Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Michael Farber: Toronto Mike'd #905

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

Mike chats with Michael Farber about his New Jersey roots, his years at the Montreal Gazette, the move to Sports Illustrated, his 18 Olympics, working on The Reporters and more.

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Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. And Mike Majeski, or as I call him, Mimico Mike. He's the real estate agent who's ripping up the Mimico real estate scene. Learn more at realestatelove.ca I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week making his Toronto Mike debut Michael Farber welcome Michael well I'm glad we could finally do this let me ask you the same opening question I asked Michael Landsberg, because I've always been very curious. I was a Michael when I was young, and at some point when I realized I had a little bit of control over what I was called, I quickly switched to Mike. I always felt like more of a Mike than a Michael.

Does anyone call you Mike, or does everybody call you Michael? Oh, yeah. Everybody calls me Mike. Professionally, Michael. Other people call me Michael. My change came early in my newspaper career in Binghamton when I had been Mike. Right. And I'd call people on the phone.

I'd say, it's Mike Farber from the Sun Bulletin. They'd say, hi, Mark. Oh. And so shortly after that, I was working at the Bergen Record in Hackensack, New Jersey. I decided to change the byline from Mike to Michael. So since that would be 1975, professionally, I'm Michael. But Mike, Michael, I answer to pretty much everything. So if Dave Hodge rings you up later today to check in on you, he calls you Mike?

Yeah. Okay, cool. No, that's... Yeah, or Michael. I don't know. Either or. Landsberg, for what it's worth, told me Mike was the guy who fixes his car. Ah. Which I, there's many reasons why I didn't particularly love that. But you can never tell with Landsberg if he's doing his. Well, if I'm calling to make a reservation, they say, and your name?

I say Mike. Gotcha. Okay, so Mike, from one Mike to to another glad to finally get you on. Uh, I'll jog your memory a little bit and then later in this program, we'll get back to the, uh, the reporters,

but, uh, we have met before. Yes. So I was, uh, lucky enough to attend your, uh,

live performance, if you will, of the reporters. It was you, uh, you, Dave Hodge, who was there, Bruce Arthur and Steve Simmons, and special guest Mimico Boy, speaking of Mimico, Brendan Shanahan.

And I got to kind of sneak backstage just to say hi, and there you were. So I'm sure that was a highlight of your esteemed career. Well, actually, that night was among my favorites because it was a way to close the reporters. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye properly to that show. I left it at the end of June of that year, or they left me, and the show carried on for what was seven more episodes without,

essentially in the TSN radio studio. And I think this was cost cutting. Of course, you know, you're Toronto Mike, I'm Montreal Mike. Right. And I was a little more costly to them because they had to fly me in every week. So there was, I think it was a cost saving move. And it went on for seven weeks. And then Dave said, no, I'm done. And that was the end of the reporters. We had talked about doing this on campuses, doing live shows on college campuses, especially in and around Toronto or certainly in Ontario,

and nothing ever came of that. And the Paradise was reopening, Paradise Theatre in Toronto, and it just seemed like a great opportunity. And we didn't know what would come of it. We didn't know how many tickets we would sell. And it was important to me to do it because uh i needed closure on the reporters it was great fun you know working with those guys also damian cox who preceded bruce i started the first two years

as a fill-in when they needed somebody ste Stephen Brunt was on the show after Stephen left. You know, I became the regular. So I was on a regular for 13 years. And before that, it was a big part of my life. And I'm glad I had a chance to say goodbye that night. Great night and great venue. Classy. I don't know.

I think I underdressed for that one. But when I saw you guys backstage and you're, you know, those are called dress shirts. What do we call those? I don't know. And it looked like they had seen an ironing board and everything, but fantastic. And now we're going to get back to the, to the reporters obviously, but you mentioned Jersey. You're, you're a Jersey boy. Yeah. Yeah. I was born in New Jersey.

Grew up there mostly. Went to university there. Basically the first, with some stops in other places, I was there until my late 20s, yeah. And that university, of course, that's Rutgers. Rutgers, State University of New Jersey with that faux Ivy League name. People say, oh, an Ivy League school.

And I'm saying, no, not really. But I had a great time there. They fooled me, I'll tell you right now. That marketing worked on me. And tell me, I'm always curious. This movie did not age well but a young mike uh enjoyed revenge of the nerds it doesn't hold up there's for many reasons but uh that's where i kind of learned about american fraternities like i had no idea what these were but you'd be like there's phi alpha they all these greek

alphabets and everything but you were a member of a Phi Beta Kappa society? Well, that's not a fraternity. That's an academic honor because I was smart then. I've grown progressively dumber during the years, but yeah, I was a pretty good student. Honestly, with a name like that, I just assumed there were these toga parties and keggers like i had this whole animal house he because uh you're a smart kid oh that's okay my apologies but it feels like that would be a mike thing i think it would be mike thing to be uh at the fraternity but michael was sort of a member of this uh esteemed society at rutgers and that was mike that was mike i was i was a member of this esteemed society at Rutgers. That was Mike. That was Mike.

I was a solid Mike then, yeah. Fantastic. And I always heard the accent, but I hadn't dug deep into find out that you were through and through. You know, is it a sub shop called Jersey Mike's? Is there a sub shop? There is. I'm not even sure it originates from New Jersey, but it depends on what part of the states you're from

because there's subs, also known as hoagies. Right. Right? In Rhode Island, and I spent three years in Rhode Island, in Providence, they were called grinders. And it's all basically the same thing. There's an Adam Sandler song, Lunch Lady Land, I think it's all basically the same thing yeah there's an adam sandler song uh lunch lady land or something i think it's called but you know hoagies and grinders hoagies and grinders this is like the

refrain and that's kind of when i found out oh that's what a hoagie and a grinder is very interesting world out there man i only know the jersey mike's thing because i i've been toronto mike for decades and every once in a while i'll while, I'll come across the logo Jersey Mike, and then I have to go in and see who had it first. And they had it way before I was born. So they get the hat tip there. Well, Jersey was a happening place when I was growing up. It was a car-based culture.

