Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Steve Simmons: Toronto Mike'd #1142

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

In this 1142nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with writer Steve Simmons about what he wrote about Akim Aliu and Wayne Simmons, what it's like to be so passionately disliked on Twitter, and his new book A Lucky Life: Gretzky, Crosby, Kawhi, and More From the Best Seat in the House. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Yes, We Are Open, The Advantaged Investor, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1142 of Toronto Mic'd Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA StickerU.com Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos and decals Palma Pasta Fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees tattoos and decals Palma Pasta fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees

the Yes We Are Open podcast a Moneris podcast production the Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada recyclemyelectronics.ca committing to our planet's

future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. Ridley Funeral Home Pillars of the community since 1921. And Canna Cabana The lowest prices on cannabis. Guaranteed. Joining me today, making his third visit to the TMmds studio is steve simmons welcome back steve

nice to be here happy halloween i see you went as uh steve simmons this year um i actually have a costume in my car because i'm i'm gonna go over to my son's house later to give out candy because we don't get any kids in our neighborhood anymore. Oh, so you're going to shell out... Is it Jeff? Yeah. Okay, a fellow FOTM, Jeff Simmons. And we're bringing the candy and doling it out.

Amazing. Okay, happy Halloween to you. I still have a six-year-old and an eight-year-old, so they're all jazzed about going trick-or-treating tonight, but you're way past that at this point. Do you miss it? Do you miss the days? I still love it.

I mean, I missed the days as a kid. I remember how important it was for me to go out on Halloween. And I still feel that way, you know, all these years later. So I love the holiday. I love, you know, the way people react to it and treat it. And as I wrote in the column on Sunday, I wish it was a month earlier because we'd get a little bit warmer weather.

And in the case of today, a little less damp weather. Yeah, hopefully it dries up for the kids and for you, Steve. But what is the costume that's in your car right now? You said you have a costume in your car. What is it? It's a, it's kind of a monster mask is the best way to put it. It's one of those masks that's been sitting around

the house and you pull it out once a year. Gotcha. Gotcha. It's not real good. You know what I have actually though? I played Goal when I was a kid. I played Goal in the 70s and I have that Jason. You see it in there? I have that Jason mask. It's still? Yeah, I have that Jason mask. It's still got puck marks.

Well, that's what I wear tonight. Puck marks on it. Oh, it's a real deal. Yeah, you never thought of that as a Halloween mask when you were playing goal and getting smashed with pucks, but I can't bear to get rid of it. Well, shout out to Jason Voorhees, and I thought maybe because I saw the Diet Coke

you brought with you that maybe you were going as Bob Elliott for Halloween. Well, I'd have to do something like that. No, Stephen. I worked a lot of years besides. Do you know Bob Elliott

and I were hired within days of each other? I did not remember that. In 1986, Wayne Parrish took over as the sports editor of the toronto sun he left the toronto star to become sports editor it's a big thing at the time because george gross had been the the guy and parish came in and they gave him the ability right away to

hire people and so he made two hirings within within days of each other he hired bob elliott from the ottawa citizen and he hired me from the Calgary Herald. And here we are all these years later and Bob's in the Baseball Hall of Fame and I'm still chugging along. You're still writing. Doing what I do. Okay, I have so many questions. But first, I just want to let the FOTMs listening know,

I said it was your third visit. So we have to go all the way back to April 2016. That was your first visit to this studio. And here's what I wrote at the time. I wrote, in this 170th episode, Mike chats with Toronto Sun columnist Steve Simmons about his years at the Sun, his relationships with Damien Cox,

David Schultz, and James Myrtle. That was quite the trifecta. His thoughts on analytics and hockey. His Phil Kessel story about hot dogs. You infamously addressed that, and I'll tell you now that that clip gets many a play still to this day. How he got Howard Berger fired,

not intentional on your part, but it's quite the story, and what it was like being a day one-er at the Fan 590, the Team 1050, and the score. That was quite the episode, Steve. Oh, I have no recollection of that,

but thank you for bringing all that up. Now it's going to haunt you on this Halloween. Now you came back, uh, you had such a good time and you came back to kick out the jams. That was in November, 2017. Uh,

Mike and Steve discuss, this was episode two 88. Mike and Steve discuss several topics, including the recent post media and Tour Star swap and cut. Cash Palmer, maybe we'll get an update today if you have an update on Cash Palmer. The cancellation of the reporters, Bob Elliott, there he is again,

The Athletic, The Argos, TFC, Roy Halladay, Phil Kessel, Joey Batts, his diabetes, his sleep disorder, the death of his brother, and haters on Twitter. And then we played, after all that, we played and discussed your 10 favorite songs of all time. You kicked out the jams. That's a lot of content there.

Two hours and 17 minutes of content. I should take that and turn it into a book. Well, okay, shout it out now, and we're going to dive in deeper after we catch up. But what is the name of your new book, Steve? It's A Lucky Life, Gretzky, Crosby, Kawhi, and more from the best seat in the house. Okay, I've actually read it. I enjoyed it.

And I've got some choice articles that we're going to discuss later. What's your relationship like with a new FOTM who I got along with very well uh Liz Braun oh I adore Liz um been a fan of her forever and ever um we worked together forever she was a great film reviewer for many many years um had had to because everyone's had to sort of switch their lives a little bit and is doing things now that I bet you given the choice, maybe she wouldn't be doing. A terrific lady and really, really smart. I loved my chat with her. It was great to meet her. And I knew, I figured you worked so many years with Liz, you'd have some words to say about Liz Braun. Speaking of people you worked with, I just recently tweeted out, it was the anniversary,

one year anniversary of the visit of Mary Ormsby and Paul Hunter to my backyard studio. And of course you were on the air with Mary Ormsby. It's funny, Mary Ormsby and I did one year of radio together. And you would think because of the relationship that we have and that developed, that we probably did 10 years together uh what i think of her like i i just love her and i think i think it's the opposite i think she you know gets along with me the same way and and paul is the nicest man on earth yes so you put mary and paul together and it's like super couple of sports writers journalists whatever you know too terrific

at you know really really really good at their jobs um and and her you know on on my mount rushmore of women you know she's she's on it she's right there okay and uh yeah i had a great time chatting with both of them and like yourself they contributed to the uh to episode 1000 of toronto mic'd and thank you steve for that submission you're on episode 1000 so thank you well i like to get around all right so i will tell you so when a guest is coming on i always uh go to twitter and i'm like uh do you have a question or comment for my guest so the guest before you steve was actually uh sharon and Bram.

I don't know if your kids... Skidamarinky dinky dink. There you go. Lois, sadly, no longer with us. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, but Sharon and Bram still with us and they were on the program. And I got so many comments basically like thank you, I love you,

thank you for giving me permission to dream. The most lovely tweets about what should I say or ask of Sharon and Bram. And then my next guest after Sharon and Bram, Steve Simmons. And I said, okay, and I got to say, Steve, so I'm going to look in your eyes with this, but I'm wondering how you deal with the people on Twitter. You're so polarizing. I had people who wanted me to literally look you in the eyes and tell you to F off.

I had people who wanted me to literally look you in the eyes and tell you to F off. There's a real divide between what I call the real world and the online world. And the online world is an angry place. And it's a hateful place. And if you do something that upsets the group, per se, what happens is it's mob mentality. And so that's one of the reasons I'm really, really pleased and proud of this book is because all of the people who hate me and scream about me and call for my firing

and all the things that they do consistently. And I think I trended for four days last week, which might be a record. I would love them all to read this book because it shows a side of me that they don't even know exists. Because if they read me, they wouldn't be nearly as angry as they seem to be on a regular basis and they pick you know sort of one one thing once in a while and then whether it's you know phil kessel and and the hot dog whether it's austin matthews having covet which was the dumbest overreaction of all time right um you know to the most recent brouhaha um which is rather regrettable um then you know but know, Mike, you've read the book. What it shows is that I'm not about screaming

and I'm not about controversy and I'm not about... I'm a storyteller. Right. And that's what the book is about. Yeah, I know, Steve, you tell a great story and you're always interesting interesting which is why i read you but i uh also uh must admit there are moments where you do write something and i think okay i i i wonder if steve wishes he had that back and then there's one the specific recent

brouhaha as you called it we got to get into that but first that's a little bit lighter off the top here which is uh where is the reporters' podcast? Like, why aren't you guys podcasting? That is a great question. We did a live show. I was there. I forget the name. The Paramount?

Is that the name of the place? No, Paradise. Paradise Ballroom or something? Yeah, and I thought it was fantastic, and I thought the crowd really liked it, and Brendan Shanahan was on, and it went great and we thought that was the beginning of something that was going to and there was talk then there was a couple of companies approached about doing things and and and then the pandemic hit yeah and it was like and the world blew up and everybody went

their own way and and so you know Bruce Arthur went into basically writing you know COVID for a couple of years and and Dave Hodge he doesn't call it retirement but he's not he's not really broadcasting anymore and and Mike Farber is in sort of in semi-retirement in Montreal he does some work for TSN and and once in a while for somebody else. And I'm still pounding it out. And so we never sort of, you know, this was always Dave's thing. And by Dave's thing, I mean Dave was the captain. And so we were going to go in whatever direction Dave was going because, A, you know, he's terrific at what he does,

and, B, we loved working with him. And so, you know, if he had said we're doing a podcast and starting next week and this is how we working with him. And so if, you know, if, if it had, if he had said, we're doing a podcast and starting next week and this is how we're doing it. You'd be there. Yeah. I would be there. I would have signed up. And, and again, I don't know if that, you know, at that time the belief was there was no money to be made in the podcasting world. And we've since found out that there, that that might be the opposite of that. And we probably missed out on the opportunity.

Well, I'll say he's in the calendar, Dave Hodge, because every year he comes over and kicks out his 100 favorite songs of the calendar year. So Dave is working on his list. We actually maintain a website, thehodge100.com, or is it Hodge 100? Oh, I got to double check, but one of those two. And you can see all of his previous picks, and he'll be back here.

We might do it in the backyard. He's being COVID cautious because of his sister, and I appreciate that. So, although, have you ever had COVID? I have. Okay, so how many bouts have you had with it? One. You know, one.

As far as I know, I've never had COVID, but I just, I produce a show for Humble and Fred, and they've both had it now. Howard got it last week when he was traveling in France, and that makes me last man standing there. My wife's had it now. Howard got it last week when he was traveling in France and that makes me last man standing there. My wife's had it twice. She's a healthcare worker and her last

case was a bad one. It was one of those two weeks, tough one like every day was bad. I'm lucky I had it for like two days and I didn't even know I had it other than I tested positive and sort of just stayed around the house got lucky there good stuff now i will say that you mentioned the live uh reporters recording with brendan shanahan that feed so dave said hey can you host this on your podcast feed so anybody who wants to hear that it's actually in the toronto

mic feed the the in its entirety so you can hear bre can hear Brendan Shanahan and then Dave Hodge, yourself, Michael Farber, who made the trip all the way from Montreal and Bruce Arthur, of course. So let me know when you want to do a podcast because I just think it'd be cool to have a reporter's podcast. I would love that. It's funny, I had an idea about,

I don't know, maybe it was five years ago. And at the time I called it lunch with the legends. And what I was going to do is I was going to get a downtown Toronto restaurant. And I was going to have like some kind of studio set up in the lobby or somewhere in the restaurant and bring in. And I made a list of about 40 possible guests for this lunch with the legend show.

And this is before we, you know, had any, you know, anything beyond an idea. And I, it to at the time bev wake who was the corporate sports editor for post media right and she loved the idea and i think about five days later she got fired oh no um and then i pitched it to someone else there and they sort of loved the idea and did absolutely nothing with it.

And after sort of, you know, I just, you know, when you're writing a column, the next column is sort of what's always on your brain. So you don't have time always when you're thinking about the next column to be thinking about how else am I going to do all these other things. And so I never really pursued it. thinking about what else how else am i going to do all these other things and so um um and so i never really pursued it i'm sorry now that i didn't because i think now the market is flooded and there's too much out there um but i still thought it was a great idea and i would you know just the idea of sitting up just the way we're sitting right now like sitting across from from

bobby or or lou lamarillo or you know whomever you want, whichever Hall of Famer. At that time, Robbie Alomar hadn't yet got his banishment from baseball. Whomever it would be and being able to just... And when you're talking, you're not talking about, tell me about that play. Tell me about your life. How did you get there? How did you become who you are?

You can have a real, especially in person person you can have a real conversation with someone and i love my i'm i don't know if i'm allowed i'm allowed to mention other podcasts oh my god yeah sure i love smartless and i don't know if you listen to smartless at all i started i wanted to listen and then i heard they had eddie veteran who's a guy who i know is never going to come in my basement but i wanted to hear like a deep dive and I have to say, I was left a little empty. It felt very safe and a little bit too scripted for me, and it seemed like all the interesting places were out of bounds. But that spirit of what they're doing, I absolutely adore.

I proposed this to someone who came to me out of the blue. A company in Los Angeles approached me and said, would you like to do a podcast? And I said, about what? And they said, we don't know. We just want you to do something. And at the time, I had no idea. And then I thought, you know what?

