Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Tim Langton: Toronto Mike'd #313

Episode Date: March 14, 2018

Mike chats with Tim Langton about his years in radio and being the Blue Jays PA Announcer at the dome.

Welcome to episode 313 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery located here in Etobicoke. Did you know that 99.99% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario? GLB, brewed for you, Ontario. And PropertyInTheSix.com, Toronto real estate done right. And PayTM,

an app designed to manage all of your bills in one spot. Download the app today from PayTM.ca. And our newest sponsor, Camp Tournesol, the leading French summer camp provider in Ontario. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me this week is Toronto Blue Jays public address announcer, Tim Langton. Hello there.

Welcome, Tim. 313, I like that number. Yes. Oh, you got to come back for episode 666. Do you want it? There might be a bidding war for 666. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you might have probably some more evil people than I.

I think I'll sell. That might be better for 666. Maybe for charity, I'll do some kind of a silent auction. Who wants to be on episode 666? Actually, that's a pretty good idea. It is a good idea, but I've got to record a lot of episodes before I get to 666. Well, you're 313 in. That's right.

How many years is that? Five and a half, probably. Eleven years, and you'll have it. Oh, my God. Just imagine. Can you imagine? I could be a grandfather then. Who knows?

That's crazy. But welcome. It's great to meet you. Your voice, of course. Any Blue Jay fan knows your voice well. But we're going to learn more about you. And I have a bunch of questions for you regarding that gig you've got with the Blue Jays. Sure. And the disclaimer has to, I have to do the disclaimer.

When I talk about the Blue Jays, I talk strictly as a fan. I am not a spokesman for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball organization Rogers. You do not represent Rogers. I barely represent myself well. So let's just keep that in mind when I do talk about the Blue Jays. Don't worry, these won't be

hard. I mean, the hardest hitting question about the Blue Jays you're going to get all day will come shortly from our sponsor, Brian Gerstein. You're a rock guy. You like hard rock. Yeah, I do. But I stole this from a record store in the 70s. It was a slogan.

I heard it on a distant radio station. My collection is ABBA to Zabba. Nice. I'm all over the place. And that is all over the place. An event diagram of ABBA fans and Zappa fans. Two circles side by side. I'm not going to say that I like every ABBA song

or I like every Zappa song, but I do enjoy some. If you told me you liked every Zappa song, I might call you a liar because he's got some weird stuff out there. He's got so much material. To anybody who thinks they may have heard it all, nah, probably not.

I want to meet the guy who thinks he's heard it all. That's an acquired taste. I always say that the people who like Zappa like him a lot, but it is really tough. It's almost like it's work to really appreciate some of the Zappa stuff. You know what I mean? It's not accessible for the masses.

It's almost as if Spike Jonze has a rock act almost right there. Yeah, some of it's pretty complicated and hard to find and jazzy, but the man was brilliant. There's no doubt about it. I mean, the symphonies he composed. There's actually, was it Netflix or did I see it on YouTube? Really, really good Frank Zappa biography. I saw it.

I saw it on YouTube. Really, really good Frank Zappa biography. I saw it. I saw it on YouTube. Is that what it was? Well, that's where somebody must have bootlegged it there or something. But I saw it there. And yes, and what I like is it shows a lot of the clips when he'd come on like CNN's Crossfire or something. The man was sharp as a tack. Well spoken. That great was it.

I wrote a song about dental floss. Did anybody's teeth get any cleaner? Right. Oh, man. We need Zappa today. He's the kind of voice you need. I hope that there's other Zappas out there that can be heard. And being a drummer, the drummers of Zappa are a rather elite crew.

Terry Basio among them. All jazz guys. Guys with great jazz chops. among them all jazz guys, guys with great jazz chops. And you mentioned the, what do you call it, classical music or whatever he was conducting

at the end of his career. Yep. He's a multi-dimensional genius and gone far too soon. But I mentioned you're a rock guy. Later we're going to play one of your favorite songs. I know that's not a fair question,

but I'm playing Craig Mack, Flava in Your Ear, because Craig Mack died. He was only 46 years old. And if you's not a fair question, but I'm playing Craig Mack, Flava in Your Ear, because Craig Mack died. He was only 46 years old, and if you had put a gun to my head and named two Craig Mack songs, I'd probably be dead right now, but his one jam, this one, which got a

big remix from Biggie and Puff Daddy and all these guys, this was his jam, man, and it was great. So Craig Mack's dead. That was not in your vinyl collection, I'd bet. No, and it's not in my digital collection either. But I mean, I got some Biggie and I got this, that, and the other thing. I mean, I have eclectic taste.

Well, Abba Da Zappa covers everything. And I'm always, I go, I guess I go on, what's the word? I go on runs where it's like, I got to find new music. What's on the British charts? What's on the German charts? Let's find out what's over here. But I haven't done that for a while. All right, let me do a shameless plug

and tell you that some Toronto Mic'd episodes are called Kick Out the Jams episodes. I've heard them. Oh my God. That's what I was going to suggest because I've been discovering new music this way. So somebody like yourself, and I don't let you,

I typically don't let you do it your first visit. That's why I only said pick one song. That's okay. You'd have to come back and do it. I would be happy to at some point. But people like, and you mentioned Zappa, and it made me think,

the first guy to do this was Mark Hebbshire, Hebbsy, and he had a Zappa jam. I can't remember which one. Renaglia, I can never remember. Peaches on Regalia. That's the one.

That's the one. But I always tell people, it's a great way to discover new music because somebody you know, like maybe you just know Hebsey from Sportsline or whatever, but he's going to come on, we're going to play his 10 favorite songs of all time, and he's going to tell us why he loves the song. Maybe you'll go 0 for 10 and you'll be like, none of that is for me. But often you'll hear a jam or two that you didn't know, but somebody brought it to the table as a jam they absolutely love. And you're like, I got to dive in and sample this chap's wares. Like, this is some good stuff.

I mean, looking at someone's record collection is an absolutely great way to see into their personality a little bit. Because inevitably, I mean, back in the day when it was still vinyl and you'd go flipping through somebody's record collection, you'd get about halfway through and go, really? Right. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Mike Wilner's a good example. Do you bump into him at the ballpark?

Mike is an 80s freak. Yeah. Yeah, Mike is one, two, three doors down from where we are. Three doors down. I think that was a band. I think it was a song too, wasn't it? No, it was a band.

They did Superman. Oh, Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton, three doors down. They're laughing and drinking and having a party. Do think it was a song too, wasn't it? No, it was a band. They did Superman. Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton. Three doors down. They're laughing and drinking and having a party. Dolly. Dolly's great. See, from being in radio, all these songs, just so many songs.

And I love that. Feel free, throughout this discussion, if I say a word that reminds you of a song, spit it out, man. I love that stuff. I love those tangents. It's like the traveling game we used to do with my brother and sister. those tangents. It's like the traveling game we used to do with my brother and sister. We should sing a song

and you'd stop at some point in the song and whatever word you finished with, someone had to pick a different song and start their line with that word. Fantastic. Very challenging. I love that crap. I love that stuff. And we're going to soon we will dive into

your radio career because you're more than just the public address announcer at the Dome for Jays games. I kind of realized that as I was putting together my taxes this year. Gee, I do a lot of different things. I want to hear all about it. I want to hear all about it. But before we talk, because we're going to talk some Jays

and we're going to talk about your work at the Dome and everything. But are you a sports fan beyond baseball? I am. It's quite selective. For example, are you a sports fan beyond baseball? I am. It's quite selective. For example, are you a Raptors fan? I like watching basketball. Yeah, I watch the Raptors, sure. I'm not a heavy consumer of basketball,

but I do watch it. For example, so right now, I think this would be a time when the casual Raptor fans are all in. I feel like this would be a time when they'd be watching, too. You'd kind of catch the peripheral. I'd probably watch one out of every four games or something like that. I'm probably more inclined to see the late games

just because I have a tendency to stay up late. Let me tell you what you're missing, though, Tim. You're missing amazing stuff. I'm telling you, because my oldest son is a diehard Raptor guy. He wants to watch every game, every minute, where I'm okay doing other things and kind son is a diehard Raptor guy. He wants to watch every game every minute, where I'm okay doing other things and kind of seeing how the second half is going. I can do that in a regular season game. But he wants to watch from minute one.

So I've been catching a lot of Raptors lately. And so I'm watching last night. We're down by like 12 early, and I'm like, that's weird. We're always up by like double digits. And we ended up winning by double digits. I think ninth win in a row, 20th game in a row with 100 or more points, and we lead the conference by four games. It's crazy.

And this, I mean, I don't necessarily watch the games, but I do watch highlights. I read about them. And I think the thing that's really different about the Raptors this year, from what I'm gathering now, is the strength of their bench. The bench mob, we call them.

And you're right. In fact, I always joke with my son, let's start the bench mob, we call them. And you're right. In fact, I always joke with my son, let's start the bench and then let's flip. Do you remember back in the, I think it was the 90s when the Oakland A's flipped it, like they'd start with their relievers and then they'd bring in their starters? Do you have any? I don't recall it, but the Oakland A's, I mean, Charlie Finley, anything could have been happening back then.

Well, yeah, this was a guy who St. Louis coached afterwards, but the famous... Oh, yeah, I know. I can picture him right now, but I can't think of his name. I cannot think of his name offhand. I'm terrible for names. Yeah, I'm usually better than that. I'm better with names when I'm not recording.

Are we thinking of... No, no, I was going to say Lou Piniella, but we're not thinking of Lou Piniella. No. I can see... But he had silver hair, didn't he? thinking of Lou Piniella. No. I can see us... But he had silver hair, didn't he? He had good hair, didn't he? Yeah, and I always think of him

and the guy who is... This is a terrible convo because I can't remember the name. I should just pick up my phone and do it. But I always compare him with the old Pittsburgh Pirates coach. These are just gamer coaches, and they were great.

Anyways, for multiple teams. But anyway, so the Raptors are hot. Very exciting. Are you a Maple Leafs fan? I am a hockey fan. I don't... This is terrible to say. I don't necessarily have a favorite hockey team.

I do watch the Leafs. My entire younger years was consumed by hockey. I played. I refereed while I played, then I refereed on my own, got up to a fairly high level in the Discovered Radio. And, I mean, I would go for days and days and days at the rink. So I kind of weaned myself off hockey, but I'm getting back into it.

It's a fun time to get back into it in Leafland because, you know, I mean, Austin's been out a few games, but we're still doing well. We're just kind of waiting for that playoff. I think our spot in the playoffs has been determined for a long time. We're probably going to play the Bruins in the first round and probably finish third here in this division. I get confused now. I started paying more attention when it looked like they were really getting serious

with Babcock and Shanahan and Lamorello. It's like, okay, I'll watch this now. Good draft choices, finally. Good young talent, which is not a very common thing to see with the Maple Leafs. So the Leafs are exciting. But how about TFC? Do you have any interest in our soccer team? I do watch football from time to time.

Did you see any? I mean, I actually have to say I went to team? I do watch football from time to time. Did you see any... I actually have to say, I went to sleep when this thing was starting because I was zonked. I'm ashamed to say that, but we played in Mexico in the second league of this championship quarterfinal thing against a Mexican team. Tigres, I think is how you say it.

The Tigers. It was a second league and we lost the game, but we win because we had more away goals. The aggregate, yes. The aggregate goals you get. Away goals are worth more. Yes. Yes, absolutely.

