Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Steve Buffery: Toronto Mike'd #437

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

Mike chats with the Toronto Sun's Steve Buffery about his decades covering sports for the paper, his love for Etobicoke, and the interesting characters he's met along the way.

Welcome to episode 437 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Paytm Canada, Palma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, Buckle, and camp turnasol. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com, and joining me this week is the Toronto Suns' Steve Buffery. Welcome, Steve. How are you, Mike? I guess I'm 432nd on your list. No, 437th.

Oh, there you go. Come on, Steve. No, 437. Oh, there you go. Come on, Steve. No, of course. I was like, how do I approach the honorary mayor of Etobicoke? I felt a little frightened. You told me that in that cause? Probably.

Listen, you're a bigot. You're an Etobicoke guy. Right. Have you ever considered... I mean, we don't have mares anymore, I guess. No. Those days are long gone. Sadly not.

But if they brought back the Tobacco mares, you should run. You're a Tobacco guy. All my high school buddies have been telling me that for years. Unfortunately, you know, you talk about people having skeletons in their closet. I'd have like a double walk-in closet.

I just don't think. Listen, did that stop Rob Ford from becoming mayor of... No, it actually didn't. He's an Etobicoke guy, so there you go. Look at our premier, his brother. That's right. He dealt hash. Allegedly he dealt hash. Allegedly.

Always say that word. Let's just say I knew the family growing up. Are you at all... Tell me, if you knew the Ford family, like any prospective mayor of Etobicoke should, are you surprised by this political success? Or did you anticipate that they'd have big things in store? Well, I think there was a,

sort of both when the premier and Rob became mayor, there was a groundswell of people wanting change before that. So I don't know if it was so much that, you know, what they brought to the table is what people want. I think at the time when both were elected, there was sort of a hue and cry for change. And I think the Fords being populist were just sort of in the right place at the right time. And, you know, but I'll tell you, as a councillor, and I always get my arms chopped off for this, Rob was a very popular counselor. He was a kind, if he had stayed a counselor his entire career, he'd go down in history as one of the best ever because he didn't say a lot of stupid things or things like that. All he did was like get his tool case and go to people's houses and fix their like sinks, you know, and answer his phone at like midnight.

Well, that's his fame to fame, right? He would take your call. Exactly. It's hard to get a lot of counselors. You have to call their office, and then they take a message, and then they might get back to you. They might not. But Rob would hand out his cell number.

That's what he did. And that wasn't a spiel to get points from anybody. And again, when he did that as a councillor, he wasn't always getting in trouble for saying things. He got in trouble sometimes, but the next thing you know, he's the mayor, and now he's saying things that he might have said to friends and that before,

and all hell, you know, got... He overreached. You're right. He should have stayed a councillor. And he was extremely popular in War II, I think it is, up North Etobicoke. Oh, absolutely. And that's the thing, too. I remember every time he would do

something, TV crews would send people up, or TV stations would send crews up there, and they'd talk to people in Ford country. And everybody in these places really appreciate what he did, because he was one of their guys. He certainly

wasn't slick or anything like that. He was just somebody from the neighborhood. His brother's slicker though, I will say. I don't know how to put this, but I don't think his brother has... People like his brother in Ford Country,

but Rob was more like the guy everybody sort of liked. The way I would... I think you might want to grab a beer. He's no longer with us, but if you could, you'd grab a beer with Rob and kind of... There's something likable, like some charisma at play there where his brother, his older brother Doug, seems to lack that folksy charm, that charisma.

Exactly. You know? Exactly. But here he is running the show. So what do I know, right? What do I know? But Etobicoke, so you're, I mean, let's just say right off the top,

you're in the Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame. Like this is, you went into that Hall of Fame with Dave Boland, right? This is a big deal. Like how long ago did you get in that Hall of Fame. You went into that Hall of Fame with Dave Boland, right? This is a big deal. How long ago did you get in that Hall of Fame? I guess it was two years ago. And it was great getting in with Dave because when he came to the Leafs, I ended up coming down and I thought

I'd do something different. I wasn't doing hockey as a beat then, but my boss asked me to write something on Dave Boland because, of course, when he came to the Leafs, our paper had like 1 like 1500 pages on them. Right. So I thought, you know,

I'll call the family. And I came down and sat down with his dad and who's just this great guy down here in Mimico and, uh, went to their house and everything else. And just, just a Scottish immigrant guy, just a great guy.

And I just got a sort of a, a piece, not just on, you know, Dave growing up and all this stuff but the family you know growing up in Etobicoke

and Mimico and what that meant to them and it was great. Well I know Dave Bowen is a big deal in these parts so you're you're currently sitting

in a new Toronto which is very close to Mimico half of the guests think they're in Mimico when they're here. I didn't even know. Right.

And you're practically the mayor of Etobicoke. Come on, you gotta know these things. And then I have to do my whole thing. There's actually like a Toronto Mike bingo card and one of the squares is like, if I correct people who think they're in Mimico and I let them know the boundary is Dwight

and they are now and whatever. So, but there's a mural like in this really few streets away, there's a big mural on the wall where it has like famous residents and Dave, there's a big mural on the wall where it has famous residents. And Dave Bolin's on the mural. So you know he's a big deal. Also, I went to Mimical High for one year, grade 14, basically just to wrestle and get my English course. Grade 13 English.

And the big hero of Mimical High in those days was Al Eagleson, which is interesting because they had pictures of him on the walls, and basically the message was, be like Al. You can be like Al, which is interesting because Al did do great things until he got into trouble and ended up in Mimico Jail, which a lot of guys I knew ended up doing as well. So a lot of guys ended up like Al. That's funny. I knew.

Okay, so I was a big fan of this. And it's before my time like i was actually not alive during the 1972 summit series i'm not alive yet but there's a doc i'm almost alive so i'm close but there's a documentary series i recorded on vhs called summit on ice which was this really like really deep dive into the whole thing and i love so i loved this whole i love the story i loved everything about the summit series even though i didn't see it until except on replay but in this documentary there's a whole bunch of alan eaglestone like he's all over this thing like you know he said my mom knew i was okay when i was

like pulling up my pants or whatever he's being dragged right yes yeah and he's like adjusting his like pants his belt or whatever and alan eaglestone's all over this documentary and he's like a folk hero in this thing. And then I guess many years later after the Alan Eagleson legal stuff went down, they reissued this with all the Alan Eagles stuff stripped out. Oh, that's kind of stupid. I know.

I mean, he was a huge part of that series. He was one of the organizers, really. And what happened in that game where he got dragged off the ice by security and Pete Mihaljevic and a bunch of the other Canadian players actually had to go and rescue him. Right. You know, and it was, the drama was,

I am old enough, I watched, I remember that series, like yesterday, I remember game eight, I was at Hollycrest Middle School on Renforth, and when they tied the game, I think it was 5-5, my teacher, Mr. Swanick, and we had, our middle school was right in the runway path of the airport, I think it was 5-5. My teacher, Mr. Swanick, and we had, our middle school was right in the runway path of the airport,

and our teacher said, if Canada scores, this chair is going through that window, and they were like, you know, 8-inch thick window, soundproof. So Paul Henderson scored, and we went nuts, and Mr. Swanick picked up the chair, and we were all chanting his name, and

he did the gesture he was going to throw to the wind. Just at the last second, he stopped. And we were so bummed, though. He had a momentary, he caught himself. That's a great story. I love hearing all the rolling in the TVs into the schools. I love hearing those stories. Yeah, you talked about drama.

It's all the Cold War. Absolutely. It mattered, right? It felt like that was way more than a hockey series. That's like that. You talked about drama like that. It's all the Cold War. It just absolutely mattered, right? Like it felt like that was way more than a hockey series. That's the thing, the politics behind it. And the fact that, you know, we had sort of been told that nobody in the world was better in hockey than we are. And we had never played the Russians like that with our best players. You know, we've been getting our ass kicked at the Olympics for years because we'd send these second-class teams and then we'd play the Soviet Red Army.

And then finally, we put this team together and just, it was such an eye-opener about how great the Russians were. Right. Absolutely. Now, so you went in with Dave Boland, great Mimico boy, but I'm going to just share with everybody

a few other names in the Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame so they realize what a big deal this is. People should know. Brendan Shanahan, of course, is in there. How could he not be? He went to Michael Power. He's a Mimico Boy. Definitely a Mimico Boy. The smart kids from

Mimico went up to Power. Is that how it worked? That's how we saw it. Lakeshore Collegiate is the old Mimico High, right? Mimico High is now John English and Lakeshore Collegiate was worked well that's that's how we saw it because lake shore collegiate is the old mimico high right they changed no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no where Dundas and Islington meet there, right across, well, at least when Brendan went there and when I went there, it had merged with St. Joe's. Right. The old girl. So it was a co-ed now and it was Michael Power.

We didn't like you guys, by the way. We thought you were all snooty and all that stuff, you know. I was on the other side of the Humber River. So I don't even know

why I was going to Michael Power. I think I was supposed to be going to Bishop Morocco at like Dundas and Bloor, I think. That's where I was supposed to go and somehow I just at like Dundas and Bloor, I think. That's where I was supposed to go. And somehow I just ended up at, anyway. Because that's not even Etobicoke, right?

No. Once you're on the other side of the Humber River, you're out of Etobicoke. But anyway, I was at Michael Power and I'm a little younger than Brendan. So he wasn't there anymore. By the way, this episode is really going to help your bingo cards because there's also a Shanahan went to power reference there. But Shanahan's in the Topical Sports Hall of Fame. Red Kelly is in there. Amazing. Jerry Howarth

is in there. He's coming on this show soon. He's got a book coming out. Cliff Lumsden and Barb Underhill. So there's some big names in there with you. So congrats on that. I did go into the media part of it. When I made a speech, as one of the organizers had to tell me, when I was yammering on about hockey, when I played hockey and wrestled,

they had to remind me that I wasn't going in because of my sports prowess. Were you a good wrestler? How were you as a wrestler? Well, I was a good wrestler. Unfortunately, my high school, Vincent Massey, dumped our wrestling program in grade 10. So me and a couple other guys

wrestled for Etobicoke Amateur Wrestling Club. We weren't allowed to wrestle at high school tournaments. As a matter of fact, I remember writing a letter to the Etobicoke Guardian

when I was a kid saying how unfair that was and they published it and one of the reasons why I came down to Mimico my last year was just so I could wrestle high school one year.

It does seem unfair. Here's the funny thing, Mike. I've done a lot of things since then. We had our class reunion a few years ago, Visit Massey. And the head of sports at high school actually came up to me and apologized all these years later for not letting us have a wrestling team. to me and apologized all these years later for not letting us have a wrestling team because me and a couple of other guys named Dave

Uano, Dave Massey, we were in the club and we wrestled a lot of open tournaments. We did quite well. I wrestled the Nationals but yet we were not allowed to wrestle in high school, which is to this day still pisses us off. Rightly so though because let's say there's only two of you, right? But that's still

a wrestling team. you could still represent the school of two people is it just no coaches is that it we had a math teacher Mr. Kang who was a tai chi

taekwondo yeah that's it he volunteered to be just our coach we would coach ourselves right but they said no that's it

and that was it so well that sucks yeah it did. I'm still bitter. I can tell. I like it. I like it when my guests come in a little bitter.

It makes for some good stuff. There's a little more Etobicoke content. And of course, we're in Etobicoke now. So I want to ask you, like Six Points, are you up to date with what's going on in the Six Points neck of the woods? Well, I just know that they're... Tearing it up? Yeah.

I remember. Do you remember Westwood Theaters there? Of course, yeah. Yeah, they're finally putting something there after all these years. Because that's been closed forever. So, six points. I'm interested in six points. Well, not only because I love Apache Burger.

Right, so do I. A topical institution. Do you remember G&B Burger? Sure. Right across the street. I would, because I went to Michael Power, which is not far from there.

And did I mention I went to Michael Power? No. But G&B, which disappeared a long time ago, I think it became Red Cabin or something. I think you're right. And now it's a Starbucks, I think. Right.

I think so. But I always thought, like, what a great, like, what a great burger joint this GB was. But at Power, we called it

Garbage and Barf Burgers. And I didn't care. Because of your loyalty to Apache? I guess so. Like, that was a big rivalry, but I often chose GB, G&B Burgers.

You know what? All those years, I went to Apache. We used to go to Apache coming back from drinking downtown Friday, Saturday night. We'd come up at Kipling and go to Apache.

Never went to GMB. But the funny thing is the last time I saw Mike Zeisberger, I was at Apache with a buddy of mine who was working on my house and I look out the window and there's this guy standing outside taking pictures of Apache Burger and it was Zeisberger just coming from your show. Yeah, okay.