You could do a sports version of Smartless. Right. You get three people. And I guess McCowan and John Shannon kind of do that. But you get three people, and you bring in one guest, and that's your hour. And my only complaint with smart lists ever is they have these, I will use Julia,

Louis Dreyfus as an example. They had her on that. They talk too much. Like I wanted to hear her. And so sometimes that happens, but I, I, I really liked the concept and I still like the concept and,

you know, it's never too late but finding the right people is so important i mean that's what we had with the reporters we had an unbelievably different group of voices like the four of us couldn't think more differently about the same things and you know i i always say this i i had that seat where I had Mike Farber to my right and Dave, and Dave to my left. And if you ever want to feel like the dumb kid in class, you know,

that'll do it. That'll do it. Two, two of the absolute smartest people I've ever known. Wow. Uh, yeah. So hopefully one day,

but now, uh, so I'm going to get to some of the comments now. And again, all those people who wrote me and said, uh, you know, tell them to F off or punch him in the nose.

Uh, come on, give me something constructive here. So I'm going, I'm going to skip all those. him to F off or punch him in the nose. Come on, give me something constructive here. So I'm going to skip all those. Okay, so pretend I punched you in the nose and pretend I told you to F off. Okay, Steve. Okay. So, just kidding. Matt Cause, and he's being sarcastic here because he put it in quotes, but he said,

Steve, you handsome devil. How come everyone loves you on Twitter? I love Matt. Matt's a lot of fun. And I know Matt's dad, actually. I go back to Matt's dad, Lukas. You should actually have him on one day. I'd have him on. He's fantastic.

He covered the Leafs. He covered the 67 Leafs, and he's written books about the early years of the Blue Jays and just a quintessential sort of man of, I think he's like close to 90 now, but he's kind of like, he's close to, he's one of these guys that's close to 90 now, but he's like, kind of like, he's close to, he's one of these guys

that's close to 90 and he's dating people all the time, you know. As long as he has his wits about him, I do it. Now, Brian McFarlane's been on the program.

He's in his 90s now, so. And he's pretty with it. Last I saw Brian and talked to Brian as well. How many shows have you, you said the number when you started.

1142 is this one right here, 1142. So in the 1142 shows, how many times have you said something and as it came out of your mouth, you wanted to grab it? It's happened a few times, sure. You know, I talk a lot, so I'm sure there's a few times. I can't think of one specific, but it's probably happened. So when you write eight million words there are times when you write something an entire subject entire column maybe 800 words of an entire column and the next day you look at it and you kind of cringe and you

say why did i do that or why did i say that or or sometimes you look back a year later and you think why did i say that well with with the most recent you know situation you wrote something and you looked at it the next day and sentiment i know what i wanted to say and delivery you know i screwed up and um and in this world today, there's no escaping online from screwing up, if you want to call it that. And by screwing up, I mean choice of words. Well, okay, let me read it. So this is in your Sunday notes column. And I have so many questions about Akeem Alou in the comments you made.

So you wrote, no one wants to say this because of the politically correct police and all, but those who coached Akeem Alou must cringe every time they see him in a news report or a commercial talking about what's wrong with hockey. Like he would know. By my count, Alou played for 23 teams in nine different leagues in 12 professional seasons and rarely finished any season with the same team he started with. If that was color-related, how is it that Wayne Simmons spent season with the same team he started with. If that was color related, how is it that Wayne Simmons spent just about the same 12 seasons playing in the NHL?

Well, begin with Wayne Simmons should never have been in the note. There was no reason for it. It was a mistake on my part. It, I believe, inflamed the situation. This had nothing to do with Wayne Simmons. This had nothing to do with color. and i made the mistake of of connecting two players that really aren't connected so the only thing linking those people in your mind is that they're both black men well and they're both they're both part of the hockey diversity alliance but um you know i i made a comparison that really wasn't relevant to the point I was trying to make. And the point I was trying to make is that, you know, every time I saw that Bank of Nova Scotia commercial, for one,

and many other people I know of, you know, are uncomfortable when they see that. This is not about white and black. That's what bothered me the most about this and how it became, I'm a racist. But here's where I think it is. And again, obviously, you've got all the time in the world here to clarify what you mean, etc. Except it is about black and white, right? Because Akeem Alou is

a black man, and he's been very vocal about the difficulties he faced, you know, as a black man in hockey, right? The culture of hockey and a black man. And he's been very upfront about all this. And I'm just, Steve, you and I are both white guys. And how the hell would we know what it was like to be, for Akeem to be a black man playing in hockey

these past couple of decades? Well, we wouldn't. We wouldn't. But I do know things that I'd rather not get into here about him. And I do know many people who have played with him, managed him, been his agent, been his coach, that kind of thing.

And here's what I would ask you and anyone else, maybe even listening. If I don't like someone or care for how they conduct their business, is that racist? If he happens to be black, what if he's white? Is that racist? No, of course not. No, of course not.

So that's the part that bothers me here. And I admit that I made it, you know, a black and white thing by bringing Wayne Simmons in. Right. And, you know, I'm sick to my stomach, frankly, that I did that and have been the entire week. But as for what I said about Akeem, other than maybe the last, that one sort of snarky line, how would he know?

Like he would know. Yeah. Everything else I said about him is absolutely true. So what I would say, okay, again, as a guy who reads what you know, like he would know. Yeah. Everything else I said about him is absolutely true. So what I would say, okay, again, as a guy who reads what you write and respects you, I mean,

you're here in my, my home right now. This is your third visit. That's not an accident. It's because I respect you as a person and I want to have a conversation with you now. Okay. So you have something you want to say here about akeem and maybe there's a point you want

to make about maybe hypocrisy or something to that effect but jamming it in like this a couple of like quick hits dot dot dot like like your uh you know uh king larry king right it's like dot dot whereas maybe again i'm going to play something in a minute from a friend of the program who was just over here the other day and recorded something regarding this. He's a black man. I'm going to play that in a minute.

But it just feels like this deserved a deeper dive and maybe a conversation with Akeem. It sounds like a bigger story. You're jamming into a couple of sentences. The problem and the strength of the Sunday column, which has been running now for 30 some years. Right. And I know many coaches over the years that this has driven nuts,

is that you say something and then there's no yeah but. And then you go on to the next point. Right. And I think that's part of what people have come to like and sort of eat up about the Sunday column, which is the most read column in our chain, which would make it probably the most read column in Canada. So on the one hand, what makes it attractive

is also what can get you in trouble. And to use a quote from one of my seniors, and he's not using the term son as in the newspaper I work for, but the term sun as in the up in the sky, he said, you fly too close to the sun. And when you fly too close to the sun, sometimes you get burnt. And we would rather have you flying too close to the sun regularly will deal with the burnt situations when we have to. And over the years, there have been other ones. I'm not going to make an excuse here, but I was writing this notes column

while that 10-9 Blue jays game was going on and so 90 of my focus is i gotta write a column on the game that's was 8-1 and now it's not and all this and i gotta get this notes column done by seven something and so it was like i was a bit frank i'm not going to use that as any kind of an excuse just an explanation for i should have changed that note all right and i wish i had changed the note and i'm not sure i'm not sure the reaction would have been anything at all similar i'm just gonna give you one other fact yeah i know i i want to spend some time the column the column goes out by email i don't know if you get it on saturday

but no i see the tweet and then I click through. The column goes out to anyone who subscribes. It's just thousands of people. It goes out on Saturday. So this column went out on Saturday afternoon. And normally when there's something in there that people will respond to, I will hear things immediately. I didn't hear a word until ali went online on sunday morning so there had not been a single response of any kind

um which may just you know may play into the fact that people are ostensibly lazy but but normally when i might play into like the fact that the subscribers are Steve Simmons fans and probably going to cut you some slack or. because I get, I get a fair bit of, oh, I don't agree with that or I don't agree with this kind of emails. And,

you know, people, people, the one thing about the world today is, is people react immediately. You get an immediate reaction. Right. And,

um, and because you get an immediate reaction right and um and because you get an immediate reaction you know sometimes you know when something's you know really good and sometimes you know when you've screwed up so you didn't get that kind of heads up on the saturday with the email no and what got me was it was it was edited like by you know i didn't get and i had an item in the column actually this is true story i had an item on jordan romano about having one of the great seasons of any canadians ever had for a canadian baseball team and then jordan romano gets you know in trouble in the eighth and gives up runs on the ninth and the jays are out right and i called or sent emails to the editors saying remove the Romano.

So that kind of thing happens all the time where you put something in and you take something out and you have that exchange. And unfortunately, we didn't have any kind of exchange from anyone who said, you know, do you want to change that? And again, it's my writing. Well, you published it. I stand by it.

But again, I, you know, there, there are times when you do need help from your editors or, or wish you could get help from your editors. Okay. So Steve, enjoy that. You've got your Diet Coke there. Settle in. I have follow-up questions and some specifics for you here because you're on Toronto Mike tier, the land of the deep dive, but I promised I'm going to play something now I'll just preface this to say that Jason Portwondo and Donovan Bailey

are here once a week and they record their fine podcast which is called Donovan Bailey running things and they cover a variety of topics in fact one of the articles I was reading in a lucky lucky life your new book was what you wrote about Donovan So there's a lot of Donovan talk coming up later, but let me play this. It's a couple of minutes. So get comfortable. And then I'm going to ask you very specific questions. Here's Jason Portwondo and Donovan Bailey from Donovan Bailey running

things. An article recently written by Steve Simmons. And obviously this being a Toronto based show, we're talking about the Toronto Sun newspaper. Recently, just going to give you kind of the Coles Notes version of the story involving some NHL players who are black. Wayne Simmons being one, Akeem Alou being the other. And in the article, he's saying, you know, you can't compare the two. I guess Akeem Alou was, you know, having some statements, made some, you know, references to various things.

And he said, well, how can you even, you know, compare the two? Because Wayne Simmons has been a bona fide NHL player. Akeem Malou has played for like a bunch of different teams throughout his 20-odd year career. And it definitely raised the eyebrows of many, both current and former players. Well, OK, I know Steve and I've spoken to Steve many, many times. I'm on the side of Akeem and Wayne, and I'm just going to say this. Steve's written bad articles about me, and he's probably written some good articles about me, and I have the ability to also call him and talk to him.

So I'm going to say this to Steve. You're in a position where you have a pen. to Steve. You're in a position where you have a pen. You're in a position where you could do good and you could be influential with the articles that you write. You're in no position whatsoever to criticize an athlete's journey. You're in no position to talk about, especially a black kid who had to deal with hockey his entire life. And some of the racist, systematic, institutional, every kind of racism that this kid could get. So he has absolutely no right to criticize Akeem. Has no right to criticize Wayne or to bring Wayne in on the conversation. I mean, ultimately, it's 2022.

And there are a lot of people out there and I've said this for 25 years, your job today, if you do not know someone's story or someone's journey is to shut up and listen. And ultimately, you know, that's what I'm saying to Steve. I mean, at the end of the day, uh, it would have been great for him, whether or not to, writing that article and criticizing these guys, it would have been better to actually have a conversation with them about their journey. And certainly you can talk about, you can always talk about an athlete and their athleticism. But if, you know, Akeem speaks a lot about his journey and dealing with racism

and nobody has the right to go in there and criticize them. Akeem, by the way, part of the NHL is diverse. Okay, let's say you, Steve Simmons, to what Donovan Bailey was saying. Well, begin with one thing and Donovan talks about

how long of a relationship we have and it is a very long relationship. Sure. And Donovan got the order of canada last year um i was his sponsor i was the person who who promoted him to that and i had been the person for i don't know how many years screaming about the injustice okay because i've been taking credit for this by the way because i had donovan on and then shortly thereafter he was named but you were the man who actually went through the paperwork no went through the paperwork and there's a there's

a process that's involved which is great um and him and i you know we've been talking about i wrote an article about this i don't know it was the top of the sunday notes column actually i don't know how many years ago now about you know he wants to be able to tell his kids that he's order of this was before it ever happened right and and you know and one of the things they had a roast for donovan's i can't remember it was 20th anniversary or 25th anniversary whatever it was it was a fundraising roast for his ability um one of the speakers at the roast me um so him and i have had a for him to say we've a good and bad most of it's been pretty good over the years.

And I talk to him probably, I don't know, every few months, depending on what's going on. And in fact, the Usain Bolt story in the book focuses on Donovan watching somebody break the world record and break the Olympic record that he once broke and under similar circumstances but very different so so there's a lot of layers to our relationship sure i agree and i'll go back to this just and i don't want to repeat myself but wayne simmons should never have been a mention okay so maybe there was no reason at all you regret yeah the whole

wayne simmons part of that okay so i i know thing and i'm not going to go into them because it's it's just not right i know too much here i know too much here i know that doesn't answer people's questions um but i know too much and i know too many stories and i know too many things that um um have happened over the years that again aren't necessarily related to race but but here's my here's my i'm serious i'm asking you this as a blue-eyed white guy here okay and i know what i don't know how do you know that an experience of like akeem and hockey how do you know it's not related to racism okay what what if the experiences i'm talking about have nothing to do with hockey see this is where i'm i have to tap out i realize because i

don't know what you're talking about so okay and i'm not and i'm not going to what's the word i'm not going to enlighten you okay so you're gonna hold that water yeah as we say in the wire you know i will say one thing yeah um the national hockey league this is a time where everyone is looking for diversity and everyone is looking for diversity. And everyone is looking. That's what every corporation and every company and all of that. The National Hockey League and the Hockey Diversity Alliance are not working together. They do not work together.

