Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Mike Wilner: Toronto Mike'd #96

Episode Date: November 14, 2014

Mike chats with Blue Jays broadcaster Mike Wilner about his career in radio, the Cito controversy, whether he's condescending and arrogant to BlueJaysTalk callers and why and when he'll block you on Twitter.

Welcome to the 96th 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 Blue Jays radio host and broadcaster Mike Wilner. Welcome Mike to the Toronto Mike Studios. Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. You know, named after you, Toronto Mike. Yeah, absolutely. The name is so uncommon.

Yeah, but not only are we both Mikes, but we both went to University of Toronto. That's lovely. I'm sure I was a few years ahead of you. Just a few, actually. Just a few. Yeah. Yeah, you probably got out of there just as I was getting in there. I did the four-year program in a nice and tidy six years.

That's not bad. I did the four-year program in five years, I think. Nice. Nice. I was a little too distracted when I was there working on the campus radio and with the Department of Athletics and stuff. And I was very good at gaming the system, figuring out what I was going to do well and not well in

and dropping and picking up. And yeah, it was a good six years. No, I did that. I once ended up in some Japanese history class. And I think day one, I realized I wasn't going to succeed in this class. And I dropped that and took basket weaving or something nice see yeah the best mark i got was in a first year intro to classics course it was all greek mythology was yeah that would be good yeah yeah but i'm convinced still to this day

that it was a data entry error that gave me that mark do you remember like they told you you had to take a science i don't know if you had this experience, but I was good at English and history and stuff like that. And they said, you have to have a science to actually graduate. And they have these special science classes for people who suck at science. I took astronomy, but it was more about... It had English aspects to it as opposed to science. Nice.

I majored in psychology, which has served me very well over the years. Oh, I'll bet. We'll get to that. And when I was done and I went to the registrar close to graduation, I said, you know, well, I had a double major. Psych was one and ethics, society and law was the other. And I said to them, do I get a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science? Like, how does this work? them, do I get a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science? Like, how does this work? And they said, which one do you want? Really? Yeah. Oh, I didn't get that. Yeah. I was told Honors Bachelor of Arts. No science for you. I chose a Bachelor of Science because I figured it sounds better. Yeah, I know for sure. There's got to be way more guys walking around with BAs in their pocket than, yeah, for

sure. I do, I mentioned U of T because this is when you start your broadcasting career. Am I right? So what were you doing at U of T that sort of introduced you to the world of sports broadcasting? Well, I don't know if it had always been something I was interested in. I guess it was because I kind of leaned that way. But I went thinking that I was probably going to wind up going to law school. Maybe I would be an accountant for my first year courses were like on a B com track commerce. But you know, the first week they,

they want to get you into everything that's going on around campus. And they had this thing called club day. And you go into the main level of Sid Smith Hall at Harvard and St. George. Yeah, right. And there were like, I don't know, a few dozen little tables lined up with, hey, this is what we do, and this is the chess club

and the debate and whatever. And one was a radio station. So I went over and I talked to them, and I can't remember who it was sitting there. But I said, you know, it sounds kind of cool. I wouldn't mind doing some sports stuff. And they said, well, come in. And so I went in and I wound up interviewing with Tim Haffey, who was a sports director at the time.

And he later wound up working at the fan, doing a lot of auto racing stuff. He worked at Headline Sports when that existed. And at the time, he was a sports director at CIUT. 89.5 on your FM dial, buried in a Buffalo kitchen at a Coburn. 50,000 watts of power. And he said, yeah, you know what? They've got news every day. So you want to do sports Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,

five minutes after the news at 9, 10, 11, and 12. Okay, sure. So I went in, and that's how it started. And the first sports cast I ever did, I don't remember the date, but I'm pretty sure it would be very easy to find out because the first story I ever did was Ben Johnson giving giving back his gold medal in korea yeah it's really something uh october 88 i guess yeah it might have been september might have been october i remember it was a fall because i remember thinking like summer olympics should be taking place in the summer but i remember it was like the fall

uh wow so you that's a pretty good opportunity that you kind of come in and you got some time on an actual radio station like you don don't, that opportunity isn't. No, it doesn't. And I guess, you know, I didn't know at the time how rare an opportunity that was, but then it just kind of grew. And by February I was doing like color on U of T hockey games and. And they sucked, right? Like these U of T. This was the year I got there was a year after they won the national championship. Okay, get out of here. They sucked when I was there. Yeah. Mike Keenan was the coach the year before. And Tom a year after they won the national championship yeah mike keenan was

the coach the year before uh and tom watt i think was back right maybe not right away my first year paul titanic was the coach my first year um and uh you know i still remember like doug mclean was their big star and he was drafted in the nhl but but he never made it. Dean Hague was one of the top players and he follows me on Twitter now, which is hilarious. Oh, wow. I can't believe a U of T hockey player was drafted by the NHL. Yeah. I was still stuck on that.

He was quite good, actually. I think he was drafted first and then wound up going to school. But yeah, they were just coming off a national championship. They weren't great, but they weren't bad. But yeah, that were just coming off a national championship. They weren't great, but they weren't bad. But yeah, that was a blast. And then the next year, Tim left, and his second-in-command left, and all of a sudden I'm like a sports director of a 50,000-watt radio station at 19 years old.

Oh, wow. And we were doing hockey and basketball and football, and it was just a fantastic experience. I had a twice weekly show for half an hour, um, just to talk show. And my original co-host was a guy named Aaron Lobel, who wound up co-hosting a cable 10 TV show with me, who wound up getting a PhD in international relations from Harvard. And he now runs America abroadroad Media out of Washington, D.C., which is this fantastic international relations, politics,

think tanky, sort of really, really highbrow political stuff that he sells, shows to NPR. And do you ever borrow money from Aaron? No. You on his Christmas list? I am not on. I know, we're still in touch. You're on a good list?

But yeah, I don't think we would borrow money from each other. But no, he's really done really well for himself. And it's amazing. I remember Cable 10, a show that was done by Newton Cable. And it was you and Aaron. Yep. And it was called Let's Talk Sports. And my brothers and I would watch the show.

And you would have... We talked about this via Twitter and you didn't remember the pizza. But you used to have a pizza promotion. I can't remember the company name. But you could win a pizza if you answered a trivia question. And this was a Newton cable show? Well, okay, I watched it. I don't know if it was Newton or not.

I actually got Newton from you, actually, but it was a Cable 10 show. There were two, right? There were two Cable 10 shows at Let's Talk Sports. The big one was on what was then Graham Cable, which was the city of York in Toronto. Okay, I was living in York at the time. Yes, I was living in York.

