Will Cain Country - Jim Gray: The One Trait Every Sports GOAT Has

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

On this edition of The Will Cain Show’s Friday sports episode, Will sits down with legendary sportscaster and FOX News Contributor, Jim Gray, to discuss what it takes to be a GOAT (Greatest Of All Time), if he ever feared physical intimidation during his career, and the art of interviewing high profile athletes and individuals.  Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail] Subscribe to The Will Cain Show on YouTube here: Watch The Will Cain Show! Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He's talked to Mike Tyson, Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and he's written about the ghosts. The legendary sportscaster, Jim Gray, today on the Will Kane Show. It is the Will Kane Show, normally streaming live every Monday through Thursday at 12 o'clock Eastern time. at foxnews.com on the Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News Facebook page. Always on demand by subscribing at Apple or on Spotify. It is a Kane on Sports Friday edition of the Will Kane show. Today, I'm joined by legendary sportscaster Jim Gray. I hung out with Jim a few weeks ago at the Super Bowl in New Orleans.

Some of my bosses, as we went to dinner afterwards, said, Will, did you call Jim legendary any less than half a dozen times? He is legendary. He's literally talked to almost every goat of every sport. I asked him in the course of this conversation to revisit some of his interviews with Pete Rose, Mike Tyson, and I asked him, what's the biggest outlier among goats? He told me what makes goats outliers. I was kind of interested in which goat, though, is an outlier from the other goats,

which one breaks the mold. It is a fascinating conversation, including him telling me who he thinks the most underrated greatest of all time is in sports. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jim Gray. Jim Gray, Jim, we're sitting here together. You've got first take on in the background, and you're watching LeBron James. Stephen A. Smith addressed that LeBron James dressed him down last night

at an NBA game where Stephen A. Smith was sitting courtside. Here's why I find this interesting. I want to talk to you about this as a beginning to our conversation. Stephen A, Jim, is as much a part of the story as he covers the story. And that doesn't make Stephen A unique, and it doesn't make him wrong. I'm a bit of a figure like that on occasion, and I think it could be argued. Maybe you're not the first, because I think Cosell certainly at times is part of the story as well. But you, while a consummate journalist, have at times become part of the story.

And I think at times that might have been something people like, oh, no, you're not. supposed to be. But what do you think about that? Like, the story this morning is about Stephen A. Smith. Well, it's unavoidable in these positions because Stephen A. Smith is on television a number of hours a day on all kinds of platforms on ESPN. And he's prolific. And he's got an opinion. And that's what he has paid to do. And he's a journalist. And he covers the game. He was a writer for an awful a long time, long before he was on the airwaves in Philadelphia and Atlanta. And so now because of the dominant position that he has at ESPN, people are looking to him. They want his opinion. He's very popular. And he's also a lightning rod because he says things that other people won't say.

And he's not afraid. It's not afraid to take on any of them. He will speak to the powers and he will confront the powers on television with his tank. I don't find it to be malicious. I find it to be informative, and I don't always agree with his opinion. I don't think that anybody agrees with anybody all the time with their opinion. But he's not afraid to say it, and he's not afraid to get out there. In my instance, whether it was asking questions of people, because that's predominantly what I do, ask questions. I'm not an opinionist.

I do come on from time to time when people do want my opinion, and I give it. like this show or elsewhere but my professional career has basically been doing interviews and asking questions at games or at halftime pregames and so forth people don't like the questions that are asked sometimes and so you then become the story and in a social media age it just goes on and on and snowballs and really never goes away because if somebody sees something and then it careens, and you're well aware of it, then that's something that they attach to you for a long, long time. And so it really has no relevance in my daily life,

other than I ask somebody a question in a boxing ring or courtside or whatever, and we're on to the next interview. But for others, there's a very distinct memory of it, and it hits them in a way. And so it's not necessarily what you say, it's what people hear and how it's received. and there's a whole confluence of people who receive this, the advertisers, the players, their families, the agents, the organization, the fans, you know, there's a whole web there.

And so they hear it differently or they take it differently and then you deal with it. And that's what Stephen A does on a daily basis on a moment-to-moment basis. And as you point out, he does it really well. He's getting paid more than most athletes. That's the news this week, $100 million over five years for Stephen A to stay at ESPN. Do you think it's different, Jim, from... He really earned that, Will. I agree.

He really earned that. I agree. He really, really hard. And he's on television all day, every day. And he's prepared and he's ready. So he's earned, he's really earned that check. I'm happy for him. It sounds like you're a fan of Stephen A.

