Did the Commanders Tamper with Luck?

the ending Poland show. We got to go after this with everything we got. They're going to come with everything they got. I'll start off by saying I'm bored. I'm broke and I'm back. The ending Poland show on ESPN 630 starts right now. All right, unless you are really into the NBA playoffs at this stage, we're not even in the conference finals yet, or you're a huge hockey fan. We're in sort of a lull for sports. I mean, there's things going on and and there's stories to get to today. I'm not just going to mail it in. There's plenty to talk about in sports, including one that has a story that has the fingerprints of Dan Snyder, at least in my opinion, all over it. And I will get to that shortly. We'll talk about the playoffs. Vite of blue passed away over the weekend at the age of 73. If you are of an age where you can remember that 1971 season, it was magical. And it started here, started here in Washington when the Oakland A's played the Washington Senators and what turned out to be the last opener for the senators before they moved to Texas at the end of the season. And we didn't get baseball back until 2005 when the Nationals came here. So it was historic in that regard, but also it was historic in that. Vite of blue was pulled in the second inning and then went on to have a year that's among the best in the history of baseball. He didn't lose again until the end of May. He was an absolute sensation and had a great career, played 17 years. I think should get some consideration for the Hall of Fame, but had some problems with cocaine late in his career. And I think that that has hurt him in terms of recognition in Cooperstown. But we'll get to all that plus the plus the story I mentioned about the commanders. But I don't do a lot of Mr Tony stories because he's great at that. And they're always interesting stories about his life. My life is not that interesting. I'm a suburban guy in middle age and I have grown kids and a granddaughter and I like to ride my bike. I mean, there's nothing really that exciting about my life away from the radio. So there's not a lot of stories. And I wouldn't classify this as an exciting story, but it's something that I really enjoyed. And as I've gotten to this stage of my life and have lost friends and former co-workers, I've been realized, you know, your opportunities to mix with certain people may not be there that much longer. And part of the reason I organized a reunion of my first radio station last month, I had a lot of fun doing that. It was in Port Arthur, Texas and five of us got together for some good times and meals and reminiscing. And, you know, we brought pictures and it was a lot of fun. And we talked about how we all got started in 1978. So I like those kind of things. I like to reconnect with people I haven't talked to in decades. It's fun catching up on things, catching up on your life. I really have enjoyed doing that. So I'm on Facebook and there's a group that I'm in called You May Be a Native Washingtonian if and the if being if you understand what the post is all about in this Facebook group. So I see last week, last Thursday, this post about the Claire and Coco show. Now, this is the 60s when that show was on. It was on Channel 7 in the morning. It was a woman named Claire who had a pet white poodle named Coco. And it was a show where they would have kids on and it was educational and there were activities that they did and they mixed in some cartoons. It was, you know, basically to keep the kids company in the morning before they went off to school. I ate your frosted flakes. You could watch the Claire and Coco show. And this was in competition with other morning shows that were on at the time, including Captain Kangaroo, which was a national show. That's the show I grew up watching. It's on CBS was on CBS and Bob Keashen was Captain Kangaroo and he had Mr. Green jeans and Glaine dancing bear and it was a kids show prior to Sesame Street. You know, prior to the time when they felt it was necessary to educate kids on the alphabet and counting and things like that. There's a fun show and the ping pong balls would fall on Mr. Green jeans head and you know, it was just it was silliness. But it was it was something that the kids could watch. And I think what Channel 5 had a show at the time. There was an afternoon show called Captain Tug where they would show cartoons on that as well. But it was just, you know, kids entertainment and I was actually on this Claire and Coco show when I was about seven years old. And later I went to North Chevy Chase Elementary School and I went to school with Claire's daughter who I lost all contact with after elementary school. You know, like a lot of kids, they go to different schools or the family moves away and you know, they just