And I was catching the replay today, and I was watching a Spanish announcer call the Giovinco goal, and it was just thrilling. It was such an unexpected way to advance and it's just good times for them too. MLS Cup champs. You know what? You put the right people in the right place at the right time and you get the results.

Hopefully, that's what's going on with the baseball team too. Really. The football team did it this year. I'm really happy to see the Argos do well. I'm sorry the attendance hasn't been what it was. I do really miss having the Argos around Rogers Center. I really enjoyed working those games. I mean, I did something completely different for that.

How familiar are you with, like, are you friends with Don Landry? I know Don well, yes, indeed. Did we ever work in the same radio station? I don't think we ever did, but we worked for the same company more than once. No, actually, that's not true. I think we were at the fan at the same time. That's possible. Okay, spoiler alert,

because I want to go through this radio career. But Don, he does the PA announcing for the Argos. One of the best, too, I might add. Don's extremely good. So you two did, I mean, obviously impossible to play on the same day, but you guys did share the same kind of gig in the same place for years

before he moved to BMO Field. So I think people will associate you two even though you can never actually work the same time, right? True. You can't play a ball game while you're playing football down there. It doesn't work that way, Tim. But I want to play a clip of somebody who you also hopefully know

and we can share a bit of thoughts on him. But let's listen to probably my favorite Blue Jay moment since Joe Carter touched them all back in 93. Let's listen. One and one on Jose. All eyes on the mound and the bearded Sam Dyson. Now he comes set. Kicks.

The one-one pitch. Fly ball deep left field. Yes, sir. There she goes. I could see her from that moment. I want to see what you see. Let Jerry wrap up here. But I got chills hearing that.

And I've watched it a thousand times. Some blur. That's jetting work. Wait. Yeah, I like how Jerry lets the crowd noise in. You know what? That crew is just excellent. It's really, really good. Okay, six, Rangers three.

The designated hitter number 10, Edwin Encarnacion. Who's that right there? Hello there. Jose Bautista is unbelievable. Oh, my God. I've got to let this finish. Hold on. I'm shaking over here.

I got the little butterflies in my stomach. That was, wow. So good on them because, you know, most of us, and I love the radio team, don't get me wrong, when I'm out and about outside in the backyard particularly, but I was watching that on TV, right? So it's sort of like Joe, I always say that. So Tom Cheek has the best call of Joe Carter touching them all,

but most of us didn't hear that live, right? Because most of us are watching the TV and then we catch that later. The trick is MLB TV. Because you can choose your audio. Oh, yes, of course. You can choose your audio source then. So, okay. So where should we start here?

First of all, tell me about that. Like, tell me about, I heard your voice there on that clip, which is amazing. You're like a, you're just a part of that, that history. But tell me about what it was like in the booth for you when, uh,

Batista hits that three run Homer and, you know, flips the bat. Uh, there's, there's, okay. There's three guys in the room.

Um, there's myself. Um, and to my left is Jed, our DJ, uh, handles a lot of effects. And,

uh, behind me is our audio mixer. Um, Matt Carne my left is Jed, our DJ, uh, handles a lot of effects. And, uh, behind me is our audio mixer. Um, Matt Carnevale that night, John Aruta is our other audio mixer, but Matt was mixing that night. So there we are. He hits the ball and all I can remember is Jed and I both went bolt straight up. We stood up and kind of looked at each other and went, well, we didn't quite say no way, but we, we added a few words and we watched it sail out and it was like horn, get the horn, hit the horn, hit the horn. So I started, I started leaning on the horn. I guess I probably gave it three, no, maybe probably two shots. And the crowd was so loud, just deafening loud. And all I could hear was Marnie Starkman,

our game day producer in my ear. More horn, more horn, more horn, more horn. So you're the horn guy. I am the horn guy. This is the first thing I didn't know. You're the horn guy. You can multitask like that. You got to be the horn guy too.

Yes, I am the horn guy. I take great pleasure in laying on that horn. Oh, you ever hit the horn on a foul ball by accident? No, actually, I have not. But because from where I'm sitting, I can see foul balls pretty well. And well, I've honked the horn once by mistake. It was one of those ones that went off the top of the fence.

Yeah. But all that came out was a... Because I realized it was like, I knew it didn't go out, but my thumb went, let's do it. And I guess I it didn't go out, but my thumb went, let's do it. And I guess I had a spasm there, but no, it's now, now if I'm not sure,

I wait to see the umpire with the twirly finger. That's what I'm waiting on. That's right. Because then when you're wrong, you can blame the umpire. You know what I mean? Well, the umpire went like this. That's right.

And of course, if the umpire goes like that, all the music starts to play and all the video board graphics go off. So yeah, we blame it on the umpire goes like that, all the music starts to play and all the video board graphics go off. So yeah, we blame it on the umpire. So that seventh inning, because it's the entire, they've made, you know, literally made documentary features about this

seventh inning, right? Because that's sort of like the climax but that bottom, I'm sorry, the top of the seventh was bananas. So what was it like being a part of that seventh inning? Like, was it one of those like surreal, like, I can't believe what I just saw kind of deals? I just can't imagine. It was Jose at his best.

So expect it. Every time he stepped up there, it may not happen every time, but you might as well expect it. But when he teed off on that, it was just like, it was no doubt, and the place went crazy. And I'm so glad. And I wanted to talk about Jerry, but then I realized I got a man here who's leaning on the horn after Jose hits that homer. That's amazing.

But Jerry lets the crowd noise in there. And I think it's just such a sense of timing because he calls it, there she goes. And then he has the sense to shut up. I don't think you... You'd be just yelling over the crowd. You'd just be yelling over the crowd. Right. But that's what I like about... But adding that ambiance, like that crowd noise

there to me, that's great stuff for a listener. Give me that. Let me hear that as long as that is there. I can imagine that's probably the loudest the dome has ever been. Because coming off of that top of the seventh and having that moment in the bottom in game five,

I guess that's the best of five, right? So, the final game, anyway, we'll call it the deciding game and of the ALDS, it's monster everything up to amp to 11, you know, like yeah, number 11. And tell me about Jerry. So, jerry just before we do yeah

please we do that um there's another part of that team his name uh his name is tom and tom is the is the producer and uh he has a lot to do with the way that sound as well the way that the way the game sounds as well so i got to give got to give tom some props on that tom gets some props absolutely and later when we kind of go into more of the minutia of being the PA announcer, give as many shout-outs as you like. Okay. Let's promote the team here.

But Jerry, so what was your, was Jerry sort of, did you see him dining at the Dome before games? Jerry has a routine. He takes his meals elsewhere. No, it's just, I mean, he's down in the field. He talks to lots of players,

managers, he'll talk to the analysts from the other teams. I've never seen anybody as prepared for a game as Jerry. There, I mean, there is no doubt. Um, I mean, he shares, he shares pronunciations with me. He will go to the players and say, how do you say your name?

And they'll, you know, he, we, he'll come back and tell me, we've been doing this a little bit wrong. It should be like this. And, um, it's, uh, it's totally, I'm going to miss that. Yeah, he's, uh, he'll be missed. He's the only, I mean,, I'm going to miss that. Yeah, he's, he'll be missed. He's the only,

I mean, when I started tuning into games on CJCL, the music of your life on 1430. The telemedia radio network. Jerry was already there. He's not a day one-er, but he was already there because he came pretty early in the team's history. So he was there with Tom Cheek.

And those are the two voices that would, you know, typically put me to bed. You don't remember early win? Was that? No, early win was too early for me. i i think 80 82 83 is when i start tuning in early told some great stories so when did when does early leave i don't actually remember i hate to say it no pun intended oh yeah i mean it early 80s i'm thinking yeah i i'm gonna say

84 but i'm not positive okay i'm gonna have, it's another thing I have to look up, but I'm pretty sure earlier than that. But that duo of Tom and Jerry. And it's interesting, nobody really played on that Tom and Jerry thing very much, considering maybe it was just too obvious. Well, when you say Tom and Jerry, I think we all have that knowing smirk,

just like the cat and the mouse. But yeah, I mean, I operated baseball in various small markets. You'd sit back and put your feet up on the console and press buttons and play commercials on the breaks and just listen to those guys. Jerry will be missed. And you don't represent. You've already done your caveat. You've already done your disclaimer.

You have no representation here. No. We have Rogers. But for the record, there has been no announcement yet as to who's doing play-by-play for the season that starts pretty soon. All I can say is I've heard Ben Wagner many times, and I know Ben,

and he's good. He's really good. He's different from Jerry, but he's a contrast. I'm going to assume that Mike returns. Yeah, so Mike would kind of come back and, well, we're all speculating here,

but he might come back and do what he's done before, which is maybe spot a couple innings or whatever, and he's still just jays talking. But he would, well, I don't know, because it's a little bit different the way they've always done that, the splitting of the innings, which I don't think happens on that many broadcasts,

and I think part of that's had to do with the analysts they've had, like Joe Siddle and Alan Ashby. They've been very articulate and very good at what they did. So I don't know what the plan is. I'm looking forward to finding out because it's been a long time since, well, obviously Tom, unfortunately. He passed away too soon. We lost Tom and we had to make a mix-up, but we still had Jerry.

Yeah, that one hurt. Yeah, that's as rough as it gets. He was just a nice guy. I mean, Jerry is too, but Tom was just like a giant of a man, but a really gentle gentleman. Yeah, there's no one better than Tom Sheik, in my humble opinion.

Yes, they were. Well, things change, right? Things change. Things change. But it seems they don't change very often because, I mean, there hasn't been that many people doing that gig. I mean, I'm only the third. Technically the second because I don't think McCowan made it through the entire first season. Yeah, that's a fun fact some people aren't aware of is that the first public address announcer at Exhibition Stadium for the Toronto Blue Jays was Bob McCowan.

That's correct. And I always thought he did one year, but he might not even have finished that year. Is that right? No, he definitely did not finish the year. So Bob's the first guy. Murray Eldon comes in, and Murray's the voice, you know, the voice of Exhibition Stadium that I know.

And we'll talk more about this later. But then you're the next guy. And that's pretty, for a team that came to be in 77, to only have three guys, if we count McCowan, who only did less than a season. So it's really been two guys doing that gig for a long time.

It's a small point of pride for me. Well, we're going to dive in. First, I want to share, though, I have a, this doesn't happen every day either. I got a new sponsor and it's very cool. So let me ask you, Tim,

do you speak any French? I... No. You were trying to think of how to say no in French. No, I know. I come from Northern Ontario. Well, I mean, I'm not originally from Northern Ontario, but that's where I grew up.

So I picked up some franglais, for lack of a better term. I've lost it all. I used to be, I could generally communicate. I can sort of figure out what's going on, but no. No French. Now, I don't speak, I have grade 9 French, which is almost no French. I always think it would have been a nice thing to have French,

but I never immersed myself in it. But I actually, my older two kids are in French immersion, so they're actually fluently bilingual. And I'm going to tell everybody at home, this is very cool. I've been talking to these people for the last little while. And for about three months, I'm going to be talking about Camp Tournesol. Tournesol? Got to work on my accent there. Here's some Nana Muscuri for you. You can't go wrong with some Nana Muscuri. Come on. They have a day camp or an overnight experience for your child. Campers in all their programs enjoy weeks jam-packed of activities designed to support and enrich French learning in Ontario

beyond the school walls. So if your child is between the ages of 4 and 12 and you're interested in the GTA's largest French camps, go to Camp Tournesol's website, campt.ca, and if you use the promo code Mike, so just Mike, Mike,

you get $20 off your first order. So do this. It's great for your kid to immerse themselves in French with these camps. My wife's going crazy for this and she wants to put the three-year-old in it, but do a French camp and help them learn French and have fun.