That's what I hear. Absolutely. I am. I am. I love people who work hard. He's diligent. And, you know, I find him. I find him to be informative.

and entertaining. So I like it, yes, and I like him. And I've known him a long time. I am too. I am too personally and professionally. I'm a fan of Stephen A. Very much so. He's been an important figure for me in my career. He's put me in positions to succeed and shine a light on what I've done. And, you know, that's a lot in our business, as you know, Jim. Like, you know, not a lot of people are interested or willing to do that because they consider this whole thing to be a zero-sum game. Whatever light shines on you takes away from the light on me you know and so it's it's a it's a rarity um so i'm appreciative of stephen a do you think it's different do you i mean it's a kind of a layup question because

everybody says it's different but you've spanned two different eras the athletes today everybody says has rabbit ears i mean the guy who has come to sort of embody that is kevin durant he seems to hear everything anybody ever says and feels it you know and wants to talk about it but you also dealt with athletes before the social media age and i think i've seen you talk about you know your relationship with barry bonds or we know the stuff with peter rose or whatever may be do you think it's very you think it was the same then you just maybe didn't have as many platforms to hear about it as often the athletes heard about you knew about you had feelings about you as you went into your interview you know i think it's different because the way it was presented

was different. And the way it was presented is there was three networks and then the advent of cable and ESPN and CNN and so forth and then it kind of grew. There was talk radio. And so talk radio was basically back then the internet. That was where everybody had the conversations that nobody else would be having and they just went on and on forever and things snowballed and some of it was true and some of it was accurate and some of it wasn't. But it made for conversation. So the internet just became that on steroids. And so it was much, much different. When we covered the games in that previous era before the internet, before you've got mail and all of this, we had a proximity that was much different, Will, we would go in before games. And Michael Jordan would come and

speak to us an hour and 20 minutes, an hour and 15 minutes before every single game that he played on NBC, he would sit down with Mar or Amad, and we would have to be. a little production meeting and he would talk to us and not only on camera, but off camera. You know, that does not occur. That does not occur with anybody, let alone the greatest player in the history of the game. You know, so the proximity has changed. You could walk right up to John Elway after practice. You could be with him in the locker room and sit there and have a production meeting or just have a one-on-one and, you know, just shoot the shit with him and just talk to him and get to know him and develop a rapport. Then when you had

information, you could go to him. And then if the information was germane, at least in my case, and what was relevant to on the field, not off the field. If something happened off the field that didn't have necessarily anything to do with a person's play, you know, it didn't have any effect on whether or not they struck out or through an interception or anything, then it stayed off the field and it stayed out of the public domain. If it spilled onto it and it became public, then we discussed it, and we talked about it. I think now there's such a microscope. Everybody's followed everywhere on camera.

I mean, I'm on camera here with you now, and there's probably three or four more cameras in this place that I don't even know about, or somebody's listening that shouldn't be listening, or something's going on that you don't know is going on because we're tracked at every moment. I mean, you go into an airport now, and they don't show an ID, you know, they know you by your eyes,

or they know you by, you know, facial recognition, or by your thumbprint, or who knows how they know you, but you're being followed everywhere. And so because of that, the athletes, not only do they have their own platforms where they can speak out and address the public directly and give them what they want as opposed to what all of us might want to know,

they're also being chronicled in a way that's unrelenting. And so it creates a barrier. There's something about that proximity thing that you said that interests me. so much, I think this is something we've lost in society, but also in our profession. And honestly, we're exhibiting some of it right now, you and me. And that is, I think we all intellectually know we've learned that communication, I can't remember what the status, Jim, but I think it's like huge.

Like 70, 80% of communication is nonverbal. It's physical. You're reading people, how they're reacting, you know, and you being around athletes on when you're doing those interviews, that's a very different experience than even Stephen A this morning on first take. And like you said, this isn't about Stephen A because he's done his, he was a beat writer. He was in locker rooms. He did all that. But now he's on a platform where he's more removed. Last night he wasn't with LeBron James. But that nonverbal communication and body language and tone and interpersonal face-to-face element of it, it's just a much more complete picture. of how you're interviewing

somebody, what you're getting from them, their personality, then how much so much of this is done today. I find that fascinating. It changes what we do. Taking whatever it is, 70% of communication out of the recipe. It's a really

interesting point, and I hadn't really thought of that. Or did I know that statistic or, but it is. I mean, when somebody smiles at you and they say something, even if it's a tough thing, you know, it's softer, it's gentler, it's easier, even if somebody's aggravated and they say it in a tone of voice. When it comes across someplace else or when it's the written word or when it's on Twitter

or, you know, in a post somewhere, you know, the tone of that can be much, much different than an in-person conversation. Not that that's what happened with LeBron last night and Stephen A. It didn't seem like LeBron's tone was very soft at all. But the point is, is if you're a With people, you get to know them. Okay? And technology is wonderful. I mean, it's astonishing that we can do all of these things. Just, you know, you push a button and, you know, none of us have any idea how any of this works and we're connected.

We're connected to family. We're connected to friends. We're connected to do things like this. So it's really amazing. And you can do this with anybody in the world at a moment's notice. So that's the good part of it. The bad part of it is we don't see people in the fashion that we used to see people. And COVID, I think, changed a lot of people's lives.