You know, that was what? The most important thing was getting your driver's license. I mean, that's pretty much what you obsessed about. And when you're going to get your license and you started taking your driver's ed and what have you. So back when I was at Rutgers, Bruce Springsteen played at the college, played in the basement of a dormitory. I mean, this is what, he was a shore band. Wow. And I think it cost a buck at the time, but, you know, it was a cool place.

It was torn by two ends. You had New York, my influence, and you had Philadelphia for South Jersey kids and I was a North Jersey kid but it was it was the kind of university where okay let's get through this and let's get to work it wasn't wasn't a real fancy place did you say you would you attended that Springsteen concert or it just sort of happened around you but were you there? I did not see that concert. Okay, because Simmons I think would lose his you know what I think

if you were at the show. It's Brad Fay by the way you've probably maybe come across a few but Brad Fay who tells me that he's seen Springsteen live a hundred times. Yeah, I think I've seen him twice. You know, I like the music. You know, we actually saw, my wife and I, we saw Little Steven when he was in Montreal in

2019, it would have to be, and that was great fun. But if you watch The Sopranos, I mean, it took me two years before I figured out it wasn't a documentary. These are the kids I grew up with in grade school, you know, Christopher DiSarno, you know, and, you know, these guys. I mean, the town I grew up in, Bayonne, big Italian population, big Polish population. It was a great melting pot.

And of course, the late, great James Gandolfini is a Rutgers guy. Yeah, yeah, he was indeed, yeah. And that's the kind of people Rutgers produced. I mean, you could, you know, these were Jersey kids. Amazing. So what brings you to this, what brings you to Montreal? Well, my wife brought me to Montreal. And I met her while I was covering the Yankees in spring training in 1978. And I met her in Fort Lauderdale.

And, you know, she came, spent a little time in North Jersey where I was working. She came and spent a little time in North Jersey where I was working, and it just seemed to work better if I tried to get a job in Montreal. And that was not easy. I mean, getting the job was relatively easy. I applied to the Montreal Gazette, and they seemed eager to have me. But getting in the country took six months going through immigration, and this would have been the winter of 78, 79. So I viewed sports writing as an itinerant profession, which is an odd notion, I think, to some Canadians

who tend to stay in the place where they grew up or close to it. In the United States, there's much more of a wanderlust. And I worked in Binghamton. I still worked in Jersey after that. But yeah, okay, it's a job writing sports. And so let me do it in Montreal. And I was lucky enough to get a job in Montreal. I'm lucky enough that Lloyd Axworthy,

who was the minister of immigration at the time, decided to let me in. It's interesting. We got you that way. Thanks to your wife there, because so many, so many journalists in this country or artists I, I,

I encounter who are American. They came up to avoid the Vietnam draft. Like that seems to be the, the, one of the primary sources in the 70s. I mean, that's something that actually shaped us all. I mean, you can remember your draft lottery number. I had a low number. In fact, a dear friend of mine in Seattle,

there were four of us very close in high school, he could rattle off all our four draft lottery numbers. And this was, you know, I could have been drafted, I was actually eligible for the draft for one day, because the Selective Service Act expired on June 1st, 1973, and my student deferment, 2S, expired May 30th, 1973. So, in theory, I could have been drafted on May 31st, 1973, and I wasn't. But I came to Canada six years after that. And so your wife, I take it your wife is from Montreal, and this is her? But I came to Canada six years after that. And so your wife, I take it your wife is from Montreal. And this is her?

Yeah, she's a Montrealer. Cool. Now, the Montreal Gazette. So you were there 15 years. And I'm hoping you'll tell me a whole bunch of stories. But one tweet I saw from you, I think it was yesterday, if not yesterday, the day before yesterday. You wrote, Red Fisher, born 95 years ago today. And you wrote, Red liked scalding soup,

corner hotel rooms, shivas, and lesser known fact here, country music. Yeah. Tell us everything you can, if you don't mind. Tell us about working with and knowing Red Fisher. Well, Red was at the Star, and that folded in late September of 79. And so he came over to the Gazette towards the end of that year, and he was my boss.

And Red certainly had ideas about how things should go. I thought he was a great boss. I thought he had a good understanding of people. He had his peculiarities, but my goodness, Mike, don't we all? And I got to know him very well. And later on, I'd gone to Sports Illustrated at this point. Every summer, we'd go out, two couples, Red and his wife and me and my wife, and we'd have great dinners. Red, he was the chronicler and the conscience of hockey in the city. And I'm trying to think of the Toronto equivalent. And maybe Frank Orr might have been the closest.

Maybe you would have another thought. Like Milt Donnell, maybe? No. Oh, sorry. No, the Zoom. Yeah. Okay, missed you. Yeah, no. You know, Milt, who I got to know mostly, you know, because he would be at the big fights and I was doing some of the big fights. Yeah, there was some of that. I know Red had great admiration for Milt Donald.

I mean, red pretty much defined the Canadians. And this is at a time when the Canadians were the Canadians. They were an important team, something that Mordecai Richler in 1975 described as a spiritual necessity. And I don't think of all the millions of words spilled on the Montreal Canadiens and their heritage, I don't think there's been a more accurate phrase than that. Wow. And when you say you like country music, are we talking like George Jones? Is that like that kind of? I don't know. I'm not a country music guy. And, you know, Red later on, I mean, he was in his 70s at this point.

And, you know, I was still at the cassette. And we'd go to a Stanley Cup final. And Red would be in the gym on the exercise bike with a walkman. And he'd have the sneakers and he'd wear black socks with the sneakers, which I found off-putting. And he'd have the Walkman on, and he'd be listening to some country music or other, and I'm thinking, hmm, that's odd.

But there's a story someone told me that he called the radio station, the private number there. He knew the guy on the air because they had played as an intro. I guess it's the Eagles or Don Henley's the age of the innocence. Yeah. Don Henley solo.

Yes. Yeah. And Red said, that's a great song. What is it? So I would guess it would be lighter country. Right. Right.

Like, yes, for sure. If it's, if it's Don Henley and the Eagles, that's like a country rock kind of right but i guess he listened you know other stuff there's a country music station montreal red was a listener who knew okay that's the fun facts i love fantastic now i need to ask

you uh i want to ask you about the expos but i'm gonna let brian brian is uh he lives in toronto now but he's from montreal Yeah. Big fan of the show. Big fan of yours. And he writes, has there ever been a more cursed franchise, Michael? Latest on the return of the Expos. Tampa attendance beyond embarrassing for a first place team if they relocate. This is a hashtag in French. No amour.