So there's lots of options there. Camp Tournesol. Would Nana Muscuri be a jam you'd put on your playlist? You know, I might have a song or two within my library. I got a lot of that. I'm not a particular fan of the artist, but you know what?

Did a real good job on these two songs, so I'll listen to those. That's right. I mean, I like a lot of different things, but I don't necessarily... Like, I love the Rolling Stones, but I don't like everything the Rolling Stones have done. Well, they did a lot. Yes. They did a lot. And then you listen to a Mick Jagger solo record and then a Keith Richards solo record, and you know where the heart of the Rolling Stones have done. Well, they did a lot. Yes. They did a lot. And then you listen to a Mick Jagger solo record

and then a Keith Richards solo record, and you know where the heart of the Rolling Stones lives. The heart is in Keith Richards. It's in his guitar, you bet. No, absolutely. But Mick had the moves. Mick's the front man. He's definitely the front man,

and I believe he would be the savvy businessman behind that group. Yes, I think so as well. I think he's got... He might... Does he have an economics degree? He might have something like that, I think, in his background. I can't remember if he finished school or...

You know what? There's a lot of those British guys from the 60s, and they've got degrees in various things. But I don't know. I thought he went to art school, but who knows? It could be confusing my bands. He might be multi-talented. You mentioned you're from Northern Ontario, so you're from Kirkland Lake. That is what I consider to be my hometown. I was born in Peterborough, but I didn't last very long there. We wound up trekking north. Wow, and that's

past Barrie, past Orillia, past North Bay. That's right. It's approximately an hour and 15 minutes south of Timmins and maybe a 30 or 40 minute drive to the Quebec border. Wow. And just on the other side of the Quebec border is Arntfield, where you can buy beer on Sundays back then. And what's the drinking age in Quebec? It was at that time.

It was irrelevant to us at that time. It was, well, it was irrelevant to us at that point. Right. Right. That's funny. You always hear the stories of like the, whatever,

the Carleton or University of Ottawa kids and I don't know if they call it Hull. I feel like Hull rebranded at some point. Hull became Gatineau at some point.

Oh, did it? I think so. I think so. Like the rebranding took place, but we used to call it Hull, but they would all go over to Hull because you could

drink cheaper and for longer hours. Yeah, it was later. Younger age and everything. Yeah, absolutely. The bars were open later.

Absolutely. But we would go to Quebec and get courts and head out to the beach on Sundays in the summertime. And you mentioned hockey already.

So you mentioned, you know, you were a player, a coach, a referee, and then you said you found radio. Just let me quickly throw out my claim to fame. Do it.

As a hockey coach in Curtin Lake, myself and a friend of mine by the name of James Barker coached the Ontario Provincial Police Association novice team, and our goaltender was Darren Pupa. Amazing. Yeah. Former Maple Leaf, Darren Pupa. That's right. Are you kidding me? Loved him. Poops.

In fact, we had him for a year and then he went rep. He was in the Grant Fear trade, right? Like we gave up Poopa for, no, we got Poopa back

in the Fear trade or we gave, he was, I can't remember my Maple Leaf history now, but I remember Poopoo came to the Leafs either because we traded

Grant Fear or we traded him. I'm trying to remember because Poopa was on an East Coast team. Was it Buffalo? Maybe it was Buffalo. He was a Sabre, I think.

Good grief. All these things to try and remember from way too long ago. It's possible we traded Grant Feer, got Pupa, and then eventually Felix Potfan came of age, if you will, and just took the job, something like that. Here we are trying to remember this stuff, but what blows me away is you get around the ballpark and you talk to some of the guys who have been in the game for a long

time, and they can remember what the second pitch a pitcher threw to them in their third game on the road. It's just crazy. Because they're singularly focused. I guess that's right. Leave baseball and they don't even know what day of the week it is. That's what that is there. So we're going to dive into your

radio career right after I present you with a gift. You came all this way. We're going to have a great chat about you, PA announcer, radio. You have beer in front of you. I have beer in front of me, yes. You're taking that home with you. Okay. Great Lakes beer. Twist my arm. I am familiar. I've had some of them. I don't

Lake Effect IPA. I enjoy the Lake Effect. That's probably my go-to right now, the Lake Effect. But what do you got? Is that the dad's body one? My dad body pills. Let's probably my go-to right now, the Lake Effect. But what do you got? Is that the dad's body one? My dad body pills. Let's do a commercial here.

Do it. Go nuts. This is wonderful. Thank you. And Harry Porter. Don't tell the rights holders. I'm not sure they were allowed to do that. Parody, I think it's all good.

Ah, yes. That beer, yeah, absolutely. It's fresh Great Lakes beer. There's nothing better. I just it's all good. That beer, yeah, absolutely. It's fresh Great Lakes beer. There's nothing better. I just changed that opening script. I used to say it was 99% of the beer stayed in Ontario. Now I've changed it to 99.99. It's all staying on Ontario,

except a little bit is going to Halifax. One place in Halifax is selling Great Lakes beer, but it is always fresh and always tasty and helps support Toronto Mike sponsors. Next time you want Lakes beer, but it is always fresh and always tasty and helps support Toronto Mike sponsors. Next time you want a beer, which should be later today or maybe right now, get a Great Lakes beer. And you take that home and enjoy it. I will do that.

But Tim, you're going to need a pint glass to pour the beer into. Yes. Look at this. It's a pint glass. Do you think he looks like Bill Pullman? Is there a picture on that side or just the other side?

Pictures on both sides. Bill Pullman? A little bit, no? Maybe. My last guest told me afterwards that he's the spitting image of Bill Pullman. Maybe Bill Pullman's brother. Maybe his more handsome brother.

That is Brian Gerstein from propertyinthesix.com. His propertyinthesix.com pint glass has become very popular with guests. But Tim, I have a question from Brian. I teased this earlier, but let's hear directly from Brian. Propertyinthesix.com Hi Tim, Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage The six.com. Hi, Tim.

Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mike. Feel free to bring my pint glass to Roger Center and use it there after the game. I also have a limited supply left over exclusively for Toronto Mike's listeners. In order to receive one of my pint glasses, just give me a call at 416-873-0292 to meet and discuss any real estate needs you have as we enter the busiest time of year with the spring market here. Let me help break the market down for you, as depending on where you are located and what type of housing you are looking at, the markets are very different. Tim, when you covered the bisons at Coca-Cola

Field in Buffalo and watched the game on grass, do you still hold out hope that somehow grass can be introduced to the Rogers Centre? Or they build a baseball-only park, which would be my preference, though a long shot. That's some obscure knowledge. I announced one game at Coca-Cola Field in Buffalo. Is that right? Yeah. See, he's a big sports guy. Whenever I have a sports media person or a sports figure like yourself here, that's what excites Brian. He gets to talk directly to you. That was just kind of an accident.

It was Blue Jays Day at Coca-Cola Field. The regular announcer's daughter was graduating high school, and he asked if he could have an iPhone. So they asked me if I'd come down and do it, and I did, and it was a lot of fun. And you don't represent Rogers. We've said that 10 times. But do you have a personal preference regarding grass? It'd be lovely to have a grass ballpark.

I don't think the technology, and again, this is me just speaking from my own knowledge. I am not a representative of Rogers. Have we said that before? Blue Jays Baseball Partnership, or any of their sundry operations. Drainage is one thing. I think maybe

the technology as far as LED lighting, how you set that up, I don't know. I don't know what the cost is. Drainage is an issue because there is a parking garage underneath that building. Now, how it lines up with where the baseball field is, I'm not sure. All I can tell you is, I don't know. That's my opinion. There's a lot more working against it than working for it, but there may be things going on. And I'm sure with any kind of sports franchise,

there's always things going on that people, reporters, no matter how much of an insider you think you are, you have no clue. I can imagine. You mentioned beneath the dome. That's where we'll find Andrew Stokely on most, because his truck is underneath the dome. He's in the loading bay. Okay, so is that

underneath or no? I just go in this top secret elevator and they make me close my eyes and I don't know what I mean. It's not actually underneath the field. Okay, okay, okay. It's at field level. Gotcha, gotcha. I wasn't sure how low I went, but not

beneath. Okay, gotcha. And Stokely, he's a chap, and people who listen to this podcast know that Andrew Stokely does the audio for Rogers Sportsnet for most of the Jays home games during the regular season. He also helped me put this podcast know that Andrew Stokely does the audio for Rogers Sportsnet for most of the Jays' home games during the regular season. He also helped me put this podcast studio together.

Stokely, nice job. It looks very sweet. That's coming from you. That's great to hear because this sounds good, which is what I care about, but Stokely helped me put it together and I appreciate that. Is he a guy you'd see him before games? I see Andrew around all the time.

Does he come in and use our microwave to warm his dinner? Yes, I think he does from time to time. Oh, we're all just a big happy family up there on press row. Everybody except Jerry, who's having caviar on another level. No, I was kidding around with Jerry. I think when he has his dinner, he's also doing a fair bit of research towards the game.

So he's always working. He's always working, except when he comes into the control room and tells one of his jokes so bad, they're good. And don't ask me for one because they just fly out of my head after I hear them.

He doesn't have a smartphone. Do you know that? Apparently he's never had a mobile phone. I think you're right about that. Which is amazing. have a smartphone. Do you know that? Apparently, he's never had a mobile phone. I think you're right about that. Which is amazing. Forget the smartphone. Let's say you're still not even having a phone, not even a flip phone.

So you can't reach. When Jerry's not at an office or at home or whatever, you can't reach him. Nope. You've got to send him like a carrier pigeon or something. Leave a message, I'll get back. Amazing. That's amazing for a guy who did his game.

That's an analog guy. A Luddite, I think is what we call that. Hey, maybe he knows the secret. I'm still about 25% analog. Yeah, but what is that? Which 25%? You know, if I've got some short-term things to do, I like to write out a list.

I enjoy writing out the list. Things like that. I like making notes on paper. It's something I'm going to keep a lot longer. I'll do it on the phone. But it's possible that, like myself, when I write something out, I remember what I wrote.

This is how I got through university. It's something to do with writing out stuff. I never actually had to read what I wrote because just writing it out put it in my memory bank, if you will. So that's something I have with learning or whatever. Maybe part of that is with you, and then you find you write it out, and then you'll actually remember what you wrote, maybe.

Yeah. Or maybe I'm extrapolating my own. But Brian mentioned bring the pint glass to Rogers Center, and then I wondered, would you ever partake before a game? You would never have a beverage before a game. No, no. And you're not sipping anything during the game. Water. Water, no. And you're not sipping anything during the game. Water.