sort of move on from year to year. And most of the kids I had gone to North Chevy Chase Elementary School with had gone with me to Kensington Junior High and then on to BCC before we all went our separate ways to colleges and various things in life. And at least for BCC, we've had reunions every 10 years. So I've been able to catch up with a lot of people that I went to school with, including those years at North Chevy Chase and several of them are friends. One of them is a very close friend and I lost another close friend from that class a couple of years ago from ALS. And so, you know, I've kept a connection to that, at least in my head. So in this story about the Claire and Coco show that's on this Facebook site, I see an O-Bit for Claire who died in 2006. And I'm reading through the O-Bit and again, I went to school with her daughter Alex, which is spelled with an I instead of an E, so it stands out a little bit. And I'm reading through the O-Bit again, this is going back to 2006 and I haven't seen this, well, girl who's now a woman since 1970 when we finished up at North Chevy Chase Elementary School. And in the O-Bit, they list her name and her married name and where she lives. And so, just for the hell of it, I googled the name and it came up in a bio for her husband who has a financial firm and there's an email address, not for her, but for the husband. And so, I think, you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained. What if I just write him an email and just, you know, kind of wonder, you know, whatever it became of what is his wife, Alex. I mean, I assume they're still married, but again, the O-Bit goes back to 2006, so I'm not really sure, but, you know, it's like dropping a fishing line in the water. Sometimes you get a bite, sometimes you don't. So, I send him an email and in the email, I do say that, you know, how I found his name and his email and I do say that I went to school with his wife. But I want to mention, you know, just to make sure I'm not some crazy stalker, you know, what I've done so he can Google me. So I mentioned that I worked at WFAN and have been in sports radio since it started 35 years and been back in Washington for over 30 years now. And if he wants to just make sure before he says to his wife, hey, this guy reached out to me, you know, that he's not some crazy cook who's trying to scam me on email, which, you know, does happen. So, okay, so I just leave it there and if nothing happens, that's fine. And on my email at the bottom, I have my name and of course, and my telephone number. And so I don't, you know, don't think a whole lot about it, but I think it'd be cool if, you know, kind of find out how Alex is doing after all these years. So the next day, Friday, I'm on the air and I see my phone ringing, have it on silent, but I see the name of the husband pop up. And I go, wow, that's a pretty quick response. So I listened to the voicemail and he says, yes, got your email and I also mentioned, just in case Alex didn't remember me, I mentioned some of the people from the class that I was still in touch with. And just to think, well, you know, she remember this class that she was in 53 years ago. And, you know, he says on the voicemail that in fact Alex remembered me and several of the people that I mentioned in the email. And, and so he says, please call me back. So, you know, naturally I did. I called him. And first he wanted to know, you know, how I was able to connect with him. And I told him the story of the Facebook and finding the email and all that. And then, and it turns out he was a college basketball player, big sports fan, and obviously a big sports radio listener, he lives in New Jersey and listens to WFAN. He didn't remember me necessarily from WFAN, but he wanted to know about the stars of the station like Mike Francesa and Chris Russo and some others. And we wind up, you know, after we dispense with, you know, who I am and, and how I know his wife, or knew his wife when we were kids. I mean, I hadn't spoken to her since we were like 11 or 12 years old. You know, he wanted to talk, talk sports. So we wound up having probably a 15 or 20 minute conversation about sports, not just sports radio, but issues and sports that he was interested in. You know, somebody I'd be happy to hang out with for a while. And you know, my stage of life, you know, I'm making a lot of new friends, you know, sadly, losing friends because of illness and so forth and age. And so now to kind of make a new friend in this odd circumstance of reaching out to him to find out about his wife and then having a phone conversation with him. That's, that's really cool. So, so anyway, I say, well, you know, how's Alex doing? And he says, you know, fine, fine. And he says, you know, she's, she's gonna want to connect with you. I