I probably butchered that. No amour. No amour. Our loves. Okay. I should know this. I. No amour. No amour, our loves. Okay, I should know this. I have grade nine French. What's wrong with me? But please, let's talk about the Expos. So what was it like covering the Expos from 79 to 94 for the Montreal Gazette? I'm going to go back to Brian's question. Has there ever been a more cursed franchise? And I've thought about this a lot. Yes lot yes please and it strikes me that there are very few franchises in sports where the signature moment in this case rick monday's home run

was something done to it rather than the team did to another team a defeat rather than a victory i mean toronto has Joe Carter, right? Right. Montreal, yeah, there's Dennis Martinez's perfect game, but come on. We're talking about the moment people flash back to. So the only other franchise, and you might think of others, is the Buffalo Bills. Right, wide right.

Wide right. All the other great stuff that happened with Buffalo and Jim Kelly and Bruce Smith and all the great players there. Buffalo Bills wide right. Montreal Expos blew on Monday. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, cursed, perhaps, 94. This is a team that could have, maybe should have won the World Series that year, and there's a strike. So I see that. It was great fun covering the Expos, to get to your second question, because the Olympic Stadium, much maligned, was a great place for it. People had a wonderful time there. was a great place for it. People had a wonderful time there.

You'd walk in via the subway, the metro here, and there'd be an oompa band playing. Who has an oompa band? Well, they had one. So it was distinctive. And on the scoreboard, you had the tricolor hats, right? Distinctive. You had scoreboard chickens.

And let me explain that. When an opposing pitcher threw over to first base, a chicken would appear. It's this poorly drawn chicken. And people loved that. In fact, there was a Cardinals pitcher who would just throw over to first base constantly because he loved seeing the scoreboard chickens. And it was fun.

And they were playing baseball the way the Canadians of the 70s played hockey. It was fire wagon baseball. It's baseball that fans in the 2020s don't see. It was based on speed. It was based on daring. It wasn't based on the home run. And it was so on daring. It wasn't based on the home run. And it was so much fun. And this coincides, Mike, at a time when the Canadians were down relatively.

They'd won their last cup in 79, and that's the same year later that summer where the Expos blossomed and lack of a roof on the Olympic Stadium did them in because double-headers built up. Right. Great point there. You're right. Cause I, I know they went in an 86, but yeah, there's like a seven year, they took a pause. I'm from Toronto. Okay. Our pauses are a little longer than that. I've noticed. Shout out to Brendan Shanahan who by the way, went to my high school.

So there's my connection to Brendan Shanahan and he was, we'll get back get back we're gonna get back to the reporters but i i will say uh because that's actually that in fact i should tell the listenership right now you can hear when we refer to this live reporters event at the paradise uh you can hear it in its entirety in the toronto mic feed uh so if you're subscribed to this very podcast you're listening to right now, there is the entire episode waiting for you. And Shanahan was fantastic that night. I just want to say he was really funny and charming and had great stories. Yeah, he has a great sense of narrative.

And I'll tell you a Brendan Shanahan story. I was doing a piece on him for Sports Illustrated. And during the piece, the process of reporting and editing, he gets traded from Hartford, Detroit. So now I've got to go back and see him in, I guess the wings were in Chicago. So we're talking in the dressing room in Chicago. And one of the things that Brendan had done when he was in New Jersey during the summer, he had gone to Montclair State University and taken a course in Shakespeare.

Wow, right. gone to Montclair State University and taken a course in Shakespeare. Wow, right. And he breaks into the bottom speech in the fifth and final act of, oh my goodness, Midsummer Night's Dream. And it's quite, if you're familiar with the play, and I hope some of your listeners are. It's very funny. And the bottom says, Alack, Alack, Alack.

It's comedy. And he's reciting the speech, and I'm thinking about it. And I said, the only time I've ever heard anyone talk about Alack, Alack, Alack with the Detroit Red Wings is a lack of heart, a lack of goaltending. So, you know, he was, he understood stories. And we have to look at storytelling, Mike, as it's been described as the primal imaginative act. It's how we communicate and it's been that way since cave dwellings and brendan shanahan understood that and could tell stories absolutely and maybe one day he'll deliver a stanley cup to my toronto with my i believe so don't hold your breath though michael uh brian

no so i got the brian question but craig morton uh who is not Brian, Craig says, he wants me to ask you, did the Expos brain trust think the 1994 season would resume? And if not, did they quietly lobby for a settlement given how devastating it would be for the franchise and for the franchise for the season to be canceled? Like, let's revisit that. I know you referenced it quickly, but that was the, if I remember correctly, and this was, you know,

the Jays had just won back-to-back. And then in 94, it looked like Yankees and Expos. It looked like some kind of predestined thing before it all shut down. But what do you say to Craig's? I have no proprietary knowledge of that. I had left the Gazette at the end of 93 and gone to Sports Illustrated. So I wasn't around the comings and goings of Montreal baseball at that point on a daily basis. So I know when you look at, I guess I was in spring training that year for Sports Illustrated.

And Atlanta was a really good team, great pitchers. And they trained together in West Palm Beach. And being around the Braves then, they knew the Expos were a better team. then they knew the Expos were a better team. They understood that, that they had been, the Expos said, this was their moment. There was a sense of that. So did they lobby?

You know, that was going to happen anyway. And the timing was horrible. And if you want to look at moments that led up to the franchise's demise, I think you can go to Blue Monday and the trades they made the following year that kind of changed the fabric of the team. There was a doubleheader that they ended up losing to the Phillies in 83, which was the last hurrah when they could have tied them if they'd swept that doubleheader, as I recall. And there was a strike here because at that point, they just couldn't continue.

You know, there were issues with the stadium. I think a lot of those were self-created or promoted. Oh, we can't possibly play here when Montrealers seemed happy enough to go there. And then they started selling off pieces, and it's basically the endgame. I like this question from Diamond Dog. He says, did Michael ever have pancakes with Bill Lee?

