, and I don't care what business you're in, right? You still got to put food on the table. You got to pay bills. You got a mortgage to pay, all that type of thing. I think he was paying Frank.

That's what my concern is. Don't know. You don't know. That's probably the safest answer you could have given. So good job on that. Speaking of CHCH. Yeah. So is there anything between the Q107, 640 era and CHCH? Am I missing anything between the the q107 640 era and chch am i missing anything between that um boy that's uh

yeah oh yeah yeah okay so can we for sure i work fill in the gaps i want to get into the ch i worked at uh headline sports which is now sports net 360 which is now i forget yeah it was called headline it was all called headline sports when i worked there right then they changed it to the score then they changed it to sports net 360 and now it's sports net 11 or so i don't know what it is but anyway it was originally it was a headline service originally right it was just wasn't even highlights when they first started it was just the the printed word across the oh i thought it was it because was it because I remember it as being like sports desk on repeat. Oh, no, no. But I'm saying before that,

there was no sound and there was no people. It was just the script. Okay. I'm kind of remembering now. Yeah, yeah. Back in the really early days. Right. And then I was there. I'm trying to think how this worked out now. I forget. But anyway, I got the job there and I was doing

myself and Greg Sansonioni and elliot friedman and tim mccallif i was there and sid six zero and all these guys were and cabby richards cabral richard was one of our one of our assistants so these were young guys yeah right and they were just starting in the business um and i worked there for a year and it was fun it was a lot of fun but it was uh it was odd because it was the hours were weird and that was the year that mark mcguire and sammy sosa every freaking minute yeah uh we're now mark mcguire is up okay let's go live mark mcguire is coming up for his 99th home run of the year and let's go live now chicago sammy so that was like an every night thing and it got to be very tiring steve coolius was there at the time too steve had

to work i think eight hours straight without going to the bathroom and then finally he says i have to go to the bathroom or i'm going to pee my pants and i believe what happened was they were going to go back to him live and he was he was in the toilet right he was in the toilet they're going you gotta go back and he's like i have to go that's a human rights violation i think but at the time we didn't think of it that way because you're on the air constantly we were on constantly so that was really interesting that was a lot of work and then i got a call from sportsnet scott moore was running sports that this was first time around it was owned by ctv it just started maybe they were on the air for six months and he called me up and he said i'm looking for a six o'clock sports anchor and

i said well i'm working at the score here right now and we met a couple times and i got the gig there and i worked there for about a year and then after a year it was quite obvious that the six o'clock sportscast was not for me because there were no highlights it was all previews here's what's coming up tonight on sportsnet and i hated it because it was like you're previewing and you're showing highlights from a previous game as part of the promo and let's see if craig mctavish's boys can take on and it was all that so there that. And I was used to doing highlights. Here's the latest. Let's check out so-and-so's latest at bat.

And basically it was throwing to stories from reporters. Right? Here's Craig McEwen in Vancouver. Here's whoever our reporters were at the time. And that just wasn't for me. It wasn't really fun at all. Plus, my boss at the time, the guy that Scott Moore had hired, knew nothing about sports except for English soccer. How come you're not going put chelsea there and i'm like what are you talking

about the other thing was is that in the early days of sports net all they cared about was tsn we're gonna beat tsn we're gonna be and i'm like you're not gonna be tsn by doing the same things tsn does they do it really well, right? And in the Heritage Station. And they've been around for 15 years, and you guys are just sort of starting. So my whole thing was, why don't we try something that TSN doesn't do, something different? Never got around to that. It lasted a year there, and then meandered through the deserts like gypsies

until something came along at CHCH, and they said, do you know more than just sports? And I said, sure. Lied through my teeth. Oh yes. Politics. Absolutely. You're talking about the Gaza Strip. Environmentalist. I know. And look, I have a pretty good working knowledge of what's going on in the world, but I knew a hell of a lot about sports. It was a passion. Politics wasn't a passion. The environment wasn't a passion. Healthcare wasn't a passion. And so it's become that for me. I'm much more well-read on these subjects because I do a show every day that's a current affairs show that's not related

to sports. And when did you start the program on CHCH? 2003. You've been here a long time now. Yeah. So this is now at the same length of time that you were on Sportsline. A little bit more, yeah. Wow. A little bit more. And yeah, so I do two shows now. I do two shows back to back. I do a sports show at five o'clock and then at 530, I switch hats and I'm current affairs. Did you ever consider recruiting Jim Taddy to co-host the sports show? I didn't, but I had, when the subject came up, I had, I'd mentioned it, you know, because you never know sometimes. Because you need more 40 year old guys in, and we would all flock. Yeah.

You know what it was? You need management to look at it sort of in a different way. And a lot of times management has, you know, this is the way we're thinking. We're going to do this. So I think it came up a few times, and it would have been great. But for whatever reason, it didn't happen that way. But you know what? They always find a way to,

look, if they can reunite Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, Dumb and Dumber 2, how many years after they did the first one? Right? They're like, wow, hey, listen, let's pull an idea out of the hat. This worked in 1993. Let's try it.

So you never know. You know, in Toronto, we're looking for two reunions. We're all looking for the Mark Hebster, Jim Taddy reunion. And we're all looking for, come on, we need Jesse and Gene to get back together. Do we know where Jesse and Gene is? It won't happen. Jesse and Gene actually work together, but they don't, like, you know what I mean?

Like, they work within the same sort of framework of what they do, but they don't work together doing a radio show or a podcast or anything like that. No, we're holding out hope. But they're still very good friends, and they're incredibly successful in their new career, which is not a radio career. What is their new career? They are— Motivational speakers. Yeah. Something like that.

Mentor. They mentor, and they're very, very good at selling. Are they on the West Coast now? They are. Yeah, that's right. Gene is in California, and Jesse's in BC, and they're doing are. Yeah, that's right. Gene is in California and Jesse's in BC and they're doing well. Yeah, there you go. Interesting.

You know, Humble and Fred, speaking of longtime duos, I realized they're actually about to have a party to celebrate. I want to get this right, but I think it's... 100th anniversary. No, it's close. 30th anniversary. Hold on, let me... 20th anniversary. I'm going to say 25th.

I think you're right. Yeah, 25 years. I believe Humble came in around 1990. 89 or 90. Because I had him at my first golf tournament. My first golf tournament was in 1990. And we're looking for celebrities to play and all that. And who's this guy?