COVID was a major, major divergence in the way that people live in proximity and going to work and all of the things that have happened. The schools, it just changed so much a pandemic, a global pandemic where people were dying and that altered people's behavior. And think about what that does now to future generations. those people like myself had never experienced anything like that you know we grew up in the 60s in the 70s and you know never had any kind of a global pandemic think about these kids now who didn't go to school and you know do work from home now and things of that nature so it all plays

into what it is that you say and then how do you retrieve that because technology do does make things so much easier it's a heck of a lot easier for me to do a Zoom meeting with somebody than to fly to New York. More of the Will Cain Show, right after this. I'm Janice Dean. Join me every Sunday as I focus on stories of hope and people who are truly rays of sunshine in their community and across the world. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com. Listen to the all-new Brett Bear podcast featuring Common Ground.

In-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Bear favorites like his All-Star panel and much more. available now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts welcome back to the will cane show yeah so jim what's the um most physically this ties to the proximity thing what's the most physically intimidated you've ever been in an interview i mean look you've got the book talking to goats the moments you remember and the stories you never heard you talk about a lot of the interviews that we know you did that here these big moments in history mike tyson peteros what's the most and i'm talking about just for this part of our conversation just physically intimidated you know

you know in some of these situations you're going to be in a confrontational environment every human being as part of confrontation at least has it in the back of their head there is a physical element to this and you're dealing with some guys who are very physical and alpha i'm just curious curious where physical intimidation was ever the most present in one of your interactions? I never really felt personally in peril, okay? I never felt like somebody was going to haul off and just hit me. Okay, but there were some very tense moments. One of them was James Tony after he fought Evander Holyfield.

And we were doing an interview and he won the fight. And for whatever the reason, he was aggravated. And, you know, he had, you know, been a great chance. champion and I asked him a question and he knocked the microphone out of my hand and I went and picked up the microphone and he said don't walk up on me and it was a it was a it was a horrible public display for no reason he won the fight the questioning wasn't bad at all there was you know there was nothing you know and obviously he was very agitated he had just won a fight and you know fighters can be agitated in these moments and you know he had you know had some um i believe

you know some steroid uh accusations or had been suspended so you know you never know what the chemical balance was or wasn't i don't remember exactly what it was um but so that was kind of and so i just walked over to a holy field and holy field just kind of shook his head and i stood next to evander so i know he wasn't going to come at me again when i'm standing next to avander so you know that was kind of One of those moments. Mike Tyson, in a very famous interview, threatened to kill me and Don King. And then about 20 seconds later, he kissed me on the cheek. And I'm still trying to figure out what's more disturbing.

So, you know, that was an interesting moment. Barry Bond said he was going to kick my ass. If we aired an interview, we agreed to redo the interview. He did not sit down and redo the interview. interview. So we aired the original one. And he said that, you know, if that went on the air, he told Bill White, the then president of the National League, that he was going to beat my ass. And then he hits the game-winning home run for Pittsburgh and against Atlanta before the very famous Sid Bream game. And after the game, we had to do the interview. And I said, Barry, you know,

we were showing the replays, and Tim McCarver and Sean McDonough were doing it. I said, if this is going to be embarrassing, like before the game, then perhaps we shouldn't do this. And he just kind of looked at me, and he said, Jim Gray, you're good with me. And then from that moment on, we had a great relationship. He let me do all of those interviews about when he broke Babe Ruth's record at 714 and then Hank Aaron's record at 755. I was the only guy he would talk to.

We discussed all of the allegations. that he had gone through in Balka. And so that was kind of a turning point, but it came from a very intimidating point where he threatened to kick my ass. But, you know, all of these things are just in the moment. I'm dealing and you're dealing, and a lot of us are dealing with athletes

at their highest peak of performance, their greatest victory, you know, Brady when he comes back from 28 to 3, or their lowest moment, or just a high-pressured circumstance where there's a lot of emotion and feeling, and testosterone and all of these things, and then I'm standing there with a microphone

asking them questions. So it can bring out the best and it can bring out the worst. And so I'm understanding of that. I'm sensitive to it. I know what's going on. And sometimes these emotions just spilled over, but I really never felt, well, never really felt

that anybody was ever going to physically damage or harm me in any way. I want to follow up on a couple of those just out of my own curiosity. What did James Tony mean by don't lock up me do you know to the stay what that meant no he turned he knocked the microphone out of my hand oh okay you can watch it on you don't walk up he knocked the microphone out of my hand and i bent down and he turned and walked away and i bent down to pick up the microphone because every announcer

needs microphone to be on television and we're on live television so i picked it up and so when i picked it up he then turned around and he said don't ever walk up on me and he was like threatening oh god it's like he was going to hit me so you know i don't know who knows what he's what he was thinking What about Tyson? So then he apologized with, through, he apologized through Dan Gooseyn, who was a great promoter, a Hall of Fame promoter, brother Joe Goosein, 10 goose boxing. And he apologized. And I said, I don't accept that apology. And he said, why not?

And I said, a public display deserves a public apology. A private display is a private apology. You can't apologize to me privately for a public. display. So to his credit, to his credit, he went on the platform that night as the champion and he apologized. And so I thought, you know, that that was, I thought, I thought very highly of James Tony because he was willing to do that and just wasn't going to stand behind, you know, something private. That's awesome. Yeah. What, what about Tyson? How do you explain, and maybe there is no explanation, that that huge roller coaster of emotion that he was on in that

in that moment with you, you know, I'm going to kill you, and then he's kissing you on the cheeks. And by the way, do you think some of Tyson was calculated? Like, he was kind of in the Olly mindset. I want to be a personality as much as I am a champion, or was that just his own emotional roller coaster? Well, he had just been tired of being mistreated, and he and Don King had a lot of issues, and he had won a lawsuit or later sued Don and won a bunch of money. So, I'm sorry, that's my telephone quacking. I apologize. Let me turn that off.