No, I never had pancakes with Bill Lee. The interesting thing about that story is I think Bill was fined $250 for marijuana. And if memory serves, he sent him a check for $251 And if memory serves, he sent him a check for $251 just to mess with Major League Baseball. Do you have any Bill Lee stories just to share, especially the younger folk who don't remember Bill Lee? Well, Bill was a man of great conviction. And then back when I was covering the Yankees in the late 70s for the paper in New Jersey, I was completely enamored with Bill. Counterculture guy, there was a big brawl, Red Sox-Yankees, Greg Nettles dumped him on his shoulder during this brawl.

And Nettles was one of the guys in the Yankees I really liked as well. But Bill staged a walkout when the Expos got rid of Rodney Scott, who had been a second baseman and a friend to Bill's, and just left during the game and went to a bar and had a drink, and the Expos got rid of Bill as well. you know, went to a bar, had a drink, and the Expos got rid of Bill as well. And this had happened to some degree earlier in Boston.

There was a player named Bernie Carbo, an outfielder. And if you know Bernie Carbo's name at all, he played a big role for Boston in the 1975 World Series when Carlton Fisk was doing this. And Bill had staged a similar kind of thing the 1975 World Series when Carlton Fisk was doing this. And Bill had staged a similar kind of thing with the Red Sox and Bill Lee and Don Zimmer, the manager, were absolutely

loggerheads. And so I tried to get a hold of Bernie Carbo after the Bill Lee thing. He was playing somewhere in Mexico. And we had a telephone operator at the Gazette who spoke Spanish. I did not and do not. And she kept leaving messages for him and couldn't get him.

And so finally I called Bernie Carbo's mom somehow, wondering if she had a number. And she says, well, why do you want to talk to Bernie? And I explained the situation, you know, Rodney Stott, similar to Bernie Carbo. And she said, yeah, you know, Bernie always told Bill to mind his own business. So, you know, that's a Bill Lee story.

business. So, you know, that, that's a Bill Lee story. I see here, uh, cause the live Facebook, uh, Brian chimes in to say that Bill still pitches and he's in his seventies. He still pitches. He's a marvel. He shows up and, uh, you know, a really smart, funny guy. Very, very engaging. When the Expos acquired him, and this would have been in the winter of 78, 79, I happened to be in Boston, and outside of the place where I was holed up for a little while,

there was graffiti on the wall that said, Who is Stan Pappy? graffiti on the wall that said, who is Stan Pappy? Stan Pappy was the player that the Expos traded to Boston to acquire Bill Lee. So it was a graffiti moment in Boston. Amazing. I like this question.

Now, of course, I could get you to Sports Illustrated and ask it, but I'm going to ask it now and then we'll get you to Sports Illustrated. But Roderick would love it if you could compare and contrast the Canadian sports culture versus the American sports culture, because you have such a unique perspective on this. And then before you answer that, Morse chimed in when he saw that question on or he or she saw that

question on Twitter. The Canadian American sport culture is a great question for him. Maybe something about the way Canadians broadcast sports as well. There's a lot less bluster and more intelligent. This is Morris talking. More intelligent commentary in Canada, I think. So please, let's hear from you, Michael. Canadian-American sports culture, compare and contrast. Well, I think a good way into that is Dan Shulman,

who is as Canadian as anybody and yet does games seamlessly and does them brilliantly, by the way. He is just an all-timer, in my opinion, and that includes college basketball, but maybe fewer people watch than they do Blue Jays games. But extraordinary. So how is the culture different? I presume the question comes from the recent Olympics,

where there's storytelling going on with NBC that it's hyper-focused on Americans to the exclusion of other good stories. In Canada, and let's not kid ourselves, it is focused on Canadian athletes, but there are demographically going to be fewer of them. And so when Canada wins, I believe, seven gold medals in Tokyo and the U.S. wins however many times that, there are more U.S. stories. I think there's a greater sense of fairness. I saw that the first time I was in Toronto in 1976 and saw some coverage of the games and I thought, this is pretty good. And you were also getting the world feed on the networks that were broadcasting the Olympics. So there seemed to be a greater sense of a world event.

Also, some sports are highly specific to the U.S., especially NFL and college football. So they don't necessarily translate, although everyone seems to be in fantasy leagues now, and maybe they do. So I think this is an important point as well. So much of American sport is based on your school. Rutgers University has a football team that's been spectacularly unsuccessful over the years, and I've gotten to write about it twice in Sports Illustrated.

But here you might be playing for, you know, your town or your AA, your B, you see you're going up through town. You don't have the school loyalty, and you can see it on autumn Saturday afternoons. Everything is based through a school system. So I think that's one important distinction. Now, I do also notice with the Olympic coverage, because I'm a big Olympic fan, so I think 84 was my, and I know that was the boycott year,

but I was too young to really understand what that meant in 84. So Canada definitely punched above its weight, if you will, because we were missing all the Russians and East Germans, etc., etc. But I digress. I always notice Canada, it's important, at least on CBC or whoever has it, CTV, whoever has the coverage, that it be live. Like, it's live. As it happens, you watch it.

Whereas NBC or whatever American network has it, it's typically kind of packaged up and put in prime time, like regardless of whether it happened eight hours ago or not well it's more of a reality show than a sporting event right um you know here's the story and if it's sports you want to see it now and if you were telling stories you were going to tell it to what you hope is the widest audience. So that's how they approach it. And, you know, it has worked.

Ratings were down, but still people watch. There's also a sense that more women watch the Olympics. that more women watch the Olympics, and they may not be as familiar. Whether that's true or not, this is the thinking of NBC Sports, which, by the way, their Olympic unit was run by a woman. So perhaps that influences the way they go about their business. Interesting. Uh,

and before we leave, uh, the Gazette here, uh, cause I, I'm curious what this is about. Cause Tim Phelan, I hope I said that right.