I remember that we had the the trivia question every week i didn't remember a giveaway yeah there was a pizza i mean i couldn't i believe you i trust you it's possible i misremembered we're going back this is like i don't know 1991 i don't know one show i did the show from 89 to 94 yeah like we're going way back but uh I remember a pizza. I didn't win. I answered Tony Fernandez to the question. I don't even remember the question anymore, but I answered Tony Fernandez and I got it wrong. I'm sorry.

But this was the day before, like Wikipedia, and there was no smartphone or internet. Like you sort of had to know. Yeah. The good old days. Yeah, you couldn't look it up. Yeah, you can't do a trivia show today, right? No. No.

No, it's not. You can say no cheating, but it doesn't work. I'm going to play a little clip. That's right. I brought clips. If this actually works, let's give this a go. Let's listen for 30 seconds to Steve Kersner,

better known as the voice and creator of Ed the Sock. Wow, you know, speaking just real quickly on the Newton Cable, I was chatting with Mike Wilner because he's coming on after the World Series which ends tonight. And maybe next episode or the one after.

Depends on a few factors. But he's coming in soon. And he was telling me, I mentioned the SOC was coming in this week. And he said that you were the producer for Let's Talk Sports. Am I right about this or am I getting the right? Was it Mike and Aaron hosting Let's Talk Sports or am I got the wrong show what let's talk sports the radio show no it was on cable cable 10 like oh I was the I was the executive producer okay um the producer probably was my brother Mitch who uh was doing all the sports stuff Mitch is now the senior executive producer of Hockey Night in

Canada oh wow yeah so he's I'm a long way stuck with the sports. Kind of a big deal. Yeah. All right, so that... Tell me, does Steve Kersner... Is he misremembering this? He is. He's clearly misremembering. Obviously, he made more of an impression on me than I made on him. I knew him already

because he went to high school with my brother. And so that's how we got on Newton Cable because the show was originally on Graham, which became Shaw, which was the city of York, but there was also Newton Cable, which was up like Finch and Dufferin-ish. Okay, because Graham Cable, this is Scarlet Road? Yeah. Okay, I remember this building.

Scarlet Road, St. Clair. Right, and the Newton was up north Finch and Dufferin-ish, and I don't think I did that show with Aaron. I think I did that show with a guy named Stephen Margles. I think. Yeah, Aaron went off to make his millions. Yeah, Aaron dropped me like a... But Stephen Kersner was absolutely a very hands-on producer of that show.

Mitch, I know because I played fastball or softball with him. I caught Mitch and he was a fantastic pitcher. Now he's doing great stuff at TSN. He was Dave Hodge's producer for a long time on That's Hockey. But no, it was absolutely Steven who was there every day.

Interesting. He's trying to distance himself from you I hope you realize this I think he might be it's very sad a little sad it's upsetting so tell me how you end up at the fan if I'm skipping anything exciting between

U of T and the fan let me know the only exciting thing you're skipping I think is 89 when after my first year at U of T that summer I did the Welland Pirates, who that was a New York Penn League team, a short-season A-ball team. At the time, there were a ton in Canada. In southern Ontario, there was Welland, Hamilton, St. Catharines. There was a team in Niagara Falls, New York.

They're all gone now. But after doing that year on the radio, I decided, you know, why not try to do some baseball? And I found every short season team in both the Penn League and whatever other short season leagues there were, Northwest and another one. And I mailed or I called them all. I said, look, this is what I want to do.

And do you have... And the only guy who called me back was Welland. And the assistant GM called back and said, we're putting our games, we're doing 30 games on See How 1470, country music radio. Don't even know of it. That's amazing. Yeah.

Where's that out of? That's in Welland? In Welland. I don't know if there's still country music radio. But could I send him a tape? I don't have any. Play by play. So I called a couple innings of Blue Jays game off TV

in 89 at my grandparents place. Sent him the tape. He was like cool. You want to be the second chair? We're not going to pay you anything. But sure. I was like yeah, absolutely. So I did 30 games.

Pete Marino was the primary play-by-play guy, and I did, I don't know, three innings, maybe four, in color the rest of the time. And that was what really started me on the way, I guess. That was an incredible experience. So that's when you decided baseball was your sport? Is that sort of where it's always been your sport? Because you played.

Not at any high level or anything like that. Slow pitch is a high level, man. Well, I mean, I played baseball and I played fast pitch and I played slow pitch and now I play modified, whatever, when I can. But it's always been the sport that spoke to me the most. I was a big hockey fan way back, and my greatest athletic memory and achievement comes from hockey,

but baseball was always the one I wanted to go to. Splendor of the grass. Right, exactly. And as I worked at U of T Radio, I think it was my third year where they dropped sports. They decided it wasn't going to be a campus radio station anymore. It was going to be a community radio station. We had like when I had,

I told you about that half hour talk show I did. We had anarchists follow us. And which I thought was hilarious. The anarchists are on Thursdays at 1230. Yes, schedule. Seriously. That's funny. I made fun of them all the time.

I said, you guys should just come in whenever you want and go as long as you want and leave. But so it became more of a community radio thing. And so we dropped all the play-by-play. I started to do stuff. I became a public address announcer for U of T for volleyball, water. I did water polo, basketball, football, hockey, everything.

It was official scores as well. So through that, you know, I wound up wanting to get back into radio. And I'm really fuzzy on the details but in 1993 I wound up interning at the fan for a month or two and that was when Elliot Freeman was just starting there George Trombalopoulos was an op you know there was it was a really great place to be and I covered a couple of Blue Jay games for them I went down to get tape in the locker room. Jack Morris yelled at me. But it was around then, and there are a lot of twists and turns to the story. But earlier on, like when I was 16, 17, I started with another guy,

this baseball simulation kind of card game league, which still thrives today. But he imagined himself a publisher, and he wanted to be baseball prospectus before it was baseball prospectus. So he had me write a couple of books, like season previews. I remember I did the 94 season preview. It turned out to be a waste because there was nothing to preview. And, you know, like running down rookies and seeing all that stuff.

And so I'd written a few of those. They never really got sold 80 copies maybe or something. But I brought them in to the fan to show them, hey, look, this is what I know. And this is what I've done and all that stuff. And I was there for a couple of months. And not sure why it stopped. I left. I think it might've been because I wasn't getting,

I don't know what I thought I deserved after four years of college radio, just really stupid. But, but so that stopped. And then in 2001, when I was working for 680, Scott Ferguson left the fan for the team or headline or whatever. The team, 1050. The team still. Yep.

And I got a phone call from Scott Metcalf, who was at the time, the news director at the fan who said news director at The Fan, who said, hey, I remember, you know, you liked baseball and you wrote some books and you were really into baseball. Do you want Fergie's job? Wow. So you get a call out of the blue? Totally out of the blue.

I grew up listening to Tom and Jerry and it was always that Scott Ferguson, you know, post-game, kind of giving you the scores around town. And yeah, I remember 10.50 came to town because they yanked some people at a TSN like Romanuk and some of these guys. Jim Van Horn?