said, that'd be great. Fantastic. And so she now has, of course, my email and my telephone number, because, you know, I've called him. He's called me. And so the next day, I get an email from her, and she says, oh, I definitely want to connect and we figure out a time. And so Saturday afternoon, we had about a 45 minute telephone conversation where we reminisced about what she remembered what I remember from from the time again, this is going back to the 1960s, what we remembered from from elementary school and some of the people that she remembered that I have kept up with because as it turned out after sixth grade she had moved to New York. So she moved out of the area. And then she went to, like we called it junior high then, seventh, eighth and ninth and then high school, at least for me, was ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th. So those six years, she's out and moved on with her life and married this guy who called me back. And they got married like only a couple years out of college she now has two kids and four grandchildren and, you know, really great life and all that. And we just kind of talked about various things. But, you know, in my mind, I see her as like a 12 year old girl, even though I know she's a grandmother. And, and the conversation on the last one I'd had before Saturday was, you know, God knows what we were little kids, little kids, but you know, becoming almost teenagers at that point, heading off to junior high. And so then, you know, a lot of life has happened to both of us in between and we just sort of caught up on, you know, what we do and our kids what they're doing and so forth. And, and you know, we now have each other's contacts. And if she comes down here to visit, we'll get together or if I'm ever up in that area, I guess we'll, we'll see each other but it's, it's, it's 53 years with no contact whatsoever. None. And then we have this, this reconnection. Thank you to the Internet for, for allowing this to happen because this couldn't happen 30 years ago. I mean, unless I was, you know, out to find her and desperately needed to and might hire a private investigator or something like that. Oh, no, no, now it's just a few clicks of the of the mouse and you wind up on various sites and you get connected to an email and before you know it, all this happens. And so I just thought I passed that along as just a really cool thing and things that are available to us now in 2023 that make things a little more fun than they used to be. And so I really, I really enjoyed this, this reconnection. I like doing this from time to time with people when I'm able to. And, you know, this stage of my life it's, it's, it's a lot of fun to make the connection of back before it started to now and how we got from there to here and each of our stories and it was great. It was just a, just a really nice thing to talk to both of them who both seem to be very, very nice people. And I didn't know her husband at all. And really, I didn't know her as an adult, right? I mean, we, last time we saw each other was in the sixth grade and your, your kids then. Now you're adults and it's just, you know, it's different and we exchange some pictures of our families and so forth and, you know, it was just, it was just really, really good to do that. So that's, that's my story. And I'm sticking to it. All right, back to the sports and this surfaced over the weekend. In fact, it was not really a big story that John Kime had. This was kind with kind of an analysis of why the commanders are going to go with Sam Howe as their quarterback. And he happened to throw in before they made this horrible trade for Carson Wentz and the disaster of that. They were, and they were open about this, that they were, they were looking at every possible available quarterback. They said they even called the Kansas City Chiefs about Patrick Mahomes. Well, John threw this in like with just one line that they had inquired about the availability of Andrew Luck. Well, Jim Airsay, I guess, is finding out about this for the first time. And last night, he went to social media. He posted on Twitter. If any NFL team attempted to contact Andrew Luck or any associate of him to play for that for their franchise, it would be a clear violation of the league's tampering policy. The anti tampering policy, according to Stephen Holder of ESPN is somewhat vague, but direct contact with the player is not required for a violation to occur. Quote, any public or private statement of interest qualified or unqualified in another club's player to that player's agent or representative or to remember the news media is a violation, the relevant portion of the policy states. Now, remember this, going into last season, Andrew Luck hadn't played in three years. He retired before the start of the 2019 