Tim Phelan says, ask him about the years writing the city column. There was a famous case in Montreal involving a cop roughing up a citizen caught on video. Probably the first time ever. My father was the judge. Farber wrote a column about it right before it went to the jury. Dad had no issues with the content of the column, but hated that Farber said,

my dad gave his charge to the jury in his quote unquote careful French. Okay. I don't remember the column. Careful French. Yeah. I would probably stand by that phrase because when you speak in a second language, you need to be very aware and precise. There's a dear friend of mine who's a judge in Montreal who's actually an American, now a Canadian,

who speaks it very well and very precisely. I don't believe it's insulting. I believe that phrase would show respect for another language. Sorry I annoyed, upset Judge Phelan, but yeah, careful French. If I had said poor French or heavily accented French, and again, I don't remember it at all. You called it like you saw it. And I know Tim did put a... I think that's very respectful.

So there you go. And Tim did put a smiley face emoji at the end of this. So there's no hard feelings at all here. But now that he brought up City Column, Brian, who is my official Michael Farber investigative reporter, he says that you commented that you were very disappointed in your five years writing it. Can you just tell us what exactly, for us Toronto people,

what was the City Column and why were you disappointed with it? I think I did it poorly and I think the reason, one of the reasons I did it poorly was my French at the time was rudimentary, and it's tough to do a city column just based on Anglos or have to fight through with the second language. My French was not careful. It was poor. I did this from, the other reason I think it was not a good city column was I had to write five days a week. And the difference, Mike, is when you're writing a sports column, you might go to an event.

Blue Jays are playing at 7.07 tonight. We go down to Sky Dome or whatever it's called now. And you write your column on whatever transpires. Well, life is not scheduled. And this wasn't a courts column. It wasn't a cop column. It was all over the map. And it was an absolute grind.

And our first child was born during this. And I wrote this from September of 84 until February of 88. And essentially, I thought about it constantly, daily, and I had no life. And there were probably a dozen things that I would be really proud of today during that time. And a lot of it was junk. Why do you end up at Sports Illustrated? How did that come to be? Excuse me. SI offered me a job in 89.

And for various reasons, I decided not to take it. And then they said, well, can you do some freelance for us? And I did a piece on why baseball players didn't want to play in Montreal and why hockey players didn't want to play in Quebec City, and they liked that. And then SI Canada popped up for a few years, and so they'd get me to write freelance pieces for them, and they seemed to like the pieces.

me to write freelance pieces for them. They seemed to like the pieces. And in 1993, they offered me a job again. And this time, stuff was going on in my life. And I said, now's the time to work a different kind of schedule because writing a newspaper column, or at least the way I went about writing it, certainly during the playoffs in 93, the Canadians won the cup. I was writing early. I was writing subbing columns. I was working myself into ill health. And at the time, pre-internet,

I decided that the thought of writing 20 magazine stories or 25 or even 30 in a year was better than writing 30 columns in a month. So it makes sense to me. So you took your talents to Sports Illustrated, to paraphrase. It was a great place and it remains a great place, but it was a great place because the editors were so sharp. If you ever had a disagreement, it was never because you were right and he or she was wrong. It was because you were having a professional disagreement. And this is what happens. And I respected them. And, you know you were they

wanted the best story and that's what you would pursue and uh it was a fantastic place to work at that time is there a particular uh story you wrote for sportsrated that you're most proud of, looking back? No. I can't think of one. There were some that I enjoyed, including the one about my goodness, Pseudoephedrine,

the Hockey's Little Helpers, Pseudofed. And this was right before the Olympics in 1998, in which NHL players were going to play for the first time. And the fact that Pseudofed was a thing, and they couldn't be allowed to use that during the games. And that kind of stirred the pot. A story that pained me, and there's a Toronto connection because I wrote it during the 2000 All-Star game that weekend, was Kevin Stevens.

And the problems that Kevin Stevens, who's a very popular, very talented left winger had. And he'd been arrested in East St. Louis, Illinois, with crack cocaine. You know, it's not a favorite story, but it was a memorable story. So yeah, lots of stories I enjoyed doing, even after I left the magazine full time, you know, I decided I just couldn't go to Detroit for another, you know, the red hot wings story. I did one on the Bruins Canadians rivalry.

And, and that was a fun story to do based on the too many men penalty in 1979. So, you know, you can see my short-term memory is horrible, but long-term stuff, Mike, I'm not bad at. The short-term doesn't sound too bad either. Now here's a crystal ball question, so you can't get this wrong because you really probably don't have a crystal ball with you there. But does Quebec City get an NHL team and does Montreal get a baseball team again? I don't see how Quebec City fits other than the terrific new building,

relatively new building, the Videotron Center. It's nice to have it as a safety net from the NHL's perspective. The Quebec-Montreal rivalry was extraordinary, scary at times. It had a whole other layer than, for example, Edmonton-Calgary in the 80s. There was a sense of tribalism that is tough to explain if you don't live in Quebec. So possibly, but Hamilton once had a shiny new building too. And, you know, that was never happening.

That was never happening. I once had an NHL Board of Governors person tell me, how do I put on my marquee tonight? Hamilton versus his team. It doesn't mean anything to people. Quebec City would mean a little bit more. But you would have, in terms of population, a second Winnipeg. I'm not sure they want to do that. Baseball in Montreal. I think the notion of sharing the franchise with Tampa Bay is loopy. That doesn't mean it isn't being pursued. But I think there's 2028, I believe, is when the

lease expires in St. Petersburg. And if you and I are still around, maybe we can go sit and watch a game and have a beer. Sounds amazing. Viraj Dave would like me to ask you, what do you think is the greatest sports city, excuse me, from a success and cultural point of view in Canada? And then the same question for the entire planet Earth, greatest sports city from a success and cultural point of view? Well, I would say Edmonton is the best sports town in Canada, from my experience, because they are the most supportive.

They'll support anything. You throw the World Track and Field Championships in Edmonton, they're there. There's a great sense of pride in the city and teams and they go ahead and they support. In terms of hockey, the most passionate fans are Winnipeg. The smartest fans are Winnipeg, I believe. Great, great fans. They know what they're looking at. This is not the Chablis crowd that you get sometimes in other larger Canadian cities that I won't mention. But the kind of deepest, darkest are in Vancouver.

You know, that's the kind of fan that you would just kind of cross the street if you were walking at night. Oh, Canucks fans. No, that's a metaphor. I could see that. Yeah. But Quebec City had great hockey fans as well. They didn't only know the Nordiques.