Howard Glassman. That's before he fixed his teeth, right? So yeah, that's way back. Who is this guy? And so we had Howard Glassman and the late, great Dan Gallagher in a group together. Of course. And let me tell you, the laughs never stopped. They were trying to top each other.

And those were the days. And that's when I first met- Test Pattern. That was the Dan Gallagher show on MuchMusic. And Bill Carroll, I think, might have been on that show as well. Yeah, he was. He was. There you go.

Those were the days. And I had known Freddie since 1977 or 78. I worked together with him at CKFH Radio. That's crazy. So yeah, in that 25 years, that's awesome. Yeah, so sometimes the duos do, they had a little hiatus in the middle there, but they've been together for 25 years.

So there you go. You had a co-host on CHCH, Donna Skelly. Yes. So she's entered politics. She attempted to enter politics twice. Okay, good. What's the update on this? She lost both times.

Okay, so she ran twice as a PC candidate. Correct. That was her biggest mistake. As an MP, right? No, an MPP. MPP, okay. She ran provincially. Tim Hudak is the leader of the PC party.

So right then and there, I kind of went, Oh, gee. Yeah, you're on the wrong horse. But having said that, there's a lot of distaste for all three political parties in this province. So, you know, once you decide to go into politics, you know, all bets are off. The gloves are off. Sure. And whatever you did before, and let's face it, name recognition has a lot to do with it.

A lot of people will vote on the name. I know that person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a tough gig. So I recently did the Ride to Conquer Cancer. And I only mention that because we bike up to Milton and then we go across to Hamilton. And so I actually have, I biked through, and this must have been during an election period, because I biked through an area that had a whole bunch of Donna Skelly signs.

ADFW. That's Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Weston. So there you go. And I remember having a scene and I remembered her because I remembered her from being on your show, and I wondered if she was still in politics. No. No, she lost twice. Right.

You know, but I can see, though. I believe she's given up on politics, and that's a tough topic. You know, though, with another stronger leader, there's potential, because I do sense that people wanted, some people in that area, and wanted to vote PC but just simply Hudak, they couldn't get behind that. Yeah, I can see that too.

So maybe if a different, although, I don't know. Politics is odd. It's, boy, you could do an entire show just on the weirdness of politics. And I could do an entire show, and I'd love to one day, on the weirdness of Mike Wilner. So, I'm just going back to Mike Wilner.

Wait, wait, wait. How's that segue? Well, I had a tiff with him the other day on Twitter. Well, that's okay. Last week on Twitter, I had a tiff with him. Don't say a word, because I took a note. I'm going to do a quote that Mike Wilner said to you. You ready?

This is Mike Wilner's tweet to you. Okay. I used to love you so much. What an easy, lazy thing to say. So this was a response to, you tweeted much. What an easy, lazy thing to say. So this was a response to, you tweeted something about the Jays that he- Mentally checked out. Right.

Yes. And he felt that was, A, first of all, his opinion is it was easy and lazy, which is fair game. But then he kind of, he went the extra step, which is to let you know at one point he loved you. Yes. But apparently it felt like the sentiment was

he's losing his love for you. Yes. What do you have to say about this? It kills me. It does. Is this true? I want everyone to love me. And if someone once loved me and now doesn't love me anymore, that hurts.

Well, it's because you became easy and lazy. Yeah. It's quite bothersome. It really is. And I'm sure Mike is under a lot of pressure. Let's face it. If the Jays don't win this year, I mean, he's a free agent. He's gone. He's gone to Houston or he's gone to AAA. So his job is on the line. I think this is why he's reaching out and saying

these types of things. I think he's under a lot of pressure for the team to play better. So do you think it's... Don't you think? I think Mike's like, oh my God, if they don't win for God. I can't stand these people who are saying the Jays have been checked out and that Bautista's a big baby. A big baby.

He... Okay, here's my thoughts on Mike Willner because he's been around forever too. I remember he had a Cable 10 sports show that I used to peek at. Wait a second.

He's been around forever? So you're comparing him and I with being around forever? He's a little younger than you but not much, I don't think. But he has been around. I remember him being around since the early 90s.

I used to see him on Cable 10. Anyways, Let's Talk Sports, it was called. Was it? Was it a good show? Yeah, I phoned in once. Did you used to love him? Did you love him? I used to love Wilner.

But this is my problem with what happened with Wilner. Two things. One is, he seems to... I know his paycheck comes from Rogers and it's important to him, but he seems to, in my opinion, be a little, have blinders on

with this team. I don't know if he's afraid of upsetting his employer or what, because there's others on this station, I notice, that do trash the Jays

more than he does. But I think he's very good to this team, PR-wise. When you're part of the broadcast crew, it's really difficult to be that critical. If you're Greg Zahn, you can get away with it. If you're when you're part of the broadcast crew it's really difficult to be

that critical if you're greg's on you can get away with it if you're kevin barker you can get away with it maybe if you're joe siddle you can get away with it but mike's situation was if you recall several years ago when cito gaston was the manager cito gaston had a run-in with mike willner to the point where mike could have lost his job in fact there was a rumor going around that they were going to can Mike because of the way he treated Cito. Now, Cito claimed that Bob McCallum was a racist, that Mike Wilner wasn't on board, that kind of a thing.

And here's where the line is blurred between journalists, especially nowadays, journalists, social media journalists, which is an oxymoron, right? Reporter and shill for the team right and that's really difficult it's hard to do when i worked at global we were not shills for anybody because we did but when we got the maple leaf broadcasts there was it was implied that you won't go overboard criticizing the maple leaf team management etc you don't go overboard because we're partners with them we're sort of in bed together.

We're doing 35 games this year. Why would we do that? So that was something I had to understand. Ease off on the accelerator a bit when you're hammering the Leafs. So that I can understand. When you do 162 games and the team's going to lose 90 games or whatever it is, and that's 90 days where you're going to have to defend a squad that's helping you know pay for for you hasn't you know the pendulum swings and i understand maybe he's gonna get off the

accelerator as you said maybe but he seems to have swung quite far the other way and i know most of this because if you google like mike will there's a some google term people are doing all the time about mike willner where i'm like a number one hit because I once wrote an entry about Mike Willner. And the fact, basically, my entry was I don't hate him as much as everyone else because people tell me how much they hate him. They can't listen to him. And I don't mind because he knows a lot of shit. But you know they do listen. You know, someone who says I hate him, they still

listen. Right, like the Howard Stern effect, right? They listen. Yeah, sure. Because they don't know what to hear next. They don't know what he's going to say next. And they love it when a caller calls in and says something like you said there with like, this team has mentally checked out. Then Wilner goes off. Yeah, yeah. Here's the thing.