season. He played 1920 and 21. He's still in his early 30s. He's, I don't think he's 34 yet. I don't think so. And now he's 33. Yeah. And, and he theoretically, given the age, we see some quarterbacks now, like, you know, Tom Brady's still playing at a high enough level at 45 that if he changes his mind again and said he wanted to unretire, there'd be plenty of people trying to get him. And Luck at 33 with his injuries, having a chance to heal. You would think if he wants to play, he could play. He's given no indication that he wants to play. The last few times I've seen him he's very, very thin. He doesn't look like he's in the kind of quarterback shape to play. Looks like he's in shape like to ride a bike, but not necessarily to play quarterback. But to me, and this is just, this is just my feeling about this. I don't have any evidence of this. I think that the Ron Rivera coach centric operation with the two Marty's Martin Mayhew and, and, and, and Marty, uh, her knee. I think they understand enough about the NFL that they wouldn't do something like this. Dan Snyder move. This is Dan Snyder sitting around drinking one night and saying to one of his lackeys, get me Andrew Luck's number. And he may have had a phone number and who knows, maybe Andrew Luck didn't even answer the phone. This is all speculation on my part. I got no knowledge of anything. But just looking at the way he rolls, this would not be a surprise because remember going into last season, he's still thinking that he's going to stay on his owner. And what he needs is a quarterback splash to make it happen. And that's why they finally had to reach for Carson Wentz because there wasn't anybody else that they could get. And if Wentz hit free agency, if he was cut by the Colts, he wouldn't come in here. He was coming, go in someplace else. And so this would be a move that they would make out of desperation. Well, let's, let's try Andrew Luck. Because, you know, every six months or so, somebody writes a story. Hey, you know, what if Andrew Luck wanted to come back? What's Andrew Luck up to these days? He makes very few public appearances. Nobody really knows much about him. I understand he's, I think he's back at Stanford now, working on an advanced team. He's working on an advanced degree. And you know, he's, well, he's always one of those guys who didn't seem to need football. But he was a great player. He was one of those guys that you die for. And after seven years, he was just too beat up. He didn't want to do it anymore. And he quit before the start of the 2019 season. So, you know, I don't know if they're going to pursue anything here. But this is just one more snider thing out the door and hopefully out the door soon. We're two weeks away from the start of the owners meetings and hopefully, hopefully something happens where we have some closure on the snider era and the, and the new people take over the Josh Harris group. But this, this would be a, a sniderish move. This, this would absolutely have his fingerprints all over it. Oh, let's go see what Andrew Luck wants to do and the splash that they could have. Oh, look, we got Andrew Luck. And we got our receivers. We got Terry McClure and under a new contract. We just so drafted a wide receiver number one at a Penn State. We got a good running game. Our defense is really good. Look at us. And they wound up with Carson Wentz. So, you know, that's, that's kind of how things have gone for this franchise and the fact that the rules be damned. We're going to try and get Andrew Luck. Well, Jim, you're saying, huh, and, and he'll say, remember, he's the first one to say that there was merit to remove Dan Snyder, his owner. I don't know if he had any knowledge of this at the time, but this is just one more brick in the wall when it comes to that. If you're just jumping in your car, I talked about this at the nine o'clock hour. Jim Airsay, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, heard about a report or maybe read it on ESPN from John Kime, who's not a, it's not a standalone report. This is Kime analyzing the quarterback's situation for the commanders and why they're going to go with Sam Howell this year and talked about how last year they reached out. They tried to get anybody they could. They called all 31 other teams. They even inquired about Patrick Mahomes. And, but in, in reporting the story, Kime just threw in a line that they had checked about Andrew Luck, you know, Andrew Luck had not played since 2019. He'd been out of the league for three years and plenty of stories of, oh, is he, is he going to recognize? He's not going to reconsider. He made up his mind and look, he's, he's, he's very thin now. He rides his bike all over the place. He's happy with his life and he's not looking back, but you know, the temptation to call