They knew the entire league and could talk about it with great insight. You know, Montreal is known as a hockey city. That's not true. It's a Canadian city. Well, that's what they say about Toronto, right? Yeah. Like it's not a hockey city. It's a Leafs city because these OHL teams always seem to need to relocate out of the core to be successful because no one supports them.

But what about the globe? So is there a city in the world you can point to and say from a success and cultural point of view that is the greatest sports city in the world you know I've been around been lucky enough to cover 18 Olympics but it's it's tough to say I wouldn't hazard a guess I the hazard guess. The most passionate fans that I have run into are Latvian hockey fans who are just

country of two million. They show up in Turin in the Olympics in 06. Can't afford hotel rooms, so they camp in winter. Then they show up at the games. They're just crazy. And going back to another Olympics, Lillehammer in 94,

Norwegians camped out and watched the cross-country ski races. I mean, this is minus 10 cold. Right. And they cheered everybody, not just the Norwegian races. They were just embracing not only the sport but the temperature, and I thought that was remarkable. When you mentioned Lillehammer, I thought of little Stephen there. Yeah.

Yeah, his show. Love that. So 18 Olympics. Do you have any crazy Olympic stories you can share with us before I revisit the reporters with you crazy Olympic stories my first Olympics was Miracle on Ice

so that was pretty cool that's not a bad one Sylvie Frechette, you familiar with her? absolutely, yes well, she ends up going to Barcelona and leaves for the airport one day after her partner commits suicide in their apartment. Wow.

So this is just stunning, and how anyone can compete in those circumstances. And she goes to Barcelona and does brilliantly. And because there is a technophobe Brazilian judge who pushes the wrong numbers, Sylvie Frechette does not win the gold medal. In fact, Kristen Babs Sprague, Toronto tie there, Ed Sprague's wife, wins the gold. The head of the jury was an American who, when the Brazilian judge saying, no, no, I pushed the wrong numbers, she didn't want to hear that. Wow. So Sylvie Frechette's grace under unimaginable circumstances to me stands out as just a signal moment of the Olympics.

And you get to see these moments at the Olympics. And, you know, I think television does a great job of capturing many of them. But until you're there, you really feel it. And Olympics are a great experience for young journalists. And I mean, 18, like that's a lot of Olympics. My Google just answered me when I screamed that. I don't know why it's doing that. Sorry.

18, though, that's an incredible number. I'm just trying to process that and wonder, yeah, like how many people have been to more Olympics than that covering them? That's quite phenomenal. There's some, and you get to see the world. Sarajevo in 84, I blew off the opening ceremonies and went with a reporter from the Boston Globe, a friend of mine, a columnist, and we had found a woman who taught English, and I had actually studied a little Serbo-Croatian before,

so I just had a few words to be able to get around. This was an English teacher, an older woman, retired, who told stories about World War II, because Sarajevo had been the crossroads of armies. And to be able to tell her story and the story of others, you know, that was a privilege. And of course, you were in Barcelona when Ben Johnson won and then had one goal. That was Seoul. Oh, yeah.

Okay, Seoul, right. That was 88. And I got so excited. I was in the Press Tribune, and I kind of snuck down to be down on the fence so I could get closer. Yeah, that 9-7-9, you know, it was burned into my brain. I can't tell you what bolt ran what the

world record is i can't be sure 952 maybe but 979 is burned into my soul forever it's amazing i messed up the city because i was uh 14 years old when i watched it and yeah it was that that's one of those like moments those touch point moments uh where you know you know exactly where you were you know it's 979 you can you know I think Ben puts up his fingers he crosses the finger line like the whole thing and then from a psyche like from a psychological if you were to sort of dissect this nation, like what happens days later, just it's one of those things Canadians will never forget. No, and I remember that day very well running around. Dick Pound did not return a phone call that day, which is something I tease him about.

Yeah, I mean, it was extraordinary. I think after that, there was this great sense of paranoia and despair. And I talked to one Canadian Olympian who said, just because you haven't tested positive doesn't mean you're not using. Right. And there was a practice track, as there always is, next to the main stadium. And I stood next to a Canadian distance runner and her coach. And they were actually timing the length of the stay in a porta potty

by a Romanian runner who they believed was inserting clean urine into whatever. And that's why, I mean, he's got the stopwatch on her visit to the porta potty. This is what soul became. Wow. Wow. Yeah, and I feel like eight years later in Atlanta Donovan Bailey sort of does this healing process for the nation I feel like that was important

to me anyways like we have the gold medalist it's funny because at that point I'm at Sports Illustrated I'm nowhere near the track and what you see in an Olympics and I can't remember which one. I got home and someone said, oh, did you see this gymnast?

She was great. And I said, I never even heard her name because I didn't get anywhere near gymnastics. You've got, at the time, it was a 21-ring circus. So, you know, the signature moments i miss entirely sure because you know winter olympics since 94 with a few exceptions i've been had my butt glued to a seat in a hockey rink well i i was gonna say i could do a sequel with you at some point where we literally just talk olympics so i'll finish the olympic chat by saying, were you at the Canada versus USA gold medal game

in 2010? Yeah, I was. What struck me, and this is a 1-0 game, and it struck me as the most lopsided 1-0 game I had ever seen.

Now, the U.S. had a good chance a couple minutes in. And honestly, I can't remember any other real good chances. Maybe it looked different on TV. But I called somebody back in North America, and I said, am I just not seeing this right? What's it look like on TV? Does it look like this tense one-nothing game? And the answer was, no, not particularly.

So, yeah, much more fun was the T.J. Oshie game. So, the same Olympics. Yeah, so if memory serves me correctly, Zach Parisi, I guess, ties it up, and then we have the famous Iggy. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm thinking of 2014. I messed that up. I was thinking of the gold medal game.

No, that was, yeah, I was right there. William Shatner was sitting in front of me. He kept standing up. I had to say, sit down. Speaking of Montreal royalty, next thing you're going to tell me is that Leonard Cohen was sitting nearby. I didn't see Leonard Cohen.