Water's okay. I love coffee. I try not to drink too much of it when I'm working, but I love coffee. No, it's mostly water. No, water's okay too. Thank you, Brian, for the question. And one last sponsor mention,

and then we're going to dive in here. Paytm. Paytm is a free online bill payment service that helps manage all of your bills in one place. You can pay utility bills, mobile, phone, internet, gas, property taxes, education, credit cards, insurance, and rent using your credit card or your bank account. And Paytm will even send you bill reminders so you can avoid paying late fees. And heck, you can even send money to your friends and family for free. There's no restrictions here. Just pay a bill. And if you use the promo code Toronto Mike, so the tournesol, the promo code is just Mike, but with Paytm, it's Toronto Mike, all one word. You get $10 off your first bill payment,

and that's free money. I did it, and I had a $74 Enbridge bill, and I gave them only $64 because I had Paytm cash. And Paytm is now going to introduce a point system, so the more you use them, the more Paytm cash you can build up. I think it's great. I swear by them. I use them for paying all my bills. So that's paytm.ca. Download the app today. Love me the Floyd. Absolutely. Have you ever seen Floyd live?

Unfortunately, I have not. I've seen Roger Waters a couple of times, but no, I would have loved to have seen Pink Floyd at their heyday. Absolutely. Did you play any Pink Floyd at CJKL in Kirkland Lake? You know what? No. I'm trying to think. I know that library pretty well. I knew that library pretty well, and I don't think so, no.

Tell us about, and I'm assuming that's your first stop at radio, right? It is. CJKL. When I say CJKL, my mind wants to say CJCL. It's like been trained to say CJCL. But it's CJKL, and the KL to say C-J-C-L. It's like been trained to say C-J-C-L. But it's C-J- K-L, and the K-L, of course, stands for Kirkland Lake. It did. On our sister station, C-J-T-T, which was down around New Liskard-Halebury-Cobalt,

known as the Tri-Town. How clever they are with those call letters, huh? Yeah, sometimes it just works. CFRB, I think that was like radio battery-less or something like that. Was that what it was? Yeah. And CKFH was Foster Hewitt. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So what was CJCL, since I'm talking about it? Probably nothing. Probably nothing. I don't think there was anything to it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. So tell me about starting at CJKL in, I guess, the late 70s. Yeah, 1978, I guess, the late 70s. Yeah, 1978, I guess. Maybe late 1977.

Yeah. No, actually, now, as I start thinking about it, because it was the end of high school, so it would have been 77 or June 77, looking for a job, didn't want to go and continue my education. I was not a big fan of school. Did okay, but just wasn't a big fan. I had a brother

who was actually in the military, in the Air Force. So I thought, you know what, I'll go down. I'm going to go down to manpower, see what they got. And if they don't have anything, I'm going to go join the military. I'll spend whatever, four years, learn a trade, get out, and away we go. And they were looking for somebody to read news part-time at the radio station. And I just said, you know what, don't bother sending anybody else. I'm going to go get this job. And she told the news director about that. And he liked my mojo.

So he hired me. Did you have these pipes back then? Or did these come with age? You know what? It's one of those gradual processes. No, probably not. I probably sounded somewhere along these lines. Oh, yeah. Like the guy in The Simpsons, right?

Excuse me, sir. When I did news for, I did news for eight months, I guess, afternoon and weekend news for eight months and realized that there were no groupies in news, and I started bugging the program director to let me on the air, so he eventually let me do some air shifts,

and I was a bit of a natural because, you know, I just like the attention. And away we went. It was probably, it would be of my three favorite radio jobs, it would be number one. Because it was my first one and we had so much fun. It was all about being creative. The program director, morning man, sales manager, general manager, Dick Peplow,

who unfortunately is no longer with us, was just a brilliant, creative radio mind and it rubbed off on everybody. I mean, we had competition.

We were, in production, we're cutting tape with razor blades and splicing it the old school way and doing some pretty amazing things

and there was always a competition to see who could outdo the other guy in production. We, uh, truly it was all about personality. You got to pick your own music, which was so much fun. That doesn't happen anymore. No, it does not. We had our music library.

Oh, I mean the current records, you had your hits and your big rotations. You played the first one and put it at the back and played the next one. That's what those rotated. But we had our music library. You played the first one and put it at the back and played the next one. That's what, those rotated. But we had our music library. You went and picked your, for lack of a better term, gold records.

You couldn't play them. They get filed back about once every 10 days. And you just go through and you pick it and you'd sort of set up your show and make it flow. And it was a lot of fun. I worked at radio stations like that for the first, probably first seven years of my career. It was so much fun.

Kirkland Lake. Is that where Alan Thicke is from? That's right. And half the 1970s NHL players. Is that right? Oh, yeah. The Plager brothers, the Hillmans, Gus Mortson from back in the old days. There's actually a hockey museum and a monument to all those players up there now.

Is this also, is this where Bill Barocco was going to fish back in 1951? Couldn't say for sure. I feel like it might have been his destination on that faded, ill-fated fishing expedition. But I know the Hillman brothers used to run a fly-in hunting or fishing thing for a while. Kirkland Lake.

And then, but you do start making your way towards the Big Smoke because you end up at B101 in Barrie. I mean, I took a couple of trips. I was out in Saskatchewan. Well, no, yeah, please. I was in Midland, Ontario for a while. I know Midland. Yeah, my grandparents used to live kind of near there.

I remember when the Pope was visiting in 84 or something. I was working that. I was the on-site audio mixer for that one. Really? Yep. That was when one of our reporters, who was with one of the Franciscan brothers, he was the analyst, shall we say, the color commentator,

and she dropped her mic down her top. He could not stop laughing. He had tears rolling. It was funny. It was a lot of fun. What's the marsh called, that famous marsh near there? Is it?

I don't know. Yeah, thanks for asking because I could have probably told you if you hadn't asked me. Yeah, it's okay. Y Marsh. Well, Y Marsh. I feel like it's the Y Marsh.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, I just remember that was a massive deal that the Pope was coming to Midland to do some kind of mass or whatever. So if you had anything to do with that, I believe that gets you into heaven for free.

I believe that gets you a gold card. You're going to make your way through the pearly gates. I will tell you one thing that I noticed, and some people might think I'm a little weird, but anyway, I'm sitting there, and I'm doing the little audio mixing thing, and he was leaving. He gets into his helicopter, and there's, I don't know, whatever,'m doing the little audio mixing thing, and he was leaving. He gets into his helicopter, and there's, I don't know, whatever,

100,000, 250,000 people around. And as the helicopter gets up in the air and disappears, you could almost feel sort of a, oh, like he's gone. It was really kind of a weird feeling. But, you know, the power of groups of minds, who knows, right? Interesting. That is interesting. And so you're Midland, but you mentioned Saskatchewan.

Yeah, I was in Estevan, Saskatchewan for a little while. It was all right. It was my first exposure at a country station. The first two things they told me was it's Saskatchewan, not Saskatchewan, and take the Ontario plates off your car. Oh, nice. Okay, I'm going to love it here. There's a documentary, I don't know, maybe almost 10 years old

now, but it was called Everybody Hates Toronto, and they went around Canada, and apparently when you leave the GTA, everyone hates Toronto. What's up with that? I don't know. We don't hate anyone else. I don't know. Maybe some Habs fans, but pretty much okay, especially if Saskatchewan.

Like, good for you guys. If it unites the rest of the country, well, we'll take that bullet. No wonder my podcast isn't as popular in Esteban. Esteban. Esteban, Saskatchewan. It was all right. It was an experience, and it got me started

on a road that wasn't Kirkland Lake. Not that I have any problem with Kirkland Lake. I loved it there. In Midlands after Saskatchewan? It went Kirkland Lake, Saskatchewan, Elliott Lake. That was fun. My first night on the air in Elliott Lake

was a Friday night. I was doing evenings. And I'm sitting there. I'm probably about 40 minutes into my show. So it's about 20 to seven. And one of the part-time guys comes in and he goes, what are you doing tonight? I'm doing there, I'm probably about 40 minutes into my show. So it's about 20 to seven. And one of the part-time guys comes in and he goes, what are you doing tonight? I'm doing an air shift.

No, but what are you doing? I'm doing an air shift. No, no, no. I'm going to go home. I'm going to get some lunch. I'm going to get some dinner. I'm going to come back and bring a bottle of whiskey.

We'll do something. Oh, I'm going to like it here. Oh boy. Yeah. It was, all I got to say was it was KRP on steroids. I can remember coming into the radio station, I don't know, about two o'clock in the morning

on my way home from, oh, I don't know, somewhere. And, you know, just walked in to say hi to the overnight guy and there was nobody in the control room, but there was an album playing. And I looked out the window and he was out in the parking lot with his buddy playing Frisbee. Yeah.

Let me guess. It was Indigado De Vida it was on. I don't know. I have no idea. No clue which album. He was just playing the whole album. Oh, the whole album. I was going to say, you get 17 minutes at least out of Indigata De Vida.

Oh, we had full-fledged parties in that place. It was, well, the general manager did not live in Elliott Lake. So he went home to Blind River on Friday and did not come anywhere near the place again until Monday morning. That reminds me. We could do this game. I think of Neil Young's song, right? It was in Blind River back in 1963. Long May You Run. Long May You Run, but it's Carr.

Yep, The Hearse, I think it was. That's right, The Hearse. Yeah, Elliott Lake was quite the show. I had a lot of fun there, but they formed a union and it went on strike, so I went to Midland. Midland. Spent some time. Probably one of the greatest places to be in the summertime is Midland. It's, it's absolutely beautiful. Midland to Sudbury at CIGM country FM to CHUR in North Bay, back to Sudbury to CKSO, which became Q92, which is my

second favorite radio station of all time. My second favorite radio experience of all time. We had a, it was telemedia at the time. We had a country station and a CHR AM. The country was FM. We switched frequencies and we put a rock station on the FM station. Q92 in Sudbury. Yes. Between those two stations, we owned 80% of the market.

Wow. It was incredible. Putting the thing together with Dave Charles and Steve Young from Joint Communications was, I mean, those guys, Steve's no longer with us, but Dave's still out and about and working in different radio things. Both incredible radio minds. Jim Hamm was the first program director who was probably, he's the king of the fundamentals of putting together the foundation of a radio station. And then Terry Williams, who left Chum FM to come to Sudbury to run the show, just knew how to put that little curly top on the Dairy Queen cone. I was lucky. I've worked with some incredible people in the business.

From there, down to Barry. Okay, so now you're at B101. Yep. Okay. By the way, you definitely were playing Pink Floyd on Q92. Oh, so now you're at B101. Yep. Okay. By the way, you definitely were playing Pink Floyd on Q92. Oh, sure was. And B101, what's

B101 playing back in... It was pretty... I'd call it an adult contemporary station, I guess. It played Michael Bolton's song. Not a fan. Air Supply, Michael Bolton. No, no, no, no, no, no. And then, when do

you get the call? Like, help me. Are you at, in Barrie when you get the call? Yeah, in 1997. I said 1997? Yeah, 1997. It was probably around this time in 97. There was, uh, an ad in a trade publication

called The Record, which doesn't exist anymore. They were looking for what they called an audio programmer at Skydome at the time, which was the person who would program all the music plus do all the recordings and mix audio for whatever. And so I applied for the job. Got an interview. Didn't get the job.

They decided that they'd take a guy who had the technical background and teach him the creative. I guess it didn't work out because they called me eight months later and asked me if I still wanted the job. That's the wrong way to go. So, yeah, you can't teach the creative, but you can teach the technical. Like, I would take the creative guy and teach them the technical. That's what they wound up doing.