And he came inside. We probably talked about it. Two things I wonder about. Well, one thing is they still are cash only in there. It's kind of weird because I come in there and I want to use my MasterCard or whatever. And I believe Apache is one of the last holdouts. I think cash only.

Am I misremembering that? I only take cash. Okay, you're a cash man? Yeah, a certain age, you know. Oh, yeah. I just like getting points, you know. Oh're a cash man? Yeah. Certain age, you know. I just like getting points. Oh, but it's Icebergers, so we probably talked about it.

And also, it had a cameo in a big Oscar-nominated movie fairly recently, The Room. Basically, it was shot in Etobicoke. A woman and her son were held captive and they escaped from... This guy kidnapped them and was holding them captive and they escaped from like, this guy was kidnapped them and was holding them captive and they escaped. And it was a big deal.

Like the kid is like, I can't remember his name now, Jacob something. He was all over the place. He's a Canadian kid. But they filmed like a scene in the Apache burger. Really? For what that's worth.

Oh, I never knew that. There you go. I'm here to educate you. I do know that there's pictures of like a lot of leafs and blue jays and stuff eating there on the wall. What about Mama Martino's? Have you ever eaten at Mama Martino's? Rural York and Queensway?

Yes, I have actually. Yeah, I've eaten there. When I'm in there, I see a lot of photos of like, yeah, like you'll see, like old Kelly Gruber ate here or whatever. He lived in Etobicoke during his time. He lived right off of Kipling. His house was right on...

The backyard went down to the Mimical Creek. Beautiful spot on a dead end. Not that I stalked him or anything. He had that one monster season. 30 plus homers, 100 plus RBIs. MVP candidate. I guess he was in the top 10 anyways in voting.

But yeah, Kelly Gruber, but now he's most famous for that whole pitch talks thing with Ashley Dawkins. Sad. These guys, you know, alcohol is a terrible thing. Not in moderation. Yeah.

I was going to say, because I'm about to give you a six-pack, so let me just say in moderation. That's beautiful. And now, you know... Appreciate it. There are local Etobicoke craft breweries. Yeah, you can see them from the highway. Yes, yes.

Right down the street from the Costco, as we say. So we're speaking, of course, of Great Lakes Brewery. Fiercely independent. 99.9% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario. So Steve, take that six pack home with you and enjoy responsibly.

I will do. Thank you. And if you're around on June 27th, no pressure here, but you're invited because all listeners and guests are invited. There's going to be a big get together

on the patio of Great Lakes Beer from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. We have live music, including, tell me if you know this band, Lowest of the Low. Oh, absolutely. My old roommate was at, Doug Graham was now an editor at The Star,

was a fanatic. I'm a fanatic too, and I close every episode of this podcast with Lowest of the Low. They've been on a few times, but it's super exciting to me that they're going to play my event, TMLX3 on June 27th. So if you've ever listened to the show or been a guest on the show, get your butt to Great Lakes on June 27th and catch live music from

Lowest of the Low. It's going to be super cool. Now, Palma Pasta is not an Etobicoke eatery. It's a Mississauga in Oakville, but it's pretty close. So we'll cut them some slack. But they make great pasta and lasagna.

So there's a large meat lasagna for you, Steve. Thank you very much. Take that home with you. And everybody listening, please support our sponsors. They make it all happen. Palapasta.com for locations. Check out Palma's Kitchen near Mavis and Burnhamthorpe. They have a retail store in there. There's also a hot table and you can get yourself some fresh pasta, of course, pizza, and you can get a nice coffee and sit down in there. It's just amazing new facilities.

So go to palmapasta.com. Did you hear about Ted Lindsey? Yeah, I said. Did you ever have the pleasure of chatting with him? No, I never did. I've done a lot of beats at the Sun, but I only did hockey for one year and I never ran across him. But he meant a lot to the game more than just what he did on the ice.

I know that. Yeah, it's funny. When you got here today, Hebsey was still here, Mark Hebseyer because we recorded at 9 a.m. We recorded an episode of Hebsey on sports and he was telling me about, yeah, well, I mean,

I kind of read the headlines or whatever but yeah, basically, he's the instrumental guy in the NHLPA getting set up and it cost him, basically, he's the instrumental guy in the NHLPA getting set up, and it cost him his, well, he was with Detroit forever, and then they traded him to Chicago after that, so. Yeah, he really got

screwed, and the other thing about, I remember Ted Lindsay was, he was not a big man even for that time, but he was as tough as they come, you know. He had, he centered that line, they called it the production line. Right. And Gordie Howe, of course, on one wing,

and Sid Abel on the other. So one of four Stanley Cups there, so Ted Lindsay passed away. 93, good age, though. Yeah, you know what? Do you play this game, like when somebody famous dies, do you think, like, would you take that?

If you were guaranteed that you would live to that age would you take it kind of deal you know what i mean oh absolutely so 93 is a no-brainer right we'll take that every day for sure yeah absolutely i do that um you know i look at my grandfather he was 89 and that kind of thing and i always say if you can make it to 89 or something that's that's great'd take that too. So would I, yeah. The tough calls are like 82, for example. So 82, that's a good life. I think 82 is really you did well because we've all lost people we love and they're like 50s or 60s.

I'll take 82. But then you're like, or a gamble and let's go for like 89 or whatever. Right. I don't know. I mean, I lost a good friend who's a real Etobicoke guy, Ed Zawadzki, a couple years ago.

He was a local boxing promoter, and he wrote some sports books, and he wrote a couple books about great Polish North Americans. And he passed away in his mid-50s. And guys like Steve Simmons and all these guys in the industry knew him really well. And you think back to that, sometimes I get up and I think,

geez, I still can't believe he's gone. Yeah, mid-50s sounds way too young. Yeah. But I mean, I lost a really good friend when he was 32 years old from cancer. It was like, oh my God, he'll take mid-50s, but it's all about perspective. You gotta live for the moment, right, buddy?

Right. Enjoy your, on that note, enjoy your beer and your lasagna He'll take mid-50s, but it's all about perspective. Live for the moment, right, buddy? Right. On that note, enjoy your beer and your lasagna because who knows what's coming next. What was I going to tell you? Six points. Oh, yeah, real quick. So six points is always, you know, I guess if you grew up around it or you know it, you kind of like accept it for what it is,

but then if you step back and look at six points, like how it was anyways and how it was until now, it's it's a mess right that's a whole like what a mess and dundas is an absolute nightmare driving like i don't know exactly what they do all i know is this they keep throwing up uh condos there but they haven't done anything to the infrastructure i mean dundas is just ridiculous but i think that's what they're doing i think the bridges are coming down i think that whole messy bridge part you're talking that whole dundas is just ridiculous now. But I think that's what they're doing. I think the bridges are coming down. I think that whole messy bridge part you're talking, that whole Dundas thing over Kipling or whatever, I think it's all being

torn down, and I think they're going to make it a regular intersection, like a regular 90 degree... I don't even know. It should be. Well, that's good. My big thing as an Etobicoke guy is I remember they opened Kipling subway station maybe now 25, 30 years ago.

More than that. More than that. Okay, well, my thing is, why don't they just, there never seems to be a push. You know, Scarborough Subway is great and all that stuff, but there never seems to be a push

to add on, say, one more stop past Kipling, say, Sherway Garden or something, where they can build a Mississauga bus depot. People can park their cars there to get on the subway, and you take all these cars off of Dundas and Burnhamthorpe and the Mississauga buses and Bloor and Rathburn.

But you never seem to hear that. No, you don't because if they're going to waste any ink on our subway issues, it's going to Scarborough. Exactly. And they need the service. But if I'm an Etobicoke, I'm not going to tell anybody how to do their job,

but if I'm an Etobicoke politician, I push for that subway extension to the Mississauga boundary where you can take all that commute and Mississauga buses off our streets. I think the Sherway is a good point. Like, I think you could create a hub there. I don't know.

Yes. I mean, that's become like a rich person's mall. It has become rich. But, you know, if there's some room on the west side of West Mall there, to me, where they could build a transit hub. I like the cut of your jib here. I think you've got some good ideas here. Maybe I could be an urban planner. All I have to do

is go get some education. You got the grade 14. Exactly. I still get messed up. So my son's in grade 11 and my brain thinks he's got two years left of high school because we...

Were you still around for grade 13? They called it OAC. So we did grade 13 but we didn't call it grade 13. So we did grade 12 and then we went to OAC.

Okay, well... But it was still a fifth year. Right. Meanwhile, my wife's from Alberta and, you know, she thinks we're stupid

or whatever, like that we all had five years. I had six. I had six. You did the victory lap. Exactly. What you did there.

By the way, I have a little thing in the mall. So I think the way I look at it is Sherway's the rich person mall. Right. It's okay. Then you have the middle class mall. I'm going to say Cloverdale.

We call that the old people's mall. Because you're right. You feel so young when you walk Cloverdale. But now that they got the kitchen store in there and they got the good winners, they still have nothing to replace the Target, I noticed. They have that, I don't know what's going in the whole Target end.

But they've done a good job fixing it up. But it's like the middle class. So you got the rich people go to Shurway. The middle class can go to there. And then the poor people go to the Dixie Value Mall. So that's your tier. I do all three. They're sort of on my rotation, you know?

I like Cloverdale. I have my dentist is in Cloverdale and my daughter's orthodontist is in, although she doesn't have to go as often now because she's got a retainer now. So I'm in there a lot and there's a home hardware in the Cloverdale Mall where you can get like amazing deals on like chocolate. Like I don't know what they, they get deals on chocolate. I don't know what they... I don't know if they get with their sources like, oh, we have too many

Hershey Kisses. We need to sell them for 99 cents or whatever. And they get this whole stock or whatever. I don't know how it works, but you find the most interesting deals there. Yeah, they're always on display in the hallway there too as you walk in. That's right. So I think that's like a... When I go to Cloverdale, I go down where the bathrooms are.

It sounds kind of weird. But on the walls there are pictures of old Cloverdale. And I actually, when it wasn't covered, it was just two strips of stores. I've heard of this, yeah. Yeah, and they have pictures of there and they had this sort of cement ride that I remember as a kid. But Cloverdale was the it mall in Etobicoke when it opened back in the 60s.

I'm not that old. I was just a little kid. But yeah. Before the bay was there, do you remember what was the name of the... Morgans. Morgans. And when they opened the bay, you could still see the Morgans outline on the wall where the bay sign was for years. So i think it went like

this then it went like morgans to the bay and then the bay became zellers that's right and then they destroyed that and uh well zellers disappeared although they have this secret zellers at kipling and queensway but it's really just a bay uh outlet store but they are yeah and they call it zellers but uh then then now it's the kitchen stuff and the winners. This is the Etobicoke episode. No kidding. But hey, we're going to move on here. I have been out of Etobicoke once in a while.

But only once in a while. And we're going to, we have a lot to cover here. You've had a long career at the Toronto Sun. We're going to talk about a whole bunch of stuff. Let me think where I want to go next. Let's talk just a little bit about like some like topical things before we do the deep dive. Like I'm just curious for your opinion on the whole John Tavares thing. I want to know what you thought. Steve Simmons wrote about how, I think he just said it was like a participation medal.

I think, I don't know what his exact words were, but he was, he wasn't big on the whole John Tavares day and that whole reception he had when he came back and played here. What are your thoughts on that whole thing? First of all, I'm a real fans guy. One thing I can't stand when certain media guys get on their high horses and start scolding the fans about booing or treating players unfairly. The way I see it, Mike, if you pay the money, and God knows in this market it's a lot of money to watch these teams,

you're allowed to do anything you want. Pro sports is about the fans. When I say anything, short of physical violence, right? But if you want to burn a guy's jersey or scream at him or chant things like we don't need you, stuff like that, more power to you. To me, that's what makes sports or you know like guys and certain media guys and i don't want to make any enemies here but they constantly scold fans for doing what they think is the wrong thing i think that's crap i'm all for fans going for you know showing their their passion and that kind of thing but and i

agree with simmons i think this thing back in Toronto with, I mean, John Tavares is a big boy. I don't think he needed anybody stroking him, you know? Right. And I mean, organically, like authentically, we were going to cheer for John Tavares. He's our guy. Right, exactly.

He chose us and we love him and he's an all-star. And that's a natural thing. Exactly. So you're right. The whole like creating the hashtag. And then they did the spotlight thing. Did you see the game on TV? At the Scotiabank Arena, they put the spotlight on John. And it was one of those, people will like that moment. And there's nothing not to like, I guess.