They are not associated in any way with each other. I was told the reason, by as good a source as you can get they want nothing to do with akim that's i'll leave it okay let me ask you isn't that the story to write i guess i've already i wrote that like two years ago okay two years ago okay when it happened at the time okay then let me let me change it to, do you appreciate like why? Because when I said you had a question, I can't tell you how many, some of them I will reference,

but so many questions about what you wrote about Akima Liu and bringing Wayne Simmons into it. And you know, one guy there, Fasaruk, I hope I said right, Fasaruk on Twitter, thinks, he says, content over principles, eh?

Like he's basically accusing me, like I shouldn't even have you on, like my principles, I should not have you on. But you appreciate the people who feel your notes about Akeem are rooted in racism. I understand. Because they don't know what this thing you know in your head.

They don't know, of course. And that's, you know, when I write about a lot of things, people don't know what I know. That's part of the... But as a journalist, you know, people don't know what I know. That's part of it. But as a journalist, you have to document what you know if it applies to the story. Certain things you do

and certain things you don't. And I'm more comfortable, frankly, not reporting in these circumstances things I know other than things I don't. And again, Mike, if I could, would I have written the thing? No. So I guess... But it doesn't change my view

that I don't have much regard for him. So you don't regret, and you only regret bringing Wayne Simmons into it, you don't regret what you wrote about Akeem Alou in that, in those notes, the Sunday notes. No, I do not. Okay, so... And to be honest, had that second part not been in there,

I don't think the reaction would have been anything close to what it was. We'll never know, but I suspect there would have been a reaction regardless. But okay, so let me just, a couple of quick hits here. There's plenty of places I want to go there. Partly, I will say,

as a guy who admires you and respects you, I was kind of hoping you'd come in and apologize, but there's this huge component to the story that you're not ready to share with the public that seems to be influencing your refusal to do that. One of the things that I believe has separated me from many of my peers over the years is I say things people don't want to say. And I say things that are uncomfortable. And so I will tell stories that

others won't tell. And I'll stick my neck out for that. And I've been doing that for 40 years in different ways. I will talk you know, talk about, you know, things that maybe other writers know about that they won't approach. And it's been a strength of mine historically, and it's been a failing of mine historically, depending on what the circumstances were. And I can't change who I am. And so for me to change who I am, you know, I might as well just, you know, get in a car, drive to Florida and begin retirement. Okay, on that note, Jeremy Taggart,

former drummer for Our Lady Peace and an FOTM like yourself, he writes in, he writes in, when will you do us a favor and retire? And now he's being a dink with that comment there but uh on that note do you have any plans to at some point uh you know put the pen away and and retire two two things um one the day i wake up and i'm not thinking what's my column today is the first day i'm going to consider retiring while While I am still, you know, sort of,

and to do that Sunday column, Sunday column is 2,400 words. That's three times the length of an average daily column in a paper. And it's a lot of work. Right. And it's a lot of gathering. And it's, you have to have,

to write 2,400 words, you have to have about 3,000 words of material. And so it's, you know, it's my, I call it my curse and my blessing. But you still love it. I do. And what gets me more than that I love it is that other people love it.

Two things that we can now track on post-media. One, how many people read your work? Two, how long are they engaged in your work? That's now, those are things before you'd ever knew. You were just sort of hoping you knew. Right. The last I was told, and they don't tend to share this information very often with you. I had the highest readership in the chain and the and the longest engagement in the chain

and so here i am in my 42nd year or whatever it is of doing this yeah and you know when as as mr taggart says when am i going to retire right if people don't want to read it anymore, I will happily walk away. But the numbers don't indicate that. And you might be the only person in the chain, as you said, the post-media chain, who can trend on Twitter for four days in a row. Yeah, which I honestly would wish on no one. Because when you do what I do,

and you take shots, and I'm not using this one as an example, I'm just shots, period. You're going to get them back. Right. And, you know, I think I referenced in the book, you know, I've been hit probably as many times as George Shavalo.

And, you know, and he was always still standing, although God bless George, he's not in real good shape right now. I had a son on recently to do kind of a type. Yeah, he's not doing well these days. But, you know, he stood in there and took all the shots of a horrendously painful life. I'm not saying my life has been anything,

anywhere near that, but I sometimes feel like if you take one, you better be there to get one back. And I've always believed that, you know, when you take one, you show up the next day to face the music. This one, because it lasted as long as it did, it affects your family. affects your friends um and that's why i don't hope i don't want that on you know i i had we had

a bunch of family over yesterday and this is what they wanted to talk about yeah and really i would well i was going to ask you when you were coming over here because uh sure we book i should point out in case people don't know that this was in my calendar well before you wrote those comments about akima lu so this was already in the calendar we were going to talk catch up on a variety of subjects and talk about your new book well i was here to talk book and anything else usually you put it and i'm happy to answer and i'm going to give you some some props there which is that it would have been easy for you to say you know to cancel because you know i'm going to ask about the Akeem Alou. Like, you knew that driving over here, he's going to ask about the Akeem Alou comments. And you still came over here,

you're still sitting here, and I don't feel any pressure from you to censor anything or you didn't say, hey, don't ask me about this, don't ask me about that. Like, I feel very comfortable to ask you anything and you're here facing it. Now, you didn't. Like, some people are like, oh, maybe he'll issue this big, broad apology and say, I'm sorry are like, oh, maybe he'll issue this big broad apology and say, I'm sorry, Akeem, I never should have wrote what I wrote. And you haven't done that. But the fact that you're here to state that to me

is something I respect. So thank you for doing this, buddy. Yeah, and I appreciate the times that we've had together and I appreciate listening when I listen to the podcast, which I do quite often. Good. Thank you. No, I love that you listen. Absolutely love that you listen.

But we're not quite done yet, but this is a nicer note for you. Lee Eckley, radio superstar Lee Eckley, who's also an FOTM, he said, Simmons is one of the country's best columnists. Not only a great read, but always an interesting listen.

So for every Jeremy Taggart, there's a Lee Eckley. All right. You'll take that one. You know what? I like when someone who's not in your world, but is, what do you want to call it? A media personality. Yeah, but it's a media personality and is high up.

One of the things that disappointed me the most were people that i have known and know personally and have known and had relationships with who suddenly are saying i'm a racist well that's it once the r word is attached to you it's you know it reminds me i forget who said this some some reporter or person said this years ago you know it's it's it's the i'm trying to get the wording properly um if you ask someone who assaulted someone when was the last time you beat someone up you know the the implication is um you know right that that i'm saying this badly but you know i think there's a famous political... It was like, so you accuse someone like,

is it true you beat your wife? And then they'll say no, but they just, the fact that they had to deny that they beat their wife is enough to sort of smear them. You know what, when I was in university, when I was at Western, and I'm writing for the university paper,

they had a football coach at the time named Darwin Samodiac, wonderful old guy who's since passed away. And the Argos had an opening for a head coach. Darwin had won, I think, the Vanier Cup the last year or two. And so I phoned up Darwin working for the student paper and said, you know, you interested in the Argos job? And he kind of giggled the time they didn't look at CIAU coaches for those kind of positions. And he said, no, I don't really have any interest in that at all. So I wrote a story for the Gazette saying that Darwin Samariak had no interest in the Argos coaching job. Right.

Which essentially was true, but it really wasn't. But it implies that he was offered it or something. It wasn't really a story of any kind. But that's sometimes, unfortunately, what we do in our business. That's amazing. Now, Steve says, see you at Bagel World on Sunday. So do you go to Bagel World on Sundays? My son is more of the Bagel World guy than I am. I'm kind of the Center Street Deli guy.

Center Street Deli. Okay, they've got one of those questions coming up. Okay, so Dan and James, several people sort of made snarky comments regarding Jose Bautista. Like, hey, Steve, remember that time Jose Bautista burned you on Twitter? That tweet was more well-written

than anything you've ever done. That one goes to James, and then Dan just writes it. Can I stop in right now? Yeah, of course. I can't remember what... Oh, I tweeted something right now? Yeah, of course. I can't remember what... Oh, I tweeted something about Batista and then I got one back from him

and it was a really good one, to be honest. It's who are you and why are you talking to me? Okay. Jose, I got a phone call that morning, the morning of that tweet, from Alex Anthopoulos and Paul Beeston when you have two people on the on the phone at the same time of course so they're calling me and just laughing their

whatever's off jose batista had a company in new york that handled his social media they weren't even certain that he was aware that this tweet had been sent out uh of course when when i mentioned that, he denied that, which may have been the people in New York denying it as well. And when I went up, I didn't see him again. This was maybe October or November or something. When I went and saw him in spring training, and the first day I was there, I, of course,

made my way over to discuss what's going on with us. He kind of shooed the whole thing off as being nothing, and we never had a bad relationship of any kind after that. It might have been his social media team. So what happens, and this is, again, the real world and the Twitter world don't always intersect. And as one of my friends in the business pointed out, about 20% of people we know are on Twitter, which means 80% aren't.

Right. Now, take that to the next level. About 5% of the people on Twitter are active based on the research that we have. Sure. So you're getting 5% of 20%, which basically is telling you that my math is bad, that 90% of the public has no idea what's going on online.

Right, right. And so sometimes in the media, we get so consumed with the Twitter reaction and the Twitter war and all of that. And that's not the real world. No, and it isn't. And again, if the sun had been barraged in the same way social media barraged me,

they may have been far more, what's the word? I don't know if concerned is the right way to put it, but again, there's a realization there that the mob mentality of hate on Twitter or reaction on Twitter and what the real world is aren't always the same things.

So to be clear here, let's just spell this out for people. You didn't have a boss. After the Akeem Alou comments you wrote, you didn't have any boss or something that pulled you in a room or called you up and just disciplined you in any way or asked you to, I don't know, retract it or write. Nobody, anything like that. Almost the opposite. I don't know, retracted or right.

Nobody, anything like that. Almost the opposite. There was support. As I said, that line about flying close to the sun, there was. Cause you got engagements. We, it wasn't even that I got engagements. I don't think it was that. Okay.

It's, it's, we want you to be who you are. Right. And if sometimes that means crossing the line, you know, we'll deal with the crossing the line, um, because we like all the other parts. Um, now, you know, who knows, you know, what they think today necessarily, because I haven't taught, but I've had no, like, you know, you're seeing today that everyone and his mother is getting suspended and, and, and, you know, whatever for saying this or for doing that. suspended and, you know, whatever for saying this or for doing that. I have never lost a day's work in, you know, 42 years in the newspaper business. And I've got a great comment here for Mike Rogatsky. But just before, again, looking in the eyes here, you're only a few feet away from me. To those people who say you're racist, what do you say to them right now?

what do you say to them right now? I've grown up Jewish. If anyone in this city or anyone in this country understands racism, it's people who have grown up Jewish. The number one hate crimes in this country, across the country, is against Jews. You learn from a very young age to understand, you know, Nazi Germany and what happened and what hate is. And we use a word called never again. And anyone who knows me, anyone who knows me, knows how I think, knows what I do, knows that at times I've written tolerance literature for groups, understands that the last thing in the world that I am is a racist.

Mike Rogotsky writes, great to see Simmons is coming back. Can you ask Steve why he thinks people are so quick to rush to the defense of their hometown slash favorite player when something is written slash reported critically of the player? I've never really understood this. I want Toronto is a strange town as a sports town. Because in a New York, in a Philadelphia, in a Boston, the players get savaged. The players really get attacked, unlike they do here. They really don't. We're pretty easy on players.

This is a tough town to be a GM. This is a tough town to be a coach. This city eats through gms and coaches and um and that's what for whatever reason that is how whether that's media driven or whether that's um you know publicly driven i don't know but you can't say a word about a Leaf player without causing a brouhaha of some kind. And yet say anything you want about Kyle Dubas. Say anything you want about Sheldon Keith. And it goes the same things.