This is the Armageddon question. Quick tangent, we'll come back. But in Armageddon, they take rock drilling guys and they teach them how to be astronauts. And then the question is, why not take astronauts and teach them how to drill rock? That's right. So there you go.

But please, I'm sorry for hijacking your story. No worries. So they brought me back and they hired me. It would have been August of 97. Would be about right. August of 97. They sent me on some seminars,

got me trained up, and lots of on-the-job training. It was a busy place back then. Lots of concerts, lots of private events. Learned a lot. I mean, first time I ever mixed audio for the circus, I was mixing a nine- ten piece band by myself. Wow.

They threw you right into the fire, but that went on until, well, Sportsco. Sportsco? Yeah, Sportsco owned the place at the time. And a lot of people were getting laid off and things were not going well. And I politely asked my boss, do you think you might want to lay me off? So she worked it out and and they packaged me out, and I was back the next day working as a freelancer. And then in, I guess, 2005,

I got the phone call while I was mixing audio at BNN. Okay, okay. So 2005, this is, of course, this is when you take over for Murray Eldon doing the PA announcing at the Dome for Jay's Games. But between whatever packaging out there, there was a gap there. Is this where you were on the air at Team 1050 and Fan 590? Because people who listen to this podcast, I have a lot of people in sports media.

I have a lot of fan personalities. And I've had a lot of people from the Team 1050. A surprising number of people from the Team 1050. Yeah, well, I have a lot of fan personalities, and I've had a lot of people from the Team 1050, a surprising number of people from the Team 1050. I'd forgotten, because, I mean, in the whole grand scheme of things, the fan and Team 1050 were kind of just blips. I mean, I wasn't there all that long. I was a couple years at the fan,

and, I don't know, I don't even think I made a year with Team 1050 before they folded it. Well, the Team 1050 barely made it, I think they made it 18 months, maybe, in total, themselves. But what did you do at the fan? Sports updates. I guess we were doing 2020 updates when I first started there. Right.

I like that music. Do you still have that bumper music they'd play for the 2020 updates? I do not. I want to just play it for fun, but I've got to get a hold of it. Did the same thing at Team 1050. Good bunch of people over there, too. It's too bad it didn't work out. Did the same thing at Team 1050.

Good bunch of people over there, too. It's too bad it didn't work out, because Gerald McGrory and Sean Levine and that bunch of guys, great people to work for and with. Team 1050, of course, was... It was 1050 Chum was doing oldies, and then they wanted to try something new, the team, and they recruited some big names,

people who have been on the show. I'll just name them to start with. But Jim Van Horn was recruited. Paul Romanuk was a part of the team. Mike Richards? Yeah, didn't he take Scott Ferguson from the fan as well? Yeah, that's how Wilner got the gig. That's right.

Yes, Wilner got the gig because Scott Ferguson jumped for the Team 1050. And I think, was Hogan there? I'm trying to remember all the Team 1050 people. But you, so you were doing sports updates. You know what, it's just, with regards to Team 1050, it's really, really, really hard to run a national network like that when you've got the major markets

and, you know, you're on the air at 8 o'clock and the Leafs are in the middle of the first period, so you lead with the Leafs. But, you know, you get calls from Vancouver. Why don't you talk about the Canucks first? You're trying to do this in order of importance. They haven't even started playing yet. Well, to a T, when I ask somebody like a Mike Richards

or a Jim Van Horn or a Paul Romanek, like, why did the Team 1050 fail? They all seem to agree that they were trying to be a national show. Like, you can't be in Toronto talking about the Winnipeg Jets. Like, all due respect to the Winnipeg Jets, but Toronto's got a lot going on. We want to talk about Leafs, we'll talk about Raptors, whatever,

TFC, whatever. Yeah, your sports has got to be Toronto-centric, really. Right. So it sounds like that was the death knell. So the Team 1050, so you were at the Fan 590 doing sports updates. Yep, and I was on 680 News for a while, too. Actually, I guess, I don't know, there may have been more people involved,

but Paul Gross and I, when Paul left, he came back. We were both up for that job. They wound up giving it to Paul. But that's the way it worked out. I enjoyed that, too. That was a nice bunch of people as well, all the gang in the 680 Newsroom. Hard working bunch of people, too.

Oh, very cool. Very cool. And then you get the call. So now we're here. So this is 2005? Yeah, I'm a little foggy on dates and names, but I think 2005 sounds about right. And you were working at Business News Network.

Yeah, as a freelance audio mixer, yes. And you get a call. Does this call come out of the blue? Like suddenly you get a call, and they're basically asking you, do you want to be the Blue Jays' new PA announcer? I had been sitting beside Murray basically since 1997 doing effects and music

and mixing some audio. And, you know, I'll let you in on a little secret. There was a couple of times where Murray didn't quite make it back from the bathroom or wherever he may be between inning breaks, and I would slide over and do an intro for him. Because you do kind of have his cadence. Like you, you, you can, you can probably do a Murray imitation. You can't help but be influenced when you sit by, when you, you know, as far as I was concerned, that was my

lesson on, on how to be a pro baseball PA announcer was sitting beside Murray. So that's why things come out generally the way they do. The, yeah, I guess my first question is, and tell me what you can tell me about this, but why were they looking to replace Murray Eldon? I still do not know the answer to that question. I cannot. I, I would probably, the reason I was so shocked when I got the phone call was like, Murray, what? I mean, that was just, I got the phone call was like, Murray, what? I mean, that was just I mean, I still, like I say, to this day, I have no clue.

And I will say that the person who who was responsible for that is no longer there. Now, I'm not saying there's any correlation between the two because it came two years or three years later, but. The, so, like when I look back at, you know, when I was a young man and I was watching, you know, Jesse Barfield and, you know, George Bell and Lloyd Mosby and the voice at the Exhibition Stadium, like it was the best going to Exhibition Stadium and those bleachers, or if you get the general admission, at Dominion, you could get them for two bucks,

general admission tickets to go see the Jays at the Exhibition Stadium. But Murray Eldon,, there were certain, I would basically imitate some of his calls. He did a great Tony Fernandez, for example. Willie Upshaw was the one I remember. He would go, Willie Upshaw, just Marielle. And then to me, as a fan of the Blue Jays,

it seemed to come out of left field that they were replacing Marielle. I was surprised. Again, they replaced Paul Morris. Huh? But at least they changed buildings Marie Eldon. I was surprised. Again, you know, hey, they replaced Paul Morris. Huh? It's like, oh. But at least they changed buildings. I agree.

Paul Morris, but at least that was like, this is the voice of our new building. So Paul Morris took him to the ACC and then they put in Andy Frost at the ACC. You know, as I say, even if I knew the answer, I probably wouldn't say it.

No, that's fair. And regardless, if they're offering you a job because they're replacing Murray Eldon and you want the job, of course you're going to take the job. This is nothing personal here. Murray Eldon, so your experience, tell me about your experience, though. You said you worked beside him for whatever that was, seven, eight years, whatever. What was Murray like? He's a nice guy. What was Murray like working?

He's a nice guy. Just a genuinely nice person. Would help you if you needed the help. Always, how you doing? How's the famine? That kind of thing. And funny. He sometimes leaned on the same jokes a little too often.

We all do that. But no, Murray's a great guy. He was always, he was always fun to work with. Do you, did you keep in touch with him afterwards? Like when, so when he was. Actually, Murray was working in the, as a, as a, an usher in the, uh, in the, uh, the executive level, uh, 200 level, what do they

call it? TD level, whatever it is. Okay. Um, up, um Up behind home plate. I don't know why he's not anymore, but he was for a couple of seasons. Oh, I didn't know that. He just kind of got bored

and wanted to do something. He's retired, so. Sure. Murray Eldon, that's just too funny. So you come in, you replace Murray, and this is 2005. Can you walk me through like a typical day,

like what's a typical day for you when the Jays are playing at home? Let's call it first game of a homestand. Or first game of a new series anyway. I spend a little time at home. I'll go look at who they say they're playing Boston. So I'll go look at the Boston roster, check

their names, see if there's anything I've never seen before or I'm not sure of So I'll go look at the Boston roster, check their names, see if there's anything I've never seen before or I'm not sure of. I'll go find pronunciations. You can, you know, you go onto MLB.com and you get a home radio call of the guy. So you get, you know, figure home radio's pretty safe. And then you double check it

once you get to the ballpark. That's the home prep. I get the script emailed to me every, probably around noon every day. I read that over, make sure there's no surprises, anything I might want to change. Cause you know, people are, people write for themselves. Right.

Right. And it's sometimes, you know, don't put those two words together cause I can't say them together. Right. So I go through my script. Um, and if I have any questions, you know, I can, I can throw off an email, um, head into the ballpark, usually get in there somewhere, probably around four o'clock. Um, just pull things together, like get my, uh, my actual copy of the script, um, lineups, if they're available, uh, get my

score sheet, those kinds of things, just get them all together. We do a production meeting prior to every game, uh, an hour or two hours prior to first pitch, just going over, uh, go over the scripts, any questions, making sure that people know where they're supposed to be, uh,

any changes. Um, you know, that's just when you, that's where Ace finds out where he, you know, cause he does, uh,

visits to, uh, to skyboxes, um, uh, particularly the, uh, the Jace care skybox.

So you gotta know where you have to be, when you have to be, and where you're going to be. Following that, it's usually get the scorecard ready. Make sure the script's right. Again, double check any pronunciations I'm not sure of

and then it's dinner time. Do you remember any names you just butchered or you found particularly difficult? Butchered? Yeah. I can't, you know what? The thing is,

it was such an embarrassing experience that I can't even remember what the name was. You blocked it out. It was a Blue Jay, and he was playing his first game. He had been called up, and I don't believe he's been back. Well, thank goodness for you.

He may have been. I thought that, um, I thought that I, that I had it and it came out and it was just like, oh my goodness. I can imagine. After that game, I got a little scolding from Jerry Haworth. You know, it's a kid's first game in the major leagues and you messed up his name. And I kind of went. So can I ask the, uh, the origin of the name? Like, is it for a Spanish name, for example, or?

You know what? I think it was probably one of, it was like a Leblabigian where you kind of, and I was probably in my first year as well. Oh, that's, yeah. And I've done a couple of dumb things like Raphael Devers plays for the Red Sox. Knowing full well how to pronounce his name,

I called him Raphael Devers one day. It's just like, that's usually when, I don't know if the radio mics can pick it up. That's usually when I shut off my microphone and yell. Do you write it out phonetically? Like, so, because. I will, yeah. Yeah.

If it's particularly difficult, I'll do it that way. Otherwise, I do have a, there's phonetics for every, there's a pronunciation guide for every team. And, you know, if you get something difficult, I'll do it that way. Otherwise, I do have a, there's phonetics for every, there's a pronunciation guide for every team. And you know, if you get something difficult, you just keep saying it over and over and over and over again. I've announced players that weren't at bat. Oh no.

It's interesting. It's interesting how the human mind works. Well, tell me what you do. Let's say you... I'm fully aware of who's coming up to bat. Right. But I happen to be looking at the guy in the on-deck circle. And I'm focused on the on-deck circle. And as I start the announcement for the guy

who's coming up, I introduce the guy who's on the on-deck circle. So what do you do in that situation? There's no undo button. I usually just kind of hang my head in correction and now batting. With less enthusiasm. And then the ribbing starts.