No, excuse me. I was thinking about the 2014. That's okay. I can't be the only one to make these mistakes here. No, 2010, yeah. That was a remarkable time because Brian Burke had just lost his son and he was, of course, involved with the US team and I know Brian pretty well

yeah and if you go back to the history of hockey in Canada that was the most significant goal and the most significant game now keeping in mind this is in Canada Summit Series

in Russia the last four games. But since hockey started in 1875, indoor hockey, in March of 1875 in Montreal, and this was almost 140 years, and this was the most significant game. Crosby scored the most significant goal on a broken play. The puck bounced off Bill McCreary's skate. Right.

And Ron Wilson, Toronto Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson, never let Billy McCreary forget it. It would always give him a bad time thereafter. I love watching the replay of the Golden Goal. Just to hear Sidney Crosby yell Iggy at Jerome McGinley and then to give him the puck. Amazing, amazing. Okay, so there's the Golden Goal.

Perfect. Let's get you to TSN here. How do you get involved with TSN and then specifically the reporters? Well, Scott Moore, who is quite the TV person, had me do the color on the 93 Stanley Cup parade. So, I thought it was a disaster. Excuse me, Mike. Hey, no worries.

And the Canadians were late. They're getting hammered in the Molson Brewery. The parade starts late. Vic Rauter and I are sitting in a booth at RDS in Montreal, not unlike the booth you're sitting in. And we've

got people in our ear and we're just talking. And at one point they say, we've got a Benoit Brunet pack ready to tell Benoit Brunet stories. And I'm thinking, you know, there are no Benoit Brunet stories. And I'm thinking, you know, there are no Benoit Brunet stories.

So finally they emerge and they zip through this parade. And, you know, fast forward and it's done. And I thought it was horrible, but I guess I passed the audition. At that point, they brought me in. I did some baseball stuff. And then when John Wells had a show on Sunday, this predates the reporters, I would come in and do that. It was an hour-long show, and it was a great experience as well.

Quick, quick aside here, and then we're going to come right back to the reporters, but you mentioned Vic Rauter, so I have to tell you that, well, really, you're in Montreal, so I'm really telling the listenership that this coming Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. is TMLX 8, so everybody's invited. We have your first pour of fresh craft beer. It's courtesy of Great Lakes Brewery.

Palma Pasta is going to feed everybody. We're going to record the Pandemic Friday finale. This is going to be a great time. So you're all invited to the patio. It's all outdoor, rain or shine. It's the patio of Great Lakes Brewery. You can DM me at Toronto Mike or write me, Mike, at torontomike.com for more details. But it's this coming Friday, six to nine P M.

And I urge everybody to check it out. But why did I think about that? When you said Vic router, because Vic router who loves this program and has been on multiple times, uh, was going to come to this event just to say at the end of this pandemic Friday finale, he was going to say,

make the final. And unfortunately there's a schedule conflict where he's not available to do this, but I, that was almost going to happen. And I just thought that was kind of awesome that Vic was going to do that. So shout out to Vic router. One of the, one of the nicer guys I've met. And also when we talk about great play by play men and there have been scores for them in Canada, Danny Gallivan here.

I love John Shorthouse in Vancouver, Gordon Miller, Chris Cuthbert, Dan Shulman, whom we talked about. People should include Vic Rauter. There's some great people like Hood, Pierre Hood in Montreal, who does well, and René Lecavalier. But Vic is one of these guys. Yes, it's curling.

It's more of a niche sport than hockey, for example. But Vic is fabulous, absolutely fabulous. Absolutely, and he's a fabulous human being as well, which is a nice bonus there. A note came in from Maximus, well, which is a nice bonus there. A note came in from Maximus, which I think is a very fancy name, even more fancy than Michael. Maximus says, just came to say I was a fan of Mr. Farber, dating back to his appearances on Inside Sports with Dave Hodge on TSN.

So I wanted to read that note for you from Maximus. And I'll tell you this about Dave, who's clearly a friend of your show. Absolutely. Podcast. When I would go do the reporters, I had one goal, and that was not to disappoint Dave Hodge. Right. Every week. Just, I wanted to have a good show because I have so much respect for Dave that I didn't want to let him down in any way.

It was The Reporters with Dave Hodge, and I wanted him to have a great show that bore his name. I feel the same way because every year he comes over, or last year we actually had to do it via Zoom due to a certain pandemic, but every year Dave Hodge comes over to basically we kick out, if you will, his 100 favorite songs from the calendar year.

And it's this big production. We do it every single year. And I feel exactly as you described where it's the, you know, I've done 905 of these things. Shout out to Mississauga and Brampton in the 905. I think this is their episode. But I actually will get a little nervous when I know Dave Hodge is coming over

because I don't want to disappoint Dave. That's, that's perfect. And if you look at TV people that I've been fortunate enough to be around, I mean, Duffy, it's like so much going on and he's in the middle of the storm and he is just so good and so natural. And Dave is

just there with him as the epitome of cool. He's the coolest kid on TV. Not only the coolest kid on TV, but he's still the coolest kid in the mosh pit. And if you go to, like, and again, unfortunately we've had a little break from all this fun due to the pandemic,

but when it all returns to normal, if you're at the, I don't know, the horseshoe on a Tuesday night to hear some new band that you just learned about or whatever, it's likely you'll bump into Dave Hodge. Yeah, we don't have similar tastes in music, but he's pleased whenever I kind of know what he's talking about, and I absolutely won't bother him with what I like. So just really, if you could really quickly, what kind of music would Michael Farber listen to

as he's putting on some tunes on a Saturday night? Well, you know, I kind of like opera and some other things and classical music and the Beatles and, you know, 60s. And, you know, I like a lot of the 80s music, 1780s. You know, I like a lot of the 80s music, 1780s. I say, you said opera, and I'm thinking, yeah, he is Phi Beta Kappa Society. That sounds about right. Let's keep that on the deal. It's okay. I'll edit that part out.

Just Mike Rogozki also sent in a nice note to say that he saw you at the Paradise. I was there, too. And he loved that live show. the paradise. I was there too. And he loved that live show. And if COVID didn't happen, this is hard to say, but is it possible we might've had more reporters live? I don't know. That's above my pay grade. I mean, that's something that we should ask Dave. I mean, I, I thought the show still had some legs and, you know, I hope in some form that it can return. But the other thing is, you know, I'm about to turn 70.