When the Blue Jays lost, I didn't hear anybody said, you know, Vladimir Guerrero was up with two on and nobody out and had a chance to do what Bryce Harper did and didn't get it done. But why did John Schneider do that? And why did he pull Gossman when he did? And this is how, this is Toronto. And I don't know, I can't explain it,

but I do know that, you know, other than, you know, when they hate a Larry Murphy or whomever it happens to be, Matt Sundin in his early years with the Leafs. When it's that kind of thing, that's different. Justin Hull right now, I think, is in that group. But you can't, like, you saw, I don't know if you saw the Leaf game last night,

but Mitch Marner had two dreadful giveaways that led to goals, and he got benched for a little bit. Right. And, you know, no one's going to come out and rip Mitch Marner, because in Toronto, that's just not done. Yeah, I think you're right about that. Maybe there's a bit of a supply and demand at play there,

but you're absolutely right. I mean, I was reading some hot takes on the the weekend that uh dubis and keith should go right now like uh go like oh you know babcock babcock was like well i don't know the similar record at a similar time when they said goodbye to him it's like you know go and it's just it's uh just the way the city is babcock went and and the firing of mike babcock i don't think anyone objected to you can tell when you watch a team on a daily basis and when you watch how the team interacts with the coach you can tell when it's over it's pretty easy to tell and if you're there all the time you have even a better sense um and mike babcock was going to be fired i believe the

weekend before he was fired. But it was the Hockey Hall of Fame weekend. And Brendan Shanahan did not want to sort of upstage the Hockey Hall of Fame. Which is pretty classy of him. So then the Leafs, I think, played in Pittsburgh and then went to, did they go to Arizona when they fired him? I forget exactly what the circumstances were.

But I think they went to the West Coast and he got fired there. And it was pretty obvious it was great cup week i'm in calgary it was great cup week right and so i'm out there covering the great cup and now i'm covering you know babcock's firing right um but but when you see that separation between players and coach it becomes pretty obvious. And when you're watching the Leafs right now, the circumstances that led to Babcock's firing, I think he was 9, 10, and 4.

So there's still a number of games to get to, to be where they were when it happened. But they've lost to the three worst teams in the NHL. They've lost. I mean, I think that, to me, is the most damning thing. They've lost to Anaheim, San Jose, and Arizona, and that's painful to me. Like, if I'm a Leaf fan, that hurts a lot.

And so there is a lot of questions to ask about what's going on here with this club and with this direction and with these players and with this team that hasn't won a playoff game in a hundred years. Haven't won a round since 2004 when Pat Quinn was behind the bench. And so they started this season with,

we have a job to do. We have to get to this point and we have to be ready to to to be able to to go ahead in the playoffs and and the gm said i like the roster and the coach said i like the roster and everybody was happy and then they start playing right and and right now that you know they are looking right now like a team that's heading to a firing of some kind, whether they are or aren't. A win Wednesday night changes the narrative completely. But you can sense when things aren't right with teams. It's not that hard.

It's not that complicated. When a team that's second in the NHL in scoring is now not scoring, you know, you've got to ask questions as to why. Gene Volaitis, you know, you remember Jesse and Gene. I love Gene Volaitis. He writes in, I'd like to hear about the story when he and Jim Taddy went to fan management about their midday show and the ego problems they were having with each other

and both were fired on the spot. That was wild. Well, actually it's not true. Okay. Let's get the truth. Here's the truth. Mary Ormsby and I did the first year together on the fan.

And this is how long ago it is in terms of time. The star, the star asked her or told her to quit because they didn't want her giving away her ideas and her thoughts for free. Do you want to hear what Mary thinks? You got to subscribe to be a Toronto Star. You know, the opposite of course is true today. You know, everybody wants you on as much media as possible. You know, the more radio, the more television, the more whatever, it's good for the brand. So I tried to find a co-host to work with me the second year.

And they said, okay, see if you can come up with somebody. And my first reaction or first thought was Rod Smith, who at the time was a reporter for TSN. Rod and I had a pretty good relationship. And he's got the voice of God. He's got great pipes. And he's just a, I don't know if you know Rod, I've never had Rod on.

He's been here, yeah. He is one of the great people of all time. Like, I just love Rod. Great FOTM. And, but TSN wouldn't let him do it. At the time, again, at the time, the fan was not Rogers related or the TSN was not. No, it was like telemedia or something, yeah.

Yes, but they wouldn't give him the go ahead to take the two hours a day it took. So I wasn't coming up with who I needed to come up with. And so they brought in Taddy. And to be honest, I didn't like the show, but I didn't hate the show. And I didn't really like him, but I didn't hate him. It wasn't comfortable.

And you could see that we didn't have a lot of chemistry. Right. So at the end of the year um tatty went in to management i i had nothing to do with it or no knowledge of this at all and basically said either he goes or i go and i think whoever the program director at the time was might have been nelson millman said you both go wow and that was sort of the end of my first run of three times i think i was at the fan okay um that that's what happened and yes guy yeah and i and i put a note in the sunday column two words two words i never want to hear again yes guy and and here's tatty what's the third and we actually get along fine now we've done some radio shows

together and we we we get along fine now. We've done some radio shows together and we get along fine. And I think we've joked about this a little bit. What you do when you're a certain age and what you do all these years later are different. And he's completely reinvented himself at TSN Radio. Well, he's doing stuff with Perry Lefkoe. Yeah, he's got the show with Perry Lefkoe.

Former sign journalist. But he also fills in a lot for Matty Cause in the afternoon and when the morning guys are away and when they need somebody in the summer for overdrive. And so Jim is, and I think he hosts the Leafs and Raptors pre and post game shows on radio. Yeah, I know he's doing that. So, you know what?

No tag days for Jim Taddy now. He's doing just fine. And, you know, what happened 28 years ago is... Water under the bridge there, I suppose. You move on. You move on. Now, listen,

I tried to reunite the duo I loved from Sportsline growing up. I happened to co-host a show of Mark Hebbs here. So, in fact, he was in my backyard last thursday for halloween 2022 shout out to canna cabana they were fantastic on that

episode canna cabana will not be undersold on cannabis or cannabis accessories over 140 locations across the country that's where go ahead do you know i i met mark hebbshire before either of us were in the business how his father and my father were in the same industry. What industry was that? Women's clothing or clothing. I think his dad was in women's. My father was in women's. Humble Howard's dad was in, but that was in Moose Jaw.

They called it the schmata business in Toronto in those days. And my father. And that's Yiddish. Yeah. My father, schmata is Yiddish for rags. Okay. I think I've heard Hebsey say that. My dad manufactured and sold,

you know, women's wear. That was his business and it was very successful. So maybe we're 18, 17, I don't know how old. And we're going out to dinner in Florida. I'm going with my buddy's family for dinner.

So here, I think his name was Sid, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, no, it is Sid, yeah. Yeah, Sid and my dad were either friends or professional friends. And so, you know, Mark and I, and I remember we were playing sports trivia. Okay. Like in a restaurant. And you know how competitive he is. Yes, he's very competitive. He can't lose. Especially at sports trivia. Yeah, he can't lose. And you know how competitive he is. Yes, he's very competitive.

Especially at Sports Trivia. Yeah, he can't lose. Did you beat him? I don't know if I beat him or if we just went at it pretty well. Wow. And I think I was surprised at how much he knew and he was surprised at how much I knew.

Wow. And it was funny, years later, of course, he becomes national with Taddy on Global Sportsline, a historical show, and I get to where I get to. Wow. I had no idea. So I co-host Hebsey on Sports every Friday morning with Mark Hebbshire. And Jim Taddy is the reason we never did the reunion show because Taddy didn't want to look back.

He told me he wasn't interested in talking about the past, and that sort of killed that idea. So no guy. I'm the opposite. I love talking about the past, and that sort of killed that idea. So no guy. I'm the opposite. I love talking about the past. Most people do. I talk about the past ad nauseum to friends of mine and my family and things like that. Can we get back to 2022, please?

Oh, yeah. Well, that's what I do on Toronto Mic. That's what we're doing right now. Rodriguez, if you want to ask real talk type questions, ask him why he goes after people with hateful, misleading, informed questions and comments he knows will rile up the people he's talking to.

So I read that verbatim. I don't know if he means uninformed because he's kind of making a point there, but what would you say to Rodriguez there? I would need a reference as to what questions he's referring to. B, I happen to think that one of my real strengths as a journalist is my ability to interview.

And funny, a quick story. I was away from the Leafs for I don't know how long. I can't remember what injury. I've had a lot of injuries in the last couple of years, and I can't remember what injury it was, but it kept me at home for a while. And I showed up at Leafs. The Leafs were on the road and I showed up on the road.

And one of the regulars on the beat says, thank God you're here. And I said, why? He says, we miss your questions. Is that because people are afraid to upset the player because they could lose their credentials or something? No, you don't lose credentials. There are people who ask questions in a certain way.

There are people who kind of lob the softballs, if you want to call it that. Sometimes, especially on deadline, I can be very direct. Cut to the chase. I remember Leafs were playing Boston to the chase. I'll use... I remember Leafs were playing Boston in the playoffs in one of the years, and Austin Matthews and his line, I think,

had no points in the series, and the Bergeron line had like 14 points. Right. I think it was four games in or three. I don't remember exactly what it was. And I asked him a question, and you could see like the reporters were all good and i'm thinking like what is wrong with the question he has no points they

have a pile of points like that's a legitimate question and so sometimes i think people are so not um what's the word not used direct questions, especially in sports where we kind of softball it more often than not. So when a direct one comes in, it seems a bit shocking to some of the people around. And so for years, like a post-game press conference, a pre-game press conference, any of those, none of that stuff was televised.

None of that stuff ever got on the radio. None of that stuff made itvised none of that stuff ever got on the radio none of that stuff made it like today with again the world of of of social media and instagram and twitter and all these things every time a leaf opens his mouth it's online right and so every single interview and every single question i've been i've been in press conferences where i ask a question before I've even gotten the answer for the question. I have an email sent to me saying,

that was a dumb question from just a reader. Or that was a really good question. Like you get instant response now to everything. And so I think people are so easily offended by someone who is direct. And, you know,

I think sometimes you have to be direct. Well, this is, that's a nice segue into Craig's question. And Craig writes, I guess I'd want to know what it's like having all that hate spewed at him all the time. It can't be fun. Does he ever wake up and wonder if it's all worth it? Has there been times he's wanted to quit? But then he wants you to know it's from a longtime reader of your column who's been reading you

for more than 30 years. I think balance is really important. And I think talking to the people that you're around, I don't want to sound egotistical for a minute. I work in an office in my home and I am surrounded by awards and I am

I hate to say this but there's like 25 of them on the wall and so if you're having a bad day and you look over and you see that little plaque that says Canadian Football Hall of Fame, or you look over and you see Queen Elizabeth, you know, medal, whatever that medal of honor thing is that they gave out. Yeah. Or you see what they used to have, the Edward Dunlop Awards of Excellence, or you see one or any any of or you see the award for sports writer of the year or or any of those things uh even something simple like i have coach of the year awards

for minor hockey like that's you know what if if you're sure of who you are and then you get a little bit of re-endorse you know sort of endorsement sometimes from what's around you. Some validation. Validation. Yeah. Then, yeah, some days are bad and some weeks are worse than others. But 8,000 columns or whatever it is later, I always find, and I find every time I have a conversation with a critic, by the end of the conversation, he's no longer a critic. And I've seen it happen

in bars so many times when you'll get, you'll start with the urinary hole and, and get into that. And then five minutes later, could you, could you post for a picture? Right. Can you get a selfie with you? And, and, and that's what you find when you talk over things, when you talk out things, you know, you can, the, the Ty Domi story is in the book. And I think it's one of the great things that happens in people's lives. Sunday Column gets me in trouble. I scrambled the letters of Ty Domi's name after he punched, sucker punched Alf Samuelson.

And I scrambled the letters of his name and it came to me, idiot. Right. And of course you write that, you better be at practice the next day or two. Right. To face the music. So I walk in the Leaf room.

Doug Gilmore yells before I even, I'm barely in the room, he's here. Like it was obvious that the players were waiting for me to be walking in. Right. I walk in and I go over to Domi and, and Domi starts telling me about the history of his name and his Albanian background and, and what this name means and how much it meant to, it means to his father and, and, you know, and, you know, you insulted my family and you insulted this and you and so and and i'm listening to it all right and then i start explaining you know when you write for a newspaper you're not writing for the players you're writing for the readers and and went into the whole thing and then we start talking just

conversationally at that time max was playing minor hockey and my kids were playing minor hockey. And so we started talking about minor hockey. And then we started talking about boxing, which I have a love of and he has a love of. And which fights have you been to and which ones have you covered and which did you get to? We wound up talking for probably 40 minutes in all, which you can't, of course, that can't even happen today in today's world. You don't get that access in that kind of conversation. But at the end of the conversation, I walk away, he walks away. You know, 30 years later, I still get texts from Ty Domi. Wow. We still have a relationship of some kind. You know, are we close friends? No. But was I able

to communicate with him and have an understanding with him and have a relationship with him? Because we were able to talk about how it was I did my job and how it was he did his. And so you have that conversation. And I've had that several times with other people with similar results. And I find historically that's been, you know, know for me some of my best relationships i mean doug gilmore wrote the forward to this book doug gilmore and i were not always on the best of terms but one of the reasons i wanted to pick them is because we had so many years of being in the same

place at the same time right there it was calgary or whether it was toronto or whether when he was in st louis and leading the NHL in playoffs and scoring, I was covering the series because the Flames were playing them. So I went to cover one world championship. Who was on Canada? Doug Gilmore. It seemed everywhere he went, I went. And so that's why I wanted to ask him if he would write a foreword for the book.