I did talk radio before there were ever cell phones. You've heard this. Yeah, we know this, Mark. Yeah, before cell phones, before the internet, when socks hadn't been invented and everyone walked around, you know, before Jesus wore leather sandals, blah, blah, blah. Here's the thing.

When I did talk radio, and I learned this from McCowan, when you have someone on the air, okay, that person who's called in is dying to get on the air. They're dying to hear themselves. My opinion is that. And a lot of times you have to say, not just thanks for your call. You have to say, look, your opinions are yours. I disagree.

How did you dial the phone with a straight jacket? Goodbye. And you actually have to physically hang up on them. Now someone, oh, that's rude. It's rude. Let me tell you, they love it. If you got a guy on the air and he's being a goof, okay, you should hang up on that guy.

It's like being roasted, right? You got to say, listen, man, you're nuts. Goodbye. Click. Now what happens is other people will respect you more as a talk show host when you do that. But when you don't and you let the guy go on and on and on, and then you turn the screw on the guy and saying, yeah, well, you know what? I don't like that term. It's lazy. It's easy. Da da da da da. You're playing down to the level of your caller and you can't do that.

You have to say, you know what? Thanks for your opinion. I disagree. You're a moron. Click. Now all the other listeners are going i love this guy because they wanted to do the same thing they wanted to change the channel they wanted to switch from the fan to tsn 1050 there just give me a reason yeah to hit that button just to bite it you're being you let this and when you leave a caller on for one second too long it's like the comedian that just told a great joke and has got everyone laughing and thinks he thinks i can do one more and the next one is he falls flat in his face george costanza says no way to get out you gotta know exactly when to get out and that i think is the problem and i've listened to all the talk shows i hear them all on all the stations okay there's

tons of them the great talk show hosts know when to say goodbye yeah and sometimes it's got to be get the hell out of here and don't call back and sometimes it's got to be, get the hell out of here and don't call back. And sometimes it's got to be, I'm sorry, but you're a moron. If you actually think that the Jays should do this or that, I don't know, that's going to happen. And I heard the other day, oh, Melky Cabrera, yeah,

the Jays should offer him five years, 75 million. And these were two or three very intelligent guys. And I said to myself, are you out of your mind? The Yankees will give him 100 million without even thinking. Where did you come up with 75 million for five years? He's worth way more than that.

And these were supposedly intelligent journalists. And I remember going, Oh my God, I would have hung up on these guys. If I was hosting the talk show, I would have said, you're an idiot. And you're an, and meaning it in such a way. You got to be kidding me, right? How foolish that sounds that Melky is going to sign for 15 million a year for five years with the Jays. Ain't going to happen.

Right. Yeah. And click. So do you think Wilner does a good job handling the callers or do you think he's a little arrogant and condescending? If you've ever heard the talk show hosts on any other station, Cubs, the Cubs guys, OK, or or the the San Francisco francisco giants guys they're all the same okay they understand they know where their bread is buttered they can't piss off guys you can't go

into the locker room or travel with guys when they go hey you were on the air the other day you were dissing me or you're whatever you've got to sort of stick up for that and yeah you're being paid by the team to give the at least give them the benefit of the doubt in your commentary at least side at least err on the side of caution right in your commentary at least side at least err on the side of caution right which means sometimes you've got to call you know your your listeners idiots or you got to say you know but to contradict someone who has a legitimate point because you um are making sure that the team that the image of the team stays intact that's that's a tough one if a guy makes a good point and it's a cogent point,

you've got to say, that's a really good point. You make a lot of sense. Thank you for that. As opposed to saying, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're wrong. And let me get the analytics out to prove that you're wrong. But he'll bring up analytics from like 14 years ago or something. Don't try to prove the caller wrong.

Don't try to prove the caller wrong. Say your piece and that's it. Let the caller have their say and say, thank you for your call. Goodbye. Very good points. And, but I think that's it. Let the caller have their say and say, thank you for your call. Goodbye. Very good points. But I think it's with Wilner. I think, was it Michael Young? But we traded away some prospect years ago.

Michael Young. A long time ago, right? A long time ago. Like 15, 20 years ago. No, 15 years ago. And it still kind of comes up as the reason why we shouldn't be trading any prospects to get better now. Because it's like Michael Young was traded 15 years ago.

Whenever I see Mike Napoli, right? Yeah. I think one one word frank francisco yeah we traded frank francisco he was a jay for a week or something yeah mike napoli was a for a day and we got frank hit the fifth deck the other day he's a monster every time i see mike napoli i think frank francisco i think the same thing why did that happen now you'll never get rid of that that is the old that's the old frank robinson for milt pappas they traded frank robinson he won the triple crown see they traded him he won the triple crown the next year we just traded a guy and he won the triple crown can you imagine yeah because because um the one good thing though if it works so like jeff kent we always look back and it's fine we got david cohen we won two world series i still think about these world series and

i have a smile but so jeff kent that's fine we got david cohen these world series and I have a smile. So Jeff Kent, that's fine. We got David Cohen, two world series. But you're right when you give up for nothing. Okay, so you and Mike Wilner, did you kiss and make up? How did that end here? I don't know if it's ended. Come on out, Mike. I don't know if it's ended or not. But you know what though, in the Twitterverse, basically it's like, man, you just sort of dissed me.

And you've got however many thousands of followers. We all saw it. I saw it. So I didn't bother to respond. I think that's the best way. You're right. He was mad at me. Let him be mad at somebody else.

I'm out of the picture. He's good at that. What's interesting is this new Twitterverse is that we see the MSMs, I call them the Main Street Media people, are so accessible. And in public, they're discussing. And I saw something with Steve Simmons and James Myrtle. Yeah. Did you see this?