You got a duck quack as your, as your announcer. So I apologize for that. It's all right. The, he had been, you can edit this or whatever you do or you don't. It's okay. It's all good. It's all real. It's okay.

No, Tyson's roller coaster. There we go. So he had had some issues with Don and felt that Don had taken some money from him, later sued him and won a lawsuit or they settled the lawsuit. And so he was just kind of lashing out, and he said, I'll kill Don King. I'll kill you. So it wasn't really directed at me at the moment. He was just putting me as part of the sentence that he would kill anybody who messed with him.

And so was he calculated? No, I don't think so. Mike Tyson is the most honest athlete. I've ever been around. This guy, Will, took his own medicine. He never hid behind the trainer. He never hid behind anybody for anything. When he did something wrong, he admitted it.

When he did something wrong, he took accountability. And, you know, he was, he was, he's the most honest guy in sports. And he never tried to cover up or hide anything. He wrote me a letter when he was in prison. I talked about it in the book. He had written me a five-page letter, and I don't know how he got my address because we weren't social. We were professionally very well acquainted, but not socially acquainted. I'd been out with him a few times, you know, after some of his victories, they'd have parties and so forth.

Don would throw a big party, and he would be there, but, you know, we never had gotten together on that level. So this letter came to my house and it had been open because back then when you got something from the penal system, they had opened. They opened the letters from the Indiana Youth Penitentiary and read it just to make sure that whatever was going out wasn't for a plot of some sort or whatever. So this open letter came and it was five pages. And about the third page, the letter said, Mr. Gray, that's what he called me, Mr. Gray. They will let me go tomorrow if I'll admit to this rape. But I'll never, ever admit to something I didn't do. Next paragraph.

However, there are four or five other things that I've done throughout the course of my life that are worse than what I'm accused of. therefore I feel I'm at the right place at this time. Wow. We got out of jail. So he gets out of jail and he's coming out of jail and I'm there and they're holding up this big black coat and Don's there, Don King and some others and Don says to Mike, are we talking to Jim? And Mike says yes.

So it's for the today show and Dateline. And we sit down. and Mike sits down and I have this letter and I, before I go on the air, I said, Mike, is this a private letter or can this be public? Mr. Gray, you can ask me whatever you want. It's not a problem. And so I told him what it was containing before we did it because I didn't want to take something private and make it public. He says, you ask me whatever you want. So I asked him, I said, what were the four or five other things that you were accused of

that were worse than the rape? And therefore, you felt you were at the right place at this time. and he looked over at his attorney and he looked back at me and he said, Mr. Gray, it's probably best not to answer this on national television because I don't know the statute of limitations. However, what I wrote you is true. Wow. Oh, man. The most honest athlete you've ever come across.

Mike Tyson. More of the Will Kane Show right after this. Fox News Audio presents Unsolved with James Batterson. Every crime tells the story, but some stories are left unfinished. Somebody knows. Real cases, real people. Listen and follow now at foxtruecrime.com. It is time to take the quiz.

It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along. Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at the quiz. Then come back here to see how you did. Thank you for taking the quiz. Welcome back to the Will Kane Show. Okay, but now back to Barry Bond.

that relationships arc right to ultimately what you said is he chose to you know what's the right what's the right word use you but talk to you it became a relationship of antagonism into one that he that he privileged he privileged your relationship um how do you explain that is that just you earned his respect because he came over time to realize the integrity of what you were even if he was on the other side of that integrity? Like why? How did that relationship rebound that way? You know, I'm not sure.

You know, I can't tell you how you feel, so I can't really tell you how Barry feels or why. It just did. I had a similar incident with Bill Walsh, the great coach of the San Francisco 49ers. Back in the early days of ESPN, I was the first reporter they had. And so they would send me to about 10 or 12 football camps, and we would go every day to a different one. We'd start with the Rams, and we'd go to the Chargers, and we'd go up to Kirkland, Washington, to the Seattle Seahawks, and then down to the 49ers.

So I got to the 49ers, and Bill Walsh was going to come on with me at 1 o'clock. And all of these were very carefully planned and timed because you had to get a plane to the next one of the next day and so forth. And these were even back in the days when we didn't have satellites. So we would send these tapes back via Delta Dash overnight via Courier. So anyway, we got to Bill Walsh. And I was talking to Ronnie Latt. And it was for a one o'clock interview. And Rodney Knox was the PR director.

and Jerry Walker. And so Bill Wall showed up at about seven minutes to one. And I was talking to Ronnie Latt. So he was about seven minutes early. About seven minutes early. And I continued with Ronnie Lott because he just sat down. And I figured, okay, we're not late. So I did the interview.