Yeah, and it's great too. And you just said the word historically. So when you said the word historically, I remembered a question that came in from Tim Phelan. Tim's question for you is why does he continually use the word historical in his columns when he means historic? Probably because I need to be edited better. You know what? I have things that I do like that. I think we all do as writers. You have things you rely on

and they just become part of it. And, you know, that's the way it is. And would you want to be a thousand percent grammatically correct all the time? Absolutely. I like Michael McMillan's question here. Well, the last part

anyways. He writes, he said politically correct people would take issue with him. His embarrassing... He's a typo here. I'm going to edit it for you. I'm your editor, Michael McMillan. He said politically correct people would take issue with his embarrassing and

clueless take on Akeem Alou. Since that's an eye-rolling term only scared boomers use, is he one and does he agree with his employer's Trumpian view of the world? I'm very quiet right now. Not because I want to avoid the question, but because I'm as... One of the nice things about working for the Sun

and working for Toronto Sun Sports is we know we've historically had a great sports section. Yes. And most of you have been over here, by the way. You're all great. And a lot of us have been there a long time. And we have been pumping it out for a long, long time at a pretty high rate. Shout out to Beezer, by the way, while we're talking.

And Etobicoke guy, not far from here. He should be the mayor of Etobicoke. I was sad, by the way, Mark Grimes lost. I don't know if... Oh, no, I was a big fan of Amber Morley. Okay. I just know Mark because of his involvement with sports. Right. I don't know much else about him. He had Amber Morley. Okay. I just know Mark because of his involvement with sports. Right.

I don't know much else about him. He had a good run. Yeah. It was time to change things up in this award. My point is that, I'll use Buffery as an example. Yeah. I think Buffery and I couldn't be more politically different. Okay.

You know, do we work together? Do we love each other? Are we great friends? All these things, yeah. Yes. But politically, he thinks one way i think another way right um when you work for the sun and they go in one direction it doesn't mean as a sports writer that i have anything to do with what that direction is well you're covering sports yeah and and every once in a while you know do i do i cringe sure

um as as does anyone that works for any newspaper to be honest well you know because because the problem the problem with the world now yeah and the media world the day of the impartial newspaper right is over right like every paper has a leaning every network has a leaning it's you know everybody does it it's you, I'll use it more than any, when you watched how Doug Ford was covered or Rob Ford was covered in their mayoral races or provincial races, compare and you compare it paper, newspaper to newspaper. You wouldn't think reading the papers that they were even the same people. I mean, that's how different the coverage was. Now your, your paper, we, we Now, your paper, I think it was Canada Land

that uncovered the memo that your paper was basically going to act as a, I would say, again, not the sports department, but sort of a propaganda arm for the Progressive Conservative Party in this province. Like that was, I read those documents on canadaland.com. Yeah, and if you go to um down to one young street where the toronto star i think are they still there they might have moved

i don't know i got edward keenan here next week in my in my head i'm always thinking one one young street to me will always sort of represent of course toronto star just as 333 king should represent the sun even though we're not there anymore either right um you know they're pro-liberal they've always been pro-liberal sure they you know the liberals do no wrong um that's the way the world is and and and so what should papers be right down the middle absolutely is that world over in this country i believe it is and i suspect it's i'm not as familiar editorially with how the papers in the United States are so you're not a staunch conservative uh even though you work for the sun I'm a I would

call myself a centrist a centrist so I will agree with things on the left and I will agree with things on the right and and I will agree with what I believe to be right and it's got nothing to do with leaning politically in any one direction. Now, I started our conversation by saying I just had the pleasure of meeting Liz Braun. I loved it. Now, Liz, who I follow on Twitter, I would say leans to the left heavily.

And she's often tweeting wonderful things about Justin Trudeau, etc. So it's, you know, there's some evidence that all because you work for the Toronto Sun doesn't mean you have to adopt all the, uh, the parlance. One of the things I found,

again, I can only speak for myself and how they treat me is no one has ever said to me, you can't say this, whether it's politically or, or sports or whatever. No one has ever said that. Amazing.

Um, and that's, you know, I think there's a certain, you know, we've gone through a lot of what's the word change at the sun you know we went through the most exciting period you could ever live through as journalists in the time when when the sun was that hot great new um place to be

and we you know we've been sold a number of times later and reduced people-wise, so many circumstances over the years. And there's a thing on Facebook called Toronto Sun Family, and all it ever talks about are the good old days. Sure. Well, sometimes I want to put my hand up and say, wait a minute. If the good old days are over, what am I doing right now? And I sometimes think I'm doing the best work of my life, right? I'm 65 years old and I think I'm doing the best work I've ever done.

And yet, you know, I keep being told about the good old days. Well, yes, they were amazing days and working for Doug Creighton and Peter Worthington and people like that. That was an experience that you'll never get back. But that said, you can, especially as a columnist, I always say it's like handing someone a blank piece of paper to start the day and then you hand it in to the professor

at the end of the day, here's my column. And if the column is good, it's because you did a good job. And if the column stinks, it's because you stunk. And it's really, it's got nothing to do with how good, how bad, how left wing, how right wing, however politically the newspaper tends to be. I wrote a column the other day, I'll use it as an example, about the relationship between Mark Curtin, the former Maple Leaf, and Boreas Salming, now the great Maple Leaf, suffering from ALS, and both gentlemen have ALS. And Curtin has become, I don't know if the voice of the family is the best way to put it, but here's a guy who played,

I think, 11 games for the Leafs. And here he is as a great confidant now of boria salming who's just going through the world's worst disease as they both are um and and when you write one of those and you know you've hit on on a nerve usually based on the first couple of responses you get you know you've hit on on a good one right you know it's not because the paper's right wing or left wing or or lori goldstein is writing about climate control again um you know whatever it is it's about you that day and that's the beauty of the column writing and not to go back to the book but to me i'll go back because i'm going to spend some time to go back to the book, but to me... No, go back because I'm going to spend some time in the book shortly. To me, the thing to go back to the book is that's what shows in there.

And one of the things that where the book came from, a bunch of us were sitting around. By a bunch of us, I mean friends, not newspaper people, not people in the business. We're sitting around and playing, where were you when this happened? Whether it be Man on the moon or kennedy assassinated or whatever happened to happen in history where were you in this when you first heard this news and then we started talking about sports and it was like where were

you when crosby scored the golden goal or when this happened or that happened we went through about 10 different things it was like i was there i was there i was there and then it started to hit me i don't know if anyone else was there like not at any one of them but at all of them right and you're thinking maybe the last 40 years of sport i was fortunate enough to be at virtually every where were you moment from the batista bat flip to robbie alomar's home run in oakland to to ed sprague's pinch hit home run in the world series donovan bailey's donovan bailey's two gold medals in atlanta both of them he loved saturday nights in atlanta that was those were spectacular they were going to cancel the first one by the way they were because of the bomb the bomb went off the night

before um but you you know you go through um you go through things and and it was like this and then right about the same time as we're having this conversation walter gretzky dies and i'm thinking to myself i was at wayne gretzky's last game and i was at his i think first three stanley, and at 98 when he didn't shoot in the Olympics. I've been around Gretzky an awful lot over the years, and I was really pleased with what I wrote about that last game in New York. And I remember getting a letter from Mike Barnett at the time,

who was Gretzky's agent, sort of congratulating me for hitting the nerve. And the piece was all about father and son and how, you know, from the time our kids are little and then go to hockey for the first time, we take them maybe fully dressed coming from home. And then we tie their skates and do all that. And it's kind of a tale of father and son. And this is his last game. And who does he want to go to the rink with?

He wants to go with his dad. Love it. And when Walter died, and it was national news. It was big on CBC and CTV. This wasn't just a small story. I thought, I have to write this book. I have to put it together. And not only that, I have to lead it off with the Gretzky piece.

And so the first piece in the book is about Wayne and Walter. And I can read that. Honestly, I hate to say this because it's my own work. I can read that piece in the book is about Wayne and Walter. And I can read that. Honestly, I hate to say this because it's my own work. I can read that piece all the time and have a little tear in my eye for most of it. Steve Cole would like you to know that your episodes were very good. He's talking about your two previous episodes of Toronto Mike. He says they were very good.

He had a great email conversation with you after you kicked out the jams. The current issue, he's referring to the Akeem Alou issue again, what you wrote about Akeem Alou. The current issue requires retraction and apology, but all the other stuff, hot dog, et cetera, is just a columnist being outspoken and opinionated. It's just sports and people who are so venomous need to get a hobby. I'm not sure

there's anything to add from that. We should just point out you are not retracting or apologizing for the Akeem Alou comments, just to be clear here, because he thinks that requires,

but you say, based on what you know, that does not require. Well, I should not have used, and I've said this already, should not have used Wayne Simmons' name. Yeah, that's true. And that I've said this already should not have used Wayne Simmons' name and that I've been real clear on

leave it on that Kevin's curious have you had any conversations with Akeem Alou or Wayne Simmons have you told Wayne that you regret have you actually apologized to him in any regard I would love to explain exactly

what happened out of privacy and out of respect for wayne i will not now speaking of uh being accused of racism uh elephants and stars writes in how did you feel when cito called you uh a racist He's wondering if the benefit of hindsight now, I mean, this is not the first time that our word has been flown at you. Well, here's an interesting thing. That was, I forget the year, I think maybe 96, but I don't remember the year.

Cito Gaston, in a column that Heather Bird wrote for the Toronto Sun, accused three people in the Toronto media of being racist. Bob McCowan was one, David Langford of the Globe and Mail was the other, and I was the third one. Paul Beeston was horrified when the story came out, and I got a call from Beeston almost immediately saying,

we're going to fix this. And I said, great. And so what he arranged was individual meetings for each of the three of us with CETO, and again, I'm going by memory here, so I'm not, should not be a hundred percent clear on everything. I think McCowan went first, and he went in with a lawyer, and maybe another lawyer, and the program director from the fan and like there was a posse of about five of them in the meeting and i'm told that the meeting was very um tense and didn't really go anywhere okay dave lankford went in with editors from the globe and maybe even

senior management and i'm not sure if a lawyer was there, whatever it was, a posse of some kind. About five of them, I think, went in and the meeting was not very progressive. I think was third and I went in by myself. My sports editor at the time, Scott Morrison, asked, do you want me to come with? And I said, no, I'll do this. And what I did was I went to our library first. We had a

digital library in those days and i asked the librarian to print out every reference i had made to cito over a five-year period and and so i had a file about that thick 400 or so pages of every reference that his name and my name were in the same circumstance and i went through it and i took a highlight pen and i highlighted every time his name appeared and so i walk into the boardroom at skydome so one of those boardrooms it looks like succession one of those boardrooms on a long table right and. And seated right at the end is Cito. And Gordash, the general manager, is there. And Paul Beeston is there. And as I come in and sit down at the other end of the table,

so now we're at opposite ends of the table, they leave. They don't say a word. They just both walk out the door of the boardroom. And so here is like, I'm sitting at one end. Cito's sitting at one end, you know, nobody's saying a word. I get up, I walk down to where he is, I put the file in front of him, and I said, please tell me where I've been racist. And he starts thumbing through and thumbing through, and he gets to, I don't know, maybe 10 pages or I don't know how many. And he clearly,

you know, reference to his pitching, reference to his bullpen or reference to this or reference to, there's, there are no, there are, you know, there is no reference to anything. So then we just start having a conversation and he starts telling me about growing up in San Antonio and how it was time of segregation and they couldn't go to the same restaurants other kids couldn't go to

and they couldn't go to the same washrooms and the same hotel rooms and minor league baseball, same thing. He was separated from the white players and how he had come over time to mistrust white people basically was part of our conversation. And we're having a really good conversation about where he comes from and where I come from. And, and I said to him, what do you think of Don Baylor? At the time, Don Baylor, I think was with the Baltimore Orioles. And Don Baylor was like the guy who went from first to third, harder than anybody in baseball. And he was like, he was the base runner every manager wanted. Yeah. And he said, I love Don i love don baylor why i said in my business i'm don baylor i said nobody goes harder first to third than i do nobody you know nobody

outworks me um that's just how i've chosen to approach the job and we got to a point where he had basically said that he confused criticism and or analysis with racism. And we spoke for maybe an hour in that boardroom by ourselves, shook hands. I left. I was in my car, not 15 minutes. And my phone rang. It's Beeston calling. And he says, I don't know what just happened in there but he thinks you're terrific wow and i said what do you mean and uh and he

said well he didn't have a very good meeting with a gallon he didn't have a very good meeting with langford um your meeting really really got to him again, that's going back to conversations sometimes can cure misunderstandings. And to this day, what is this? How many years later? It's 25 or so years later. I wish I could tell you the year this happened. If I pick up the phone and call Cito for an interview

for anything I'm working on column-wise or whatever, we'll talk for 15 minutes before I eventually get to asking interview for anything I'm working on column wise or whatever. We'll talk for 15 minutes before I eventually get to asking him whatever questions I'm going to ask him. So the, you know, that's how a bad thing can turn into a good thing. Circumstantially. Good.