It's cheering for your guy, and your guy seems to be touched by the moment. But it all seemed a little cringy to me. Yeah, it kind of manufactured. But Leafs, it's a funny market. Leafs have incredibly loyal fans, as everybody knows. But they're also, I think of all the Toronto teams, they're kind of the most conservative, boring fans out there. So maybe when it comes to the Leafs, they have to manufacture some passion, a little bit. That's a good point.

We usually blame it because the lower bowl or whatever is like the corporate seats or whatever. Yeah, of all the teams, that's the quietest crowd, I think. Which is funny because they've got one of the best, most loyal fan bases of any team in the world. All those years from the 60s after they won their Stanley Cups to the late 80s when they were crap, they set some kind of a world record for most sellouts, even

when their teams were terrible and run by an owner who did outrageous things. So the fan base is incredible. Do you have any personal interactions with Harold Ballard you can share? Any Ballard stories? Well, I was there when he...

I can't remember what was happening exactly, but I was filling in to do something. I was there when he came out of the gardens one day with a huge army of media guys waiting for him and he was in a wheelchair and he started waving his cane

at everybody, which is great, but I can't remember what the issue was. But I do remember all these colleagues I grew up admiring were laughing their heads off because they thought it was, like, here's this owner. And I do know this. Some of us are kind of jealous that those guys, you know, they would go to a Leafs game or a practice, and their column was written for them by the owner, you know?

So it's something you don't really get anymore. I had Gord Stelic on the show and i think for two and a half hours and it was i just i just wanted him to bury me and like bury me in ballard stories like he could i mean it's like even today on the hebsy on sports episode i mentioned we were talking about the tire fire that is the ottawa senators and how a lot of their problems stem from this uh this owner and then i'm i asked hebssi, like, can you remember anything like this? And he reminded me, oh, yeah, Harold Ballard was the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

And, yeah, it's like you forget how crazy things are when you have kind of a, I want to say crazy, I guess the word's eccentric, I don't know, when you have that one guy in charge who's a bit of a maniacal madman. Here's a guy. He also went to prison, Millhaven. I remember him declaring that,

yeah, this is great. We get steak and color TV, which just pissed off all the prison bureau people. Like I said, the younger generation then, my guys, we were always sort of thinking that those hockey guys have it made. Right. It all writes itself.

That's great. Now, so, okay, so I agree with you on all that you said about John Tavares Day and et cetera. I was wondering what you think of the load managements of Kawhi Leonard. Like this seems to be a new term we just learned, the seasoned load management. Like it's one thing be a new term we just learned this season, load management. Like, it's one thing, I guess,

on back-to-backs, he's coming off an injury, but we rested him yesterday, load management. Like, what are your thoughts on that? What do you think about that? Yeah, I'm sort of at two schools here, Mike. Like, you know, on the other hand,

like, I'd hate to be a guy who buys tickets only to have him not playing because they're managing his game. On the other hand, I think they brought him in for one reason, and that's to advance in the playoffs. So I agree with him there. It's sort of like Vlad Guerrero Jr.

The big controversy with him is they're going to send him down to the minors for a few weeks to start with because they get an extra year of control with him. I'm all for it. Well, you have to, right? How could you not? People are outraged, though have to, right? Like, how could you not? People are outraged, though. I mean, to me, what's the point? This team is not going to do anything this year anyway.

So what point is it having Vlad for three weeks, other than it's something Rodgers can market? Because God knows they're going to need something to market around this year, right? I think the outrage comes from when Atkins opens his mouth and says that he's not ready. I think that, because, you know, I guess he has to say that because there could be a grievance could be filed or something. Like, he has to, you can't ever, like, you can never admit

why you're sending him down. So do you have to pretend like it's to improve him, to make him MLB ready? Well, that is a joke. I think Steve Simmons had the right, he made a point in his column on Sunday. Just say nothing. Pretend you're on your. I think Steve Simmons had the right, he made a point in his column on Sunday. Just say nothing. Pretend you're on your cell phone or eat something. And he's absolutely right because Ross Atkins can't win

in this scenario. I live this in my head because when he says it, he sounds stupid and ridiculous and you realize, well, he has to say that. He's not stupid and ridiculous. Maybe he's smart and ridiculous. You know what I mean? Like, he has to say it. And then I wonder, okay, so when you're asked that question,

which is the go-to question when you're doing an interview with, like, MLB or whatever, and they ask you about him, you say that. Could you say no comment, or would that open yourself up to a grievance? Like, maybe you have to toe the company line that he's not ready for the big leagues yet. You know, I would just, at the beginning of spring training, I would have got the media

guys together, had a media availability and said, listen, guys, ask me any questions you want to ask about Vlad Guerrero now, because after this, it's sort of what Josh Donaldson did in spring training to us last year. He said, I'm going to talk, I'm not going to, I'm going to talk about, any of you guys want to talk about the first day after that, I'm not talking about free agency or anything. So Atkins should have done that and said, is my line on vlad guerrero take it or leave it we don't think he might he's probably not going to be ready at the start of the year he still is only 19 years old you know he did great at triple a but that's it and you guys write what you want to write ste Steve, this is an exciting announcement.

Sounds like the American Revolution is moving in again. You're not far off there. This is Nana Muscuri. Ah, wow. It's been a while. Do you know she's still with us, Nana Muscuri? No, I did not know that. I think she's still touring.

Wow. Like maybe 84 or something years of age. I just remember the glasses. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Distinctive look. Absolutely. Nana Muscuri.

And a lot of people, I think a lot of people thought she was Canadian. I feel like there was that. But you know she's Greek, I guess. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So some people thought she came. But Nana Muscuri, only the dumb people, Steve, not us smart people. But Nana Muscuri sings this song.

This is the song I played last year at this time because we had a new sponsor last year this time, Camp Tournesol. They provide French camps in the GTA and Camp Tournesol had, I guess, had great success with sponsoring

Toronto Mike. They came back and you're lucky, Steve, because you're here for the return of camp turnuson which means i get to play this song again i don't have to try to join in do i well do you know any french no no i i took it at school like well they made you take it right my son's going to french immersion starting next year so okay okay my kids are in french immersion too and that's actually uh i'm glad you mentioned that. So it doesn't matter if your child is francophone,

French immersion, or has no French experience. Camp Tournesol has a day camp or an overnight experience for your child. You could send your French immersion child to Camp Tournesol. They have a camp, for example, introduction to French day camp for ages four to 10. They have a French immersion day camp for ages 4 to 10. They have a French immersion day camp for ages 6 to 12.

They have, you know, overnight camps if your child's between the ages of 8 and 14. They have other year-round academic support for your French student. It's really amazing what they have going on at Camp Tournesol. So I want to say two things. One, welcome back, Camp Ternasol.

Welcome back. And two, this is key for listeners. You can get $20 off your first order by entering the promo code, write this down, Mike2019. So go to campt.ca and remember to use the promo code Mike2019 when you register your child or children for Camp Tournesol. And I'm going to play lots of Nana Muscuri for the rest of the month. Did she go to Camp Tournesol or something? What's the connection?

This song is called Le Tournesol. Ah, there you go. But thank you for asking. You're right. What is the connection? Yeah, Le Tournesol, which I believe is, I should know this,

sunflower, I think, in French. I'll take your word for it. But I'm like you. I only have grade 9 French, which means I barely have any French at all. We used to take the train as teenagers to Montreal and try to pick up French-Canadian girls with quality lines like

parlez-vous, hubba hubba? You know, which often got a slap in the face and things like that. It didn't work out for you there. No, it didn't work, surprisingly. Oh, that's funny. That's funny. So welcome back, Camp Tournesol.

And I have a jam here. Let's take you back in a time machine. Let's see how good your... Do you love music? Oh, absolutely. I'm a drumming fanatic. So you're not going to know this jam then because you probably didn't listen to a lot of pop music.

Well, what years? 20 years ago. There we go. Well, let's play this. Let's see. I have a 25-year-old daughter, so... On this day... Actually, I'm doing the math in my head.

Maybe I have the wrong year. 20 years ago. What was 20 years ago? That was 2000... That was 99. No, I think we have to go back 30 years ago. I think 20 years ago? That was 2000. That was 99. No, I think we have to go back 30 years ago. I think I have the wrong year here. So I think on this day,

anyways, on this day, maybe 30 years ago, I got to go check this out. The number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 was this. Well, let it play, Steve And if you can name that tune, you scream it out Where's the buzzer?

Not my kind of music You weren't a big fan of Debbie Gibson Oh, I remember her, but Something like this would come on the radio And I'd instantly switch the channel Top 40, typical Top 40 stuff but this is lost in your eyes by debbie gibson lovely she came i remember distinctly there is a moment of like uh you remember tiffany sure so tiffany who kind of came in that uh new kids on the block, I'd say, she was performing at malls and stuff.

And then I think she was really young, like, I don't know, 16 or 17. Didn't she make an appearance in Ted, the movie? Yes, she did. The guy was dancing to her or something? Right. That is right. Ted, the movie. That's right.

Anyway, this Debbie Gibson was like another young woman who kind of rode that wave, too, and had a bunch of hits, and this is one of them. Are those tears coming down your eyes, Mike? It reminds me of my grade school dances, I think. Oh, the last song in the dance was always a slow one, right? Lady in Red by Chris DeBerg. Oh, I remember that song. Nice song.

What was a big slow dance song for you in high school dances do you remember uh oh yeah chicago uh what's chicago song uh 25 no not 25 to 64 oh um oh it was always that chicago song and uh what years are we talking because there's a chicago had a late hit that was big but but it was later i think it was like mid-80s. You're the Inspiration? No, not that one. No, that was later. Oh, geez.

You know what? It was a Chicago song, and they always closed our dances at the school with that. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. The best one was Trying to Dance the Stairway to Heaven, which they always would play. And you know how the music changes from slow to fast

and watching the guys try to adjust their dance moves. That's actually a good point. That's a tough dance because you're right, it's slow, and then it's hard rock and like, oh, there's a light on down the road. And then the acoustic guitar would come in, and you see these guys are in a swing awkwardly. A lot of memories.

Yeah, that's a tough one there. Yeah, Debbie Gibson. Yeah, it's been a while since I've heard her. Remember the Time is brought to you by Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repairs. They've been doing quality watch and jewelry repairs for over 30 years. You know, we talked about the Bay earlier,

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and they never do this just tell them you heard about them on Toronto Mic'd and you get 15% off you mentioned earlier Etobicoke Guardian, you wrote a letter to the Guardian about your wrestling but you, is this where you begin your You mentioned earlier a Tobacco Guardian. You wrote a letter to the Guardian about your wrestling. But is this where you begin your reporting career?

No, not quite. Where does it begin for you? Well, it began when I got thrown out of Humber College, second year in journalism school. I was on double-seeker probation, and our journalism floor hockey team got into a brawl, and I got called before the carpet saying, you're not supposed to be doing stuff when you're on double secret probation. I never went to class.

I covered the hockey team for this college newspaper. And that was basically it. So anyway. Double secret probation. That's what I called it. And then you got in a hockey fight with like a last straw that broke. Yeah, when you're on probation, you're not supposed to be doing intramural sports apparently.

So they called me in and said, look, you know, we like you, but you don't go to class, so see you. I went, yeah, great. I was working full time at the Bahala Squash Club on the East Mall anyway. That's, yeah. It's now a good life or something like that. Right, of course. The owner was Murray Christensen in New Zealand.

Yeah, best job ever. I was perfectly happy doing that but then i got a call from the newspaper or the journalism coordinator at humber saying that he knew a guy up at the etobicoke guardian which was a metroland newspaper they need a sports center in those days the neighborhood newspapers like the etobicoke the aurora banner i'm sorry aurora banner was looking for a sports center in those days you know that sports sections in these neighborhood newspapers were six, seven, eight pages. So I went up for, I kind of reluctantly went up for an interview.

It was just before New Year's Eve, and they were having a party in the office. And the guy who hired me was pretty well into the bag already. And he talked to me for about 10 minutes and hired me. He said, you start Monday. I'm like, what? So that's where I started. Then he got a job as the editor

at the Etobicoke Guardian about a year and a half later and he brought me down with him to be the sports editor at the Etobicoke Guardian. And then about a year after that, I got a call from George Gross, who was sports editor at The Sun,

telling me that he got my resume and he'd like for me to come in. And I thought, great, what resume? And it turns out my then wife had put a resume together for me and sent it into the sun without telling me. Wow. Because I had no ambition.

You had no drive. So I said, yeah. Went in, George talked to me for maybe four minutes, asked me how much I made at The Guardian. Was very pleased to find out that it was not very much. Did you tell the truth? That's a rookie mistake. You got to double whatever you make.