Got finished at about two minutes till one, which was still two minutes before the time was set. So now it becomes, and Bill's Bill had walked away. So now it's 115, 1130, 145. We're supposed to do the interview and then leave because practice had already been. And so now it's 145, 2 o'clock. We got to get on the plane to get up to Kirkland to outside of Seattle or wherever it was. And now it's 2 o'clock. And so I say to Rodney, I said, Rodney, what happened? He said, well, Bill says now you have to wait until after the two

of days, until the second one, 530, because you weren't ready when he came. So I called up the ESPN assignment desk and tell them what it is. And they say, well, no, you better go. And so I said, I said to Rodney, we're going to go because we got to go 345 or whatever. And he says, well, coach isn't going to like that. I said, well, you tell coach the following. We weren't worth waiting. We were on time. And he's now going to screw up a schedule for the rest of the week because he wouldn't wait two minutes for us. But now we're supposed to now alter our schedule for days because he was early and he wouldn't wait. Give him that message. He said, I can't give him that message. So the assignment desk makes the decision, we better stay. We can't not have

Bill Walsh. She's the great coach. So he sits down in the chair and I say, Bill, you know, you just screwed up this whole thing. We were on time. And now, you know, I've got bosses. They're all aggravated at us and the crew. Like, we did something right. We didn't do anything wrong. We weren't worth waiting for two minutes, but you think that you should be able to. to, you know, do all of this. And I understand you're a busy man and you're an important man. But that's just that's disrespectful. It's really disrespectful.

Does the interview. So I figured, well, that'll be the end of Bill Walsh. That, you know, one and done. That was it. Even though I don't mean one and done. I mean, this would be the last time. So fast forward. There's a game in Buffalo three months later,

whenever in the middle of the season. And Bill Walsh is on the 10-yard line. and I'm in the end zone doing my thing. And he walks all the way across the field and comes and puts his arm around me and talks to me for the next 15 minutes before a very important game. So you can't explain it. And then he was just a great friend for the rest of his life with me. So I don't know.

You can't ever tell what triggers with somebody or what it is or why. But, you know, that was the case. And so it's just kind of an interesting thing. You know, I was annoyed with Bill because it was just kind of, it was just a wrong. It was a big-footed move for no reason. Like, what am I supposed to do? Kick Ronnie a lot out of the chair and be disrespectful to him because the coach showed up early? You know, Jim, I mean, who am I to say this?

But from a distance, what I tend to analyze this as or it makes sense to me is, look, having strength in your own integrity, including asking tough questions, does rub people the wrong way in the short term. But I do think there's a great percentage of people that over the long term, that if they are men of integrity or even people of grit, they come to respect, well, that person, every time I've stood up for myself, not every time, that's not fair. Most times I've stood up for myself or done something at this. It actually works out most of the time in the long term you know what i mean like um people come to respect that uh and it seems to be that's a little bit of a through line where it's bonds or walsh or whatever it may be and so i'm curious i've seen you do

some interviews on this you how your relationship evolved with rose because i know you know you and rose readdressed you know you asking them a question during the the the honorary game and they're they've got all the big players out there uh and it's probably what is it it the number one thing you've received backlash for in your career, that line of questioning to Pete Rose and whether or not he gambled on baseball? Yes, sir. Yes. Yeah. But you and Rose readdressed it later in your relationship, right? Well, I had worked in Philadelphia and used to work at a station called Prism, one of my

early jobs where it was a, Prism was a regional sports network, one of the first, or maybe the first in the country. It did the Sixers, Flyers, and Phillies games. So I did the Phillies pregame show. So I had interviewed Pete 70 times before we had done this interview on NBC before Game 2 of the World Series of Atlanta and the Yankees where they honored, you know, the all-century team. So we were very familiar with each other. And, you know, again, we weren't friends, but very well professionally acquainted and never had a problem. So, you know, Pete knew these questions were coming. These questions that come from everybody from Bob Costas to Barbara Walters to whoever, you know, and this was the first time he was back on the field.

So he had to know that, you know, this wasn't opening and this was really an opportunity and that he was going to be asked about this. If he didn't, I don't know what he was thinking. Again, I can't tell you what other people's feelings are or aren't. So, yeah, so that went on. And, you know, again, when you have the retrospect, of things and be able to look in the rearview mirror, I had a boss, Dick Eversall, who was very supportive and terrific, put me on all these big events and was a great boss to me.

He said, you know, you should look at this on television and watch this tape, Jim, and see what you think. So I went back and watched it on television, and I was in the dugout, okay, watching this. And this took place in shallow center field just beyond second base. And from where I sat, it was kind of, you know, it wasn't one of these warm, fuzzy feelings. It kind of fell a little flat in the stadium until Hank Aaron was introduced, and Pete, okay? You couldn't see Sandy Colfax hugging Brooks Robinson and, you know, Ted Williams, you know, you could not see all of the emotion that was going on with all of these guys, Frank Robinson and, you know, all of these old time great.

historic players from the dugout. I was not watching television. That was a big mistake because you could not hear the violins and the warm music that brings out these melancholy feelings. You could just hear Vince Scully announcing guy after guy after guy. And so when I watched it on television, I had a much different feeling. So I had the same feeling now that everybody had at home. You know, like this is your childhood.