Yeah, Jim Van Horn. And yeah, I remember Scott Ferguson leaving the fan. And yes, I recall you taking Scott Ferguson's place, but it's just a call you got. You won his job. Yeah, it's just a call. And it was weird because Sportsnet Radio was starting at the same time.

It just started up, and Jim Lang was running that uh and hazel may wound up there wait what okay remind me sportsnet radio is this like an internet thing or a series it was syndicated sports or like espn radio yeah but it was only updates i think okay and 640 had them at the beginning um so they were just starting. And they were trying to get me too. And so I was sitting there doing the afternoon sports on 680. And all of a sudden, Sportsnet Radio wants me. And I was just about to say, OK, let's, you know.

And then Scott Metcalf called. And there was no chance I was doing anything else. Yeah, so this is like your dream job chance I was doing anything else. Yeah. So this is like your dream job at the time, I suppose. Absolutely. You know, you're the guy, the Blue Jays guy for the only, well, the main sports radio station in the city. The only difference then was that we didn't have the Jays, right?

And that was why Scott Ferguson left because the Jays went to the headline sports radio network. Gotcha. Yeah. But then I came on in Aprilil 2001 and within a year rogers bought the jays and we had the they bought the fan and we had the rights and and i remember i was driving a spring training driving to florida in 2002 somewhere in georgia just north of the border i got a phone call from nelson millman and he said, we got the rights, and you're going to do the pre- and post-game. I was like, that's fantastic.

That's amazing. Yeah. So Jay's talk was always a part of the, I'm trying to remember back, but I guess this was always a part of the mix. Yeah, I think as far back as like, I remember hearing McCowan doing Jay's talk in 1989 when I was driving back from Pirates games. So at least that far back it's been going on.

And then after Bob did it, Danny Shulman did it for a while. And before. There's a guy, there's a guy, probably the greatest achiever in 590 here, 1430 slash CJCL history. Without question. Yeah, he's amazing, isn't he? Yeah, he's amazing. He and I actually went to the same elementary school.

Oh, get out of here. He was four years ahead of me but i i i know both his sisters they were like i think one was in my brother's class and one was a year behind me his mother was really active in the pta and stuff so she was always around so i knew the family um and so i always kind of had an eye on him and he has i mean he's a gold standard yeah he was always I don't think we even realized how good he was. Like we almost, you know, you had him and he was good. And then you hear him kind of, it's one of those things where when they leave you and then you hear him and you realize, like, wow, like this guy is maybe the best in the business. You put aside maybe Vin Scully and you got Dan Shulman.

He's certainly right up there. And, you know, there's no pretension to him. There's no, hey, I'm a big fake radio voice guy or anything like that. It's fantastic to listen to. It really is. And versatile because you'll hear him on an NCAA basketball game and he's fantastic there too. He loves basketball. I think that's his true love is basketball.

But I mean, for a guy 28 years old who's never done anything but host a talk show, to walk into TSN and blow them away to become the Blue Jays TV play by play guy. And that was just the beginning. And it's been amazing.

And OK, so back to the Blue Jays talk. So at some point, Dan Shulman can come on another day. Listen, I'll get that guy on another day. Although Barb DiGiulio was in here, and we had a similar discussion about this amazing Dan Shulman. So every time i have somebody who worked with dan it seems like we start talking about toronto too does he i'm fingers crossed one of these days you're gonna put in a word for me and get him in this get him

in my base why not you're a good man he might he might not fit i'll give him plenty of warnings but uh okay so you you are when did you become the uh i guess at this time did you become the, I guess at this time, did you become the Jay's Talk host? Yeah, 2002. Do you like that job? I do. I know, I know. It seems a lot like I'm- Why are you winking at me?

No, I'm just kidding. He's not winking. I do. I mean, I like to do my part, I guess, to educate and entertain. But I remember in 2002, no one was talking about on-base percentage, and it was this great grand revelation. And, you know, pitcher wins were still huge and all that stuff.

And I kind of feel like I helped change that conversation a little bit. But, yeah, I mean, it's great to... What would anybody be doing, right? You're watching a game. You're either with your buddies or you're going to call somebody up to talk about it. How awesome is it to be the guy that they call up?

And I have to deal with some misplaced rage and all that stuff. Well, that's what I want to talk about. Okay, so do you ever get fed up, sick and tired of the stupid calls? You're going to get some interesting calls and some interestingos, but you're going to get a lot of. Yeah, but that's part of the deal, right? I mean, it's, it's part of fandom is flying off the handle. And this is the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of anything. And, and the next day talking about how wonderful everything is.

It's what I, I don't know if I want to say what I don't like. I don't think that's it, but I'm all about conversation. I hate the hang up, I'll hang up and listen. I don't want you to hang up and listen. I want to talk. And I'm all about having opinions that are informed by facts as opposed to feelings but it does kind of get to me when someone will call up with a very strong opinion that is based completely in nothing that's real and they can't be talked out of it and i don't maybe my job is not to try to talk them out of it, but I kind of feel like I would like, you know, I don't, I don't like when people call a radio show, whether it's mine

or any other, or any other station, then they start off with a thesis statement that is completely untrue. And the host goes, uh-huh. Right. You don't have to accept the premise upon which your argument is held. Right. Right. That's the thing. And so I will make you defend your opinion. And a lot of people don't like that. A lot of people.

But I think a lot of listeners do. You see, I think it's one of those deals where I think people will listen either because they love how you handle the callers or because they hate how you handle the callers. I completely agree. And as a fan, and as I get, I rank very highly for your name in Google. Really? Yeah, you should Google yourself one day.

Something I wrote about you shows up very early, so I get a lot of comments. Like these things all the time. Was it a terrible thing you wrote about me? No, actually. Don't laugh because you can check this out later, but I believe the headline was, am I the only one who likes Mike Willner? Something to that effect. No, I was very positive. I'm surprised at how polarizing I seem to be. is obviously just the vocal minority probably but they say you are the two words i see the most are condescending is a word i hear a lot arrogant is a word i hear a lot some people just say you're

downright rude i know i hear i hear so when you hear this how do you feel when you hear this criticism i you know i have learned over the decades right i've almost been doing this 30 years which is crazy um people are going to hear what they want to hear, and you can't talk them out of it. There have been countless times where someone has said to me, you said this, or Alex Anthopoulos said this. Never happened. But that's what you wanted to hear,

or that's how you interpreted something. to hear or that's how you interpreted something um someone who just yesterday when the talking about the devon travis trade right um yesterday i got a tweet from somebody who said hey you never answered my tweet yesterday first of all right no one has a right to have their tweet answered. But anyway. Right. So I looked back to see what it had he tweeted me. And he just retweeted what I wrote about Travis, which was that I wrote, I think he was 12th round pick who played in AA, and this is what he hit.