That's great. How that turned around. Now, earlier you were talking about how we have, we're soft on players in this market. I think I won't put words in your mouth but you basically said uh we're tough on the management and the coaches but not so much on the players but bleed white sorry bleed blue and white writes uh how does he feel about nhl players not wanting to come here because of the rabid media

in this town and how does he feel about being the poster boy uh for he goes uh same money and be left alone or be a nobody in another city and play hockey mad toronto okay they basically he's suggesting maybe some players choose elsewhere because you're here but i i think that's about the most nonsensical thing i've ever heard um a lot of players don't want to play in Canada. Both Canadian and American hockey players. Partly for the daily focus that you face while playing in a Canadian market.

Partly for the taxes you pay. Partly for the weather. But there are players who have, on their own, chosen for the weather. So, you know, but there are players who have on their own chosen to come here. I can, you know, the most recent, obviously, one, John Tavares is the most obvious and recent one, but Gary Roberts and Joe Neuendijk

and, you know, guys who are, Joe's a Hall of Famer and Gary's a borderline Hall of Famer. And, you know, they loved, I mean, Gary Roberts loved playing here. He absolutely, he got off on the, he had played in Carolina and he got off on coming here where every day mattered. Right.

And so some guys love that and some guys don't. And I don't think, I think that's an old, tired narrative that just, and it's funny because I'll use the Pat Quinn years as an example. Yeah. The Pat Quinn Maple Leafs were newspaper nuts. They knew everything that everybody wrote about everybody at all times. Today's world, athletes don't even look at newspapers. Right.

They don't know who's written what unless it's made its way to social media. Sure. They don't read the papers. They don't, what I found, it's funny, what I found around the Blue Jays is when I see someone from the 92, 93 Blue Jays, they immediately call me by name.

They immediately have a conversation about something to do with those teams. And that's 30 years ago. If I walk down the street tomorrow and Bo Bichette and Vlade Guerrero and Matt Chapman were walking beside me, they might nod hello thinking they've seen me. Right. But I think there's a pretty good chance they wouldn't know who I am or where I work.

Interesting. By the way, what are your thoughts on Kelly Gruber not getting invited to the 92 reunion we had here? Something happened, Elliot. I wish I could remember what. Well, there was a pitch talks event with Ashley Docking. Yeah. I know something happened that sort of put him in.

He wasn't the only one. He was inebriated, as we say. He wasn't the only one who wasn't. A misogynist in his verbiage. I don't know. I think of those kinds of things, you invite everyone or, you know, I don't like picking and choosing. But you say everyone, but you don't mean the guy they literally took off the wall of excellence,

right? Like once you take them off the wall of excellence, you can't take them off the wall of excellence you can't invite them to the reunion here here's here's my problem even with that yeah what did robbie alomar do we have not been told no one like he has been convicted without a trial baseball has never said what it is they've banned him for the blue jays say they did an investigation. I'm not sure I believe they did. I think they were just told that he's now banned, and so they took his name off the wall. They kind of wrote him out of the script,

if you want to call it that, when bringing the 92 team back, even though there is no 92 World Series without the home run in Oakland. Right. And in fairness, can you can you know i don't know what i would love to hold him accountable for what he did if i knew what he did um it would be like covering i've covered trials both as a sports writer and as the time i was a

city columnist and um you know at the end of a trial the judge explains exactly why he ruled the way he ruled and so you have even though you may not agree with the ruling you have a sense of it you know i i tried actually to contact robbie and to contact his people and to find out you know do you have anything to say about any of this and i have not been successful doing that and you know unfortunately he's he's the best player the blue jays have ever had right and now he's written out of the script for you know i'd love again it may be for reasons that are you know things that we don't want to necessarily know about but as as a journalist my my inclination is always to know right right it is very unique that here we're just they just trust us this is so bad that you won't have a problem with us uh

deleting him from blue jays history do you think do you think new york would do that do you think you think uh if if this was one of the if this was mariano rivera or some beloved yankee and and they find out he's now banned from baseball. Do you think the New York Times will just say, okay, we're not going to ask why? No, great question, Steve. I don't know. I don't know.

I do know that, yeah, that is interesting that we're just told we don't know what he did. We just know it must have been pretty damn bad because they banned him. They haven't banned very many people from baseball. Although you can remain banned today for gambling while we're taking in gambling revenue. Hand over fist.

Okay, Steve. Wow, I'm going to do a quick reset here and tell people your new book is called A Lucky Life, Gretzky, Crosby, Kawhi, and more from the best seed in the house. As you told us over the last 40 years, you'vei, and more from the best seed in the house. As you told us, over the last 40 years, you've been documenting the greatest moments in Canada and around the world. We talked about Gretzky winning the Cup,

Tiger Woods hitting the first drive of his career. Well, we didn't talk about it, but you were there. Usain Bolt crossing the finish line. Sidney Crosby, golden goal. Kawhi Leonard hitting the shot. Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce. Joe Carter, of course, which we now call it a walk-off. At the time, we didn't have that verbiage.

But he hit the home run. You know, Jose Bautista flipping his bat. Michael Jordan retiring and coming out of retirement and playing that game in Indianapolis. Like so much to talk about with a lucky life. But I want to give you a few gifts real quick. Because you came here and you faced the music. And I'm not even done yet.

Because I mean, a lot of them I'm not not asking you because i got such feedback but some more questions coming your way but because you've been you know facing the music as i said i'm gonna make sure you get a vegetarian lasagna courtesy of palma pasta you're taking that home with you sir that makes me very happy so yeah go stay hungry my friend okay uh i have some fresh craft beer from great lakes brewery they've been proud sponsors of the program for uh for many many years now toronto mike i have a toronto mike sticker from sticker you.com uh everybody who needs uh stickers or decals or temporary tattoos upload the image to sticker you.com and you'll be happy with the results, great quality and they're great partners of this program.

You have trouble sleeping. Do you take any CBD or any edibles for that? I was taking, and I'm diabetic, so I have to take sugar-free edibles. And for a while they were okay. And then what happens with me as I get into anything is I start and then it stops working. And so I need to switch on to something else again.

And that's probably what's next for me. All right. Well, I'm sorry you're afflicted with that. That sounds horrific. The thing that's happened, and I like to bore people with this, but my doctor actually thinks I have the equivalent of sleep PTSD. Like it's not any more about finding a way to get to sleep.

It's finding a way to mentally clear the way to get to sleep. And a couple of, I don't know, you tried a couple of tokes on a spliff. It doesn't do the trick for you. You've tried it all. Almost everything you can try from booze to drugs to hypnosis. Oh yeah, lots of it.

Shout out to Canna Cabana for those who are taking a couple of puffs to help them fall asleep or even a gummy. I think it's Hebsey's dad. You mentioned him earlier but Hebsey's dad takes

half a gummy, CBD gummy, and then at this time of day, and then the other half goes, and he's able to sleep through the night. I am jealous of that. I'll bet you are. I'll bet you are. I actually have another great gift for you. This is a wireless speaker, courtesy of Moneris.

That's a Bluetooth speaker for you, Steve. Oh, that's exciting. And with that Bluetooth speaker, yeah, you can listen. I mean, you kicked out the jams. I know you love your Bob Dylan, your Bruce Springsteen. You can listen to all that, but you can also listen to a couple of fantastic podcasts. One is called the Advantaged Investor Podcast.

It's from Raymond James. It features insights from leading professionals, a valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed, and focused on long-term success. Chris Cooksey hooks it. Chris Cooksey hooks it. Chris Cooksey, whose son is a hell of a hockey player, Steve, put Cole Cooksey on your radar.

That kid's going to be great. But Chris Cooksey hosts The Advantaged Investor, and I urge everybody to subscribe. You know what a sports guy I am? Tell me. I hear Raymond James. I think stadium. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Sure you do. I do now, too. But I think stadium. Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure you do. I do now too. But I always thought of Ruben James, the great Kenny Rogers song. Shout out to Ruben James. But of course, I mentioned that speakers from Moneris and they have a podcast called Yes, We Are Open. Al Grego, FOTM Al Grego has been traveling the country

telling the stories of small Canadian small businesses and their perseverance in the face of overwhelming adversity. So you can subscribe at yesweareopenpodcast.com. Season three is underway. I've been posting new episodes at torontomike.com. And it was nominated for Outstanding Business Series and Outstanding Branded Series by the Canadian Podcast Awards. So shout out to,

yes, we are open. I know Steve, I'm taking up a lot of your time, but these people were excited. You were coming out for better or worse. And Mike M wanted me to ask you, um,

I don't know about this one. There's two Mike M's. There's a Michael McMillan and a Mike M. Michael McMillan says, I hear you're a CFL diehard. What future do the Argos have? CFL diehard is probably the wrong term. I'm just someone who's been,

I don't know, enjoying the league for as long as it's been around in its many incarnations. I think the Argos have the future that they have right now, which is they have a rabid, small fan base and they do a very limited um live crowd in the in the 10 to 12 000 range i think now here's the interesting thing you have a soccer

team in toronto that sells say 30 000 a game and a football team that does 10 to 12,000 and you have a soccer team that does almost no tv audience and a football team that does quite well numbers wise on tsn and so it's it's really uh and owned and they're owned by the same people is that a generational thing like like the the older crowd is more likely to have like a i I don't know, a PPM device telling us what they're watching. And they're more likely to watch on the television where the TFC attracts a younger crowd, which is more into like streaming and going to the bar and maybe less likely to carry a PPM device.

I'm just, I'm just spitballing. That I have no idea of. I just find it fascinating that the two. It is interesting. The CFL is forever sort of operating, operating you know year to year and week to week and franchise to franchise right um they do it's it's a terrific television product and it's funny it's it's been a pretty good tv product in the u.s this year oh and they their their rights are up and they're gonna hit some reasonable money for the amount of people that are actually watching.

Wow. People like football. There's no question. I mean, do they like CFL football necessarily? Not always. This hasn't been the greatest CFL season. There were nine players nominated for Player of the Year in the CFL and only three were quarterbacks,

which tells you that this has been a challenging season because quarterbacks normally are the guy who gets nominated from every team. The Argos are victims of themselves. They don't promote very well. They don't let people know what's going on. They're not covered. The media doesn't do a good job covering them

other than our paper. I don't believe they actually beat people. I don't do a good job covering them other than our paper um i don't believe they actually beat people i don't think the star has beat personal i think the globe has a beat person well that's interesting um you know it's it's funny how what's happened i mean i grew up in a toronto where there was only two teams right you know you had the argos in the summer and the leafs in the winter and and you liked one as much as the other and they seemed to be the same there was no status difference actually to, at the time, the CFL was a bigger league than the NFL. CFL had nine teams. The NHL had six. And so, you know, times have gone to where hockey has dwarfed everything in this town. And then baseball came in and it dwarfed the CFL.

baseball came in and it dwarfed the CFL and the CFL stays as it is I call it existential football sometimes you know they exist and you hope that next year will be better than this year it's a challenge in this market more than any others and here we are 40 minutes away from a place where it's not really a challenge. And it's kind of remarkable to me that you see that difference. And I thought, and I will admit to being completely wrong on this. When they moved to BMO, I thought this is going to revitalize football interest

the way it happened in Montreal when the Alouettes came back. And I thought, you know, people are going to, it's such a good stadium that people are going to get in there and they're going to find out how much fun it is to go to a football game. So I sent out, I cleared off my email list of old friends and I said, this is what I'm doing. I'm buying season tickets and I want you to buy them with me. And we're going to get great seats

and we're going to have a group together and we're all going to sit together and it's going to be a barrel of fun taking us back to our youth because we all grew up as Argo fans. Right. And started, I had 39 tickets the first year. It was a pretty good number. Yeah. And here we are, is it year four maybe?

Year five? I don't know what year it is. Around that. Yeah. I think five. We're down to eight. Wow. Most of the people

have left for a variety of reasons. Is that because they can't be bothered getting their butts into the city? Even though it's exhibition, there's a nice go station there. It depends where you live,

I guess. Some of it was that. There were so many different circumstances. That's why I biked to games. The people didn't like it. The people didn't care. There was all kinds

of different reasons. But I'm sitting there. I'm there with Dave Naylor, who covers... Is Schultz in your group? Yep. Okay, because there was a ticket available for this last game. I was on a thread for that. David Schultz, who's now a former roommate of mine,

now a retired sports writer from the Globe and Mail. He's in our group. Dave Naylor covers TSN football for them. Paul Woods, who wrote the book on Rocket Ismail and former Toronto Star editor, is in the group. Bill Pierce, who was sports editor of the Toronto Sun, was in the group. I don't think he renewed this year.

You couldn't tell because he didn't come to any games last year, so I wasn't sure whether his seats are empty or whether he just doesn't use them. But we have a few left still, but not many from the beginning. And, you know, again, what's interesting is we're on the side, the one side that's kind of full. And so there is atmosphere in that section. Right.

But it's basically the only section or the only part of the stadium. Sad, you know, I root for him. I don't like to see this, but yeah, I guess it is what it is. But I don't know why that's a great venue. I had a note Sunday. The Argos finished first in the East. Right. Second year in a row.