Yeah, yeah. And it's like, I got my popcorn and I started watching. Yeah, it's Twitter Wars. And it's happening live in front of you in Twitter. And it's just amazing that in 2014, this is, you know, I could only dream of this back in the day. Analytics. You analytical bastards

you bat and in hockey and here's the thing with hockey i figured this out because my wife explained this to me okay with hockey when something happens during a hockey game something marvelous happens it happens in a split second and the play goes on right your mind goes wow what a hit that was and now you're going i can hardly wait for there to be a whistle so i can see it again right but the play goes on for another three or four minutes and in those three or four minutes two or three other things happen another hit a missed penalty a shot off the goalpost big save whatever and now your mind can't comprehend all that happened in that form now there's a whistle you go whew whereas with baseball the play is over or the pitch is over

with you've got very different football same thing basketball a basket is scored unless the other team is fast breaking quickly the other way you've got time to think about it and the stats people have time to write their little stats he's in right with hockey you can't do that with hockey you have to depend on someone sitting there going for 14 seconds he didn't touch the puck then he had it for a second and a half then he didn't he lost possession of it in the neutral zone which is a giveaway neutral zone so the number the the the amount of statistics available in that time period is staggering. Meanwhile, my wife is going, remember that hit four minutes ago? And I'm like, no.

She goes, that to me was the play of the game. But they never showed a replay of it because something happened after that. Then something happened after that. Then there was a shot. Then there was a fight. And it's true. With hockey, so much happens that you forget about that people think let's get the analytics on this one right and let's find it so you see it in front

of you and then you go yeah but i don't remember that happening or that happened it didn't lead to a goal or it didn't lead to a penalty it was just it just happened during the game it might not have even been caught on camera and this is where i see 20 or 30 guys sitting up in a press box did you see that no well i did for four seconds he spun around and he couldn't get the fuck out twice i never saw that at all i didn't see that and nor do i remember that well someone is scribbling that down somebody is writing that down and then they're going back to the original game tape and they're frame by frame going for 4.72 seconds. He was dazed and confused. It took him 3.8 seconds to get to the bench.

And during that time period, his team gave the puck away twice. That's a bit much for me. And that's what it's coming down to. It's a bit much. And the war between Steve Simmons. But we're okay with our teams using that intelligence behind the scenes for player development. We're still going to watch hockey the same way,

but if they use a tool that's available, it's all good. I know, but again, hockey is such a great game, and it's so fast that I think we lose an awful lot of it. So you're on Steve Simmons' side? No, I think if you break it down to statistics, everything down to statistics,

it takes away from actually watching the game. That's a fair point. And to me, it's like everybody who goes to a concert and has their iphone i take pictures look yeah you're there live yeah you're gonna record this thing are you actually gonna watch it are you gonna go home no and watch you'll never watch it you missed out on it live it's the same thing with the parents who record their kids at the the school play you're there you're there live why are you recording this so grandma grandpa can watch it yeah i agree so that's the type of world we live in now where we're missing what's happening before our very eyes live all right and i i hate seeing 9 000 replays of

something and i know we have the technology and the viewers want to see it but you know any great hit when you see it happen you go whoa what if the wendell clark hit on bruce bell the famous one what if we got to show that 50 times from nine different camera angles? We're going to analyze it. Guess what? It was a dirty hit. It was a blow to the head. He targeted the head.

It should have been a five-minute penalty. Come on. Yeah, you know, you're absolutely right. Absolutely right. And speaking of the MSN battles, there was a bad – I got a question for you from a reader who recalls that you almost came to blows of Dave Stieb. Yes. I need this story. I don't remember this story,

but Dave Stieb, I heard he was an asshole from what I heard, but as a pitcher and as a fan, I love the guy. Well, sure, because you go out and win for your team. And he had that attitude, but it was almost like a swagger. It seemed to work for sort of like Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan, I think he's an asshole. From what I've read and heard, he's a jerk. He's an asshole.

But on the court, love the guy. And that's all it comes down to. So tell me about the Dave Steeve story. Dave Steeve's story was this. We're down in spring training one year. And with spring training, it's the easiest thing. Guys know you get your three innings in, and then you go and grab a shower, and then you hit the golf course, right and the media is there and it's very

casual so i think i just started i don't recall if i was in radio or television at the time but i asked him ahead of time hey dave can i do an interview with you yep i got my three innings and i'm gonna get my running done grab a shower i'll be available to you great so we're hanging around waiting fitches his three innings he sees me when he walks by. Gives me a little, see you soon. Goes to the showers. I'm waiting for him to come out of the showers. And then I hear the sound of a Porsche. A Porsche Carrera Turbo, right? And I know the sound.

That's Dave Steepe's car. And before I know it, he's gone. Gone. And I'm standing there waiting for him. And I told my, I think Jim, I think I was on television. I said to Jim back in Toronto, I said, I'm going to have Dave steep. Great. Terrific. We got B roll of him. We shot all kinds of stuff. I'm gone. I have no interview now. And I'm really upset. I'm pissed. And now I'm talking to Jim and he's going, what do you mean? He got

away. What are you talking about? And I'm like, oh man, he was just being a total jerk. He's being Dave Steve. So I had to scramble and get an interview with Rance Mullenix instead or whatever the case was. And I'm fuming now. And they're mad at me back in Toronto. What are you talking about? Anyway, I see him the next day and I go, hey, and he's like, nothing ever happened. Hey, he didn't say sorry about yesterday or anything like that. Hey, and I go, you screwed me up yesterday. Why did you do that? He goes, what are you talking about? And I just remember being really mad at me. And he was very sort of, well, I didn't do anything wrong. And I said, you know, you say you say you're gonna do something why don't you do it why don't you grow up and he was you can't talk to me like that and he sticks his big finger right

into my chest he goes you can't talk to me like that and i stuck my finger i said you can't talk to me i've got a job to do as well and you're being an asshole he shoved me i shoved him back well i'm thinking to myself jesus christ i'm shoving dave's yeah in in the blue jays complex with however many guys around so i'm pushing him a little more and then i noticed that one of the cameramen from one of the other stations is starting to roll the camera i'm going oh my god i better stop right now so i'm yelling at him and he's yelling back at me and he stalks away storms away and as i as I'm walking back, I see this, the camera, and I know the camera won't mention his name.

I know the camera and he's shooting me. I'm going, you're not shooting this. He goes, I'm shooting. And it's going to be on our sports cast tonight. So that's what happened. I get mad at Dave Steve. I'm pushing him and someone's recording it. And this is a lesson for all you people listening. Assume at all times in public, someone is shooting video of you somewhere there will be video available so it's going to pop up one day you're going to go i didn't know anyone

was shooting it just be aware it's a safe assumption today very safe assumption speaking of video so another uh cory uh had a question for you he says uh tuesday june 28th 1994 oh i remember it well. Wendell Clark is traded to the Quebec Nordiques as part of a deal that sends Matt Sundin to the Leafs. That evening, Jim and Mark run a tribute montage of some great Wendell Clark moments set to Crowbars' Oh, What a Feeling.