And after it, he just put 13th all-star. I had no idea. And I'm supposed to answer that. Right, right-Star. I had no idea. And I'm supposed to answer that. Right, right, right. I had no idea what he meant. So I may have replied to his, you never answer my tweet with a huh or something like that. I'm like, what? And he said, you said he was a 12th round pick and he was picked in the 13th round.

Right. And this is someone who automatically thinks I'm an ass now because I didn't respond to his tweet. I had no clue. And also, if 13th all-star means he's sarcastically referring to me as an all-star for getting it wrong, of course I'm not going to reply to it, even if I had understood it.

I'm glad you mentioned this because the other thing people tell me, so first of all, you reply to me often on Twitter. Thank you very much. And you haven't blocked me on Twitter, but why would you? Why would I? Here's my question. What are the Mike Wilner rules for blocking someone on Twitter? They're very simple.

Yeah. They're very simple. If you're just, I can't, I'm thinking for the, I hate that I'm getting old now and I can't come up with words as well as I used to. I'm almost there, man. Incessant. That's the word. If you're incessantly negative just for the sake of being negative, if you send me 50 tweets and they're all how terrible everything is, I don't need to be bothered.

Because it bums you out, right? At some level. At some level. Sure, of course. You know, you're human. I will block somebody if they're incessantly negative just because i got a i had a guy who would a guy i knew who was incessantly pro rob ford in tweets to me and it's you're entitled to your opinion but after a while it just bums me out and annoys me like i just don't need

that noise you should follow my brother i do it bothers you i do there you go um but yeah if you're if if you know i have looked at people who because occasionally you'll you wonder, if you're, if, you know, I have looked at people who, because occasionally you'll wonder. Oh, yeah, you're in the middle of your rules. I'm sorry. So you had the first rule. No, but I've looked at people who have sent 20 tweets in their life. They are all about how bad everything is around the Blue Jays. What do I need from that?

Right. Right. So that I'll block. I'll block you if you swear at me. I'll block you if you call, if you're a name caller, whether it's me or somebody else. Like somebody says, Omunonori Kawasaki's garbage.

Grow up, you know? And I'll block you if you're rude to me. Other than that, and I know there are some people who want to get blocked by me. I know that some people are upset that you blocked them. Yeah, a lot of people are. And a lot of people have come back to me through third parties or new Twitter accounts and have said, you know, why did you block me? And I'll go back and look.

Oh, well, because very simply, I i mean you call me an idiot or whatever um so it's it's what i find interesting is i know that there's some this again it's all vocal minority but this sphere of uh people who who have been blocked by me, who honestly believe that they, I blocked them simply because they disagree with me. This is the perception. Yes. This is the perception. I will never,

ever, ever block anybody for disagreeing with me. If you disagree with me belligerently and are an ass and tell me that I'm stupid, then I will block you. But as far as the condescending and the arrogant and all of that stuff, I've heard it from a lot of people. And I don't think of myself that way at all.

I do think I have an expectation of intelligent conversation. And if I'm not getting it, if people are rude to me, I will be rude back, which I probably shouldn't do. But I actually, as a fan, I appreciate the edge. The reason I was defending you is, A, you're knowledgeable, but B, I don't mind a little edge from you, so to speak.

I just want people to be able to defend what they say. That's all. I mean, if you feel a certain way, you're more than entitled to feel that way. But why do you feel that way? Is it because Greg Zahn told you to a certain way, you're more than entitled to feel that way. But why do you feel that way? Is it because Greg Zahn told you to feel that way, you know, or is it, it's a, I don't know, because people who call up with the, they, they have great orations about what's going on in the clubhouse. Well, come on, nobody knows what's going on in the clubhouse.

Those sorts of things. Or this guy doesn't like this guy. Or all this stuff that, I don't know. This grand group that just can't stand John Gibbons never has a reason other than they think he's stupid. And they can't stand the fact that you keep defending Gibby. Yeah. And they hate the Gibby thing.

Yeah. We all call him Gibby. Okay. So is that okay? I don't know. And I have a question later on about journalism versus entertainment and stuff. I'm going to get to that. I don't want to ruin my order here.

But is that okay for somebody in your position to be calling him Gibby? Absolutely. It just seems really friendly. Like maybe you're going to be biased because he's a nice guy. Maybe you're going to be biased because you spend every day with someone for eight months. It's absolutely true. And I don't think there's any way to avoid that.

But I don't think I'm supposed to be completely impartial. I mean, I'll call, I believe that I deal in facts and that I speak the truth. And, you know, and then when Gibby runs for Ryan Goins in the ninth inning, that maybe there's something there. When he pinch runs for Edwin Encarnacion in the ninth inning, maybe not. And there were a few things in September that kind of were a little weird, and I talked about them, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I don't think we're friends. Does he call you Wilney? No, nobody does, because that would be silly. Terrible. But I mean, and it's not just me and Shy. Scott MacArthur calls him Gibby, TSN, who's supposed to hate everything, right? Steve Simmons, the same thing.

Everybody, that's just the way it works, right? But I don't think anybody believes that they're friends. I know Jerry refers to John Gibbons as his best friend, but Jerry's got a very different job than I do, right? he's got a very different job than I do. Right. Um, but that's just, I mean, that's just part of coexisting. You're going to develop some relationships, but there's not a single blue Jay who has ever asked me a dinner or vice versa. Nobody. I mean, we're definitely friendly with the guys who are good people, or at least we perceive them to be, but not friends with anyone. Okay. Now I'm going to go back to 2010. There was an incident that happened. I wrote about this at the time, but there was a lot of, it wasn't very black and white.

It was awfully gray. And I'm hoping maybe you could shed some light on this. I wish someone had a tape of it, but it seems like no one was rolling or I don't know. It was just, it was a... Do you want me to, well, maybe I just introduce it just so people know what we're talking about. So in 2010, there was basically a controversy with you and Cito Gaston, where you, and you correct me after I set this up, but you criticized some of his decisions as a manager of the Blue Jays and you were suspended. I was not suspended. Okay, good. Good detail. I was given the weekend off.

So was it just a weekend? Yeah, it was just a weekend. I remember it as like a week. No, no. It was a three game Friday, Saturday. But is it fair to say that that was discipline from your employers? Not according to my employers. Okay, so this is Rogers, right? What did your employers tell you?

Because the optics, all I wrote was that the optics were horrible. Because the optics were. They were. The owner, because Rogers, of course, for those who don't know, Rogers owns the Blue Jays and Rogers owns 590 and Rogers looked like they were disciplining you for being critical of their baseball team. That's what it looked like. I don't think Rogers was disciplining me for being critical of the baseball team.