him is there. He's still only 33 years old. So he's 32 last year. A lot of quarterbacks are just coming into their prime at that point and can play another 10 years. So Kime put this in there that they had, they had inquired about him. Well, Jim Airsay, the one who, the first one to say that there's merit to remove Dan Snyder as owner. I think really got the ball rolling on that at the owner's meetings last year. He went on social media last night, went on Twitter and he said, if any NFL team attempted to contact Andrew Luck or an associate of him to play for their franchise, it would be a clear violation of the league's tampering policy. Now, according to what ESPN is reporting here, the anti tampering policy is vague. Direct contact with a player is not required though for a violation to occur. Any public or private statement of interest qualified or unqualified in another club's player to that player's agent or representative, or to a member of the news media is a violation, the relevant portion of the policy states. And I don't think to me anyway, this is not beyond what Dan Snyder would do. This would seem to and I have no, no inside information, no knowledge of anything. This is just pure speculation on my part, but given his impetuous nature and his aspiration at this time last year to find a quarterback, they had to go out and get Carson Wentz who was ready to be put on the curb by the Colts after, you know, tearing up the locker room. Apparently they didn't like him and then, you know, just basically crapping the bed at the end of the season when he was terrible in his last two games and they shipped him out of there and, and you saw here. Why, because he's not good. I don't think he's going to play anymore in the NFL. He was, he was not good here. And so, you know, making an inquiry about Andrew Luck, even though it's against league policy, I don't think that would have bothered Snyder. I think he probably told one of his lackeys either get me his number or get me his agents number. I want to talk to him. And it's, it's quite possible that Ron Rivera and his front office staff of the Marty's, Marty Herney and, and Martin Mayhew, I don't think that they necessarily had any knowledge of this. I don't think this was anything that was done on their part. I think this was done. I think, and again, no inside information, just speculation that Snyder's fingerprints are on this now. This may be just, you know, heresay just rattling the cage. I don't know if he's going to pursue any action against the team. I think he's, he's looking at the ownership situation and saying, okay, well, that's, that mess is going to clear itself up soon. Josh Harris will be in there. Do I want to, you know, start off my relationship with a new partner in this, in this gushing money making venture called the NFL. Do I want to start that off on a bad foot by, by suing him for tampering? Do I want to, do I want to go down that I wrote? I don't know. And, and Andrew Luck, I think you could, I think you could get on your hands and knees and beg from now until next Thursday. He's not coming back. And, and, and really I don't even know if he, if he wanted to come back after three years, how good he would be, he might still be really good. But three years is a long time to be away. And you'd really have to be committed to come back. And he made a lot of money playing. He's a really smart guy. He's got a degree from Stanford. And he's working on another degree. So I don't think it's going to happen. But it just, it just was, it just is just another sniterish thing that when you hear that did, did he do it? I don't know. But I would not be shocked if, if this is something that he said, oh yeah, let's go get Andrew Luck. Oh, get Andrew Luck. And I'll have everybody all excited about the team. We just signed Terry McClure into an extension and we're going to be so good. And everybody's going to forget about all the Washington Post reporting about sexual harassment and the marriage, a white investigation in the stadium is going to be packed with Andrew Luck raining touchdown passes all day long. No, that did not happen. And we had another year of, of course, and wins. And the always plucky Heineke and finally Sam Howl, who they think is the next next. We shall see. Can't wait till the adults take over the franchise to the Josh Harris group owns the team and some real adult decisions are going to be made, not the impetuous mess that's been going on here for a long time. All right, Vita Blue passed away at the age of 73 on Saturday. He was a three time world champion with the A's. He was an MVP, six time All-Star won the Cy Young and he's in the Oakland A's Hall of Fame. He is not in the baseball Hall of Fame. And based on his career numbers, I think you could, you could make a case for