You know what? I didn't even know what I was doing there, to tell you the truth. Because he's an Atomical guy too. And he claimed he read the Atomical Guardian. Sure. And my writer in those days was Rob Longley, who is now our baseball guy.

So you and Rob were at the Guardian together? I was a sports editor and he was my sports writer and his sister for a time was a part-time sports writer there. Wow. Yeah, we had a huge section. It was twice a week at one point and he had a column called From the Fringe, which was mostly about golf because he's a golf guy.

And I had a column called The Buffer Zone, which was way too much about boxing, which Topico's not exactly known for. So the boss used to say, you know, you're trying to turn this newspaper into a ring magazine, and you're trying to turn this, to say to Rob, you're trying to turn this into a golf magazine. Just try to

find a balance, right? But where is Etobicoke's boxing clubs? Where are they? Well, they've moved. I mean, the old Atlas gym was on the West Mall. That was the one guy named Tia DeRescue was the national team coach. And he had the club there for years.

And the great part about that was, do you know where the old Atlas alloys are that big? You know where the food warehouse is on the West Mall just south of Dundas? Yes, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, across there is a big metal factory. And he had a boxing gym right there, Atlas Boxing Club. It was named after Atlas Alloys,

which was right beside it. And it was full of boxers. And not only that, Adrian Tudoreski was the coach, famous coach. So they had a bunch of boxers. And a lot of these kids actually lived in the boxing club in the closet. And one of those boxers was a guy named Steve Molitor, who ended up winning a world title.

His brother Jeremy was on the Olympic team. Wow. But these kids, I would go in that gym to talk to these guys, and they'd open a closet, and there'd be literally a mattress in the closet, and there'd be a hot plate in the gym for them to eat food. Wow. But Adrian was an old Romanian guy, and to him, it was the perfect setup. His boxers weren't out, like, partying. They lived and trained at this little gym on the West Mall.

And there was also the Northwest Rexdale Boxing Club where a buddy of mine, Steve Traumers, were up one day, goofing around in the ring, boxing a little bit. And this kid came in. I remember this trainer said to us, now watch this kid. He was, like, probably 16 years old, big, tall kid.

He said, watch this kid. And it turns out it was Lennox Lewis. Wow. Who had just come in with his coach, Arnie Bohm, from Kitchener to train. And he went in the ring. And we were all just watching this kid move. But did you know right away? Like, can you just spot?

I could tell that. We could all tell that this kid had, well, you know, you're up at that gym. You see all the local pugs doing their thing, and a lot of them are kind of pathetic. Then this kid named Lennox Lewis, and he had just started boxing, but his family had just returned from Great Britain where he was born. And so boxing was new to him, but the way he moved and shadow boxed and stuff inside the ring,

that's why I remember it was him because it left such a mark on me watching this guy and years later, world champion and Olympic gold medalist. Absolutely, absolutely. Lennox Lewis is one of the greats. Northwest Rexnall Boxing Club. Wow, I did not know that he had that Etobicoke connection. Well, that was probably... We're going to claim him as our own.

Like with Alexander Graham Bell, you got, you know, three countries that claim them. So we're claiming. You had a cottage in New Brunswick or something, right? Yeah, somewhere in Maritimes. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay, so can you tell me, like, what kind of guy was...

Like, tell me about George Gross. And like, the son was known for all these characters. Like, I just want you to, like, please, more detail the better. Well, George, I mean, God bless him. I mean, I wouldn't be in this business if it wasn't for him. I mean, I had no credentials,

you know, very little. You know, I got, you know, I was supposed to go to Trent University and they kicked me out because I was supposed to go to summer school. And I said, ah, they're just suggesting I go there. So when I showed up, they said, well, where's your summer school thing?

I go, I didn't go. See ya. So George hired me. This day, I wouldn't get a toe in any front door in this business. And George was the kind of guy that he hired people based on sort of a gut reaction. So is it just your character? I guess. Like he just made an impression on him?

Oh, yeah. Maybe because you're so authentic. Like you so clearly don't give a shit Oh yeah. Maybe because you're so authentic. Like you so clearly don't give a shit that he's like, I like this guy. Well, that must have been it

because that's how I've sort of gone on my entire career. Which is great because you never have to be phony, right? I suppose not. But George was unbelievable.

George was, George ran our department and he brought in all these characters. That's the thing. You know, and George was, he ran that department like there's, you could run a department now you know he i remember he would

hire guys from different smaller newspapers and he would send the paperwork upstairs and there's a couple of great stars i think it was one with scott morrison who was our sports editor for years and maybe even lance hornby and our hockey writer he'd send the paperwork upstairs and they would send it back to him and say, George, you cannot hire somebody for this amount of money. The minimum is this amount. Too little. He had a great story.

This guy named Rick Frazier is an old time hockey writer. Worked for the Star, worked for the Sun. He always fought with George and he got called into George's office one day, and he said, George said, Rick, he goes, I see what you did, I've got a five percent raise for you, George was from Czechoslovakia, and you said, I never go to bat for you, you're always making fun of me, he goes, but I got you a five percent raise, what do you think of that, and Rick went, well,

jeez, George, I don't know what to say other than thanks because you're welcome kid maybe you should appreciate me more so rick said he went home to barry that night he woke up the next day picked up the toronto sun and there was a headline sun employees get five percent raise across the board that's what george would do like you know i remember rolf rimstead got called in his office one day and george was holding out his hands like they're in handcuffs going, that Trudeau is 5 and 10. And Rolf is like, sorry, George. He goes, I tried to get you a raise, but Trudeau just put in some legislation.

And Rolf, he's going, okay, George. But, you know, George, he was a legend, man. I mean, you know, not everything he did was politically correct. But, you know, that's just. Of his era, like we say that. Of his time. He was unbelievable. He, when he hired me, you're supposed to be on probation for three months.

And then you'd know after that whether you're getting hired or not. So he hired me. And so three months go by,'d know after that whether you're getting hired or not so he hired me and so three months go by four five six so finally i meekly went in his office and i said jones yeah what do you want kiddo i said well i've been here for six months he called me joe that's the other thing he hired me and called me joe for a year and i said am i being hired or what he goes am i doing okay and he said if you weren't doing okay I'd throw you out that effing window. Except he didn't say effing, right? And that was how I found out I was actually sticking around.

Oh, that's funny. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Now, so this is like 85, I guess. 85, yeah. 1985 when you're joining the sign. Oh, just in time for the drive of 85. Or was it, I don't know which time of year.

I did harness racing in those days. I don't know what was going on. So what, okay, harness, how do you get that? Is that just, they assigned you the harness racing beat and said, here you go? Yeah, they looked for the most junior beat in those days. And in those days, the newspapers all covered horse racing on a daily basis.

So we had a harness racing rider and we had a thoroughbred rider. So they put me on the harness beat. And the funny thing was my dad had retired. He was in the bar business and he had got a retirement part-time job at the old Greenwood Racetrack. And he had his badge on his uniform, Norm Buffery. So I did the selections, harness selections for the son with my picture and that.

And I didn't know anything about horses. Like a little bit. I used to go to Woodbine when I was a kid, but nothing about harness. So the old man was behind the bar and some guy said to him, Hey, Norm, are you related to that kid who does the pics for the sun? My dad goes, yeah, yeah, that's my kid. He goes, really? Does he know a lot about horses?

My dad goes, well, let me put it to you this way. He knows about as much as I do. And the guy said, well, what do you know about horses, Norm? My dad goes, I know the difference between a horse's head and a horse's ass. So I would leave Greenwood every night, and guys would yell at me for how pathetic my pics were. I can't get past how like specific that beat is. Like, do you have any idea how many people were working in the Sun Sports Department

in 1985? I'd say close to 40. So, okay, 40. And how many people are working at the Sun Sports Department in 2019? Well, you know what? We probably still have the largest sports department in Canada, but we're down. I mean, you know, one of the reasons why I just started doing the TFC beat because our TFC writer

left last year and in the old days you'd replace him, you'd bring somebody in. Nowadays it doesn't work that way. So my poor boss, Bill Pierce has to scramble, you know, so he asked me, we need a guy on soccer. You want to do it? And I've done everything else. So why not give soccer a shot? So here I am. Well, I got, we need a guy on soccer. You want to do it? And I've done everything else, so why not give soccer a shot?

So here I am. Well, I got, we're going to get to that. I got some, a couple of TFC questions. I hope they're not too technical. I don't know. One of them I haven't heard yet. It's from a sponsor, Brian Gerstein, and I actually haven't played it yet

because he sent it in late. So I'll find out when you find out, but I know it's a TFC related. One of the sports you're kind of most famous for covering is Olympics. Yes. That is my beat. I still consider that my beat, really. You're the Olympic

sports beat guy. And because you show up, you're there for the whole Ben Johnson. So what can you I mean, we could do a whole episode on this, I suppose, but what can you share about covering the Seoul Olympics? Well, I mean, we could do a whole episode on this, I suppose, but what can you share about covering the Seoul Olympics?

Well, I just got that beat at the time. So, when Seoul rolled around, I was doing all the sort of pre-Seoul coverage. Matter of fact,

that's how I went, they sent me out to Vancouver to do the sort of the, all the Canadian Olympic teams had training camps in Vancouver because then they go on to Korea. So that's when I met Lennox Lewis.

I actually rented a car and drove Lennox around for that week, and he was starving, literally starving. He didn't have enough carding money to eat. So by the time the Olympics rolled around, I didn't go. Wayne Parrish, our sports editor, and a guy named Jim O'Leary, one of our columnists, went. But when Ben tested positive,

they had that Dublin inquiry and that took basically the whole year out of my life was just on the Ben Johnson thing and whatnot. But that was sort of the start of my Olympic sort of beat thing. Yeah. But you're, for example,

in 96, you're in Atlanta for Donovan Bailey. Yeah, I covered that. I covered a lot of great things. I always tell people, I covered Donovan Bailey winning the gold, the relay team, Mark Tewksbury winning the gold medal in 92 in Barcelona. All kinds of great,

you name it. But I always tell people, I covered 10 Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Pan Am Games, Goodwill Games, World Championships in track, figure skating but the 16 years I did Olympic sport, my best story I always say, more than Donovan Bailey

Mark Tewksbury you name it, was I remember in Nagano, 98 Olympics the games had ended, the women's hockey team had just lost to the Americans, it was a real disappointment and I was going to go to this town in Japan called Ueda with one of the women hockey players named Vicky Sunahara.

Oh, yes. Scarborough girl. Right. And her dad basically told her before he died, he was of Japanese descent, he said, Vicky, if you ever get a chance with the hockey team, go to our traditional hometown in Ueda, which is like maybe a couple hours out of McGannell.

So Vicky, along with, you know, I found out this, her dad had told her that from covering the team before the Olympics. And the National Film Board of Canada, this guy also found out. So the plan was after they won the gold medal, she was going to go down to this ancestral village. So they lost the gold and Vicky wasn't even going to go.

She was sort of so down and out but everybody talked her into going and I remember driving down there a lot the last day of the Olympics and going to this little hotel in this little Japanese mountain town and they had all these banners and these all these long lost relatives that she didn't know and they formed this like human bridge that she went under and they sang to her and she made this speech and she was crying and they were crying and it was it was unbelievable i get like i'm not really an emotional guys people will tell you although anger i guess is an emotion but um it was the most moving thing that i've ever covered in my life and just the emotion involved and you, I had to write a column about it right away.

And like of all the things I've covered, you know, the bomb going off in Atlanta, all that things. Right. I consider this, that the highlight of my 30-odd career. Interesting. Yeah. I have a picture of my office at home with

Vicky and all these people that, you know, and all these banners half in Japanese and half in English with her name. And she talked about how she, you know, and all these banners half in Japanese and half in English with her name. And she talked about how she spoke to her father on the podium. It was just unbelievable, really. I'm glad you shared that story because nobody would guess that, right?

Like everyone's going to think, oh, it's Donovan Bailey, of course. Which was great. Of course. Because that happened the day after the bomb went off. And guys like me and Steve Simmons and Christy Blatchford, I remember the story. So we covered all, it was a Friday, I think.