But really, all I can say about it is that I was given that weekend off. And you know what? It wasn't even really a thing, uh, in the dugout talking to Cito. It was very, you know, he had made a couple of decisions in the game before that I had criticized. Um, and in the pregame media scrum, he brought up the situation, didn't bring me up, he brought the situation up again.

And he said, well, I had no choice but to do things the way I did things. And I said, well, then, but... See, what had happened was, in the game, Kevin Gregg spectacularly blew a save against Tampa Bay, I want to say. In the ninth inning, I think he walked four to five batters or something. He just couldn't throw a strike, wasn't getting anything done. And the only people in the bullpen to potentially bail him out were Rami Lewis and David Percy,

both of whom were rookies at the time. And I think Cito said, well, look, I don't have any choice. All I had was those two rookies in the bullpen. I'm not going to bring them in. And the answer to that is, well, yeah, absolutely, you're not going to bring them in. But Scott Downs threw four pitches in the eighth inning and was taken out for Sean Campu,

threw five pitches in the eighth inning and was taken out for Greg. So he kind of painted himself into a corner. Right. in the eighth inning and was taken out for Sean Campu through five pitches in the eighth inning and was taken out for Greg. So he kind of painted himself into a corner. So that was what the discussion was about. And there was no raised voices and no argument. And I can't remember who, whether it was Downs first, then Camp or Camp first, then, oh, it was Camp first, because he brought in Downs to face Reed Brignac. And he said it was the matchup.

And I said, well, they couldn't possibly. Brignac's a rookie. How many times could he have seen Downs in his life? And he said, look it up. So Jordan Bastion of MLB.com, who now covers the Indians, offered, because I didn't have a smartphone at the time right uh to look it up and and that was it and and we left it there and then cito came back to me he said have you looked it up yet i said yeah and he said well and i said well brignac had never faced camp before. He was 0-1 lifetime against Downs. And he said, there you go.

And I think that was it. Or maybe I might have asked him, well, don't you trust camp against the lefty, especially, you know, this, whatever? And the PR guy said, well, yeah, you asked, he answered. And I think, but I think there was an already, you know, this was June, and Cito had been the manager for about a year, and I've never been shy about saying how much I disagree with just his pure tactical whatever.

He refuses to pinch hit rookies for veterans when the situation calls for he'll, he does a lot of things that kind of fly in the face of this is your putting your best chance, giving yourself your best chance to win. And I was vocal about that. And so that, that undercurrent was around there too. And after that, I mean, did the game, the game happened that night.

Right. And then it was just, you know what, take the weekend off. So I did. I wish Rogers hadn't given you that weekend off because it's one of those stories where, I don't know the truth. I didn't talk to your employers. I don't know what happened.

I trust that it went down that way, except that the perception out there from everyone is that you got the shot across the bow as they say essentially like you know be don't criticize our team because we own them and we own you and so to speak and uh since then from the comments i get, it seems like you have been kinder to this team since 2010. Is there any correlation there at all? I think that if you actually listen, you will see that for the rest of 2010, when Cito Gaston was managing the team, I was the same.

And I questioned the tactics, and I might have been a little nicer about it, but the same. In 2011, there's a new manager who impressed the heck out of me in the first week when he used Travis Snyder as a pinch hitter in the fifth inning in a game, which Cito would never have done,

and in another game where he let Mark Zabchinsky, who'd thrown the eighth, start the ninth in a save situation with a left-handed batter up, which was fantastic. So, I mean, that kind of endeared me to John Farrell right away. And then the bunting eight hitters and stuff later was just silly. But I think, and there was a new general manager as well, or Alex was in his second year.

But I don't think that I've changed. I think things around the team have changed so that now they're doing things in a way that I tend to agree with and they make their bad moves and they make their mistakes and things don't work out. But you know, the thing that a lot of people hammer me on was like the on Gomes trade, right? When they traded and he's become the silver slugger this year and all of that stuff. Well, at the time it was fine. He become the silver slugger this year and all of that stuff.

Well, at the time, it was fine. He didn't look like he was ever going to be able to hit. So why would you criticize something for a guy not having a crystal ball? If the information you have at the time leads you to a specific decision, then that's the information you have at the time. So I'm not going to sit here now and harangue the Blue Jays for trading Jan Gomes because, again, it's turned out horribly. And I'm not going to not say it's turned out horribly. It's turned out horribly.

But at the time, you're dealing with all the information. All you're dealing with is the information you have at the time so you would suggest to those who think that you are too kind to this team some people will and I'm quoting now but that you tow the company line you would say just

listen closer because you believe you're still fair and balanced with this team I've always been fair I think from the beginning like that's all I try to be is fair and uh you know if people think i'm shill or whatever you know listen to the radio station and listen to the things that blair says and that mccowan says and brady walker and sid you know, Tim too, but Sid is pretty vocal about it. Why would they just pick me to put a leash on and not everybody else?

Again, they tie it to the CETO controversy. The perception is that you were, CETO controversy is when you changed and then you became very positive. The glass became half full. Yeah, but remember too that when everyone was talking about how horrible J.P. Ricciardi was, well before Cito, I was saying,

no, no, look at this guy. He may not be coming off well. He may not have a wonderful way of dealing with the public, but he's doing good things and he's making smart decisions and I was one of the very few people who was consistently public right but he's doing good things and he's making smart decisions and and you know i was i was one of the very few people who was consistently uh pro jp so i don't think that changed much what

changed was that you know they they no longer have a manager who like if if i was the host of royals talk right i would be just blowing up on Ned Yost every night. Right, right, right. And all it comes down to is, you know, these are the way I think things should be. This is the way I look at baseball. Let's put it that way. This is the way I look at baseball.

And when you have someone who's running a game who looks at it completely differently, then there's going to be criticism and we're going to discuss the things that happen. What has Twitter done to this whole criticism factor? We used to be radio and you'd get callers, but now you're a very active Twitterer, shall we say. And you have a lot of followers and you engage with people. Like that guy who's complaining you don't reply.

I mean, you reply to more people than the average media person by far. I think you're very good at that. So do you think this has just amplified it? Because now that vocal minority, suddenly everybody's a freaking publisher and a member of the social media media. What do you think about Twitter?

I can't remember who said this. This is not an original idea of mine. But forever and ever, every village has had an idiot. And now they were never able to communicate with each other. Oh, right, yes. So they only had, you know, they were their village idiot. And now, but now they can all get together. Yeah.

So I think Twitter is, honestly, it's a wonderful place for information, to get stories out, to let you know what's going on. But for the rest of it, it's a cesspool. It's just a chance for the trolls to be heard, really. Yeah. And hence all your blocking, I suppose. Yeah, I guess, because I just don't, I mean, it was getting to me, and I don't want to have to deal with it anymore. But I think, too, that I might keep an eye on Twitter

a little too much during games, and it kind of primes me for the postgame game because I know what people are angry at me about. Right. So that I should probably not do that. But I also don't want to lose the engagement factor either. Right. And I know that's one of the reasons that a lot of people enjoy what I do because they find me to be so accessible.