It's a tough room to work in, man. You've got to keep it together. You're kind of lucky you call baseball because there's not a lot of Czech Republicans. What would you call someone from the Czech Republic? I just realized you call them Czech Republicans. But somebody from the Czech Republic, there's not a lot of

people from the Czech Republic playing baseball. I only say that because when Andy Frost was here, I was asking him about, you know, he was telling me his technique for getting the names, and he said the hardest names are the Czech names because a lot of times they're pronounced nowhere like the... You know what's a good example? I don't even know

if he's Czech or not, but this would be a good example. Jakob Pertl from the Raptors. There's no R in there. It's Pertl, but there's no R. Sometimes the pronunciations are nothing like the way the word is written. The Leaf player, Pilash? That's a great example. What?

That's a great example. Absolutely. Karl Pilash. Great example. You either know that's Pilash. Somebody tells you that's actually Pilash because you would call it Pilar. Yeah, exactly. It's mostly, I mean, it's obviously mostly Latino names.

You get some French spellings, but if they're American, you can guarantee that they've been anglicized. It's Lavalier, not Lavalier. Right. So I'm getting better with the Spanish, but I do have, you know, I have lots of resources. We have two stats people who I can turn to at any point. I have two people in my ear when I'm working,

the producer director and the stats people. Are any of them Spanish? No, but there are people who are far deeper into this game than I am. And bless them that they understand war and F-war and all that kind of stuff. I just enjoy the game. Is it safe to say the name you've said the most in your career is Jose Bautista? Would that probably be the name you've said the most

because of the number of years he played here during your tenure? Good question. I bet you did. I'm just thinking it might be. Yeah, you know what? Yeah, that's probably a good bet. Considering when he came and when I started. Right, exactly.

That's what I was saying. I know you started in 2005 and you're still going. That's 12 years. If you look at that 12 years. Ladies and gentlemen doesn't count, right? No. And you got the bow, if you will, because some of us will say like Batista,

but you've put like a Bautista. I did it like Bowser from Shanna. It's a Bautista. Nice reference. Bautista. Yeah, very good, very good. So you start, you basically, you get to the office, if you will,

the Dome, like, three hours before first pitch, and then you call the game. Games are about three hours, so you got about a good solid six hours each time the Jays play at home there. Yep. I want to talk about walk-up music and I want to play a song and tell you a, I'll try to make this short because I've told it before and maybe I've told it too long in the past, but here, let me start with Summertime, Summertime.

There's a jam for you, Tim. Come on. This song is called Summertime, Summertime. It is by the cowboy, Kay Pompei, Dalton Pompei's father. Let it brew just a little bit here. It reminds me of the stuff I used to play when I DJed. In a club, that is. Yeah, it's definitely like an early 90s thing.

It reminds me of... It's on the tip of my tongue. One of those early 90s dance... Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's got that vibe in it. So this is Dalton's dad. He was a dancer on Electric Circus. Yeah, I remember hearing about that.

So I uncover all this stuff, and I had no idea, and I was so excited about it. And I had a DM exchange with Dalton Pompey. This is before last year's injury, because he had a great, if I remember correctly, he had a great, the World Baseball Classic, he was playing really well and then he hurt himself. Yep.

So prior to that, this is happening. And he told me, this is obviously, he told me in his DM that he would walk up to this song. Okay? But he never played a game last season at the Dome. He never played a game. Well, he gets one this year. He gets the song. Who does, I know it's the player's decision.

Can you tell me how that works? I am fascinated by the songs the players choose for their walk-up music. Some are way more intense about it than others, without a doubt. Anybody who pays a lot of attention to that will notice that some players change their songs a lot.

I mean, a lot. When things are going well, maybe not. But, you know, there are some guys who change it. Some guys, they just pick me a song. And then the one player that this team has had that didn't have a walk-up song.

That's a piece of trivia for you. Tell me. Brad Fulmer. That's going back to late 90s. Yeah, I remember. Okay. That's going back to late 90s. Yeah, yeah. I remember him here. He was a designated hitter. He wound up going back to Texas.

He was a former expo, right? He may have. He may have played for the expo. Why did he not have a walk-up song? Because it disturbed his concentration, I believe. We played crickets for him one time. I don't think he was impressed. That is a great piece of trivia that I will repeat ad nauseum to my family as I usually do.

Fun fact. Since 1997, let me, because there may have been somebody previous. Since 1997. Yeah, that's fair. Okay, that's interesting. So the players who are really particular, like sometimes I'm sure it's a certain version of a song, right? Like if there's a big dance hit or something. Let me just explain that.

I'm sort of on the peripheral. You're not the guy pressing play on the song. No, I'm not the guy that has to edit it if it's a song with questionable content. Oh, right. But I'm always kind of around. And you can always tell that there's Moose, who is one of the clubhouse attendants. He's been around for a while with the Blue Jays. You know when Moose comes walking into the room with a phone in his hand,

somebody's changing their music. So who is the person who has to edit and set up and play the song for the player? Who is that person? That is our DJ Jed. Jed. Jed. Jed. I need to talk to Jed.

I need to know if Dalton Pompeii comes to the plate in 2018, and I hope he does. I was so sorry we never got to see him in 2017. He needs to have this song. There's no swears. It's his father. The only 12-inch single I think his dad put out. All he has to do is ask for it.

I'm sure that's the way it works for everybody else. All you has to do is, I mean, all he has to do is ask for it. I'm sure that's the way it works for everybody else. So all you have to do is ask for it. Maybe Jed can suggest maybe Dalton's a pretty approachable guy. Anyway,

this is my, when this does happen, if this happens and I'm watching a Jays game or at a Jays game and I hear Dalton Pompeii comes to the plate to Summertime Summertime,

that's it for me. I'm going to throw down the mic. I'm done. I'm done. That's what I want. Are there any walk-up songs that you found particularly curious? Sometimes I'll hear a song and I'll be like, that's an interesting

cheesy top 40 song that kind of otherwise cool guys picked. There's a lot of them I find sometimes that are a little bit weird. Again, there's a lot of them I find sometimes that are a little bit weird. Again, it's, it's once, once, once the picket, the selection is done and they're loaded up and ready to play back again, I

really don't hear them again because I mean, I, I don't listen to, I really, I only really listen to myself as far as what's going out into the stadium. I only really hear myself. So I don't, I miss a lot of the music because I've said to Jed a time again, is this a new song?

No, he's been playing this one for eight months. Oh, okay. Was there any, and of course you're the wrong guy. I should be asking Jed this. Get Jed in here. But I was thinking somebody has that song and

they just stick for years and years the same song, like Ain't Broken, Don't Fix It. This is my jam. I don't think that, that rarely happens. They might start the season with last year's song and then Ain't Broken, Don't Fix It. This is my jam. I don't think that rarely happens. They might start the season with last year's song and then they'll go, eh, let's change that.

No, I don't think that happens all that often. Are you ready for some questions from the crowd here today? Oh, yeah, sure. Why not? I'm ready.

Toronto Brent. Toronto Brent. I'm Toronto Mike. He's Toronto Brent. Any relation to Toronto Brent? I got to ask my lawyer if that's too close for comfort there. Toronto Brent. I'll have to find out.

Toronto Brent. And this one, you kind of touched on this when you talked about butchering that one poor guy's name. But he says, have you ever had a slip of the tongue that was embarrassing? So other than mispronouncing somebody's name, have you ever accidentally, you know, a word was sit down and you accidentally said another word? I've had the moments where you're talking along and then everything just starts to go wrong. That's probably the worst of it all.

Then you just kind of have to stop, take a breath, and start again. Correction. Sometimes I don't even do that. I mean, I've been allowed to show a lot of personality. I've been lucky. I've been allowed to show a lot of personality

in this job. I don't push it as far as I think I could because I want to maintain a certain amount of decorum. But yeah, it's been nice. They've allowed me to do some things and say some things that, you know that, uh, you know, forgiveness is easier to get than permission.

That's exactly true too. I live my entire radio career by that creed. Part of the reason I think you're doing a great job is that, uh, no one's complaining about you. I think that's like very, for your job, I think, cause I noticed with hockey commentators,

for example, that there are certain, some people are, they complain. It just, sometimes no news is good news. Like no one's complaining about how Tim Langton calls.

It's a little different though, because when you're talking about play-by-play guys, you're sitting at home and you're listening to them. Yeah, definitely. And you're watching. For me, I'm just,

I'm almost part of the background, part of the ballpark. But I still think if you had, I don't know, an annoying timber or something you were doing, I trust me, Blue Jays. That's true. That that is true but somebody on blue jays whether blue jays twitter or in the subreddit or something there'd be discussions like this this guy's got to go and

when and just to backtrack a bit filling in for so murray eldon let's let's skip bobcats first year there but murray eldon was there for a long time i'll say he was i nobody complained about murray eldon either like he you can say he was, nobody complained about Marie Eldon either. Like he, you can say he was beloved and people liked his work. What was it when you had to replace him? Like what's that like having to replace? Like I always wonder this person who replaces Jerry Haworth will have to kind of experience this. Like you're replacing somebody that's been here a long time and was beloved. Was there any, did you, was there any kind of blowback that, hey, you're not Marie Eldon or was it maybe, um, because you were consistently good and you actually sound like you were influenced by Marie Eldon, people, uh, gave you a chance? Nobody, there was no, there was no uproar at all.

There was, there was, I mean, I guess some people weren't aware of the change that happened and And there was like, hey, what happened to Murray Eldon? Oh, well, he's gone and here's a new guy. Oh, okay. And there was really nothing. Do you have a favorite name to say? I mentioned I liked it when Murray Eldon would do Tony Fernandez or whatever. Did you have a favorite? Yeah, I got a few.

I don't know. He's probably not going to be with the team this year, but I like Leblabijian. That's a good name to say. Richard Ureña is another one, but probably he'll be playing in Buffalo this year as well. I like Justin Smoke. I like doing that one.

That's a lot of fun. Aaron Sanchez. I like that he's got the S going on there. I just like hearing you say the names, to be honest. Can we just do that? Can you just say the roster? What is this? Well, it's March break, so we're middle of March. My daughter's

birthday is tomorrow, March 15th. Middle of March, this is the time where we're all kind of so excited to watch a game that matters. I bought my first Jays ticket yesterday. This is happening. So feel free. And there are names we don't get to hear from you anymore that we all loved hearing. Edwin's a name. So say Edwin's last

name for me here. Encarnacion. Beautiful. That's music. I wish I could still hear that. Well, you know, Cleveland comes to town. I'll say it. I won't say it quite as enthusiastically, but I'll still say it. Do you ever feel like going bigger with the home names? Because you do show some restraint, I think,

because I think you could. I don't want to turn it into a cartoon. Actually, I realized I was watching some highlights on TV after a game I'd just done, because sometimes you don't get to see everything. So, you know, I'll come home and I'll watch highlights. And I had to make a change in how I was announcing the opposition players, because I sounded like I was dead.

You were asleep. I was listening to the game and I'm thinking, what did I sound like when I introduced the opposition? I got no way. So I've put a little more energy into the opposition guys. I don't want to get ridiculous, but give me the situation like introducing Edwin

after Bautista's home run. I'm going to go with it. So that 2015 Jays team, if you don't mind here, and it's not the best audio because it's a fan-recorded video that they uploaded to YouTube, but

this is 2015, which is my favorite best audio because it's a fan-recorded video that they uploaded to YouTube. But let's... This is 2015, which is my favorite Jays season since 93. Personal favorite. Oh, this was the team intros at the start of the game. Right.