We worked all day. We're back at our village that night and the bomb went off. And so we all went down to the park where guys were like, this is before the internet. So guys were filing out of the park. And we had our office on our cell phones. And as people were coming out of the park, a lot of them were, there was some blood on people

and people being helped out. And we were interviewing people and getting their names live as they were coming out of the park. And I would talk to somebody and what they had told me, I would read to our editor at the paper. And then the next day was Donovan's. I hope I don't have the timeline wrong here, but I'm pretty sure the next day was Donovan's. So we stayed up all

night. I remember going to the hospital the next morning to talk to doctors and stuff, and then going to the stadium that night to do the 100-meter final, which was unbelievable on its own. So yeah, it was quite a two days. And of course, you know, from a Canadian

perspective, eight years removed from Ben Johnson, I think as a country, we needed that. I think we all needed Donovan Bailey. And just when he came through and clean, we all kind of had that. Sure, yeah, clean. I mean, but on the other hand, I think we all know now, and I was a big Ben Johnson guy.

We all know he cheated, but we also know now that pretty well everybody else in that Olympic final cheated. And we'd done stories on Carl Lewis and that beforehand about, it was pretty certain that he was up to something too. Well, he had braces, and I remember that was a human growth hormone. So they would take steroids, and they would take growth hormone just so that their muscles wouldn't burst out of their sinew or whatever.

You know what I mean? So they'd take a growth hormone to hold the muscles and they'd all wear braces. Right. And I remember one story before Soul where a bunch of American athletes, something like 20 or 30 of them tested positive for a drug called probenicid, which is apparently a venereal disease medicine. So it wasn't on any ban list. And they found out a year later that probenicid was also a perfect masking agent.

So it was one of those deals where the users were a year before, a year ahead of the testers. Right. So all these American athletes, Olympic athletes, track athletes, tested positive for the American track and field championships. And a year later, we all know why. So, you know, a lot of us knew in that 100-meter final in Seoul that it was more

of an even playing field than everybody thought, really. So I look back at what Ben did, and I'm not condoning what he did, obviously, with the steroids, but I actually looked at it as a level playing field, a legitimate victory for him. It's not in the books, of course,

and I think he also made a big mistake with the Dublin Inquiry and Charlie Francis' coach and Dr. Astafan coming out by admitting everything because even though it taught us about how drugs work, the Dublin In Aquarium was so ahead of its time in teaching people how these athletes use drugs, clearance times and all that stuff, but they buried themselves, these Canadian athletes. They didn't do themselves any favor.

If Ben and them had just denied, denied, denied like everybody else did, they probably wouldn't have had all these records retroactively stripped from them, like from indoor meets and that before soul. So it was a shame, really. Right, because of caves. So he ran the 979 in soul,

but he had the record prior to that anyway of 983 in Rome, if I remember correctly. And that also got... Right, because he admitted later at the dominant choir using it that time. So in retrospect, they probably should have just said, you know, this soul was a one-off thing. I got busted.

See you later. He would have held the world record still. Like, do you think it's because other countries sort of protect their people where Canada sort of hung them out to dry? I think exactly that's what it is. You know, I think, look, Linford Christie, Great Britain. It turns out he had a history of

banned drugs carl lewis same thing those guys never got busted i remember a story from the world track and field championships in oslo norway before soul i'm not exactly remember what year it was but we were working on all this stuff at the paper and this is before the internet and all this stuff we got a i think it's os newspaper, sent us their front page from the world championships. When the word was that Carl, he withdrew from the meet before it started because the word was he tested positive. Well, he withdrew from the meet,

and I remember the Oslo newspaper, the main Oslo, sent us a front sports page, and the headline was Louis Dope It. But Louis' people, the American Track and Field Association, were so strong, and they would threaten to sue at any sniff of that kind of thing, that people were afraid.

So even though he had this newspaper claiming that it was a positive test, nothing came out of it. And the joke later was, we ran a facsimile of that front page in our paper, and all the guys in the desk used to tease me, going, well, Beezer, you blew it, because apparently in Norwegian, dope it means fast and clean.

But that's how it was in those days, though, Mike. Yeah, interesting. Very fascinating. And it was such a smaller world back then, right? Or I guess a bigger world? Because nowadays with the internet and uh social media and everything like everything's flying around the globe right in real time and back then you could that that situation could occur like you could that could and I mean I

never heard that story before like it can be sort of self you can contain things well yeah not just that I mean I remember when I was on that beat I would do something on a track and field last like that's the other thing too I was on that beat, I would do something on a track and field last beat. Like, that's the other thing too. I was on the Olympic beat and every time I went to a meet, world track and field,

Canadian track and field, 60% of what I wrote about was drugs. So I was sort of envious of my fellow sports writers who could actually go to an event and write about what happened at the event.

You know? That's right. You can actually talk about the athleticism and, uh, instead of just, uh, pharmaceuticals. That's right. You can actually talk about the athleticism instead of just pharmaceuticals. That's why I remember when they put me on hockey for the, I think it was the 93 playoff run with the Leafs.

I walked into the dressing room at Maple Leaf Gardens and saw all these boxes of cold medicine, which I knew from covering the Olympics, was also used as a not a steroid, but as a... A masking agent? Not a masking agent. Sort of a quick adrenaline. Okay, okay, okay. You know, and I thought... To aid.

Everybody in this dressing room is sick. You know, but this was before the NHL had any kind of doping program. And a couple of Leafs guys told me that, yeah, we use it as a boost. Right? And it wasn't against the rules. No, it wasn't. But if they were Olympic athletes or amateur athletes, Leafs guys told me that, yeah, we use it as a boost, right? And it wasn't against the rules. No, it wasn't.

But if they were Olympic athletes or amateur athletes, they would be busted. And this is another story that I won't get into, but I wrote this whole thing about drug use in the NHL at that time, which got buried. And then a year later, when we were in Nagano, Mike Farber from Sports Illustrated basically wrote the exact same story that I had a year before called the NHL's Dirty Little Secret, which, you know. How come it got buried just then? Well, I'm not going to get into it,

but just politics, we'll just sort of leave it at that. Hockey, what hockey means to our industry, you know, so, you know, I mean, it's something, next to my old wrestling not being able to wrestle that's the other thing in my past that i'm sort of the other thing still uh chews at you a little bit yeah so the uh you mentioned the olympics olympics of course uh

was it silken lawman who had the uh she she had the pseudofed am i getting my stories uh that's actually that's what was in the dressing room at Maple Leaf Gardens. Boxes of Sudafed everywhere. But, like as you said, Mike, Sudafed wasn't illegal. But, I mean, I talked to, I remember talking to like, oh, geez, all kinds of Mike Bossy and all these guys saying

when they were in junior hockey what their junior coaches were making them do and all that stuff. And it was incredible, you know. Okay, now, okay. So I get confused here with steroids in Major League Baseball, for example.

So for a long time, steroids were not against the rules, right? So I guess, why do we punish the stars who took steroids before it was against MLB rules? Well, because if they were taking them in certain jurisdictions, like

most states... Oh, it's illegal. It's illegal. So, on that alone... So, it's not explicitly against the Major League Baseball rules, but it... They were controlled substances. Whereas, of course, Sudafed is not illegal in Ontario. It's not, but if you take too much of it and you're an amateur athlete and you get tested, it's illegal, right?

So there's, you know, there's, and then I think the later thing is you had all these guys when they were sort of busted saying that they just lied about the fact that they'd used it. So they're not on top, they weren't maybe necessarily cheating according to the rules, but they were lying and they were cheating. They were doing something that was illegal in most U.S. jurisdictions. Gotcha, gotcha. And then I always remember Mark McGuire, when he was hitting all the homers, they found, who was it, the reporter who saw in his locker, and I can't even remember what the name of that was anymore, but it wasn't a steroid, but he used it for enhancing performance.

Right, yeah. So, 93, that's okay. Is that 93 you're covering the Leafs? Well, I was brought in in those days when the Leafs were in the playoffs, we'd have 10 guys in the playoffs traveling with them. I had Kevin McGran on recently, and he was telling

me, okay, when the Jays played the Braves, for example, in the 92 World Series. Yeah, I did that. Here's how many bodies the Toronto Stars sent. Okay. Us as well. I think we had 10 guys in Atlanta. Same when they were in Philly. Amazing. And I remember I was, I can't remember my beat then,

probably still Olympic sports, and they brought me in as like the 8th or 9th guy, and it was great because you go down to Atlanta and you get some half-assed sidebar and you say to the boss, I got a sidebar. And you know, the guy wearing a new suit. Great. Because we had like 16 pages, you know.

That kind of blows your, it blows my 2019. I mean, I'm old enough that I remember I used to read, you know, I was reading the papers like crazy in the 80s. And just the fact that you would have 10 bodies covering an event for a Toronto paper is amazing, right? Like the salad days. Oh, really, it was unbelievable. I remember, this was the situation,

it was like my boss, Wayne Parrish, probably one of the best sports writers ever, he said to me, he called me in his office one day and said, hey, you know they run a marathon on Baffin Island in the summer solstice every year on June 21st? Why don't you go up there

and write something on it? How do you get to Baffin Island while you fly to Resolute Bay? But that's what it was like in those days, you know? So remind me today, because I get my papers confused. I want to get this right.

Do you still send a reporter to cover a Leaf game on the road in the regular season? We're the only paper left that covers every road game for every major team, baseball, hockey, basketball, and TFC. I'm the new TFC guy. I'm going to every road game. And you were in Philadelphia then. Yeah, and I was the only media guy there.

It's kind of sad and lonely, but you know. So let me, okay, so this is the opening MLS opening game, right? Right. Against Philadelphia Union? Yeah, Philadelphia Union. Yeah, in beautiful Chester, Pennsylvania, which looks like somebody dropped a bomb on. But you're not being hyperbolic

here. You were legit the only Toronto news person to be at this game? That's right. That's amazing. It's amazing and it's kind of sad. It's very sad, but it's equally sad and amazing.

It's funny. In the dressing room after the game, it was me, in-house TFC reporter. Who works for the team. Right, and a bunch of local guys, and some soccer magazine website guys, and that was it. And it is, I noticed that last year, a lot of the papers, the other papers stopped sending guys on the road with the Jays last year. A lot of the papers, the other papers stopped sending guys on the road with the Jays last year. And it's kind of weird being on the road. And that was part of the great thing about the newspapers of years ago,

that you go on the road in any beat, and there's always three, four, five, six guys go out to dinner with you afterwards. And those were the great, those would make all the stories happen. Although I understand the Star is going to be starting to, I think they've sort of reversed their policy a little bit. I think it depends on where they're playing. Like if they're in Buffalo or Pittsburgh or Detroit or something. Well, they're in spring training,

which I was told last year that that was something they weren't even considered doing. Is it Laura Armstrong? Laura. Yeah, I think Rosie's coming here in a couple of weeks. She's awesome, yeah. Yeah. I'm rooting heavily for Mr. Independent, Keegan Matheson, who's become a friend of mine when he came on the show

because he's down at spring training. Yeah, God bless him, man. There's a guy, I'm a subscriber, and I give guys like that a ton of credit you know I like well I'm

I'm partial to the fiercely independents anyways but I mean he's like sleeping in his car or whatever like whatever it takes

you know I just think that's pretty darn cool and he just his attitude is great like you put an old guy like that like me

doing something like that we'd be like grumpy like 24 hours a day you know oh yeah you're used to those big expense accounts from back in the day yeah me doing something like that. We'd be like grumpy like 24 hours a day. Oh, yeah. You're used to those big expense accounts from back in the day. Big, yeah.

I don't know. Who is it? Schultz likes to tell the stories about, yeah. Did Schultz ever tell you the story about him falling asleep while doing a radio hit?

No. Well, I don't know if it's my place to tell it. No, it is. It's exactly your place. Schultz is a good friend of the show. Oh, he's a great guy.

He performed stand-up at the last Toronto Mic Listener Experience. He's a great listener. He opened up for Gear Joyce and they both did a stand-up set. So, yeah good friend of the show. He performed stand-up at the last Toronto Mic Listener experiences at Great Lakes Beer. He opened up for Gear Joyce and they both did a stand-up set. Please tell us. I love telling stories but I'm told by some of my colleagues that I don't always get them right.

It was one of Schultz's stories and hopefully when he hears this he won't get too pissed off that I screwed it up. The story was, I guess the boys had gone out the night before and he was supposed to do a radio hit at a certain time in the morning, maybe 7 a.m. And he was doing it and he fell asleep doing the show.

And the guy on the other end basically said, and Dave, you know, I know I've screwed it up, but the theme is right, that he basically fell asleep while doing the hit. And the guy said, should we call back Dave? You can hear his snoring or whatever. Oh, yeah.