New coach, two years as the coach, two years as a starting quarterback for McLeod Bethel Thompson. And first play, and you think this is great. And yet all you hear sitting around my seats and wherever else, people yelling at the quarterback, people yelling at the coach. It's like, you know, it's like in the rest of the city, you know, for the other teams to be finishing first, you'd be thinking, this is great.

Look at the Raptors first in the East or somebody. But the Argos are first, and people just kind of nod and go on to this. I think it's the nature of whatever. Was there four teams in that division? Okay, if I asked you this question right now, how many Argos players could you name? On the current roster? Yes.

That quarterback that you mentioned, that's it. I don't know any members of this current Argo team. Okay, how many Raptors can you name? Yeah, I could name a bunch of Raptors. Yeah, and same with the Blue Jays and same with the Leafs. Oh, I could, yeah, give you the whole lineup, sure. You know, you'd probably throw Obey Kubella at me if I asked you about the Leafs.

Anyway, you said it. You guys cover it. And the TSN obviously covers it. They got the broadcasting rights. On that note about the broadcasting rights, so this is a good question. If I could dig it up here. Let's see. stand by here a bunch i'm killing here does he think there's still room this is

from super fun happy slide that's a great handle super fun happy slide does he does he think there's still room in canadian sports media to be critical of the local home team considering rights properties well for the television networks that's more and more difficult. But if you watch, I'll use TSN as an example, because TSN and Sportsnet split the rights for the Maple Leaf regional games. Right. If you watched last night's TSN,

they're very harsh in their coverage of the Leafs and they're very open and they're very you know, I think TSN has always done a terrific job in how they broadcast hockey, but they're very they're not the least bit sort of protective of the Leafs, which is good and Mark Masters, who covers the

team as their reporter, is one of those guys who will ask tough questions and will ask hard questions and so, you know i i don't i don't think that's necessarily the case where we see that way more and it might be because they have so many people covering the team that it's hard to imagine is is watching how sports net handles the blue jays it's a bit kids it's a bit kids gloves and it's it's a bit Homer-ish from the inside, and not very many people speak their mind very often.

In fact, Buck Martinez said something, I can't remember what exactly it was, two-thirds of the way through the season, that was only marginally critical of what they were doing, and it was like trending on Twitter for two days. Yes, it was. So yeah, there's a fine line as a rights holder. But here's the thing.

TSN is Bell. Sportsnet is Rogers. Who are the majority owners of the Toronto Maple Leafs? Right. They have 37.5% each. They have 75%. Yeah. Bell and Rogers.

Right. So, you know, if they're asking their people to quiet down, there's not much notice of that. Right. Right. Do you got a good John Cordick story for Elephants and Stars? Every time I have someone on who covered that era of the Leafs, he's looking for a John Cordick memory. Most of my John Cordick stories I can't tell. He's looking for a John Cordick memory.

Most of my John Cordick stories I can't tell. This one I think I can, and I hope... It's not even that good of a story, but it always amused me. Yeah. John Cordick was sitting, and I don't remember beside whom, in the dressing room, and they're having a serious conversation. And the serious conversation is, if you could only pick one, which one do you want wilma or betty and that's every time i think of john cordick that's one of the you know i think of him and i think of him trying to cash checks because he always had difficulty cashing checks

but but you know having that and they're having a serious conversation about the wilma or betty wilma or betty yeah i know we used to do that usually it was yeah it was betty and veronica with the betty and veronica yeah or the the you know the ones from from wkrp or or yeah they are yeah yeah ginger or marianne that would be the big one right right right martina and chrissy you know there was lots of that stuff but right but you didn't hear Wilma and Betty very often. No, no, you didn't because they're tough to differentiate character-wise. Michael Coffey, I would ask him, what's his biggest Olympic moment that he covered?

And why was it Ben Johnson's 979 in Seoul? That's Michael Coffey speaking. What say you? I wasn't in Seoul. It's the only Summer Olympics I've missed since the most recent ones, which I didn't go to. I've been to 17 Olympics. The best moment as a Canadian was Bailey's win in the 100.

And when you combine the two Saturday nights, it was Bailey's win in the 100 and then the four-by-one win where they pounded the Americans who'd never lost before. Amazing. Those two things juxtaposed. It was like, you know, the 96 Olympics was a gong show. Honestly, it was a piece of junk.

The Atlanta people, you know, were clueless and didn't know how to put on the games and messed up in a million different ways. And I think everybody who went was miserable. But my greatest Olympic moment as a Canadian, my greatest Olympic moments are those two runs. As a world, looking at the entire world, the first time I watched Usain Bolt win the 100,

when he was so far ahead that he looked back, almost stopped, and still shattered the world record. And I always wondered if he had gone right through, what would that record be? And I don't know if you remember the picture, but there's one of the triple crown races where secretariat is in the picture and there's no other horse in the in the photo yes and you could see your tv screen and there's secretariat so far ahead yeah and that's what i thought of watching

bolt like like look at how fast he was and he he took your breath away like no athlete i've again i'm 100 meters nut yeah so add that to it but he took he took my breath away i saw i i i covered all nine of his gold medals yeah one got taken away yeah yeah but i made sure that but yeah on that day he had won sure of course yeah and he which is unbelievable and he had nothing to do, by the way, with the... No, no. It was someone else on the 4x100 meter. So, but I made it a point. You'll hand Blake, maybe?

Sometimes at an Olympics, you can't always choose where you are or where you're going or what's going on that day. Right. You have to go with what the assignment is. But I kind of made it a point to make sure I was at all of... Through three different Olympics,

I was at all nine of his gold medal races. Amazing. Yeah, yeah. We'll never see another. That's amazing. Blue Jays twit. Ask him how often he goes to Center Street Deli. I always see him there. I used to go more often when they were open for dinner. But post-pandemic, they can't

get staff like everybody else, and so they're not open for dinner anymore. Probably once every two weeks um would be the would be the count i can go i can go there and have matzo ball soup every day of the week and be happy for the rest of my life scott m writes why has sports journalism gotten so soft when asking tough questions there's not many left that will. So we've already established you'll ask the tough questions. And you said, you know, Mark Masters.

Well, but there's only you probably can run them down. And maybe I don't know if you do it on the mic, but privately, you'd probably run down the names of the journalists in this market that will still ask a tough question. Well, one of my favorites, Dave Perkins is now retired. One of my favorites, Dave Perkins is now retired. Dave Perkins had an incredible sense of humor and an incredible way to ask the question that everyone else was thinking and didn't really want to ask. Do you remember the match race

that Donovan Bailey had with Michael Johnson? How could I forget? Okay. The whole event was a bit of a disaster when it came down to the end. But nonetheless, Michael Johnson comes into the press conference and first question, Dave Perkins, Toronto Star, and Perky puts up his hand and says,

Michael, at what point did you decide to pull the chute? It was like everyone saw he came up lame, right? Supposed hamstring. And it just set a tone for that press conference of like tension that was terrific because athletes aren't used to being asked those kind of direct questions and and and that's that was one of my favorite dave perkins moments ag wants me to ask you if you miss coaching kids hockey. I referred or lines. He refers.

I'm not sure if I understand this next part, but he just says that he. Oh, I see. He refereed many of your games back in the day. And he said he never had any serious disagreements with you. So he caught me on good days. I don't think i've ever done anything in my life that i enjoyed more than coaching kids hockey wow it it was and i did 26 seasons of it i've done over a thousand games of minor hockey in toronto and i gotta be

honest with you i some of my best friends today are guys I coached with or parents on the teams that I coached. Some of my kids' best friends, especially my older son, are people that he played hockey with. Minor hockey changed our lives. I mean, it really impactually changed my life. And I loved being around the kids. I love the sport. i love the teaching aspect i love one of my favorite things to do when it was to sit and tie my skates and listen to the conversations to the kids like when you listen to a group of 12 or 13 year olds in a room there's it's stream

of consciousness conversation that goes in a hundred directions at once. And honestly, if I had put a tape recorder on, I probably could have written a pretty good script for a play or a movie just based on the years of doing it. I miss it. I wish I was still doing it. Unfortunately, for many circumstances, reasons I can't, um, but boy, it, it is something that I am so happy that I was part of. And, and you know, it's neat to this, when you go, you're walking in a mall on a Saturday and then some kid, you don't even know who he is, comes up and gives you a hug. And, you know, when you have a kid and he's 10 and now he's 25, you don't always know what he

looks like, right? They've changed, you know, he's got a beard now or something. Um, but, but they treat you with such regard and such happiness. And, and I just have, you know, I have such fond memories of all of those years. And I think the whole family does. And when I listen even to my kids now, my kids weren't good enough to play at any high level. They were good hockey players for the levels that they played at. But when I hear them talking about, we went to this tournament in Detroit,

or this tournament in Pittsburgh, or this thing in Niagara Falls, they talk about it like it was yesterday and so fondly and with great memories. And I have so many of those too. And you know what? It's, again, if I could, you know, the one thing if I could do it again

and do it now at my age and in my certain health situations, then I would be back doing it. Gordster wants me to ask you, what did you think of Brian Burke, especially his time as Leafs GM in 08? Well, it's a funny story. Brian Burke was in Anaheim,

and I had been approached by someone involved with the Maple Leafs whose name I can't say. And they said, can you find out if the following people have any interest in being GM of the Leafs? And Burke was one of the people on the list that I was going to call and do some help, helping somebody find out whether there was any interest.

And so I see Brian Burke at the Stanley Cup final. Anaheim is in the final. And I said to him, do you have any interest in working for the Leafs? And here's approximately the money and approximately the kind of years you'd get. And his eyes lit up. And to the point where, you know, when it came out, I think it was a year or so later when it actually came to be. Right.

He accepted the Leafs job on the American Thanksgiving. He was having dinner with his family in Boston. He called me at home to tell me that he accepted. So our relationship was such that, you know, he would think enough of me to phone me and inform me that, yeah, I've taken this job. I thought, and I advocated for him to get the job. I thought he would be perfect for it. I thought he had made enough great trades and he understood what it took to win. And he had taken that Anaheim defense and completely rebuilt it in like a year and a half.

And I thought, again, he'd be perfect for the job. As he got into the Toronto job, I thought he became way too much about Brian and not nearly enough about the job he had to do. And as time went on, our relationship lost its way and has never been repaired and I don't think will ever be repaired. But my relationship with him has nothing to do with why he got fired or what happened with him getting fired

and he was fired, I thought, at the right time for probably the right reasons. And so I think ultimately it was a disappointment because he didn't make the team better and he didn't bring them to the place he wanted to bring them to. And he never had a playoff run of any kind. And so, yeah, Brian Burke's sort of a footnote in Maple Leafs history, really. Yeah, Brian Burke's sort of a footnote in Maple Leafs history, really. Mike M. Ask Simmons if his intent in his writing is to make himself the story by getting himself intertwined into weird spats with various athletes.

I don't think any journalist ever wants to be the story. Anytime I have been, it's never been a comfortable position. Uh, I'll, I'll use the Austin Matthews COVID story as a, I was the first person or the only person at the time to report that he had got COVID. This is just when COVID's beginning. Right. And so it became such a cause celeb at the time. I think Rudy Gobert and Zeke Elliott and a few others,

you know, had been contacted with COVID. But he was the first NHL guy and certainly the first Toronto prominent athlete. And everybody turned on me like I had violated his privacy. Over the next year or so, every single athlete was being named by the leagues. Here are our players this week. They are the following. so this became the greatest non-story of all time but not to the people who believe i've including matthews who at the time we've never had a conversation

about it because we've never had the opportunity to since since the pandemic started to have the kind of conversation you would need to talk about it but it became a huge tsn wouldn't report it sportsnet wouldn't report it like it was like people were people were treating it like it was like and and the worst thing was is that tsn knew and they still wouldn't report it they just they they they philosophically disagreed with it of course they reported rudy gobert and and zeke ell. Yeah, but they were announced by the team or the league. So I guess that's the difference from TSN's perspective, right? Yeah.

I know. To me, you have it or you don't have it. You're pregnant or you're not. But that became such, it turned so many people against me. And you're thinking, well, did I write that to be noticed? No, I wrote it because it was a story and because it was a legitimate story and because it should have been written.

And I stand by that. We'll always stand by that. So on that note, Greg, and this is the last, so two last questions here, and then I want to give you my top 10 Steve Simmons articles that appear in A Lucky Life, Gretzky, Crosby, Kauai, and more from the best seat in the house, which you can get now and would be a great holiday gift for somebody who

loves sports in your life. But Greg Gold says, does it bother him? So real talk here, Steve, does it bother you? And this is Greg's words, but he writes that he is the most disliked sports writer in the Toronto media scene. Well, it depends how you find this, just find disliked sports writer in the Toronto media scene. Well, it depends how you find disliked. Cahal Kelly has a great quote.