And, you know, you want to stay relevant. And I'm not sure that I have the willingness or the energy to really stay relevant. And part of the reporters, and I think that you saw this as a viewer, was you had to know what you were talking about. Yep. And it was work. Now, there were some holes in my game, CFL most notably, and I had to really do remedial CFL work to have a discussion.

And when, I mean, Dave Naylor, when he'd sit in, he didn't know much about tennis. So it was more work than perhaps it appeared to be. And I'm not sure I'm willing to do that work. Well, I can now tell you, I don't think I'm speaking out of school, but I've had, this is pre-pandemic, but I've had conversations with the great Dave Hodge

about a Paradise podcast and producing such an animal. But I don't know if that made its way to you. That might have just been some phone chatter. A corporal or a private. When Dave Hodge calls, you accept the charges. Is that how it works? Okay, so The Reporters on TSN, which was a fantastic show. I was a big fan.

And, of course, Dave Hodge, Steve Simmons, Bruce Arthur, and yourself. But as we did mention off the top uh it was uh stephen brunt originally with and uh you kind of took on the brunt role uh at some point he ends up of course uh leaving he was on sports net if you're at sports net you can't be on tsn but the other gentleman who can have the same kind of story there would be Damien Cox, who went to Sportsnet, has to leave the reporters, and Bruce Arthur now at the Toronto Star

takes over. Really, I thought it was a good mix because with yourself, you know, Phi, Beta, whatever, and Dave Hodge, who has nothing but integrity. Man man what a what everybody should listen to dave hodge's initial toronto mic appearance it's fantastic but steve simmons i find

him very entertaining i've had him on multiple times and and again bruce arthur's very good like it was a really good team at some point i suppose uh tsn just slashed that budget and part of that budget slash was like uh we're not paying for michael farber to fly here and stay at a hotel and all that stuff like so basically because you couldn't be in the studio in toronto you were lopped off just simply to cut up cut a cut some some to save some money you'd have to ask the people there but that was know, my sense of it. Because when the reporters did surface for seven shows after hiatus, and we never had a week off, you know, this was 52 weeks a year. That year they went off in the summer and they came back.

You know, they, it was with Dave and Steve and Bruce. So there was nobody else. with Dave and Steve and Bruce. So there was nobody else. So I was, it seemed, if not explicitly, implied that budget was the reason, not because I was doddering at that point. And I mean, Dave Hodge has been very clear that you being cut, that's the beginning of the end.

Like it did, you're right, it did limp along for a few more weeks, but it basically was the beginning of the end. And then right, it did limp along for a few more weeks, but it basically was the beginning of the end. And then eventually there was the mutual decision to shut this down. And unfortunately we no longer have the reporters.

I think the interesting thing there and credit to TSN is they didn't want this to be a Toronto show. Excuse me, they wanted an outsider. You know, I was that outsider. I'm coming, living in Montreal, being an American, now a Canadian, by the way. Awesome. Yeah.

And when they, there were other people from Ottawa would come in. Chris Stevenson was there. Gary Lawless, who now works for the Vegas Golden Knights from Winnipeg, he would be there. So they wanted that mix and credit to TSN for that. A couple of little footnotes and then my final question. You've been fantastic. But again, I feel at some point I'm going to hit you up and say,

could we just talk Olympics again? Because i've got lots of questions there but you won the elmer ferguson memorial award in 2003 is that an actual award like do you actually have a physical trophy or something somewhere well you know if we had more time and i you know i'd walk over and actually show you the plaque yeah okay. Okay, so good. There's something in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Yeah, with that. Yeah, it was great. It's always nice to be recognized or your work to be recognized.

Yeah, it's a thing. And I'm also on the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee, so don't, as the kids say, at me. But that's my involvement with the home that's my last uh that was where i was going to close because of course you are a member of the hockey hall of fame selection uh committee and then when i opened up you know who's got a question for michael farber uh a number of people are very interested to know uh what would be like what's your approach to the hockey hall of fame induct? Like, how do you approach it? That's a really smart question, because, excuse me,

I can't discuss, you know, the comings and goings within a meeting. How do I approach it? If, and this is true of all halls of fame, if a, If you can write the story of the league or of the game and not mention this player within his time frame, then he's probably not a hall of famer. If he must be included when you're talking about that era of hockey, then yeah, I think he or she is a Hall of Famer.

And that's important to keep in mind. And so when I look at a player, was he or she a dominant player at his or her time, at his or her position? a dominant player at his or her time at his or her position and that's the great argument beyond merely numbers uh total numbers and it's all you look at all of that but it's it's more than a hall of numbers it's also a hall of fame but if you dominated at your position in your ear that's a good way to get in. And I do realize I told you that was the final question, but I'm also here to tell you I lied because the final question is going to Philip. And Philip was asking, what is your future

given how consolidated our sports media and media in general in this country has become. What does the future hold for Michael Farber? Well, I had been consulting with NBC during its time as a rights holder and helping them out with some things. And now clearly NBC doesn't have the rights in the States. I'm still a special contributor to Sports Illustrated and have been since I left full-time, and I probably do one piece a year. I do essays and features for TSN, fewer features since the pandemic, but I've done some essays and some obituaries, unfortunately. That's what happens when you get old. They presume you know every old guy who dies. And so now I'm the obit guy. So I'm also going to spend a lot of time playing

with my three grandkids. So that's a priority. Well, you know what, that sounds like a pretty sweet life there, to be quite honest with you. And I'm really, really, really pleased you agreed to do this and that I got to talk to Michael Farber and if you're ever in Toronto at some point hanging out maybe we do the sequel in person where I can give you your fresh craft beer from Great

Lakes and your lasagna and your Toronto Mike sticker from Sticker You. I have some goodies for you when I do get to see you but thanks so much for doing this Michael. My pleasure thanks Mike. And that brings us to the end of our 905th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Michael is at Michael Farber 3, numeric 3. There's a couple of other Michael Farbers must have got in there first. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. McKay's CEO Forums are at McKay's CEO Forums, Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta, Sticker U is at Sticker U,

Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH, and Mike Majeski, he's not on Twitter, he's on Instagram, at Majeski Group Homes. See you all next week.