Well, he and Simmons are good buds. Well, they're roommates. Well, they were in Calgary, yes, and who else was there? A bunch of guys. Hatchek was there, I think. Howard Berger was there. I don't know if you heard this story. I heard it first from Schultz, and then I simmons tell it but uh simmons kind of inadvertently got uh howard burger fired i guess from uh because he he covered the wrong thing or i can't remember but

simmons tells it better than i do you got to go back and hear those if you're bored one day go listen to the steve simmons i think i know that story i remember i mentioned rick frazier the old he's an east coaster heavy drinker as most sports writers were in those days. And he used to do boxing with me. So I remember this one weekend, three Canadians were fighting for world titles, two in Vegas and one in Bismarck, North Dakota. So Simmons and I used to share the boxing beat.

So Simmons went to Vegas to do the two. Matthew Hilton was one and Donnie, or geez, the golden boy. Lalonde? No, Lalwn was the one in Bismarck. Okay. Anyway, Steve and Rick Fraser did the two in Vegas. So

the next weekend was the one in Bismarck and it's November, Bismarck, North Dakota. So I go to Bismarck, Steve comes home, Rick Fraser goes from Vegas to Bismarck and he used to drink heavily when he traveled because he couldn't stand flying. He was deathly afraid of flying.

So somehow he got to his hotel room in Bismarck, fell asleep. The next morning I called his room from my room, and I'm all enthusiastic. I go, Rick, it's Beezer. Let's go for breakfast. All right, Beezer. So he put down the phone, ripped open his drapes, expecting to see the Las Vegas Strip.

Instead he saw like a frozen cornfield with snow blowing, and he was standing there staring at the cornfield. And I called back. I said, what time do you want to meet for breakfast? And he goes, Mazer, I got one question for you. I go, what's that? He goes, where the f*** are we? And I go, Bismarck, North Dakota.

He goes, what for? I go, Donny LaLonde, Virgil Hill. He goes, what for? I go, Donny Lalonde, Virgil Hill. He goes, fuck. Hangs up the phone. He had no idea where he was or how he got there. That's hilarious. You covered the Raptors, right?

For a couple years, yeah. Ryan Walstadt's been on this show. He says hi, by the way. I heard that show. I said I was really engaged until the hip-hop part, which I'd listened to, but, you know. I hear you. Who is it? I was surprised to hear.

Dave Perkins? No, Richard Griffin. Richard Griffin. Was he the hip-hop head? Anyway, I was surprised to learn this from Ryan. But Ryan wanted me to ask you about your relationship with Sam Mitchell. Oh, jeez.

I don't know. I don't know where to start. Sam had this thing where, for some reason, he always was sort of fake pissed off at me. And he called me Stumpy. Stumpa! So his thing was, when he was mad at me, which was all the time, his plan, this was his plan.

He was going to get a big, huge barrel, and this is very politically incorrect. He was going to put me in the barrel with dildos and male pornographic magazines, and he was going to put me over Niagara Falls. So when they fished out my body, everybody was going to think my lover jilted me and i killed myself that was the plan so we'd be at practice and i'd piss them off with some stupid question

you'd say stop it i'm getting the barrel out uh you know but of course people visiting had no idea right what it was all about but smitch he was on he's next to uh john gibbons my all-time favorite He was next to John Gibbons, my all-time favorite culture manager in the business. Did you or do you call John Gibbons Gibby? Not when we had press conferences because, you know, you don't want to be too familiar. Well, this is my mild, very mild 0.0 beef is that because Mike Willner has been on the show a bunch of times and he unapologetically refers to John Gibbons as Gibby. And I always feel like if you're calling him Gibby, it really does make it feel like you're kind of buddy-buddy and how can you be like impartial and fair

covering your buddy-buddy? Well, that's the million-dollar question. And to be honest, I think maybe the radio guys, because Wilner and Gibby work for the same company. So maybe, but, you know. But they pretend. I know, obviously, they are as they are, which is a whole other interesting discussion.

He did get that two-week unpaid suspension. That's right. But they sent him home over the CETO. Yeah. Yes. So he's had the shot across the bow. And we all know that you're only impartial to a point. But they do pretend,

at least they do try to put forward the face that they are covering the Jays objectively. Yeah, but here's the thing with Gibby, though. People used to say to me, do you think Gibby's a good manager? And I say, I don't really know, but I just know he's a great guy. And to be quite honest with you, Mike, when we weren't

doing a press conference or something, everybody would call him Gibby, but that's what sports is. Everybody's got a nickname. The Toronto Sun Sports Department, everybody has a nickname. Gibby was just one of those guys where even if you're pissed off at him, he was pissed off at you. He was just

Gibby. I tried not to call him Gibby when we were in a formal press conference setting because it does sound a bit like, Gibby, I'm your buddy. You can't be Mr. Gibbons. Or John. But I remember the first time I met him.

This was his first time around with the Jays and I was just filling in baseball in those days and so I went to a game and Gibby had just got his first contract extension from J.P. Ricciardi. And so we're all scrumming him in the clubhouse,

and somebody said, Gibby, there's this new contract. Are you going to buy a new sports car or something? And Gibby goes, no, no, I'm a truck guy. You guys know I'm a truck guy. And John Lott said to him, then with the National Post said to him, he goes, oh, a truck.

So do we see a Hummer in the future, John? Gibby goes, yeah, hopefully tonight. And of course, not only that, I got it in the paper. I think our editor didn't realize what, you know. You snuck that one in. That was the first time I was part of a Gibby.

Well, he should give a lot, some points for the assist. That was quite the setup there, but that's too funny. Now, he should give a lot some points for the assist that was quite the setup there. But that's too funny. Now, I want to ask you, if it's okay, I'm going to ask you about a bunch of like Toronto Sun sports writers I want to ask you about. But first, let me just thank

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question for when I get to the TFC stuff. But let me ask you, you mentioned like, so how long have you known Rob Longley? Like how? Oh, geez. Well, we grew up in the same neighborhood. He's a bit younger than me. And he used to have to walk past our house down my street to get to public school. And his mother, this is what Rob says, his mother used to say to him, when you get near the Buffery house, cross the street. Because my dad was a local character who- Norm.

Norm, who everybody knew didn't make his money the orthodox way so that's that's how i sort of got to know rob uh you know went to the same high school became my sports writer then we both came to the sun then we both were on the blue jays beat together a small world day that's uh that's a cool story so what kind of guy is rob good guy good golfer good athlete um very underrated journalist as far as I'm concerned. He's been breaking some, I mean, I see him breaking lots of big stories lately. He had the big story last year. He's the guy when they went down,

he went down and got Donaldson on his own. And that was totally his thing. And our paper will still let guys, he said, look, before I go to Tampa, let me go here, wherever Josh was at the time, and I'll do a thing on Josh. So we switched his plane ticket and all that stuff.

And one thing about baseball is it's a tough beat because the Sportsnet guys, there's always a lot of them and they've sort of how do I put this diplomatically, got sort of in with the team. Not that they're being fed anything necessarily, but it's a tough

gig. They sure aren't, but you'd think they would, but they're not being fed anything. No, as far as we know. But anyway, yeah. So Rob, he's a great, he's a really solid, and he always was. I used to sit there across from him before spell check at Tobago Guardian and say,

Rob, how do you run? How do you spell run? How do you spell this? How do you spell that? And I remember we got our first computers back in like 84 or something, and we had been using typewriters, and we put these big, huge computers in.

I remember saying to Rob, now don't get used to these computers, Rob, because it's only a fad. Oh, man, that's great. Yeah, he's great. By the way, I think the Toronto Sun takes, sometimes with good reason, but sometimes not, but takes its fair share of shots.

Memos will leak out about how to be favorable to the Progressive Conservative Party. Well, one memo. Well, Canada Land will publish exposés on, right, well, one memo, but I mean, one is one more than you. I think, Mike, every media outlet in this town leans one way or the other. I mean, they is one more than you. I think, Mike, every media outlet in this town leans one way or the other.

You know, I mean, they don't come out and say it, but it's pretty obvious where certain papers lean when there's certain scandals, say in Ottawa, and certain papers don't sort of play it up. And certain columnists write something about how the scandal is really nothing. So we all sort of know that certain outlets lean certain ways and we lean right. There's no doubt about it. But somebody has to lean right,

otherwise everybody's going to lean left. It's the way I look at it. So I guess, yeah, but usually they don't put it in a memo, but that's a whole other thing. No, they don't.

And that was stupid and dumb and ridiculous because I think it's sort of a given that, well, we all do it. Our columnists write a certain way.

No one was surprised to find out that The Sun was giving maybe favorable coverage to the progressive conservatives. Just like the star gives favorable coverage to Trudeau and goes after Ford every time he sneezes, but that's the way it is. Well, okay. I know.

I promised myself I wouldn't get in a pocket because I'm the only one. Actually, the funny thing is I'm mentioning this as a way to say that your sports department really does great work and really is like one of the last bastions of

independent sports journalism that we have. Really, when you think about you mentioned all the sports. There's more coverage of the Jays by Sportsnet people than anybody, but they're all getting their checks signed by the same company. So even if you can say they're, even if Shai Davidi, I'm not questioning any of this, I'm saying that the optics are bad, like even the perception that potentially that you'd be biased in some regard. Or maybe there's certain topics that, you know, you got with TSN, for example. TSN, maybe there's a reason that Rick Westhead, maybe he's not going as hard at the CTE and the concussion stuff, maybe, just as an example,

because maybe because of TSN's partnership with MLSE and then NHL relations there. There's a whole, we can go to a whole separate episode. But the Sun, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong here, but there is definitely perception that the Sun can still, you know, break these Jay stories that maybe Rogers doesn't want broken and still kind of be an independent bulldog. Yeah, I think that's what, when it comes to sports,

I think all the sports sections are independent. I mean, I don't think the star guys really try to lean one way politically anyway. You know, I mean, I just, the way it is in sports, I mean, because we're not being paid by the team.

Right. I feel that we can all write whatever we want, you know, um, and that's, that's a good thing. I mean, and it's,

uh, it's actually a good thing because we don't have to worry about, you know, dumping on the Jays if Vlad Guerrero is going to get shipped to Buffalo for the first three weeks of the season, you know? Right. Absolutely. Can you tell me a little bit about working with Bob Elliott? He's only a couple years removed from the Toronto Sun. Right.

Yeah. Well, I mean, he's a legend. years removed from the Toronto Sun. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, he's a legend. And the reason why Rob and I got put on baseball was because Bob, Mike Rutzi, the brother of ex-Rush drummer John Rutzi, and Ken Fidlin were all, they all basically retired within

a year or two of each other. So suddenly you had this great baseball writing team we had was no more. And no days we'd hire three guys. Now it's like Rob's doing the Leafs and I'm doing, geez, I can't remember what I was doing. But so they said, can you guys do baseball? And that's how it works. So Bob was a legend.

And for my whole, all last year, every time I wrote basically anything, and I guess Longley would tell you the same thing, that's the beauty of the inner day. The next morning you'd wake up, you'd have 30 trolls telling you how you're no Bob Elliott. Right. So that was

a wonderful thing to wake up to every morning on the Jay's Beat. And I was, you're not Bob Elliott, but nobody is, right? No, and you didn't come here with two Diet Cokes and one in each hand. I actually,

and I told this a few times, but he came here, he had one Diet Coke in each hand at the door and I'm like, hey, Bob, nice to meet you. Michael, whatever. And then I thought,

I was 100% sure he had brought one for himself and one for me. I thought, what a nice gesture. He's got two Diet Cokes. He's brought one for me. That's really nice.

No, no, no. They're both for him. But I had, it's like, I started realizing as I'm going, oh, that actually, that's not for me. He just brought two Diet Cokes. That's Bob. I mean, Bob was the kind of guy, and I think the reason why he got in the Baseball Hall of Fame

is because he'd be up all night, like all night, talking to his people, the scouts, all the other guys who work for the different teams, getting information. And if you see how many Diet Cokes he drank, at a game even, I was surprised he got any sleep at all. But Bob was just, he was wired a certain way,

and he's one of the, he'll never, he's got a personality that you'll probably never see again. And he'd whisper at you'll, they'll never, he's got a personality that you'll probably never see again, you know. And he'd whisper at you and he'd say, so, I understand. And you'd be like, okay, Bob, sure. You know, great guy. Have you talked to him since his heart attack or heart episode? I'm not even sure what the terminology is.

No, I just, I sent him a message, but no, I, you know, I just, I thought I'd give him some time. He seems to be okay. He's back home now. Well, he had lost a lot of weight, not just from my place to say it, but I thought he'd look really good the last few years because he'd lost, as all sports writers, we get a bit rotund at times from traveling, and he'd looked really good.