Yes. Ask Mark if he can send me a copy. Surely he has a video library of every episode of Sportsline. No, I do not. So Corey has fond memories of the Oh, What a Feeling month. Sorry about that, Corey. You know what? Another thing with Sportsline is, and I don't want to say, well, we never got credit for this or that.

But we were, we did, I think, good journalism. And I think we did good television. And there were a lot of times where, you know, you've got a half-hour show to do and there's not much going on. Let's say it's the baseball all-star break and there's nothing going on, right? There's no CFL doesn't schedule games, which is stupid. There's no hockey. There's no – so you've got to come up with – so a lot of times Jim would say, okay, like we've got five minutes to fill. What can we do?

We'd have to come up with something, some kind of an angle, some kind of something. So a lot of times we would do a tribute or something like that and we would you know i'd find some music oh what a feeling by crowbar the best though was when george bell left the jays and prior to that he had just been as a left fielder he kept missing the cutoff man and doing all kinds of weird stuff like that so it was um my way by frank sinatra done by the gypsy kings which is in spanish right so here's george and it's so it's my way in spanish by the Gypsy Kings, which is in Spanish, right? So here's George Bell. So it's My Way in Spanish by the Gypsy Kings, and it's George Bell throwing his bat and missing the cutoff man and bobbling a ball and yakking off to us

and just doing really goofy things like that. I was proud of that because, number one, it filled three minutes and we had nothing. And the other one was George, when he saw it and we saw him, he says, hey, you guys on sports like you're pretty funny so that was a nice it was nice uh acknowledgement from the the player saying you know i kind of get it i love george bell by the way he was a big fan do you know what he was he was a piece of work he was a real piece of work and he was total he was totally enjoyable to watch

and be around but there were times where he could go off and do the stupidest things. And you had to be there for it. Like the time he refused to DH for Jimmy Williams. Yeah, that's a big one. It's spring training. I'm not going to do it. And I remember him sitting by the fence like a petulant child. And they're waving him from the dugout.

This is in spring training. They're waving from the dugout for George. And he's like, I'm not getting up. I'm not going to DH on your team. I'm a left fielder. That's right. I remember that so well. The beginning of the end for Jimmy Williams.

And opening day, he hit three dingers, George Bell, while DHing. Against Kansas City. Yeah, three in the opening day. That's right. And then the Jays were 12-24 to start the year. Jimmy Williams got fired. Cito Gaston took over. And then that was 89.

Yeah. And then the rest. Yeah, and they made the big trade for Mookie Wilson, as I recall. And it's like a shot of adrenaline in the arm. Yeah, Mookie Wilson. Who else was on that team? Lima Zilli. Candy Maldonado. Yeah, yeah. You team? Lima Zilli. Candy Maldonado.

Yeah, yeah. Maldonado in 89? I don't think so. 90, I think. 90 or maybe 91. 89, though, that was because Tom Hickey was a great closer. Yeah, except it wasn't. Okay, Fred McGriff was still first base in 89, though,

because he gets traded in the Alomar trade. Right, because in September of that year, that's when O'Rourke comes up. Yeah, so I think it's still McGrips. You're right. It's a long time ago now. A long time ago now, but it was fantastic. You had Tony Fernandez, and yeah, it was a great team.

Yeah. Great team. One more question here. Can MLSE function with two owners who are fierce competitors in business? Do you think that Bell and Rogers can really work together to build a winning team or will one buy out the other? That's the question. So what do you know?

What do you think on this? Here's what I know. MLSC, Bell, Rogers, it's about one thing only and that's the bottom line. It's how much money can we make? So if we can make this much money without busting the bank to get great players and overspending so that we might win a Stanley Cup, why don't we just keep doing what we're doing? Tell the fans, Jake Gardner, five years,

you have 20 million. He's around for a while. Bernier, Reimer, it's all good. We have a good team. We'll add a couple of pieces. And if we make the playoffs, that's good enough. So think about that if you're Bell and Rogers. We can make a fortune and we don't have to spend.

All we have to do is make the playoffs. When you set your sights that low, that low, that low, that people in Toronto are talking about losing a first-round match to Boston. A first-round match. Not the Stanley Cup final, which they haven't been to, by the way, since 67. Also, haven't even made the final since 67. That's right.

All right? That's futility. Oh, we got to the final four twice in the 90s and once in the— Come on. That's futility. Really, it really, really is. You're absolutely right. Think about the people in Kansas City about baseball.

Kansas City is the baseball franchise that's gone the longest without being in the playoffs since 1985. 85. Can you imagine if that was the Leafs? Oh, we haven't won a cup since 85. 67. So here are these two new owners. And personally, anything that goes on in the boardroom,

I can't stand anyway. Because some corporate hack is going to go, well, our bottom line, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we can't do this. I don't want to hear it. And fans in Toronto do not demand a championship team. They just want to be mediocre. We want to be mediocre enough that we're one of the top 16 teams

that we can make it into one round of the playoffs. Come on. How tough can that be? So they'll spend a couple of bucks. The team will make the playoffs in the next couple years, and everyone will go, what a fabulous ownership. What a fabulous ownership. I'm going to renew my Rodgers subscription,

and no, I'm going to get Bell. No, I'm going to have both. I'm going to have Rodgers and Bell because I love the Leafs so much. Come on. All they want to do is make the playoffs. No, we're very satisfied with very little here. Think about it. Me, I'm like this.

Don't give me this playoff stuff, okay? I want to see a championship team. When I say championship, I want to see, I want to get to the Final Four, and then I want to get to, I don't mind if it's a, get me into the playoffs, then the year after that, get me to the Final Four, and then the year after that,

get me into the Stanley Cup Final. That, to me, is progression. Right. I'll accept that, but I won't just accept it. As long as we make the playoffs every year, we're happy. Jeff Merrick tells me Morgan Rielly will be the next Bobby Orr. So we have that. He's a good player.