So I kind of that's a back and forth for me. I'm not sure what to do about that. Mark Hebbshire. Yeah. Previously of Sportsline on Global, which you're a few years older than me, but I'm sure that it was one of my favorite shows. Yeah, it was one of the all-time great shows.

Yeah, it was appointment viewing for me. Jim Taddy and Mark Hebbshire. So Mark Hebbshire, he was on this show recently, and it was following a tweet. So he sent you this tweet. I'll read it. So this is Mark Hebbshire. So Mark Hebbshire, he was on this show recently and it was following a tweet. So he sent you this tweet. I'll read it. So this is Mark Hebbshire's tweet. Actually, you know what? This is your tweet to Hebbshire. So Hebbshire wrote you some tweet about how he thought the team had checked out or something to that effect. Yeah. Something like they'd quit or something. Yeah.

They had quit on a season or something. This was in August. Yeah. And you wrote, I used to love you so much. What an easy, lazy thing to say. Yeah. That's so you wrote that to Mark Hebbs here and we, we discussed it on the show. Um, I guess my question with regards to that is basically, uh,

you must, is that fans will feel frustrated during losing streaks and when they don't make a move at the deadline and then something like a Baltimore will win X out of whatever and then we'll end up going the other direction and you must get a lot of that. So is that really easy and lazy just to say they quit

because we don't know they quit? I have higher standards, I think, for people who work in the industry. I think you upset Hebsey, though. Yeah, I definitely upset him. He wrote a whole big blog. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Oh, shit, sorry.

He did write, yeah, he wrote a whole blog entry about that. I definitely upset him and i'm sorry to have upset him but really the thing is i have higher standards for people who work in the industry that they should know better um and and when you look at and i got that from a lot of people oh this team has quit and you know you look at the the way the last two weeks had gone or something and they were like they had leads into the seventh or they were down six one and came back and tied a game that they lost they were all like if you look at the games you see that obviously they haven't quit they're not rolling over and and they're they're just not good enough right now

they're not winning and i think too that there's a lot of a hockey mentality especially in this country where people think that if you want it more than the other guy you should win and if you didn't win the canadian thing yeah right it's because you didn't want it enough which doesn't apply to baseball at all right like will to win doesn't help uh in baseball um but yeah so i mean that was yeah they're getting beat they've lost five in a row or whatever they've quit it's just so you can just throw that out there without any thought behind it without any proof to it because all the actual proof you would look for would show you that they haven't. But you want to put that out there because

hey, that's something you can say and it'll fire people up and it'll get people responding to you and it's just really easy and it's really lazy and I expect more from a guy like Mark Hensher. But you said you don't love him anymore. No, no, no. I said I used to love him so much. Never did I say that I don't

love him anymore. I guess I used to love him so much. Never did I say that I don't love him anymore. He was implied, man. I would never stop loving him. Yeah, I guess. But yeah, that's the part I think that hurt him the most. He told me straight out he wants everybody to love him. Everybody wants everybody to love them. But not everybody can love everybody. I introduced... Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, that makes my life a little more difficult.

Every, every one of these little shots that have no basis in reality make my life more difficult because I have to feel like I have to deal with the outrage that that's caused. And I feel like I need to put the fire out, which makes me seem like more of an apologist and more of a corporate chill, which, you know, it's an endless cycle. Okay, on that note though, Hebsey, since we've just introduced him, I want to play a clip

from him. This one runs about 60 seconds. I love you bringing all these clips out. Yeah, I am well prepared. So this is Hebsey, 60 seconds. And here's where the line is blurred between journalist, especially nowadays, journalist, social media journalist which is a oxymoron right uh 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 won't go overboard criticizing the Maple Leaf team management, et cetera. 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 pay for... All right, he trails off there at the end. But how do you define yourself?

Do you define yourself as, I'm going to quote him via Twitter now since it's the Hebsey Show, but he wants to know, do you consider yourself a journalist? Are you a play-by-play guy, a color guy? Obviously, you don't consider yourself a corporate shill, but what do you consider yourself in that regard? Well, first of all, to what he said there, I mean, they haven't lost 90 games in a while.

That's true. they haven't lost 90 games in a while. But two, every day that they do lose doesn't mean that I have to go out and defend them. And that's one of the things that really gets me the most, this issue of defending. And I think it's lost its meaning. When they lose, I'm not here to say, boy, they should have won, or man, they played really well.

It's just a loss, but they played well, and this is a really good team. The truth is, in baseball, a very good team is going to lose four out of every nine games. It's just part of the way it works. But that kind of makes it come off like after a loss, I'll just still say the sun is shining and everything is wonderful. Well, no, they lost the game. But I don't take a loss as a referendum on a season and say this means that they're terrible or they were so bad today.

I've said a couple of times, I think, that after a bad loss, the Dome, they're waiting to close the Dome so that the stench can get out of the building because it was so terrible. But it doesn't mean that they're awful and that they're never going to win another game, right? And I think that that's what people want to hear. That's what they want me to say.

This team is garbage. And I had a caller who said, it wouldn't surprise me if they lost their next 13 games. Are you kidding me? So I'm not there to defend, but I'm there. But I'm certainly not going to take stuff like that. As far as the question goes, it's a difficult position to be in. Because, first of all, I'm a play-by-play guy,

not the play-by-play guy, not the play-by-play guy. And I'm, am I a journalist? I don't know if I'm a journalist. I'm a beat reporter, but I'm also the post-game show host and a play-by-play guy. It's a lot of different hats to wear. And with the Blue Jays, it's almost impossible to break stories because they're so tight-lipped. Alex will never give anything away to anybody. Everything has to come from him.

That's why so many stories are broken in the States because everything comes from the other team or from agents or whatever. I'm part of the radio broadcast. I think that's the way I see myself. I'm not going to... I'm trying to think of a clean way to say this. I'm not going to go on your shoes and tell you that it's raining.

By the way, you can swear on this podcast, but you don't want to. Yeah. Then you'll have to block yourself. I would hate to have to do that. But I'm not going to be negative for the sake of being negative. I'm not going to overreact to anything. I understand that 162 games is a long time,

and that's going to inform everything that I say. A lot of people will be upset if it's, for example, I don't know, late July and you'll say it's early. A lot of people are upset in the first week of May when I say it's early. Right. When is it no longer early? It's no longer early when it's

no longer early, right? I mean, twice in the last 10 years... Do you have the metrics to back that one up? I don't. Twice in the last 10 years the metrics i don't twice in the last 10 years the houston astros have been what like five six seven games under 500 at the all-star break and they've come back to make the playoffs um three or four years ago two teams that were nine and a half and ten games out on september 1st the playoffs. It's there's a lot of games and there's a lot of time. If you're three games out on August 1st, you're right in the thick of things. If you're seven games out on August 1st, you're a win streak away from being right in the

thick of things. I will never understand this need to have to declare a season over as early as possible. It's like everybody wants to be the first one. That was two seasons ago. Two seasons ago, we were writing off the season in week two. Yeah, and as it turned out,

they wound up having a terrible year, but in the last week of June, they were ahead in the standings of the Tampa Bay. Yeah, they had that win streak. Yeah, the 11 game win streak. And they were ahead of the Rays at the end of June and the Rays wound up making the playoffs.