I don't think Bois was ever, unlike a lot of the guys in this business, he was never a hard liver other than the Diet Cokes. Until they produce a proper medical study that shows aspartame is really bad for you. Which is coming. It hasn't come yet though. I always get this because

I don't drink too much but I like a Coke Zero now and then. These things have been around and prominent since the early 80s. I feel like we would have seen some evidence by now. It's a long time now. Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

But everything's bad for you now, right? Everything in moderation. We'll return back to that one. Let's talk about Steve Simmons, a friend of the show he's been on. He's going to come back for his third appearance soon. He's coming on with Cash Palmer. Steve Simmons' son was on the show recently, Jeff Simmons. So we discuss a lot of Steve Simmons stuff openly and honestly. I've asked Steve about the Phil Kessel hot dog story. It seems to be following him to this very moment. So tell me about what it's like

working with Steve and then I'm going to put you on the spot and ask you for your opinion of his infamous hot dog story about Phil Kessel. Well, he's one of my best friends, period. I mean, you know, we've, the early days, him and I covered, I think, four or five Winter Olympics by ourselves. You know, we were always roommates and stuff.

And that guy, I remember zeisberger talking waxing poetic about steve and he really is i mean if you see what he writes and the shit he gets from readers and that kind of stuff it's hard to sort of put that with the person that he is because he's the most caring guy you'd ever see like you know whenever you got problems it's a funny thing my personal whenever i have a problem he'd be the first guy you'd send an email to, to say, this is, look what's happening to me. Because he had this empathy that just, just, just is unbelievable, really. He would stop everything he was doing to try to help you out. And, you know, and he's just, he's just one of the great guys.

And I always tease him about his ego. You know, that's something I've, you know, but we's just, he's just one of the great guys and I always tease him about his ego. You know, that's something I've, you know, but we all have egos. He just wears his on his sleeve a little more, which is no bigger

than anybody else's. Let's talk about ego for a moment because his own son sort of agreed with me on this one, but perhaps maybe the, the hot dog, it's only like a lead

to this story. It's not the story. It's like a sentence or two at the beginning uh you it's okay to sort of like own a mistake or maybe in hindsight maybe i needed to know have more evidence of this or maybe i needed to double check some facts or like you could do that but he doesn't like he sort of he sort of doubles down i would say on it i would my my take on that whole piece was that basically he threw that in there for color. You know, it was a local hot dog guy

and Steve's the kind of guy, when he writes a story, he doesn't want to, like, bombard you with boring stats. He wants to put his opinion in there and he tries to put some color in there, right? Right. And that's, I think that's what makes him, like, I look at Steve Simmons, hot dogs aside, he is the MVP

of our place by a country mile because I think, even though he's very well read, especially his Sunday column, I think he's the most underrated media guy around. Because not only is he a writer that people talk about, which is what you want, especially as a columnist. When you write something, you want people to talk about it. He's the king of that. He puts his opinion in, and not only that, and here's what separates to me from him, separates him from a lot of the other sports columnists, general columnists that we have. Not only does he go to games all the time, he's always setting up interviews and looking

for angles and trying to get scoops. He's not just coming in with an opinion on something. This guy is probably the hardest worker. And I've had my spats with Steve over the years, but the guy is, I think he's underrated, honestly. And I think his one thing is he loves, maybe I shouldn't put it this way, but he loves maybe I shouldn't put it this way but he I think okay

he loves getting he loves having people react to his calmness good bad or indifference and maybe he loves it more when they're pissed at him you know I in a weird way do you think he relishes playing the heel to use it like a WWE

term or whatever like because I mean he I, I'd say he's number one with a bullet when it comes to polarizing Toronto sports media figures. I think it's because, I mean, I'm a friend of Damien Cox, too, who, he's no longer at Sportsnet. He's still writing for the Star, but

he's a polarizing guy. Wilner's a polarizing guy. A lot of people love to hate Wilner, but there's nobody that people love to hate more than Steve Simmons, I think. No, and he writes from his heart. And if he thinks that somebody should be put in their place, an athlete, he'll do that. But it just goes to show you that here's this persona that he has publicly. Here's this persona that he has publicly, and so many people get on his case, but he is such a total 180 different than that as a person. You saw his son, and his son's a great kid too, and a lot of that is because he's got a great dad.

And he's got the best wife. My wife's great too, but his wife's unbelievable, and his other son's a great kid too. Steve's a great guy too, you know. Right. You know, Steve's a great guy. I mean, you know, but he does. Like, I remember years ago before you get emails from people, you know, reacting to a column. He got a parcel at the office and opened it up, and it was shit. And it was a note with, this is what I think of you. You know, and that's the kind of reaction that man steve he knows how

to press the buttons and he seemed like in some level he seems to kind of enjoy playing the role and again there's nothing worse than a sports writer i suppose than being than people being completely like uh indifferent to you like we're we're steve simmons he always evokes a reaction like people do i mean i enjoy his work. The funny thing is, I'll tweet something about, like, I'll read his Sunday notes online. I like it. The minute he kind of tweets out the link, I'm on it to read it, and I read every single word, and I really do enjoy

it, and I'll tweet something about it, and I'll get these replies like, what are you doing reading the sun? Like, all this stuff. I'll actually get some blowback, like, who am I to read the sun or whatever, and then I'll have to confess, I actually enjoy reading, I actually don't miss the Sunday notes.

But I find Steve interesting in the fact that you mentioned he's a great guy, I've met him a couple of times, and he's coming back again, and he kicked out the jams here. I really like the guy, I really like reading his stuff, but it's these things like the hot dog story that seem to really strike a nerve

with a lot of the people out there well absolutely I mean especially with somebody like one of the Leafs because the fan base is so loyal you know and who are we we're sports writers which is sort of somewhere below like sewer workers right in the eyes of most people so you know

it's like with Pat was it who was it Pat or no it it was, oh, Brian Burke, you know, went, the story was that Michael Farber had heart surgery and Brian Burke is sort of like Simmons, like away from his bluster and whatnot. He's actually, I think he's a good guy. And he went and saw Michael Farber and he said, you know, imagine how shocked I was to find out you had heart surgery, because

all this time I had no idea that sports writers had hearts. Yeah, very interesting. So I think if Steve should stop writing, I think we'd be much less worse off for it. And if you're pissed off at him, great. If you don't like him, fine.

At least you're reacting, right? Especially when we're a tabloid sports section, the biggest sin in our section, other than writing something that you're going to get sued for or wrong, is being boring. Right. You know, it's sports. It's not politics. Exactly. It's not business.

It's not SNC-Lavalin stuff. This stuff is supposed to be here to entertain us, and it's just sports. I mean, let's get a little perspective here. Good point. Okay, we've talked about Brian Wohlstadt. So you're not a hip-hop head like Brian, so you're not listening to Wu-Tang Clan.

Well, no, I do. My daughter will put that kind of stuff on, and I'll ask her, what's that? But Ryan's our sort of resident hip-hop guy. For sure. I'm still a super tramp, Alan Parsons Project police guy, but whatever.

But my daughter keeps me up to date. I'll get you back at some point to kick out the jams. Okay. You'll love it. You give me your 10 favorite songs. Oh, that would be awesome. Yeah.

I would love to do that. And since I'm in Etobicoke, it's not too far a journey for you. I'll bring my electronic drums and set them up here. Do it up. Do it up. Do it up.

I mean, not your department, but I was just hanging with him on Tuesday. He's a friend of the show. I just wondered if you ever had any... Go to these drinking events of Jim Slotek.

Drinking events? Yeah, because I learned... I don't even know how much I'm supposed to say, but I learned... I got tipped off by Ted Wallachian. He came on.

Ted Wallachian mentioned this Ukrainian drinking club that sort of had been established. And then I start learning more, and I'm with, coincidentally, I was with Jim Slotek that night at Mark Hebster's book launch. And I'm talking to Jim Slotek, and I learned that Jim was part of this club. And I'm starting to learn different people.

Maybe you were part of the club. You're not Ukrainian, but maybe you're an honorary Ukrainian. I don't know. Well, my brother married a Ukrainian girl. That might qualify you. No, I really don't know Jim that well. Drinking clubs, I mean, that's any time on the road with a team. Okay, here's someone else at your paper who is maybe more polarizing

than even Steve Simmons. Sue Ann Levy? Oh, jeez. What do you think of Sue Ann? I don't really know these people. I don't know if you have Christmas parties. No, we used to have our own sports Christmas party.

We're a very insular group. I remember the guys from other media outlets would say, when we used to play hockey or fastball in the old press league with other teams, they'd basically say you touch one son's sports guy, you touch them all because we were that tight.

Don't ask me what Sue Ann Levy because no matter what I say, people are going to get pissed and it's not what you might think. I respect her. The way I look at it, Mike, is certain people that get a reaction you're hearing a side that

if it wasn't for that person, there wouldn't be that side to it. You know, I mean, so I look at it like if there's a left-wing guy or a right-wing guy, I think you have to, like people say, a bloody tabloid. And I'd always say, you know what? The most healthy newspaper markets

are like in Great Britain where there's a business paper, a middle-of-the-road paper, a bunch of tabloids. To me, you need all that stuff to have a healthy market. So, you know, live and let live, man.

That's what I say. Live and let live. I say that all the time. Okay, let's, business-wise, so Toronto Sun is now part of the post-media enterprise.

Right. Right? So I know when Steve was here, I asked him about this and he was kind of lamenting having to leave the physical building. Like, he had always worked at one office. Where was the Sun Forever? 333 King East.

And now where's the office now? We're at the National Post building at Bloor and Sherbourne. What can you share about, like, have things changed since this? Anything you can say? Dramatically. I mean, things have changed like every other newspaper that they keep letting people go and they don't replace us. But we're lucky.

We're sort of in our own little world in sports. And everybody in the rest of the paper sort of crumbles about it, that we still travel. We still have a budget. We never have to come to the office. I never go to the office. I go to the office whenever I come back from a road trip to do my expenses. We still have a budget. We never have to come to the office. I never go to the office. I go to the office whenever I come back from a road trip to do my expenses. That's it.

Right. I don't even get my mail sent there anymore. I don't know where it goes. It used to go to the King Street office. Now it just doesn't go anywhere. So I don't even, so, you know. Don't send Steve any mail. Don't, yeah, because it's not going to, you know.

So, yeah. So all I know is that, you know, our department, we're lucky. Nobody goes to the office, which is a shame because one of the reasons why our department were so close and guys like Zeisberger and Simmons and Bob Elliott and Rob Longley and Lance Hornby and all these guys were so close, Tim Warren's being the old days, Mike Ganner, because we'd see each other all the time. We played sports together. We went drinking together and with the desk guys at night.

Now it's just you never see these guys. I never see my colleagues anymore unless Steve and I are at a Jays game or an Olympics, and it's kind of sad, you know. But that's the business now. And, you know, whoever owns us, you know, we're spoiled because sports can still do our thing. So I just leave it at that, man, you know. Okay, now the National Post, they have no sports department, right?

They have a couple of guys. Mike Traikos and Scott Stinson. But they also write for us. But they are originally, they are post guys like Bruce Arthur, Eric Kareem, they all came from the National Post Sports Section. So we still have two of them

who write for them, but their stuff is also picked up in our paper. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Okay, so alright, great. Now, here's a question I wanted to ask off the top, I forgot, because there was actually somebody named TheJay Shed wants me to ask you this. So you're a sports fan, of course.

And Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, they've signed these like 300 million plus contracts. Although Harper's is over many, many years, it actually works out to be like closer to 25 per, but a lot of cash there. So The J Shed, and actually a funny funny thing is, when I saw this question, I've asked the same question of Hebsey, who, you know, your buddy Hebsey there, because Hebsey thinks like you on this, but I want to hear, let me read the J Shed question. He says,

why is he, you're he, why is he appalled at He shouldn't call me it. Why is he appalled at players getting millions of dollars and not saying the same thing about the billionaire owners? You know, I guess he's reacting. I put out a couple of tweets on that.

I just have this profound sort of problem with anybody who does sports for a living, and that's my living, but basically chases a ball around and hits a ball, getting paid this kind of money when you look around the world. And I know this is nothing new, but these numbers have just sort of hit home for me, Mike, that to me, there's something obscene with somebody making $350 million when you look at the want in our society and the want around the world. And I'm a free enterprise guy, and I'm not even comparing it to the owners who are drawing or the movie stars and that because it's all, I guess, supply and demand.

But I just have a problem with what the rich, and we all know that the rich are getting richer in this world, the poor are getting poorer. I used to have a problem, I remember, covering Raptors. And it's not basketball in particular, but that's the first time I used to hear that expression is, I got to get paid. You hear it from guys getting $5 million a year

who are coming up to free agency and are expecting $15 to $20, and they'd be kind of pissed off because they're not there yet and they're getting what they think are lowballed. And their expression is, I got to get paid. And I used to think, you got to get paid. You know, go down to like Regent Park or something. I know they bring in money and they devoted their life, but they're not curing cancer.