This is pretty cool. I don't get to hear this kind of stuff very often. Listen in. I'm going to miss hearing that name. I can't tell you how much I'm going to miss hearing that name. That was a lot of fun. That might be a fun name to say, right? Chulowitzki.

Oh, you just got to get through it. It doesn't really flow that well. Poor Chris. I'm trying to think. Colabello is something. Pitcher. I'm trying to think. It's a reliever.

Who has kind of like had a great year and then just kind of fade away. I don't know. I'm looking forward to this season. I really am. I mean, I look forward to every season, but I think there's going to be some surprises. I hope you're right. The thing that really gets me, and I'm sure the folks in Boston and Baltimore and Tampa feel the same way, is just like, okay, Yankees, here's the AL East crown. No, no, no, no.

We're playing 162 games. You know? Oh, but I know. And you're absolutely right. The reason we play these games is you can't do it on paper. Because on paper, you're right. The Yankees, that lineup, holy smokes. And the Red Sox, I think, have a

great chance at that first wild card. You never know what happens, but there's a couple of guys coming down the pipe. They're probably not going to be here opening day, but they might be here opening day 2019. And do you mind, how are you saying the name of Vlad Guerrero

Jr.? Can I hear it? I haven't even thought about that. Vlad Guerrero Jr.? You haven't had a moment where you thought because he might be a September call-up. It could be sooner than you think. It might be in September we see him in the Jays uniform. I'm just doing it.

Vlad Guerrero Jr. And is it Vlad Amir? Does he want to be Vlad? I think he's Vlad. I think he's just going with Vlad. Vlad Guerrero Jr. Yeah, somebody, I'd have to, you know, that's one that, because they don't all, some come, like, the first time you try it, it's like, yeah, I'm doing it that way.

Right. I'm looking forward to Beau Bichette. Yes, that's the other guy. And there's got to be a... Alfred, too. John Alfred? Anthony Alfred. There's got to be a Beau Bifette. John Alfred? Anthony Alfred. There's got to be a Boba Fett,

Boba Shett joke in here someplace. Someone's going to go find that one. There's your inspiration. Someone go find a Boba Shett, a Boba Fett joke or meme. You've got a challenge now, geez. Fans. Now, I just loved hearing that you...

I hope, like my crystal ball tells me, you're going to be saying, hopefully, Vlad Guerrero Jr. many, many times in your career, uh, cause that I hope like I, my crystal ball tells me you're going to be saying hopefully Vlad Guerrero Jr. Many, many times in your career, Colin, uh, doing a PA announcing at the,

uh, address and public address announcing at the dome. Uh, that guy looks like the real deal and he just turned 19. I want to say like, yeah, that's a, that's a nice future to have those two,

uh, those two young fellas. So we just got to get there and hopefully you're right, hopefully we are competitive this year and we challenge for a wild card at least. Meaningful. My goal at the start of every season, because you don't want to expect too much, but you don't want to expect too little, and all I want to be doing is playing meaningful games in September

because you know you're close or you're in there. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since Joe touched them all in 93, All I want to be doing is playing meaningful games in September because you know you're close or you're in there. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since Joe touched them all in 93, I only remember two seasons of meaningful baseball in September too, 2015 and 2016. Yeah, there was some hurtful years prior to that. A lot of blue seats visible in the old ballpark. And it's too bad because there were some good ballplayers. I mean, Roy Halladay, come on. I mean, the place should have been filled just to see Roy pitch. He was that good.

Same with even Clemens for all his faults. I mean, he was at the time one of the best pitchers in all of baseball, and nobody came. It was shocking that he didn't move the needle because he had the two seasons and statistically the finest two seasons Blue Jays won two Cy Young Hordes. Yeah, and he won the Triple Crown, right? Like he won most strikeouts, most wins.

He, lowest ERA. Those two seasons he put together for the Blue Jays. Let's leave performance enhancing drugs out of this conversation. Just the two seasons he put together here. The fact that you didn't see a noticeable uptick in walk-up attendance, that blew my mind

when I learned that. Oh, even some of the teams, I mean, some of the guys who want to come and see Pujols bash a few or something like that. Even, you know, Pappy was always fun to watch.

I mean, you just, you know, I can't imagine trying to pitch to that guy. It was like, I don't know, trying to pitch to Bautista in 2015. Right. That's a great comparison.

Now, I owe an apology to Blind Dave. Blind Dave submitted a question for you that I actually accidentally stole, okay? So his question was, which J is your favorite name to say and why? And I accidentally asked that exact question, but you must get that question quite a bit. I think that would be one of the frequently

asked questions. I like them all, really. Even the, you mentioned you can even have fun with the... Roberto Osuno is probably a favorite one, and you can riff on that one a little bit. Reminds me of the great Roberto Alomar, calling that

name. How would you have, because you did not... I have introed Roberto Alomar from time to time. Not as a ball player, but I have introed him. Oh, that's true. That is true. He's around the ballpark quite often. Yeah. He used to live there. That's true. Yeah, he is there quite a bit. So, Roberto Alomar, how would you

announce his name? It would be pretty simple. Roberto Alomar. It's great when they have the multiple syllables and they have the vowels at the end. And I don't know if anybody notices, but here's a little inside tip. On Talk Like a Pirate Day, if we've got a home game, it's Pilar. That's perfect.

I always do that. I don't know if anybody notices, but I always do that. Well, now we'll go for it. Mike Gamble has a question for you. He says, oh, maybe this is controversial. I'll see if you plead the fifth on this. What was the tweet he sent during slash after the infamous seventh inning against Texas that he later deleted? Oh, really? Good question. Can't answer it, but good question.

Oh, no real talk actually i i i got i got sucked in by a troll let's put it that way and in my in my in my in my anger or my in my mythedness i shared some information that I should not have shared. It's the things that you become aware of and hear during the course of a game that, anyway, I realized after I'd sent it that, what are you doing? And I quickly deleted it thereafter. And I've adopted a pretty good censoring.

Now you've got a better filter for that. I compose the tweet. I look at it. I read it back out loud. I you've got a better filter for that. I compose the tweet. I look at it. I read it back out loud. I read it back out loud again. Right. Probably 75% of the time I delete it. That's a safe way to go here.

Yeah, I prefer to have fun on social media. I'm not into it. Well, on that, we've talked about it quite a bit, but that October 14th day in 2015, I think anything you tweeted after that seventh inning would be, what do you call it? There would be special allowances. I don't know what it was.

Like, I have no idea. You're not going to tell me, and that's fair. Oh, this is well after the game ended. Well after the game ended. Okay. It wasn't in the heat of the moment. That was a, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, I got you.

I rarely tweet anything substantial during a game. You might get a wow or holy cow, that went a long way or something like that. Holy cow. Oh, yeah. Boss, no, I don't really tweet during the games. Not at all. No, I was just kidding. That's right.

It's all part of the engagement. They should be supportive of that. Now, here's a question from Albert Reda. Albert Reda says, baseball players are inherently superstitious. Have there been any unusual requests by players on how or when to introduce their plate appearance? Has he ever purposely messed around with opposing players' names? I know that I would purposely butcher Giancarlo Stanton every at-bat. I'll answer the second

question first and then come back. Okay. Yes. What was the first part of that question, sorry? And you actually, you mentioned Fulmer didn't want a song played, so you almost got part of it. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, any superstitious requests from the player? I don't know if it's superstition, particular, certainly, but I don't know if it's

superstition-based or or not but they'll have players who uh i want this song in my first at bat and then i want this song in my second at bat and then come back to the first song for my third at bat things like that whereas um and it's no secret that kendry's morales when he comes to the plate with men in scoring position you play tnt by uh acdc otherwise it's he's got. Otherwise, he's got a Spanish song that he plays for just when there's nobody on bass or somebody on first. Jed loves those guys with the very specific instructions.

One day on a dare, I quietly introduced Derek Cheater. I don't know if anybody could hear that. Derek Cheater. Cheater, I got you. But you got to do it in such a way. Oh, yeah, these are the little nuggets I'm looking for here.

That's great. That's quite a long time ago. Well before your tenure, boss. But it's too bad, you know, Derek, it does work, except I don't think he cheated. Ah, it was fun. It was the Yankees, come on. A-Rod, Ah, it was fun. It was the Yankees. Come on.

A-Rod, fair game. Cheater. It was the Yankees. Remember that game he yelled mine as he ran between second and third? He yelled mine. From where I was, all I heard was, ah! That's exactly what I heard. It was, ah!

We wouldn't do that in slow pitch, okay? That's poor sportsmanship. That's Bush League. That's what that is. That's Bush League. A-Rod, give me a break. Especially when you're laying a beating on the other team. I don't think it was a beating,

but I know we were losing. And that was McDonald's, right? Playing short? Yeah. Give me what a gentleman that was. Okay. Jay Reeves wants to know, what's your favorite Blue Jays walk-up song?

So is there... You know, you've already said you don't hear the songs, but have you known of a song that was like, I love this song? Actually, my favorite walk-up song was actually a Relief Pictures warm-up song. And he only used it four times, I think. And that was Roberto Osuna's original warm-up song. It was crazy.

It was kind of like heavy metal mariachi. Okay. All right. It was kind of like heavy metal mariachi. Okay. All right. It was amazing. It was just a frantic song, but for some reason he stopped using it. As far as anybody else, eh, not really. Have any players in your tenure there walked up to a Led Zeppelin song? Yeah, mainly because it was one of those ones where we picked the song for him or i picked the song for him and we know usually what you'll do is you'll pull out the media book okay where is he born how old is he where'd he go to school let's try and figure out

what he's you know if he's from seattle well you're getting pearl jam or sound garden or something that kind of thing so yeah and if somebody i think we might have a darren fletcher actually that we threw a zeppelin song down former expopo there, too. A little older, you know. So, you know, he might relate to the 70s a little better. I'm going to play a Zeppelin song, and then we're going to have a little chat about it. This is Trampled Underfoot. That's a little Stevie Wonder superstitious.

I'm not superstitious. Mr. Brighton's on the wall. Got some clavinet happening there. John Paul Jones, pretty good keyboard player. Almost as good of a keyboard player as he was bass player. Tell me, Tim, why you love this particular song by Led Zeppelin, and then tell me, maybe elaborate a little bit on why you love Led Zeppelin. This particular song was on the jukebox in the basement of the Princess Hotel in Kirkland Lake, Ontario.

In my 16th year, I had my first beer in a box. This song was playing on it, and it was one of the few good songs on the jukebox and it got played continually. And it's just, I'm a huge Led Zeppelin fan. Physical Graffiti is probably my favorite Zeppelin album. Right, and this is from Physical Graffiti.

That's correct. It's just a good song. It's got some drive, it's got some balls. I like it. And funny enough, Upstairs Bar in the same hotel, even worse jukebox, and the song we used to play on there was Summer Night City by ABBA. It all comes full circle. It all comes around.

On Toronto Mic, absolutely. This song, as you well know, is about... I did a little homework. I know a lot of the Led Zeppelin radio hits, like the ones you'll still hear on Q107 or whatever. Q10 Zeppelin, whatever we're calling it. But this song's about giving in to sexual temptation. So what does that say?