that. He finished up with 209 wins 161 losses as er a 3.27 3300 innings 320 win seasons the first pitcher to start the All-Star game for each league. And in 1971 with the A's 1978 with the Giants, I mean, he has he has the credentials, I think, to get in, but he had he had a year long drug suspension in 1984 because of cocaine, one of four members of the 83 Royals who pleaded guilty to federal cocaine charges and serve prison terms of about three months. Made a comeback with Giants in 1985 and retired after 1986. But when you talk about Vita Blue, you talk about 1971. And over the course of 11 years, and this was, you know, right in my wheelhouse when I was growing up, the 11 year period from 1971 to 1981. We had three incredible rookie sensation seasons. We had Vita Blue in 1971. We had Mark Fidrich in 1976 when he went 19 and nine with a 2.34 ERA who was Rookie of the Year and finished second in the Cy Young voting, finished second to Jim Palmer. And as great as Jim Palmer was, if you look at the numbers and certainly the impact that he had on baseball that year, Mark Fidrich should have been the Cy Young Award winner in 1976. But either way, it's a great season that he had in 1976. He was a sensation, you know, used to talk to the ball and, you know, do his own groundwork on the mound that he was a colorful, colorful character in addition to being a great pitcher that year. And then in 1981, we had Fernando Mania. Now that was a strike year, so it knocked out, I think, two months of the season, but he went 13 and 7 with a 2.48 ERA. He won the Cy Young and the Rookie of the Year. He had eight shutouts that season. Vita Blue started the 71 season here. Now he'd been a call up the year before. He had pitched for the A's during the 1970 season and two starts was great. One of them, he threw a no hitter. So he was the opening day pitcher when the A's opened up the season at RFK Stadium on this, or not on this day, but on April 5 of 1971, 1971, he was the opening day pitcher for the A's and what turned out to be the last season. What turned out to be the last opening day for the Washington Senators. The Nationals, of course, played there for three years, many years later, but the Senators moved to Texas after that 71 season. And I saw a couple of posts like on Facebook and Twitter where people claimed, oh, yeah, I was there and Vita Blue shut out the Senators eight to nothing. No, that's not what happened at all. He was pulled after an inning and two thirds. He'd given up three hits, walked four, four runs across the plate. Only one of them earned, but they took them out of the game and the A's lost the game. Eight to nothing. From there, he went on an unbelievable tear. He did not lose a game until the end of May, almost two months. He finished the season at 24 and eight. He had eight shutouts that season. He had an ERA of 1.82 under two. He was both the Cy Young Award winner and the MVP would have won Rookie of the Year, but it had too many starts to qualify, having been a call up for the A's the year before. But he won MVP and Cy Young in the same year. That doesn't usually happen. And he's also the answer to a great trivia question, though, I guess, Adley Ruchman may have a chance to break that he's the last, last player to be a switch hitter and win the MVP. Yeah, and those days, this is 71. The D. H. didn't come into the American League until 1973. So he batted. It wasn't a great hitter, but he was a switch hitter. And he had been a great quarterback in high school, grew up in Louisiana, was recruited by schools like Notre Dame, but his father died. And he decided to sign with the A's for 12,500 a year to support his family after his father's death. So in 1971, while he is going on this tear, starting the All-Star game and reeling off all these consecutive wins and getting to 10 and one before he finally lost to Boston's Sonny Sebert, was also a great pitcher at that time for the Red Sox. He was he was getting unbelievable attention. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine. Getting on cover of time, you had to be a sensation in sports. And he was and it trickled over to CBS News where Hayward Hale Brun who was a reporter specializing in sports. He did other things, but he was a real colorful guy. He used to wear this loud Czech sport coat and he did a report on Vita Blue as he was, you know, lighting up the baseball world midway through 1971. Vita Blue runs wherever he goes. The six foot left hander eats up the ground with the proud gate of one to whom at a triumphant 21, the banana peels of life are only a matter of report. Old pitchers rely on pinpoint control, young ones on overpowering speed. Vita, a terrifying combination of the skills of crab to age and youth, puts them together so that he leads the league in strikeouts with 