Apparently he's going to be fantastic. So we have that. He's a good player. He's a good player. And you know what? Watching a player develop, to me, is half the fun. Trying to project where he's going to be in five years is nonsense absolute nonsense ask jim mckinney yeah ask any of these guys who in their first

year right with oh you're gonna be the next so-and-so kiss of death yeah is marcus stroman gonna be the next dave steve you think so is he uh unlikely i don't know you don't know i don't know because he's 23 and he's pitched a grand total of 100. He might be the next Juan Guzman, though. He might be. Or Kelvin Escobar. Well, better than that. I don't know. And Aaron Sanchez.

What's Aaron Sanchez going to be? Let's watch these guys develop instead of putting a tag on them and compare them. But, of course, we can't help ourselves, because the guy pitches a shutout, and he's going to be the next superstar. Sure, sure, sure. But one thing, you kind of hit the nail on the head, which if you look at all the great teams, most of the great teams, they all drafted very early in the first round, these studs, like whether it's a Jonathan Taves

or if it's a Patrick Kane or if it's a Sidney Crosby or whatever. The Leafs, and I think this has plagued them since Wendell Clark anyways, who wasn't Mary Lemieux, we never suck bad enough to get one of those blue chip guys

like a Stamkos or a Tavares or something like that. And if the Leafs did, they would find a way to screw the guy up or run him out of town on a rail or something like that. Yeah, we did a great trade of Gilmore

and it did get us to a couple of Final Fours. And Sandin was a fantastic player and that was a great trade. But we've never had that guy, like that top elite guy. We've just never had him. Imagine being in Edmonton and all those top elite guys, and they're still a horrible team. They're an awful team because they didn't mix in enough veterans.

And they didn't ensure that their goaltending, which is the number one most important thing anyway, that they had a solid veteran goalie so that the kids could make mistakes and the goalie would stop them. And that's the thing with jake gardner and morgan riley and is that if your goaltender is james reimer or even jonathan bernier not yet at established number one goalie veteran goalie and by the way they have trouble both of them handling the puck it makes your job that much tougher as a rookie defenseman so that's what you have to take into consideration had gardner and riley had um you know uh i don't even say cory crawford had they had jonathan quick sure or had they had a

lundqvist is their goaltender totally different story you can depend on these guys they're veterans they've been there before but if you're not sure if your goalie can make a simple save or cut an angle down or play the puck you know now you're really under the gun so i think that uh i think that uh edmonton should have had a veteran goaltender so that they could say to Ryan Nugent Hopkins and Yakupov and who else? Eberle. Eberle. Taylor Hall.

Taylor Hall. All these blue chip guys. All these guys. There's more of them too. I'm forgetting some of them. There's tons and tons and tons of them. You've got to mix in some veteran presence. Yeah, you mentioned Ryan Nugent Hopkins.

And I don't want to talk about Edmonton anymore. And that's another thing, too, by the way. On the talk shows, when I listen to the sports, phone-in shows, I'm from here. What do I care about the Edmonton Oilers? What do I care, seriously, about the San Jose Sharks? I'm not from San Jose. I mean, yeah, I like Joe Thornton and all that,

and I think Marleau is a good player, and Logan Couture, to me, is fabulous. But as a team, what do I care about the Sharks? Right. Unless I've got them in my draft or whatever, even then. So when you start talking in Toronto, in Southern Ontario, about teams, you know, oh, let's time for our NFL preview. Let's talk about the St. Louis Rams.

Who cares? I mean, I know that people don't care about the Argonauts, but really, who cares about the St. Louis Rams? And then tomorrow we'll be talking about the Arizona Cardinals. You're right, you're right. This is hometown radio. You talk about the hometown teams. You might want to touch upon a few other issues

that are going on in the leagues that these teams play in, but come on, a 15-minute preview with the voice of the Portland Trail Blazers? Tell us about the Blazers this year. Well, Nicholas Batum's a heck of a player. You're right. What we want is we want hometown stuff. Yeah.

And then give us the big news from elsewhere. Right. You know, like somebody pitched a no-hitter or whatever. Like, then you can go. Right. A big story is not a new assistant coach for the Edmonton Oilers. Who cares? You're absolutely right.

You're right. One last question from the fans. I know I went a tiny bit over time. One last question, then I get a little bit of prediction here. Sure. Of all the people you've interviewed, Yes. who do you see as the one

you could actually have an informal chat with over lunch or dinner and you could actually hang out with as like a buddy? Like, do any kind of fall into that category? I would say Larry Robinson. I was fortunate enough to cover him late, well, not late in his career, I guess. It was early in my career when I worked in Montreal and he, and he came up to me one day

and he said, I listened to your radio show and I think it's great. I'm like, I'm going, you're Larry Robinson in the Montreal, Canadian year. When I was a kid, I was a fan of yours. And I was like 23 or 24 at this point. And, uh, he just, it was a really nice compliment and all that. And then he invited, he was on the disabled list or whatever. He, the team was on the road. He said, do you want to come out and play some shinny with us at Dallard days or more arena? So here I am. I'm like, Larry Robinson invited me out to play shinny. That's amazing. Right. Just to stay in shape kind of a thing. So we had sort of stayed in touch and his son, Jeff became a pretty good goaltender in high school in the Detroit area while I was

working at global. And I went and did a story on Jeff Robinson and ensured that when we were there, that's when I think Larry was playing for either Montreal or LA, but they came into town. So I said, you know what, Larry, can we shoot you playing for the visiting team, hanging out with your son, that kind of a thing. We did a great story on it. Larry Robinson to me is a class guy, right? A respectful guy. He understood the media's role. And he's a very humble guy. I mean, when they when they celebrated and i his 1000th game or something like that i remember him saying i wish they would just drop the puck already it's not about me right i thought that was a real humble thing humility

you know not the type of guy like ricky henderson holding up the stolen base i'm the greatest yeah the opposite low-key team guy it doesn't it's not about me. I really like that about him as a player and then even as a coach. So I could hang with Larry Robinson. Will anybody care about the Pan Am Games next year? I think so. I think once they're upon us, and I think once the obligatory stories about who our Pan Am heroes are going to be and who our top choices are, I think we'll get into it.

Because, admittedly, it was in Scotland, not Toronto, which is a big factor here. But the Commonwealth Games, they came and went. And I mean, I'm a sports fan. And it came and went with nothing. Well, no coverage because, again, CBC had, I guess, a skeleton staff. Was it web only? It could well have been. Yeah, maybe.