Cahal Kelly, the very, very good columnist with the Globe and Mail. Who won't do Twitter. Won't do Twitter. I don't know, has he been here? You know what? He told me, I'm trying to remember, we talked via email because he listens to Toronto Mike

and he said something to the effect of, yeah, he wasn't going to do it he was going to stay private yeah I can see that I mean it's funny I'm going to stay private but I'm going to write a memoir okay um and I love because you have editorial see with you you didn't tell me what I could ask you I mean look at the questions I've asked you today right he probably doesn't want to face it I love Cajal I think he's immensely talented and I wish I could use the written word in the manner in which he does. But he wrote at the back of my book,

the highest calling of a sports columnist is not to be right, but to be read. Steve Simmons is right most of the time, must be read all of the time. There's no further, there's no higher professional compliment I can think of. I think that's an amazing comment from an amazing columnist. And I go back to my friend Terry Jones, who's a longtime sports writer for the Edmonton Sun.

And he said to me years ago, your job is to get the reader from the first paragraph to the last one. How you choose to accomplish that, that's your business. And so, you know, I forget what the wording of the question is, but, you know, I'm hated, but I'm read. Right. So it's a... You're noticed. Well, I don't know if... Maybe indifference is the enemy of...

Indifference is definitely the enemy of anyone writing a column. And boring. I always say... If you're indifferent, you're not doing your job. Right. To me, the great enemy is boredom. Like, just're indifferent, you're not doing your job. Right. To me, the great enemy is boredom. Like, just be interesting, you know? And you know, you can be great at, I mean, I'll use my friend Bob Elliott,

you can be great at your job and never be in any controversy. Because that's just how he chose to conduct himself. And you know what? And Bob and I used to say, because we would sit beside each other, and a lot of times when you're working with someone at a game about the seventh inning you look at each other and say okay this is what I'm writing what are you writing well Bob and I discovered very early on that we never had to do that because we could be writing exactly the same thing and it would never be the same right right last question for you and then a little more in the book, and then you've been amazing. In fact, the vegetarian lasagna was special order for you.

So the Picucci family at Palma Pasta, big fans of yours and wanted to make sure you had a vegetarian lasagna. So Christopher Snow just writes, Steve, I've been reading your article since I was a kid, reading the paper with my dad. Don't change, sir. So he just don't ever change for Christopher Snow. I think everybody should send Christopher Snow flowers today

and say thank you very much. And you know, you read the Cahal quote in the back of your book. Another one I'm going to read is from Brendan Shanahan, you know, president of our Toronto Maple Leafs. And he went to the same high school I went to. So shout out to Mimico's Brendan Shanahan. Steve Simmons doesn't ever sit on the fence when it comes to his writing.

He takes a position and tells it like he sees it. I will buy his book and I am quite certain I will throw it in the fire and burn it, but only after I've read it. So there's a great quote. That one made me laugh. That's a great one. And very quickly here, my friend, I've taken a lot of your time, but I was going through your great stories, a great quote. That one made me laugh. That's a great one. And very quickly here, my friend,

I've taken a lot of your time, but I was, you know, I'm going through your great stories, a great collection. So, you know, you got a great story on Donovan Bailey in Atlanta. We're both big Donovan guys. We talked quite a bit about Donovan Bailey today.

We even heard from Donovan Bailey. He's going to be here sitting in that very same seat. Well, actually he sits in that seat and Jason Porwanda sits in your seat there, but tomorrow he'll be here and we spent a lot of time together. I quite like the guy. And so I have my top 10 list.

I've got Donovan Bailey in Atlanta from 1996. The home run that changed everything. This is an article from October 17, 1992 about Roberto Alomar's home run against the Oakland Athletics. And we did talk earlier about the fact that he has been all but erased from Blue Jays history.

Completely gone. Although when you do a montage of everything in 92, you do still get, I think I saw it, you know, Alomar throwing his arms in the air after the home run. His arms were thrown in the air, but they didn't mention him.

No, they did not. Absolutely did not mention him. The kid named Yager, this is from May 19th, 1992. I just want to shout out my recent conversation with Brian Trottier. It's from last week. Brian was on those two,

the two Stanley Cup winning teams when Jager was a rookie on those Penguins teams. And we had a great chat about Jaromir Jager. I want to jump in just for one second. Yeah, you can always jump in. One of the things I loved about that story, he was a rookie and he wasn't old enough to drink um as you had to be 21 in the united states to drink and i think he was 18 and so he would go to the bar with the players and then they would stick him like in the room where the arcade was and he would go and play video games. One of the things that I made, at that time,

a local radio station, FM radio station, decided they were going to have a bit every morning called Yarmer Weather. And so, you know, in the morning, you know, today's temperature, so-and-so, now let's go to Yarmer Weather. And it was Yarmer's, today, because he could barely speak English, right? Right.

Today, cold. Or today, hot. And they taped him doing, you know, Today, rain. Like every kind of sort of weather report he could have done. And they played Yarmouth weather every single morning on this FM radio station.

That's great. Number four on my list, Sickness Cured, Kessel Gone. That's from July 2nd, 2015. That's the one with the opening reference, which you already in great detail explained yourself. But I did notice, I guess it's been edited to leave the specifics of where the hot dogs stand.

Well, one thing about the book, it was edited for obviously reason, you know, you need to edit everything, but also for factual circumstances. And if the streets were wrong, and and they were then we put in downtown rather than put in specific seats i maintain to this day yeah if you want to know why phil kessel was traded read that piece forget about forget the hot dogs in the first two paragraphs if you if you want to be consumed with that uh read that piece because it tells you exactly why brendan shanahan and and company

didn't want him a quick mike babcock story yeah to that mike babcock gets hired by the leafs just before the draft where they get matthews and um i think it was matthews um and uh no it was marner sorry but it was just before they trade Kessel. And so I'm having a conversation with Mike, and we're trying to establish ground rules, as you do with any coach or GM. How do you want to work? Do you want to text each other? Do you want to email?

Do you want phone calls? What is it? And he says, I don't go off the record. I said, what do you mean? I won't go off. A lot of coaches will go off the record with you. So that's great. So about a minute later I said,

do you want Phil Kessel on your team? And he paused and said, can we go off the record for a moment? All right, now that statute of limitations have expired, what did he say off the record? He didn't. We never went there. Because I think I said, we don't go off the record. Right, right, there is no off the record. He didn't. We never went there. Because I think I said, we don't go off the record. Right, right.

There is no off the record. And yeah. But I just thought. But he's a great, that's great. It's, yeah. Phil Kessel, I leaned into the whole

hot dog thing. Like now it's like, that's a, like you go. And you know what he's never done? He's never denied it. Have you ever heard him say no? No, I don't think I have.

No, no. That's one of the things that amused me over the years. I love, by the way, he's now playing in Vegas. Do you know what his nickname is? The Vegas Golden Knights? Selkie.

Because he has the worst plus minus of any player of his generation. Wow. Still hasn't missed a game since you wrote that article, though. No. Touch them all, Joe. That's the,

I just want to, that was from October 24th, 1993. That gives me a chance to tell people there's a great Joe Carter Mike Humantry in the Toronto Mike feed that people should check out. One thing about the Donovan Bailey piece you referenced

and about the Joe Carter piece and probably some other ones. Yeah. They were written on deadline at night against the clock. Like no time to think, no time. Like you probably wrote those pieces in less than half an hour

and huge, huge events. And it's amazing that any of it stands up years later because sometimes you look back at your stuff and you say, oh my God, did I really write that? Joey Batts, the most hated man in baseball. That's from October 19, 2015. Ignore the knocking on my door. We're almost done here,

but maybe that's a delivery of a palm of pasta for you. But the Joey Batts, and then burn through this because hope arrives in Vince Carter. This is from June 28, 1998. I just had Chuck Swirsky on the program and we were talking quite a bit about Air Canada, Vince Carter, and what he meant to this franchise. The Rocket at Argos Camp.

That's from June 1991. Rocket Ishmael. The Greatest of All Time, June 5th, 2016. And of course, we conclude things with The Golden Goal written March 1st, 2010. Of course course that's sydney crosby's any final thoughts my friend yeah i wanted to touch on on some of the stories in the book that are stories you wouldn't necessarily point to as historical or or or memorable for

canadians and one of my favorite pieces in there is about a guy named bernie custis and i don't know if that name means anything to most people. It doesn't mean anything to me, I don't think. Bernie Custis is the first African-American to play quarterback at an NCAA school. He went to Syracuse University. He had a roommate at Syracuse University that you might know

the name of, Al Davis. Right, of course. Just win, baby. Al Davis goes on to only Oakland Raiders. Bernie gets drafted or picked, signed by the Cleveland Browns to go there and play. Only he's a quarterback at a time when there are no black quarterbacks in the NFL and the NFL was not ready for black quarterbacks.

And so Bernie, they want Bernie to switch positions and Bernie won't switch positions. They said, well, you're a good enough athlete. You can play DB, you can play receiver, you can play wherever you want to play we're going to find a place for you and and he said no I'm a quarterback and so the the Cleveland Browns didn't want to waive him because they thought someone else was going to pick him up on waivers and and they didn't know what he would turn into. So in those days, at times being as different as they are now, you could sell a player from an NFL team to a CFL team.

So they sold the contract of Bernie Custis to the Hamilton Ticats. And geographically, Hamilton is the closest city to Cleveland, closest CFL city to Cleveland. So it wasn't far for him to go. Right. So he goes to Hamilton and he becomes the starting quarterback of the Tiger Cats,

thus becoming the first black starting quarterback in the CFL at a time later, you know, later you have Warren Moon and Conrad Holloway and so many guys who, you know, this was a great place for the black quarterback to establish himself. And so Bernie was, he made history at Syracuse,

then he makes history in Hamilton, becomes a teacher in Hamilton, and I think a principal as well, and has a school named after him now. He's since passed away. But his roommate, Al Davis, moves on to become the owner of the Oakland Raiders. And what does he want to do? He wants to hire Bernie for a variety of different jobs over the years. He keeps offering him jobs. And Bernie says, you know what?

I'm happy. I'm playing quarterback here. I'm teaching school. Everything's going great. My life is fantastic. And he never went to the oakland raiders and he you know he he would see bernie in the press box at a lot of tycat games and a lot of argo games and just to listen to sit down and listen to him it was it was to me like you know

it's like talk i don't know if you know do you know wayne embry at all i know of him of course yeah he talked about him he might be he may be the most fascinating man i have ever spoken to wow uh in in professional sports like he he's he's like a history of the last century wow all the things he lived through and you know he tells an amazing story about he was roommates with oscar robertson you know the great nba double sure the great NBA player, Oscar Robertson. And he gets a phone call from his wife. We're going to Selma to March. Selma, Alabama. And here they are on the road for the Cincinnati, I think they were the Royals basketball team. They're on the road with Cincinnati and Oscar, and they hang up the phone and those

days there's no cell phones oscar robertson's wife phones a minute later to tell her husband that i'm marching to selma and the two wives went on one of the most historic marches in history much to the protestations of their basketball playing husbands who were worried something terrible was going to happen. And that's just one of the incredible, Wayne was the first African-American general manager in the NBA. He was a Hall of Fame player and he's in the Hall of Fame as a manager.

Like, yeah, he also traded Kareem Jabbar from Milwaukee to the Lakers. Wow. Like there's so many things about him that fascinate me. He also traded Kareem Jabbar from Milwaukee to the Lakers. Wow. There's so many things about him that fascinate me. Again, to me, he's an encyclopedia unto himself. Steve, you've had a lucky life. Some days, I would agree with you.

And where would you like people to pick? Do you have any preference where they get a copy of a lucky life gretzky crosby kawaii and more from the best seat in the house will be in canadian bookstores in early november so it's actually not out yet oh i got a dance copy it's it's available online right now you can get it at chapters indigo you can get it from, I presume, from Costco and from those kind of stores and from Amazon. So it is available online. I hate to pump my own stuff, but if you have a cousin

and uncle, somebody you need to get a stocking stuffer for or something, if they're sports fans and they're Canadian sports fans, this is the kind of book that you can stick in the washroom and you pick up a different chapter each time.

You don't have to read it in order and just find your way through it. I think people will really, really enjoy it. And that brings us to the end of our 1,140-second show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Steve, you're at Steve Simmons on Twitter? Simmons Steve. Yeah, that's right.

It's inverted. Follow Simmons Steve on Twitter. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Moneris is at Mon Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Moneris is at Moneris. Raymond James Canada are at Raymond James CDN.

Recycle My Electronics are at EPRA underscore Canada. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. See you all. Wednesday, when my special guest is Tony Nappo. Because everything is coming up rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow won't stay today

And your smile is fine and it's just like mine And it won't go away Because everything is rosy and gray Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day is rosy and green well I've been told that there's a sucker

born every day but I wonder who yeah I wonder who

maybe the one who doesn't realize there's a thousand shades of green

cause I know that's true yes I do I know that's true Yes I do I know it's true Yeah I know it's true How about you?

I've been picking up trash And then putting down roads And they're broken in stocks The class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am But who gives a damn? Because everything is coming up rosy and gray

Yeah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow warms me today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray

Well, I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Chaclacour But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true. Because everything is coming up rosy and green.

Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms us today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine. And it won't go away away Cause everything is rosy now Everything is rosy and Everything is rosy and gray Thank you.