This is your dream. This is field of dream. of those things. Okay. So when I then came on with this interview and I'm, you know, hard-hitting questions to Pete Rose, it changed the entire tenor and tone of what the evening had been and what the audience was enjoying. That was a mistake of mine. It was a mistake of mine. The questioning wasn't a mistake, but the tone and and what people had been feeling was a mistake. And I didn't recognize that in that moment because that was not the feeling that I was having in the stadium and probably wasn't the feeling that the 50,000 people who were

gathered at the stadium was having either until Hank and Pete came. So I could see how that was jarring and how that was abrupt and how it changed the tenor of everything that people were having a good time and enjoying and feeling good about. The questioning is not regretful. Not at all. Okay. This is... The tone could have been better and different. Okay. I want to dig in on this for a minute because I think there's something deeper that I'm interested in here. You focus on tone. So you wish you would have had a different tone. And I agree with you. It's like there's. Yeah. And I agree with you. The line of questioning is entirely legitimate, right? Okay. So that's one bucket. Then you're analyzing the tone. What do you think about time and place? Was it the time in place for that question? And here's why. I've tried to learn throughout time, Jim. And honestly, you, you know, you know me decently, but not, you know, we're not like, we haven't talked a ton, ton, but ESPN used to have this course.

And I don't know if they had it when you were there, Jim. They had this guy, and I can't remember his name. It was the one of the best things I've ever done in this career. It's what it is, Jim. That's exactly right. Swatki was awesome. It's one of the best things I've ever been a part of in this industry. So for those listening, this was, they used to make everybody who joined ESPN take this course.

It was like a two or three day course with a guy named John Swatsky to teach you how to interview. And when I say this, he was really, really good. I think, Jim, I don't know how you feel really good in teaching someone how to interview. And I went to law school, which I think informs how I interview a lot. But this is as valuable to me as law school. That doesn't mean every time I do something, I'm following Swatsky's rules. You and I, I'm not doing it now. I'm having a conversation with you.

That's very different from an interview. But, you know, in the beginning, there are elements in times of my career where I wanted to interview. And I'm going to ask the question because it needs to be asked. And that's the right question. And you had the right questions in that moment. But as I've grown throughout time, Jim, I've started to think not just about tone, but time and place. So, for example, I've confronted this a couple of times. When Kobe dies, okay, and I have a daily radio show on ESPN, is that the day, the day after to talk about Kobe's rape allegations?

you know, is that the time in place when you're revisiting everything about his career? And I think about that a lot now. You know, like, the question is legitimate, is this the time and place to do it? So when you look back on the Pete Rose thing, is it just your tone or do you think it may have not been the right? And I'm not telling you what I think. I'm just curious what you think. Time and place. Well, there's a time in place for everything.

And again, yes, I believe this was a time for Pete. He could have gotten reinstated because there was an opening. and had he taken a different tact, I believe he probably would have gotten reinstated by Bud Seleague. I believe that there was an opening. And that's why I asked him the questions. I liked Pete. Again, I was Philly's pregame guy.

Okay? I didn't want to see Pete suffer. I think he had to suffer the consequences for his actions. But I would have liked to have seen Pete get into the Hall of Fame. I would have liked to have seen Pete be have a path to be involved in baseball, perhaps never in a capacity where it would be something that he could have, you know, the outcome of a game because the legitimacy of the games is all that matters. So not to have a role in that, but maybe as a hitting and struck,

maybe some type of way to get back. So this was an opening for Pete. So time and place, while there are certainly mistakes that I could have done, made better with the tone and things that I wished, you know, having seen television that that I would have done, I think Pete, and I said it at the end, it was his own worst enemy. Right there. Why not have a softer approach? He admitted to it later when he wrote his book, and we talked about it. I did, when I did talking to goats, Fox gave me a special, a one hour special for the book. And they wanted me to go back and talk to all of these goats.

So we did. We had Eric Dickerson and Julius Irving and Tom Brady and all of the folks, you know, Lonnie Ali and in Mohammed's absence. And I called Pete. And I had not spoken to Pete since that night in 1999. So this is we'd seen each other two or three times. When I say not spoken, we had not sat down and had a long, a long conversation. We had seen each other and had been cordial a couple of times at a fight. He was signing autographs once in Las Vegas. in the Caesar's Mall and we spoke. So we had spoken. So I called him and I said, would you do an interview? I have a chapter on you in the book. And he said, sure. And he came and did that interview. And he apologized to me. And he apologized to Faye Vincent and to John Dowd for making our lives worse and miserable over his actions. And he said he was trapped. Well, he said he felt trapped. He said, if he admitted it then, and in any of the interviews, he knew he would be banned forever and that an admission would be the ammunition that everybody would use to say, see, we have you. But they had it. John Dowd's report is airtight to this day. To this day,