And maybe the time change as well. And what else is going on in the world at the time? But I think once it's here and you can reach out and touch it and actually go to the events and see, you know, the... And again, we don't know some of the athletes that are coming yet. But here's the thing. This is my thing. A, you're missing a whole big chunk of the world. So already you're not best against best.

True. That's what the Olympics are and why we love it. Secondly, even though, you know, Jamaica is a part of the Pan Am Games, the fact is we both know and we can't confirm it at this point, but Usain Bolt will likely not run in that 100-meter final. But maybe he'll run in the relays. Yeah, maybe he'll run in the relays.

Exactly. So when you have the marquee guys you do have access to, like the Michael Phelps and the Usain Bolts who are going to opt out because they need to train for something more important to them or whatever. Right. And you're missing, you know,

more than half the world or whatever. To me, you're not best on best. This is, doesn't get, I don't get up for this. Yeah. I want Olympics. Of course you do. So I can wait every four years for the. Well, it's not every, but here's the thing.

It's not every four years. It's every two years. True, true, true. Okay, once the summer Olympics are over, it's two years till the winter Olympics. Yeah, we're not far from's not every four years it's every two years true true okay once the once the summer olympics are over it's two years till the winter yeah we're not far from real it's every two years and in the interim years it's the pan am games the commonwealth games the world cup of soccer so there's always a huge world event that's going to be going on every single year the whole thing here is that this area has never hosted this before that's true not pan am not commonwealth certainly not Olympics, not a World Cup.

What's the biggest event that wasn't a professional, you know, a great cup or whatever? I don't know. Can you tell me? Have we ever had any event like that? I remember Jonathan Bailey was doing 150 meter dash. Oh, the Michael Johnson? Yeah. I know.

That's a one-off. I'm really reaching here. Again, that's a one-off. I'm really reaching here. Again, that's a one-off. World Junior Hockey Championships? No. How about the 87 Canada Cup? That's probably the closest where for four or five or six days, you had that thing.

But that's unlike this. So I think you got to sort of wait for it to unfold and see what you're introduced to. And maybe, just maybe, there's a story of a young Canadian or maybe not from Canada that's setting records or doing whatever you go. You know what? Let's go see them run or, or swim or dive or whatever it is,

or play soccer. And in the meantime, I get some new bike paths out of this. You're darn right you do. So here you go. You should see the bike lane they're building on Cannon street in Hamilton. Okay.

One end of the city to the other. That's right. That's fabulous. I'm jealous. Really nice. But I do. And I love the two. I like the fact that it's a two way bike lane they're building on Cannon Street in Hamilton. From one end of the city to the other. Right down. Fabulous. I'm jealous. Really nice. I like the fact that it's a two-way bike lane. You go both directions in the same bike lane. I think that's cool. It is separated, which is what we need more. Separated bike lanes.

You don't have just a paint line. They're pylons. Those tall pylons. I think that's great. I think the Pan Am Games is responsible for what I see happening at Queens, Key, and Young. Oh, yeah. So that area right now, it sucks for biking because you have to detour because they're working on it. But when that's done, the fact that I can follow the Martin Goodman Trail and have a proper bike trail from here to Tommy Thompson Park or whatever. If I can get that out of the Pan Am Games,

then I'm fine. See, here's the thing. We're very impatient people. We're impatient, especially when we're sitting in rush hour traffic all the time. And now you're telling me the Gardner's going to be closed?

God damn it for the Pan Am. What the hell are the Pan Am Games? And that's the attitude, right? There's a big city. There's a Jays game going on. There's a Raptors game. And they've closed the Gardner. And what the hell are the Pan Am? And TFC have a match against them. And TFC. Oh, I did that one time. There was a Jays game going on. There's a Raptors game and they've closed the garden and what the hell

are the bad guys? And TFC have a match against the... And TFC, oh, I did that one time. There was a concert, a game, TFC,

and I remember trying to go home on the lakeshore in the garden and going, oh my God, why didn't I think of this in advance? You'd be better off kayaking.

It's true. Which you should consider. It's true. But this, the big city thing is, look, this is a big city. NHL,

NBA, right? CFL, not as much. And Major League major league baseball right uh we might get the nfl we might not get the nfl and now you're telling me we're going to get the what games the pan-american games so for a big city like toronto it's like this is it's minor leagues it's beneath us which is what we think of the argos beneath us that's another story right there too there we We need another hour for that one. How long can you prop this, not just the team, but the whole league is being propped up? And I remember the days where I could name all the players on the Ottawa Rough Riders or the Argos because they stuck around for a few years.

They actually had the semblance of a team for more than one year. And now it's like, okay, the NFL cuts come in August. We're going to add these players. players we're gonna drop these guys in and now you look at the argos or the tycats or whatever and go okay where are they playing on labor day are they playing on labor day will the stadium be ready and who are these guys who made the decision not to play on labor day that time or well oh yeah that was just wrong and see the other thing too is that the way the cfl schedule is is that after a bye week you play two games in five days yeah that's right you know stuff like that but the worst my biggest pet peeve if i can mention it for the 35th year in a row why doesn't the cfl schedule games during

baseball's all-star break when there's nothing on television the u.s networks will go football and why don't they schedule two great games right one at least one on the wednesday the day after the baseball all-star game all right and then for sure on the Thursday, which they sometimes have. But why not on the Monday? Why not extend the previous week? You're right. Those are like the only two days of the year. Why not extend the previous week and say there's nothing going on in baseball,

the home run derby, who cares? CFL game. It's true. And then two nights later on the Wednesday, CFL game. Then at least for two nights, everyone will be talking about the Canadian Football League, which is two nights more than they are now. Well, you should be the commissioner. No.

There's an opening. You couldn't pay me enough should be the commissioner. No! There's an opening. You couldn't pay me enough to be the commissioner of that league. Not a chance. Not a chance. I like what I'm doing. Final predictions real quick here. So it's safe to say, I believe I read we had like a 1% chance. I think the Blue Jays have a 1% chance

of making the playoffs this year. Yeah. We were like I think it was six games. Could have been six and a half, but early June we were. June the 6th. Is that it? There were six games in front in the American League East and they were,

I believe, 14 games above 500, 12 or 14 games. Yeah, it was, yeah, and it all fell very, fell apart very quickly.