You know, they're not saving people. I just, just on a sort of fundamental level, Mike, that money hit me. And I guess the difference with the owners is, you know, maybe the owners are the guys that either inherited these businesses or they stuck their neck out and created these businesses to end up owning a team that they took the risk. They're in a position where they own the team.

So maybe that's why I didn't react to the risks. They're in a position where they own the team. So maybe that's why I didn't react to the owners. But just fundamentally, this amount of money to play a sport compared to what is going on in the world just struck me the wrong way, Mike. I see your point completely. It is out of whack. I don't know how the world... It's all out of whack.

So your argument there is excellent and valid and but then if you go dive into that and realize it does appear like you're uh chastising these millionaires for trying to get their fair share of this massive pie which exists controlled by these billionaires right so i totally get what the Shedd is saying. No, I do too. He seems, because we talk twice a week just about sports. So he, I can't remember the specifics, but there's some situation where he kind of is,

yeah, I think it might be Machado holding out for a lot of money or something, and he'll kind of be like go anti-Machado, whatever, on this. And then I'll always make the point that he seems to favor the billionaires over the millionaires, is how I always see it.

Because, yeah, these players are all making way too much money, but these owners are making way too much money on the backs of these guys, and they're just trying to get their share. Yeah, and that's a very reasonable argument. But you're making great points. The heart surgeon who's saving children's lives

isn't being paid nearly what they should be paid considering this guy just hits the ball. Or even people going to work eight hours a day to support five kids. I remember one of the Blue Jays telling me a couple years ago going, if I remember, this guy made around $5 million a year. I remember he was coming up for free agency.

I remember him saying, what you guys don't understand is you think we're greedy, but we can only make our money in a certain window of time. And I'm thinking, you make more in a year than I'll make in my lifetime, so spare me the small opportunity that you get so you have to make sure you get your $15 million a year. Totally.

But I understand why people would react to my rants. Yeah, but at least you're sharing your rants. I think that makes you an interesting guy to have takes and you share them. And it's jealousy. I'm pissed that I'm not getting $350 million a year.

But supply and demand. Probably more Steve Buffries than Bryce Harperpers. Okay, now I have to get paid. What's interesting is, so for many, many episodes in a row now, Brian's been recording a question for the guest, and I always get it ahead of time, and then I actually package it together with the jingle,

and I have it, and I've heard it, and I know what it's going to be. This is an example where it arrived during my chat with Hebsey, and I haven't even been on this computer to do anything with it. So I'm going to hear it. I'm going to actually do the mixing in real time. You can witness this, see if I do a good job. Okay. And we're going to hear this question together. I do believe it's TFC related, but let's hear. I hope it's not technical because I'm just learning, man. Well, we'll get to that in a minute too. So let's hear first from Brian.

So let's hear first from Brian. Propertyinthe6.com Hi, Steve. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Might. Phase one of the Gallery and Mall redevelopment plan and its condos are being sold exclusively by PSR. Contact me now by phone or text at 416-873-0292 and I can send you high-res pictures and put you on my VIP first access list. We are targeting late spring to sell them with a

2023 completion date. The best part, the park and community center will be completed before then. This area is already shaping up to be the next King West. So get in early. They'll be both investor-friendly priced and also ideal for end users. 416-873-0292 for the inside scoop on them. Steve, see you on Twitter. On your timeline, you're covering Toronto FC. Do you think that losing the CONCACAF Champions League Series in the first round will be hugely beneficial for a domestic campaign after last year. Did they do the best to compete or meld it in? If the first game was any indication,

mission accomplished. How do you see the season playing out and why the hell are they playing soccer outside in February? Yeah, go ahead. Well, thanks, Brian. That's a very good question. And I think they will not admit it, but I think they maybe not mailed it in. But let me put it to you this way. I think there's a great sense of relief around TFC that CONCACAF is over for the year

because even before they played that Panamanian team, the coach and some of the players were saying that, you know, they got to the final last year and lost in that penalty shootout. And they were saying, but how that whole concentrating on the CONCACAF Champions League sort of drained them for the rest of the MLS season. So I actually feel there's a sense of relief

that they were eliminated in the first round and don't have to go to, you know, Ecuador or anywhere like that in the middle of their MLS seasons. They won't say that, obviously, but I do think that they are happy that it's over. Well, you must be, as a guy who's been covering, you know, baseball and hockey and all these typical North American sports,

you must have that adjustment that I've been going through as a fan where there's these multiple trophies. Like, you know, in hockey, we know there's one goal. Win the Stanley Cup. The conference winner won't even touch the trophy. Right. The president's trophy means nothing.

There isn't this whole conch-a-calf. This doesn't exist. You've got one goal. They do it in Europe. UEFA, that's the way it is. It's kind of stupid. I don't think they really want to play outdoors in Canada in February. But because the season is so long, they have to start. So that second game, the second leg of that Panamanian.

Brutal. I was on the Gardner while it was taking place because I was coming back from Hebsey's book thing on the Tuesday night. And then I could see the game was going on. But of course, I couldn't see a single person in the stands from the Gardner, which is not the best viewpoint. But how many people were there to watch that game?

It was probably about a third full. I mean, I was... It was that much? I would actually... Yeah, actually, David Schultz tweeted that pretty well everybody in the stands needs counseling. You know?

First of all, they weren't going to come back and score five goals. Second of all, I've never covered anything. It was freezing in the press box, and we had windows. Like when I was covering TFC this weekend in Philadelphia, it was freezing there too, and it was only minus four. So, yeah, I think their only hope was that the Panamanian guys would just refuse to move

in the cold. You know what I mean? And they needed to win by four goals, right? I mean, they had to win four nothing. They had to win five nothing because,

well, they had to win. Yeah, it would have been a shootout if it was four nothing. Right. It would have been a shootout

and if Panama would have scored one goal, they would have had to win five. Yeah. Because an away goal is... Six to one,

you have to win. Yeah, because the away goal is the difference. Right, right, right. And soccer, as everybody knows. But I guess that one third full, those are probably Liberty Village youngsters who just wore a lot of layers and just said, I'm going to die hard, I'm going.

Right. Good for them. Good for them. I gave them a lot. I think they're crazy, but it's not even an MLS game. If you were not covering sports, is there any sport you would watch, other than a championship final, I guess, would you go to, is there any sport you would

go in those conditions to watch? No way. Not now. In this business, you get spoiled, Mike. I always tell my buddies, I won't go to a game to watch at the best of times anymore because you kind of get spoiled. You're in the press box. You can drink what you want. Not booze, but eat something. You're comfortable. You can't drink booze. Is that a hard rule? You can't have a beer? The old days you could.

The old days you could, but different times now. I'm surprised that they don't let you have a beer while you... Well, the Raptors will still, I think they'll still bring beers after the game while you're working in the meeting room. And the Jays had a beer machine. The Jays, even in my day, the Jays would put beers out on the counter

when you came back up from the clubhouse. Now none of that is seen anymore. They've moved the, I guess you've all been moved at the Dome. Yeah, we're being moved. Yeah, you're being moved to the outfield? Outfield, the old football press box, which caused a big ruckus last year,

but the way I look at it, who cares? I mean, baseball, the way I used to joke about baseball coverage is guys would be buried in the computer until they hear crack, and they'd look up for the replay and then bury their heads in the computer again. So the vantage point could be...

You can do that at home, right? Exactly. And apparently to get down to the clubhouse, it's easier from the old press box, the old football press box. So, you know, very interesting.

Yeah. Back to TFC really briefly. So that's your, you're covering TFC now. Um, because of course, like you said, they,

uh, they're, there's not, there's no, there's no money in the banana stand. How do you say that? There's a, you,

they used to just kind of replace people when they left. And now they kind of use the resources they have. Right. So we had a guy named Curtis Larson, who was our soccer guy. Great soccer, right, because he played collegiate soccer. And he got a gig with that new Canadian Premier League that they're starting up. Oh, yeah.

He's one of their top guys. So our boss, Bill Pierce, knew I wasn't particularly thrilled doing baseball anymore. And he sent me down to a preseason training camp in California last month. And he phoned me and said, how do you like it? And I said, I actually like it. He said, how would you want to do it? I said, yeah, okay.

So, you know, I kind of feel bad for Rob Longley because he's partnerless now on baseball. But we'll figure out how to do that. But we needed somebody full-time on this beat. You know, you can't have a sports newspaper, you can't have a team without at least one full-time guy. Yeah, and TFC is probably now the fourth, maybe arguably the fourth biggest team in the market now. Ahead of the Argos.

That's my argument. I would think so, and I'm an old That's my argument. I would think so. And I'm an old CFL guy, but I would think so. I have Fred Patterson from Humble & Fred, and I keep having this argument. He says the Argos are way more popular than TFC because the TV numbers are so much bigger. And that's the only thing he can point to.

All other evidence and metrics point to TFC being more popular in this market. And it's the demographic too. I mean, it's a younger crowd, right? Oh, yeah. No, I know. I think it's definitely the most boisterous crowd. Oh, I had season tickets the first year and it blew me away.

Just the enthusiasm and stuff. It was incredible. Obviously, Josie Altidore has signed a new contract with TFC, and Jovinko is gone, and those are the two significance.

So, did you, I forget, was that part of Brian's question? Do you want to make a prediction on, you know, this is a team that's only two years removed from winning

everything. Right. And then last year was a terrible disappointment. Do they make the playoffs this year? Oh, I do.

I definitely do. I mean, you know, they're bringing a couple of new guys in. You know, they lost Victor Vasquez and Jovinko. But hopefully they'll have... Altidore was not healthy a lot last year. He's coming back. They're going to bring in this Alejandro Pazuelo midfielder from Belgium,

who I've seen video on that. Apparently he's very good, like very good. He's going to be their third designated player. And apparently they're scouring the European leagues for a couple more TAM players. So yeah, I think it's a well-coached team. And from the performance against the Philadelphia Union, they were supposed to be this really improved team

with this hot shot Mexican forward they had. They, they, they looked really good. So I think from what I can see, when they get healthy

and they got all their guys signed up, I think they're going to be back and they don't have to worry about CONCACAF. Right. You know.

We got that out of the way. Right. All right. Just before I play us out though, I want to recognize that we did talk about your Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame recognition, but you won the Sports Federation of Canada Award in 1996.

You were a National Newspaper Award finalist. You've won three Dunlop Awards. You've been a Sovereign Award and Canadian Standard Bread Award finalist, and you're an inductee into the Ontario Boxing Hall of Fame. That's cool. Yeah, that's just happened this year. Not bad for a guy

who kind of got kicked out of Humber College or whatever happened there. I got kicked out of everywhere. And the Leave It to Beezer, is that coming back? Can we bring back Leave It to Beezer? Yeah, I'd like to bring that back But that was sort of more of the time

I was a single dad raising a teenage daughter So I had a lot of ammunition And I really loved doing that It was great The only problem with that, Mike Was that once a week I would write this Slice of life piece Four other days I'd be writing serious sports business

So guys didn't know where it started and where it ended. So that's sort of the reason why I stopped doing that, you know. Steve, I thoroughly enjoyed this. This was great, man. Oh, it was fun. I appreciate you bringing me on. 437th guy. It's great. I'm looking for another

800 guys to go by. Here's my pledge. It won't be nearly that many episodes before I drag you back to kick out the jams with me I'm looking forward to that

but you can only have one song per artist so you can't do like six Rush songs or anything I'll do Rush Super Tramp

The Police Alan Parsons Project you name it I can't wait that'll be would you by any chance have a Bruce Springsteen song in there

you know funny thing is never a huge Springsteen guy interesting there? Funny thing is, never a huge Springsteen guy. Interesting. I talk to a lot of sports media guys and they all seem to worship

Bruce Springsteen. I was more of a prog rock guy. Gotcha. Well, thanks for doing this. My pleasure. We'll see you again soon. And that brings us to the end of our 437th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike.

Steve is at Buffery Sun. Buffery Sun or Beezer Sun? Twitter? What are we talking about? No, what is your Twitter handle? I think I wrote it down wrong. Beezer Sun? At Beezer Sun.

Beezer Sun. Beezer Sun. I don't know why I wrote down Buffery Sun. It's at Beezer Sun. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer

propertyinthesix.com is at Raptors Devotee Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair

is at Fast Time WJR Paytm is at Paytm Canada and Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol see you all

tomorrow where my guest is Jake Gold.