that nobody's found any flaws or anything wrong with anything in that report. And so, but he felt trapped by it. So he said, the only way I could, in his head, was to say, stonewall and to keep denying, thought that that was his only chance. And he had recognized that it was wrong. And then he said at the end of it, he said, Jim Gray, he's talked to all the goats. This is a great book. Go get this book. I'm going to rip out the chapter on me because I don't want to relive all of this, but the rest of this is fantastic. He probably even spoke to Babe Ruth. So, you know, our relationship. And then Mike Tyson and I were at an event, a cancer event, and Pete Rose was there and he came up to Mike and I

and we spoke for quite a while there and he asked Mike at the end of it and somebody had this on camera Eddie Murphy was standing next to us too and he asked Mike who do you think would have won a fight between you and Jim he said you don't want to fight with Jim I'm taking Jim so I always loved Mike for that because he had he had we'd been through all of those battles but you know I was sorry I was sorry about Pete's passing and I was sorry that, you know,

he never got it, you know, totally cleared up and he just lived a very complicated, sad, sad life in many ways because he loved baseball and it was his own doing that had him precluded from the game he loved. Let's take a quick break. In just a moment,

we'll be back on the Will Kane show. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hashbreadue, and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes iced coffee and delivery.

Following Fox's initial donation to the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, our generous viewers have answered the call to action across all Fox platforms and have helped raise $6.5 million. Visit go.com. forward slash TX flood relief to support relief and rebuilding efforts. Welcome back to the Wilcane Show. I want to ask you this about all your exposure to Go. and you writing about it.

You know, you talk about a lot of the qualities that contribute to or lead some of these guys into being goats, you know, Michael Jordan's competitiveness, Tom Brady's humility, you know, you talk about this. And I'm sure, Jim, there are commonalities, right? To be great at that level, I don't know. There's probably a baseline of competitiveness

that's required of all of them. I'm curious, what's the most unique, quality you saw in this, like, who's the biggest outlier? Because what actually set him apart and made him a go is not something you saw in other people, right? By the way, Brady and humility seems to me like it could be the answer. I wouldn't guess that goats have a lot of humility on the average. But I'm curious what is the most sort of outlier quality you saw among the goats the outlier quality is they're all chasing perfection and some of them some of them think they can actually capture it the realistic ones know it's like a jellyfish they can touch it

and it slips through their hands but they're always chasing it time and time and time again and how is that to find for don shula it was the perfect season for floyd mayweather it was the zero after his name Okay, and the dollars after the check. Okay, that's how they define, you know, perfection. Okay, for Michael Phelps, it was staring at a black line for almost his entire adult life from the time he was a little kid all the way through to somehow get a fingernail or an eyelash better to win all of those medals. Okay?

So they could touch that perfection for just a moment. Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods is one of the most tormented people in the history of the world. Okay? Because the guy can hit a seven iron better than anybody, and he can do it time and time again. But he can't do it all the time. But he thinks he should be able to.

So when you see him winning by 15 strokes at a U.S. Open or a Masters by 12 strokes, and he's got that grimace on his face, it's because something that none of us know. It's Tom Brady. None of us know. Tom will tell you, I was aiming for his nose. But he caught the ball at his cheek. Everybody says, what a great pass.

That's fantastic. That's great. But I know in my mind I missed by two inches. I know that it wasn't the perfect pass. And so what drives them? Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant was probably, and Michael Jordan were probably the two most competitive people I'd ever seen at any moment. And Kobe would tell you, Kobe would just tell you, teammates, they're overrated.

They're either with me or I just get them out of the way. Who speaks like that about their teammates? And guess what? He brought them all with them because they knew, if not, he's just going to get them out of the way. You're not going to play or you're not going to be on the team or you're not going to be in my life. So that's how he brought everybody along. And so when you say what's the outlier, the outlier is that they all have this total tunnel vision that nothing will stop them. Nothing will stop them in their pursuit.

And somebody else may have a great day and a more competitive day and beat them, but they won't beat them over the long run. They may beat them in a game, but they're not going to beat them competitively in life throughout the course. of their careers so that's what i would say who breaks the mold probably their pardon if that's the mold like that's the commonality it's an outlier to humanity but it's a mold among the greats who among the guys you've met though is different than all the others like in any way like wow i meet like one thing i've interviewed a ton of navy seals and green braids and i'm always fascinated by who what's the through line but i'm also fascinated by like that guy's different than all the other ones like i'm not saying better i'm just saying different he's a different

personality type a different archetype he's a different kind of guy than the rest of these warriors among the goats which one stands actually like i can't maybe you can't explain him even you're just like i don't know that guy is a different kind of prototype than the rest of them i would say Jordan and Brady because even after they had achieved everything or at least achieved everything in everybody else's mind, they were still trying to improve. They were still trying to get better and they still thought they couldn't get better. They still thought they hadn't reached where they could go even long after they had arrived. And so to be driven at that, and LeBron probably has this too, even though I don't have the proximity to LeBron anymore, not doing NBA games. But there's got to be