And it's an epic collapse. You can blame all you want with the injuries or whatever. Epic. It's an epic collapse when you're playing that well, right? And you fall off.

I hate to say it, 18-wheeler going off a cliff. Yeah. But this will be, trust me, a much bigger collapse than the Leafs blowing a three-goal lead in the third period of Game 7 in Round 1 of the playoffs. I know it was heartbreaking for people. You know what it is? It's the nature of the sport. Like, baseball is so slow-moving and, you know, it's 162 games. It's so slow-moving.

I think no Toronto fan will see it that way. But I do see your point, absolutely. You know, I think on a day-to-day basis, when you look too far ahead, oh, they've got to win 25 of their next 42. I never can think that way. I don't think that way. That's like saying, when you wake up in the morning, okay, for the next 42 mornings you're going to wake up, 25 of them, okay,

you're going to have to do this, right? You're going to have to, whatever it is. Right. I can't think past tomorrow. It's true. And you're telling me this is what's going to happen in the night. I don't know. So that idea of 1%.

I mean, really, do you think there's really a 1% chance? No, there's no chance. There's no chance. There's no chance. But the stats geeks, the analytics people, will tell you, right? That for this to happen... Wilner will probably say that on Jay's talk tonight.

There's still a chance. It's like that dumb and dumber line, right? So you're saying there's a chance. You never want to give up. You never want to give up. It's possible that all the other Major League teams will die in a plane crash. Or catch a communicable disease. And then you'll back in on the last day. It's true.

But it's unlikely. It's true. So do you have any thoughts on, are the Jays going to be competitive next year? Do you have a... Wow. Well, here's the thing. They've got to sign Melky Cabrera.

Jose Bautista could opt out of his contract. They need a second baseman. Badly. We need pitching, right? The pitching thing... Because Burley and Dickey, in need pitching, right? The pitching thing, I can... Because Burley and Dickey, in my opinion, they pitch like I pitch. I think I can pitch.

Burley, I watch him pitch. He throws like I think I could throw. Well, here's the thing. You want to have a number one stud on your roster. You don't in your pitching staff. You want to have a good number two. You don't have that. Burley and Dickey are both threes,

as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. Right? Hutchison and Happ are fours, and maybe a five halfs of five stroman and sanchez if they turn sanchez into a starter yeah are your projected one and two but when 2015 2017 so that's the hardest thing you've certainly got pitching talent definitely but i have to tell you something i mean burley i don't see him getting better he's a 500 pitcher he's an old fat guy right and he makes 19 million a year that's another thing too um my kind of stuff my biggest concern is jose reyes who makes a ton of money also and bautista i don't like the

attitude i don't like this um yeah we're we're good and we're you know we'll be okay swinging at the first pitch and stuff like they're not disciplined. And I blame the management for that. If I'm John Gibbons and I say, look, Jose, do not swing at the first pitch on this guy. Do what you do. Work the count, make them pitch to you. Don't swing at the first bit. And the other thing with Jose is he doesn't advance runners. And I know that he's a power hitter and all that, but if you've got a guy on second base and you're not a bunter, and that's fine, go to right field.

Hit it to the right side. Give yourself up. But if you hit a fly ball to center field, you're not advancing the runner. You're not helping the team's cause. With Jose, I've heard this too many times. He tries to carry the whole team on his shoulders. At some point, someone's got to say to him,

stop it. Stop carrying the team on your shoulders. It's a team effort. Stop being so selfish by arguing balls and strikes right stop it okay when you get kicked out of a game and that game may come back to haunt you maybe not this year right but at the end of the year someone looks back and says you know what if bautista doesn't get thrown out of the game for arguing balls and strikes in the sixth inning and his replacement who's now a member of the arizona

diamondbacks nolan rimold, picked up on waivers, doesn't drop a fly ball and strike out with runners in scoring position, that's on you, Jose. And Reyes, the other thing with Reyes is some days he looks great, and other days he looks so lackadaisical, like, I think I'll just swing at the first pitch and get out of here. He said he was going to steal 50 bases this year.

I don't see that. He's, I don't know, I'm not sure I like the attitude. He's got a great smile, though. He does have a fabulous smile. And the hair, not going to say anything about that. I would move Reyes to second base, though, and go find myself a great defensive shortstop. Interesting.

That's what I would do. And I'd keep, I don't know why they talk about moving him, but I'd keep Laurie at third base. Oh, of course. Amazing third baseman. Absolutely. Leave him at third base and hope that he can get an entire season without getting injured.

Yeah, good luck to that. That's right. Without getting injured. And beyond that, I think Navarro's been a nice surprise this year. But the core of my team, I think you might have to blow up the core of this team after next year.

You might have one more run in you with Stroman and Sanchez being more advanced for next season. You need a second baseman. And maybe, just maybe, they all put it together. Maybe Laurie and Carnacion, if they sign Melky, Reyes, Bautista, Lind, Navarro, maybe you've got what it takes. Maybe that's it.

Your bench has got to be stronger. And I don't know what you're going to do with Casey Jansen because he's done. He's done. I don't like to hear that. Yeah, he's done. I look at Sanchez and I say, wow, there's a stopper for you. There's a guy I'd like to have in there available for every game. Not once every five days.

I'd like to have Aaron Sanchez in the pen. Give me the ball. Would you keep Gibbons at the helm? No, no. But they shouldn't have hired him back anyways, right? That's right, they shouldn't. And he's too nice of a guy. But also, the team doesn't do well with the fundamentals.

And that's on the manager and his coaching staff. That is strictly on the manager and coaching staff. Fundamentals. And the Jays are not a good fundamental baseball team. They don't throw to the correct base all the time. Their base running is abysmal a lot of times. They're not aware out there. And simple things, laying down a bunt, advancing a runner,

especially when you're playing on artificial turf, different kind of a game. And if you're dependent on the home run and you're the manager saying, ah, we'll hit, we'll hit more homers than they will. We'll win more games. Not lately.

No, they're not a home run team and it exposes their weaknesses. They can't play station to station baseball. Mark. I used to love you so much. Thanks very much for doing this. It's been an absolute pleasure to sit down and chat with you. We went a little overtime,

so you can... So what are the sponsors going to say about that? You can bill me a little extra for that overtime, if you like. And that brings us to the end of our 89th show. You can follow me on Twitter

at Toronto Mike and Mark Hebbshire at Hebseman. H-E- Y M A N. See you all next week.