But that's funny how you hearing that song at that place at that time imprints, it tattoos this song on your cranium forever. And I'm sure right now you're back there, right? You're 16 again?

I could do every time. Every time. That's the thing about radio too is sometimes you play a song and you can put yourself right back in the control

without a doubt. That's why I love the kick of the jam because I sit as close as I am to you right now and I look into

somebody's eyes and we'll listen to a, I don't know, let's say a jam like this and I can kind of, you'll bring me into, you know, your thought process

and your world and to me, that's the magic of music, man. It's like a time machine. Absolutely. I actually got out of, I lost interest in music

for a while. It was really weird. I'd go to work, I'd play music all day, and then I just didn't want to hear music at all. But then again, I go through weird spurts like that with listening to podcasts, reading books, watching something on television. Sure.

Get a little streaky. What podcasts do you listen to? I'm naturally curious about what people are listening to. I listen to this one. There's nothing I listen to every episode of. So you cherry pick based on content or guest?

Yeah. Guest more than anything else. Joe Rogan I'll listen to every now and again. Same with Bill Burr. The only thing is those two guys, the more you listen, you realize that just about everyone's the same. But there are funny moments, and

a Hall of Fame podcast that I loved was called Lesser Nerds. I don't know if you're familiar with it. No. Crash Boy and Carlson. Mike Hainsworth, and I cannot remember. Wait a minute.

So from BNN? Yeah. He's been here. Has Mike been on the show? He made me a dirty martini. Oh. He had like a little suitcase kit thing and he took it out. He came here with Alan Cross because Michael Hainsworth and Alan Cross have a podcast together.

That's right. Geeks and Beats. Yeah. I think Lesser Nerds was the first podcast. Mike's first podcast. Very interesting. I used to listen to it.

Actually, I listen to that quite a bit. I don't know if it's archived anywhere or not, but if you can find it, listen to it. Lesser Nerds. It's laugh out loud funny. So he does it on his own? No, I'm trying to remember. I can't remember.

Well, I cannot remember who his partner was on that show. Okay, but he has a co-host. Yeah. It was Carlson and Crash Boy were the two hosts. I'll totally check it out. I like homegrown stuff anyways. I'm trying to find more. It was just really well done.

Really extremely well produced. Well, I know on the Geeks and Beats, because when they were on, we had a long talk about this. He does a lot of post-production stuff, like editing stuff. Whereas, you're going to learn. I'm not editing anything. So this thing will be online like 20 minutes after you leave here today. Good turnaround.

Yeah. Seriously, it'll be online 20 minutes after you leave and I won't edit it. How many do you do a week? I claim to do one a week, but that is not

true. I usually do a couple a week, but this week, for example, we're doing this now. On Friday, Darren Dreger from TSN comes over and we do one.

And then on Saturday, my buddy Elvis comes over. We periodically do a shoot the shit episode. Oh, right on. So there's going periodically do a shoot-the-shit episode. Oh, right on. So there's going to be three this week, so it depends. Greg would be a good one.

I wouldn't mind listening to that one. He's here Friday, same time, same channel. Yeah, he's got to come over because I've had Duthie and I've had Bob McKenzie. I'm trying to think. You know what I get to have? Two groups I get to have, one by choice and one by sort of just happenstance.

But I've never had an active politician on this show because nothing would bore me more than an active politician sitting there reading, or sorry, quoting their talking points. If they'd be candid with you, it'd be something. But they wouldn't be because they're active. Of course not. I need a retired one out of F's to give, if you will. You know what? Yeah, somebody

with some real good dirt. David Miller. I don't know. I don't know. Somebody who's no longer in political life. Kinsella. Kinsella might be an interesting interview. Somebody like that. The other categories, I've never had a professional athlete on this show. So I've had so many

sports media personalities, but none of them are former pros, which I find, like, it's just happenstance. I don't even know how it happened. But that's a fact. I don't believe I've had a professional athlete on this show yet. You know, you should draw, you should ask Jerry Haworth to do the show. He's got, he's a Luddite. I don't even know how to get to him. I think I have to send him a snail mail. You got to get his mailing address. Smoke signals. But I would actually thoroughly enjoy that. And if you had any way to contact him, I would be happy to take that from you.

Do you want to hear my favorite? We're still talking a bit about Led Zeppelin here before we close, but do you want to hear my favorite Zeppelin? Sure, man. Roll it. Now, I'm not a Zeppelin guy. I just like a lot of their radio hits,

if you will. So don't make fun of me for this. You can't make fun of me for this. Why would I? Too popular? It's a good song. You know what? There's really only one Led Zeppelin song I'm kind of burned out on.

Yeah, yeah. But you know what? Now when you do hear it, maybe listen on the radio, it's kind of nice. I felt like from, well, I don't even know what you call it. I guess you call it Led Zeppelin 4. But the big hits from there, it's been a long time since I rock and roll. What's that called? It's called rock and roll.

Right, rock and roll, Black Dog, and Stairway to Heaven. For example, when I was growing up, those were, and I was growing up in the 80s, those were heavy rotation songs. Stairway was never released as a single either. They didn't release singles, did they? Yeah, yeah. Oh, they did. Black Dog was a single. Diremaker or Duremaker or whatever however you pronounce it. Duremaker. Yeah, Duremaker.

That was a single. I think Hot Dog, well, the last album had singles from it. Every one of their albums went to number one, by the way. Or top ten. Sure. Didn't make number one. Sure. But this one here, you mentioned Physical Graffiti. Every one of their albums went to number one, by the way. I don't know if everybody, or top ten, did make number one. Sure. I'm trying to remember. But this one here, like you mentioned Physical Graffiti.

The first Zeppelin album I bought was Les Zeppelin IV because of jams like this. And this is the one, like when I hear this, I just think it's just so bluesy, that bluesy rock and that vocal style. It's just, I think it's just... And then you got the funk of Trampled Underfoot with the same, you know...

Yeah, I think that's got a Stevie Wonder vibe and it's just cool as all hell. That's the thing about Zeppelin. All their music has weight. It's probably the best way to put it. It's got weight. But what do you say to people who say that they are just ripping off other artists?

Well, they rip them off in a really nice way. That's all I can say. That's right. I think if it somehow denied those artists compensation, well, they should be compensated. But otherwise, he did a real good job at that. I mean, Killin' Floor, which I'm blank on what it actually became, but they did some remarkable, remarkable songs.

It was the right guys, just like the Beatles, right four guys or right five guys at the right time. Somebody else that I got to mention, too, is Deep Purple. I don't know. I don't know how familiar you are. David Cloverdale? Oh, well, before David Cloverdale. You've broken my heart already.

So I only know Highway Star, I know. And I know the big one, Smoke on the Water. But then after that, I'm kind of. I mean, they were a blues band originally as well. And if you go back back actually flip, take Machine Head for example with Smoke on the Water flip it over to Side 2 and listen to some of those songs. Ian Pace

the drummer is one of the greatest. If Buddy Rich had played rock and roll he'd be Ian Pace. This guy is incredible. I like talking to guys like you who can you know, obviously I'm missing out here and hearing you talk about Deep Purple, now I'm like, oh, I just know Smoke on the Water and Highway Star. Like, you know, it just.

I don't know if I mentioned this earlier when we were talking about Kirk and Lake and getting to pick my own music. One of the things I did once I started there was I made sure to pick one song an hour that I didn't know. No, you didn't mention that. Obviously, it's in here, so it's a good song. Because if it wasn't a good song, we wouldn't play it. And I just pull out a song, and I don't know what this is, but I'm going to play it. And I discovered the one song that really sticks out for some reason. That I discovered going, oh, that's that song.

It's a 70s single, Long Tall Glasses by Leo Sayre. I don't know it. I don't know it. And I put that on the turntable to play, and it's like, ah, that's what that is. That sounds really risky to me. You know what I mean? That sounds super risky. Well, like I say, if it's in the library, it's meant to be played.

Yeah, gotcha. So that was fun. There was another one. I think Little Green Bag was another one that I played, not quite knowing what it was, going, oh, is that what this is? It's funny because until Reservoir Dogs, I had never heard that jam, and it became like a personal favorite because I just pictured the guys walking to it in Dogs.

It's like I just tie it to the movie now, and I love that song. Do you know what that song's about? Marijuana? Yeah, he lost his little green bag you can't find in the house anywhere. Yeah, that's right. That makes sense. Song made me laugh.

Movies do that too of songs. I'll discover a song in a movie and then I'll just, or a show's even, but Tarantino does that all the time. He'll take this jam that, you knew it from the 70s, but if you weren't around in the 70s

you might not know Little Green Bag and then he'll just give it new life. Guardians of the Galaxy. I mean, both those soundtracks are great. Have you seen Guardians 2? Nope. Not yet. One of the greatest opening scenes ever.

With music, I gotta say. I can't exactly remember what the song was. It was, you know, a hit radio single. But no, the opening scene of Guardians of the Galaxy 2, especially if you like Groot. Yeah, of course. Absolutely.

It's definitely... If that's all you see of the movie, it's worth it. I'm so behind on my Marvel and superhero stuff. I'm so behind. If I showed you the list of big movies I've got to catch, forget Black Panther. I haven't seen Wonder Woman. I haven't seen the Thor thing.

I am so far behind. I've got some catching up to do. Interesting choice. This is a great song. Lowest of the Low. Every episode of this podcast is closed with Rosie and Grave from Lowest of the Low. I love these guys. You closed with Rosie and Grave from Lowest of the Low.

I love these guys. You know, they sat in that seat and performed on this show. Right on. So when you're cherry picking your podcast episodes, find the one with Lawrence Nichols and Ron Hawkins. There's something else I miss from radio is the live performances. I miss having people in and doing live performances. Having Jan Arden sitting as far away from you and singing I Would Die for You and looking like she meant it. Oh, God, I'm melted.

This morning I heard her on Q, like I was listening to Q on CBC Radio, and Jan Arden was there. I heard her this morning. And Sheryl Crow singing directly to me. That was lovely. You're a lucky guy. We've had some... Laura Hubert drinking our

producer under the table up in Sudbury after a concert. I picture mountains of coke on the, that was a big thing in radio, right? Yeah. You can't speak about that. That came well after my well before

my tenure. There wasn't so much payola at the time. In fact, there was none. Tim, I love this. And I can't wait to hear how you're going to say Vlad Guerrero Jr. Like, I just can't wait to hear it. I'm working on it. I got a couple of years,

so once I figure it out, I'll let you know. I'm telling you, you might not have as much time as you think. You might have him up in September. Well, he's still in Dunedin in high A's. I have a feeling. I have a feeling. I know they don't want to rush him,

but I think he's one of those exceptions. He might be up in September. He might be. Well, I think the only thing that would have him up in September is if the team is kind of out of it. Let's not have him up. I'd love to see him, but you know what? Bring him up and let him sit in the press box and watch a couple games.

He's our opening day third baseman in 2019. I'm fine with that. Tim, I love this. That was great. And Jed, I got to talk to Jed about this summertime, summertime for Dalton Pompei. We got to make that happen. Oh, you should certainly be responsive to it.

And that brings us to the end of our 313th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Tim is at TR Langton. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthe6.com is at Raptors Devotee. PayTM is at PayTM Canada. And Camp Tournesol is at Camp Tournesol.

That's T-O-U-R-N-E-S-O-L. See you on Friday when Darren Dreger is my guest.