So how could it have been over when you're ahead of a playoff team at the end of June? Now, Mike, I'm going to hit you a few rapid, I know I promised you an hour and we're heading up here, but people have noticed, and I've noticed that you don't appear on Primetime Sports ever. How's your relationship with Bob McCowan? I'm on Primetime Sports a lot.

But not when Bob's hosting, is that right? Does he not like you? What's going on here? I have no idea. Because he had his own CETO controversy. You'd think maybe there'd be a club or something. I don't think I'm I don't think me arguing with and it wasn't even an argument. I don't think I'm, I'm, I don't think that me arguing with, and it wasn't even an argument. I don't think the CETO controversy has branded me. At least I hope not. Um, I don't

know. I mean, Bob doesn't have a lot of the beat guys on, you know, so, so that it may, it may just be that simple, but, uh, no, you have to ask Bob that. Would you consider yourself a stronger play-by-play guy, color man, or talk show host? So what do you think you're best at? I've really done a lot of color, you know, occasionally. But I'm developing, I think, as a play-by-play guy. I've only been doing it for two years really full-time.

And it was only even halftime this year. I've only done 162-game season. So I don't think it's fair to put that on top. That's certainly what I love. So you're not Dan Schulman yet. You're just still working on it. But I aspire to be as good a play-by-play guy as I could possibly

be. I enjoy the hell out of it, and that's what everybody wants to do. But I guess the only possible answer to that is talk show host. Do you aspire to take Jerry Howarth's job

when he retires eventually? Is this something you aspire to? Jerry Howarth's job when he retires eventually? Is this something you aspire to? Take is an aggressive word. Well, when Jerry steps aside of his own will and desire, would you love to have that job? I would love to have that job. Okay. No, man.

I mean, this is a dream come true now, and that would be a dream come truer. Why doesn't Jerry have a smartphone or any phone? Because I heard him once on another podcast, and he doesn't carry any mobile phone. I think he kind of revels in his Luddite. Yes, I guess that's exactly what he's doing. It's become like a thing of pride now.

He's a Luddite, and he's proud of it. Just curious about that. That's kind of unusual. But in 2010, there were some changes at the fan. And I'm just wondering what you thought of the changes. I mean, when Andrew Crystal took over the mornings, did you have any personal thoughts on this? No.

I mean, you know, when a new program director comes in, things change. And that's the way radio works. And we had had a lot of very good people in the same spots for a long time and it's a long time and nothing had ever changed and i don't know if we had gotten stagnant but i think that that was a feeling in some corners and the truth of the matter is the moves worked because our numbers went up and and um across the board everything Everything went up. Well, the crystal move didn't work.

The crystal move didn't work, but there was a pretty easy fix that did. And I'm happy to have survived it, but that's just life in radio. People have walked into radio stations to go to work and walked out because five seconds into it, they say, oh, by the way, we changed our format. You're all fired.

Sure, yeah. We didn't change our format, but again, we changed our program director, and he had ideas and very obviously knew what he wanted the station to sound like, and he made the moves to get the station to sound like. And he made the moves to get the station to that point. And as it turned out, it was what everybody else wanted the station to sound like too. Do you like the, do you ever hear,

do you enjoy the Brady and Walker morning show? I sleep a lot. And when I'm not, when I'm not asleep, I'm either asleep when they're on or on their show, um, or driving my kids to school. And when I'm driving my kids to school, they don't want to listen to, uh, sports talk. So I don't get to hear them a lot. What I do get to hear, um, I often hear like the last 10 minutes or something. Yeah, there, I, I enjoy them for sure. I enjoy all the shows on the station. I think we got a great lineup and a great crew of hosts, top to bottom. Do you think that 590 covers... Would they cover the Blue Jays this much if

Rogers did not own the Blue Jays? I don't know. In offseason particularly, do you think there's an excessive amount of coverage offseason? Not at all. No? No, not at all. I think that if there's a show that has 12 segments on them, 10 of them will be hockey. And I think if anything, we're over-hockeyed, not just my radio station.

I'm talking about sports in general in Canada, the way sports is covered. I think we're severely over hockey, but it seems to be what people want. But no, I don't think there's even remotely, like even during the season, we've got every game. We've always had every game except for the three years when Chum had it. But I don't think there's an overboard baseball coverage

in the rest of the day parts by any means. Okay. Do you? Is that perception out there? No, I actually put an entry up on my site yesterday. Questions from a DDP. It was very disheartening. So I did you a favor and I didn't read all those questions

because it's a vocal minority and all that. But I think I encapsulated everything fairly. So I don't think they'll be pissed at me. I got a couple of people literally asking me, I got a Twitter, no softball questions. I'm inviting you. You don't have to come on the show. You could easily say no, thank you.

A lot of people have. You're coming into my home on your own time to sit in my basement and answer my questions for an hour, and I'm supposed to beat the crap out of you? Is that what I'm supposed to do? If you want to, you can. I mean, the thing is with me, it's the same thing. I think you're right.

But as long as it always comes back to facts and truth. And as long as you can back it up with facts, that's totally fine. But I had Todd Shapiro on the show and I asked him about the obvious question, which is why were you fired from the Dean Blundell show? And he gave me a very careful answer. There were certain things he didn't want in the public

realm. And then afterwards, I got a wealth of criticism for taking it easy on Todd. I was supposed to grab him by the scruff of his neck and put him against the wall and beat him into submission until he tells me the truth of what happened. Otherwise, you're a corporate show. Right.

I don't even have a sponsor. No corporation behind me. Okay. Well, maybe I was going to ask you about your brother, Norm, because Norm Wilner covers television. Has he been on? No.

You know what I did? Recently asked him via Twitter and he said he would come on, but we haven't actually engaged since that date and time. He covers movies. Movies, not television. He is a senior film critic at Now Magazine. I suck. He used to write for The Star. Is that right? Yeah. And he covered there. He did some film, but he did a lot of DVD releases and laser

disc even way back then. Yeah. But he's a movie guy. Where I noticed recently, we're just now recovering from four years of the Rob Ford regime, as they say, and he seems to be awfully political. Awfully political, no? You're less so.