something driving this man at age 40 to still go out and play like this and to score his 50,000th point and to go beyond. But I know with Jordan, because I knew him and Kobe probably two and particularly Tom, they didn't ever think that there wasn't a day that they could have done something beyond what they had already achieved and do it better. Be a better teammate. Be a better passer, make another shot, learn another move, improve on his footwork and his legs at 840 and 43, whatever it was and whatever it took to be in better condition, have a better nutritional outlook of life. It was a fascinating thing to me because, you know, I'm sure you probably think, you know, you can do any interview, right? And I'm sure you probably work

on your skills, right? But you're probably not working on them in the way, and it's not physical in a way, right? Right. You have your own show. We all figure like, you know, I know how to do this. I know how to get into the ring and interview any fighter after any fight and be competent in what I've seen. So how do I improve on that? Well, I'd like to improve. I'd like to not stumble on a question. I'd like to be able to ignore the director or the producer in my ear and have a cohesive thought while that replay's going on and you know, I'm not, you know, have to repeat a sentence. So I want to get better, but I'm not working on it in the ways

that somebody's hitting me or somebody's stepping on my foot or hitting me on the side of my head or like Tiger Woods. You know, his dad was throwing, you know, change at his back and, you know, clapping while he was doing. So it's those type of things. that I think those truly, truly great ones really have where they're never ever satisfied. That's the word.

Well, that's the word. They're never satisfied. They want more and they think they can do better. It's really fascinating. Last thing. You've talked to so many of these guys, and I feel like Kobe, LeBron, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson. When we talk about goats, I think they do get a lot of attention.

Do you think there's an underrated goat? Like when you talk to these guys and you're like, it's kind of interesting you brought up dickerson you know i grew up i'm from you know outside of dallas i grew up knowing who eric dickerson is and from the 80s and 90s you would know a lot about dickerson right but no i don't think people talk about dickerson now in that same way is there somebody and i'm not saying that should be your answer but is there somebody you're like that guy does even among the goats he's underrated carl Lewis Carl Lewis. Carl Lewis is to this day. To this day is the most decorated track and field gold medalist ever. He has nine.

Carl Lewis was in four Olympics as either the fastest man in the world or the man who could jump the furthest. Think about that for a minute. Over the course of four Olympics, this guy either ran faster than anybody on the planet or jumped further. one or the other okay what do you what do we all do as kids run and jump that's something that everybody on the planet does and he did that better than anybody and he's i don't want to say he's an afterthought but he's not revered in my mind in the way of what his achievements are and what and and and and maybe it's because he didn't live in the social uh social media age maybe it was because of Ben Johnson steroids. Maybe it was because the Russians didn't come to the 84 Olympics.

I don't know what it is or why it is, but he would come to mind first. Carl Lewis is one of the most special, one of the greatest athletes in the history of the world, bar none, in the history of the world. So I would think that he's underrated. Do you agree with that? I think that's a hell of a case you just made. Yeah. and sometimes i don't know i you know what's funny jims i don't think of the answers to my own questions i want to hear your answer who is the most underrated go who is underrated yeah i i got to think about that jim i don't know i'm thinking out loud i'm just trying to think right now what i appreciate about that answer as well is we you know the Olympics

the way you categorize that of the pool of competitors that puts louis at the top of is everyone to your point like he's playing a thing that everyone has done i think it's often the argument for why we don't in america honor soccer players enough because every country in the world plays soccer so if you're one of the greats at that you have beat a bigger a bigger pool of people than becoming quite honestly the best quarterback you know and that's not to take away from brady or anyone else but i like how you went to lewis because of that fact he basically had to beat the entire world to be that great at his given at his his given event and you know Tom Brady Tom Brady said something to me said it many times and and it kind of stuck me it's not what

you do once that's not greatness anybody can be great on a day and anybody can have an achievement for a day it's what you do over and over and over again and over the course of time right And so when you look at the composition of a career like Carl, all those gold medals, a gold medal in four Olympiads is either the fastest or the furthest. So that's, you know, that's a special, that's a special thing. Look at, look at Jack Nicholas, you know, just from a golf perspective, not from an athlete perspective, but from a golf perspective and from competing, look at, look at the number of, you know, winning at age 46, winning those 18 majors coming in second 19 times, the span and the arc of

that, winning all of those tournaments, you know, it's just, that's an astonishing achievement too. I'm not putting him next to Carl Lewis. I'm just saying when you start looking at the records of people who have longevity and how they've been great for a long time, Jack Nicholas is right there. all right jim gray thank you so much for this time and this conversation i really appreciate it jim well thanks for having me appreciate it congratulations on all that's going great for you thanks for having me on well not to compare myself to brady or mike but we're very far from the perfection i hope for this thing to be jim i i walk away three four days a week completely frustrated with what we've done but we're going to get there we're all headed in the right direction so it's steps to

accomplishment. I appreciate Jim. Thank you very much. All right, Will. You take care. Good luck with everything. Take care. Thank you. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Jim Gray. Leave us a five-star review. Subscribe on Apple or Spotify, and I will see you again next time. Listen ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast and Amazon Prime members. You can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon Music app. It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along.

Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at thequiz.com. Then come back here to see how you did. Thank you for taking the quiz.