I've encouraged him to run for office. Yeah. So, I mean, you're less political, so you're pretty baseball-only on your Twitter. I get told to stick

to baseball a lot. I said something about hockey yesterday and I got to stick to baseball. Oh, really? Yeah. That's funny. Do you ever get, ever, has your employers told you, A, to be maybe less condescending and arrogant to your callers? And B, have your employers ever commented on your tweets? Have you ever had any interference from the bosses?

I've had comments, but no interference. You know, put it that way. So you've never had like a gentle, like maybe you could be nicer to the callers? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. But I've never had a, you have to do this or you can't say that. But yeah, I mean, the show, I don't want anybody to be intimidated to call the show.

And I think there are a lot of people who are. All you need to do is just be prepared to back up your opinion. That's all, and everything will be great. And if we disagree, then we'll disagree, and we'll talk about it, our disagreement. And I've had many, many, many wonderful, intelligent, civil disagreements with people on the radio all the time.

But I think that... I don't know if social media has done this or what. But time perception has changed over time, and any sort of even the most minor disagreement now is seen as hate. And boy, you must really not like each other. And how could you hate on that? It's the tone that's missing, because it's, I think...

For sure, online, on social media. But even on the radio, if I disagree with you, it doesn't mean I hate you. It doesn't mean I don't like you. It means that we have two opinions that are divergent, and that's totally fine. So, yeah, just be prepared to back up what you're going to say. Don't call me up and tell me that this is all terrible and going to hell. And when I ask you why, just say this is all terrible and going to hell and when i ask you why you just say this is all terrible that's you know that's not productive just before i play us out do you

have a prediction for the blue jays in 2015 no no because you don't have crystal ball it's still early right it's still early and my crystal ball is still in the shop um i hope they're going to be active i i can't imagine they would have traded adam lind without having some sort of a plan in place to say this is what we want to do instead or and this is our plan b and this is our plan c um the ghost for travis trade i really like i mean anthony goes fantastically talented player but he's been passed and dalton pompey at 21 right is already what they hoped ghost would be at 23 and looks like he can actually hit yeah so why not use that surplus to to recover in an area of need but the idea that um that it's

over like that they're not going to do anything else now for the rest of the offseason, it's just silly. It's like when they picked up Andy Dirks on waivers and there was just so much, I can't believe this, this is terrible, why would they do this? This better not be it. How did it possibly be it? And any incremental improvement is an incremental improvement.

And there's still room to do a whole lot more other stuff. So there's a whole winter ahead. And I'm sure that there are a lot of things. I hope that there are going to be a lot of good, positive things that are going to happen. Melky Cabrera may not come back. Not the end of the world if he doesn't. And I know that just seeing that will get people to say, oh, see, there he goes.

Well, okay. You know who, I heard rumors, and I don't know how well grounded these rumors were, but Pablo Sandoval, the panda. Yeah. Rumors of him coming, looking at us at least, or coming here. No, they're seeing the thing now.

Only because to me, he's sort, I mean, he plays third base, but he's kind of like a milky better, better milky, in my opinion, at least what I've seen, which is mainly playoff baseball, to be honest. Right, and he's been fantastic. He's been amazing, yeah. Yeah, he would be a really good five hitter between Edwin and Laurie, I guess, or whoever's going to hit sixth. I don't think that's happening.

I can't, like San Francisco always keeps its guys, and they overpay to keep them, like Hunter Pence. Got a crazy contract. Who looks like the guy from Little Miss Can't Be Wrong and Two Princes. What was that band again? Spin Dodgers. Every time I see him.

He does. He does. But yeah, so I'm confident he'll stay in San Francisco. Maybe Boston. But yeah, I don't think that's happening. I'm worried about the backlash if Melke leaves, because honestly, you could do almost as well for about a third the money and use the money you save to spread around to other people.

And that's not me priming people for losing Melky because Rodgers is Always defending Rodgers' assets. The truth of the matter is, and it kills me when I hear cheap Rodgers. Rodgers is cheap. This is a top 10 payroll team in the major leagues. They're going to spend $140 million on payroll. A lot of teams that fans will applaud for going out and spending money aren't spending as much money as the Blue Jays are.

It's not about cheap. It's about allocation of resources. And sure, some of the resources could be allocated better. You're paying $41 million to Mark Burley and Jose Reyes next year. That's money that could be better spent, but that's a lot of money that's being spent. Final points I'll make here is that when I said I was having Mike Wilner on the podcast,

some people literally told me, in fact, a good friend of mine, my regular co-host Elvis, even warned me, like, don't take his shit when he's condescending and arrogant with you. Sorry I've been such a bastard. Just want to let everybody know that Mike was polite, and I think you answered the questions honestly, and

just a classy gentleman here. Very nice person no arrogance no condescending maybe it's just your tone of your voice like maybe that's i don't know what it is maybe it's maybe i i think a lot of it has to do with the fact that i tell people things that they don't want to hear it feels to me like a lot of the time people call the show to express an opinion thinking that i'm just gonna agree agree with it and that's going to make them feel really smart. And it's wonderful. If it's a smart opinion, that's great.

And when I don't, and again, there are a lot of people out there, or at least a vocal minority, who feel like I disagree with everything anybody says just because, which also not true. All I want is an opinion presented that's informed by facts that's not a complete – and sometimes I'll have a show where they just get their asses kicked and I'll say, okay, come on, vent. Just call up and vent. Go ahead. And that's fine.

But I want to try to raise the level of discourse a little bit. I want an informed, intelligent conversation. That's all I want. And I'm hoping people out there want that too. But when callers call who are neither informed nor presenting their case in an intelligent manner, you know, I'm not going to sit there and say, yeah, that's a really good point. I just remembered, it just came to me that, it was a Don Landry used to do that Mike Wilner impersonation on the Landry and Stelic show.

I never liked that. No, that's my question. What did you think of that? I guess he was like playing you as like a laid back kind of slacker type. No, I think he was playing me like someone that just woke up. Yeah, like, yeah. Because on the morning, and the truth of the matter is

there were a couple of times in the old days where they would call me at 20 to 7 in the morning after I'd gotten home from work at midnight, not having told me that they were going to call me,

like someone bails on them or something, and, you know, can you come on? We really need you. Well, yeah, but I can't possibly sound like I've been awake for...

I get that morning voice too. I didn't love that. But whatever. People enjoy it. People enjoy it. And that's what it all comes down to. We're here to entertain. And hopefully we all do a pretty good job of it. I was

entertained for this past hour. Thank you. This was a pleasure. I'm glad you asked. I'm happy good job of it. I was entertained for this past hour. Thank you. This was a pleasure. I'm glad you asked. I'm happy to have done it. And that brings us to the end of our 96th show. You can follow me on Twitter at Toronto Mike. And until Mike Wilner blocks you,

you can follow him on Twitter at Wilnerness590. See you all next week.