158. He's given only 52 walks in just over 157 innings. Back home in Mansfield, Louisiana, Mrs. Sally Blue and five of his brothers and sisters saw the glory through the telescope of box-goers. Last night, A's owner Charles Finley flew the family to Oakland for its first view of Vita firing away in something other than the Warren Flannels of Temple High School. Mrs. Blue has the glow which goes with my son, the pitcher. The boy who lived in the across the street for me used to catch behind him and his hands will always swell up. And he decided that he had quit because he just couldn't stand it. He runs everywhere he goes. Did you teach him that? No, I didn't. No, I didn't teach him to run everywhere he goes. That's something he picked up himself, I guess. Now, Vita Blue, that season, 1971, he's making $14,000. $14,000. You live on that in 1971, but he was, at that time, the greatest pitcher in baseball, and people began to notice these kinds of things. Like, hey, how about helping Vita Blue out? Well, the owner of the A's was Charlie Finley, notoriously cheap. And Finley wasn't going to give him any more money. And at that time, there's no free agency in baseball. It was a lot different. So he used to hold his ground. Now, what he tried to do, and this is what Don King used to do this with Mike Tyson, when Mike Tyson would think Don King was cheating him, he'd come into his bedroom and dump $100,000 in cash on his bed. Well, Charlie Finley thought he would pacify Blue by giving him a Blue Cadillac. Yeah, a Blue Cadillac, get it, bite a Blue. And that Cadillac would distract him from being underpaid. And to a degree, I guess it worked. He also, you know, Charlie Finley was the guy who used to pay his players to grow mustaches. He wanted to have orange baseballs. He had a lot of ideas that were kind of out of the box. But the Cadillac, he thought, okay, that'll soothe the feelings of Vita Blue. And it did, I guess, for a little while. And at the height of his fame, Vita Blue went on the Dick Cabot talk show and talked about what it's like to be instantly famous as he was in 1971. Fans really thank the baseball players are supposed to dedicate themselves off to feeling. I try to do that, but it gets to the point where I can't sleep or I can't go anywhere in peace. Yeah. Especially with the car that I have in the license plates. And if I go to a local hamburger standing, if I'm the only black guy in a hamburger place, well, naturally, I have to be violent blue. Because they see the car out there. What you got your name on the license plate? Right. Yeah. You could change that to Ringo Starr or something like that. Nobody would bother you. That's right. How did you get that car in that license plate? It was a, it was a, it was a gift from my owner, Mr. Charles Finley, who owns the Oakland A's. Well, he decided to, I guess, show the class and get the license plates with V Blue on there. It's real nice. Except if you want to go anywhere or do anything in it. That's right. Yeah. He's the one who thought it would be a good idea for you to change your name to True Blue. Is that, is that, is that, you think, they laugh? Well, not really change my name, but just to add a little something to it. Well, he thought it would be nice to help promote baseball at night. I mean, I, it probably would have, but my name is screwed up enough as it is. Well, one report I read of that said that you were not really enthusiastic at all about the idea of changing your name. In fact, he said if it's such a red hot idea, what isn't he changed his name to True Finley? But, but your friends now, are you? Yeah, we've always been friends here. Yeah. We have a real close knit relationship. Well, that close knit relationship didn't last. After that 71 season, when he won the Cy Young and the MVP, he held out the following year in 1972, looking for 92,500. And he missed about half the season, finally settled for $63,000. Was six and 10, but his ERA was still good. 2.80 in 1972. Didn't even make the postseason starting rotation in the World Series, mainly in relief. And he made four appearances, including a save in Game 1. And, and they went on to win their first of three World Series that year. Blue win 29 in 1973, 17 and 15 and 74, 22 and 11 in 1975, still underpaid. And after an 18 and 13 season with a 2.35 ERA in 1976. And here's how these, these good feelings with Finley didn't last. Blue told reporters, I hope the next breath Charlie Finley takes is his last. I hope he falls flat on his face and dies of polio. Well, 1976, everybody knows that free agency is coming. Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally both won free agency in court. So these underpaid players that Finley has, he knows they're going to be able to leave when their contracts are up. And Vida Blue was one of them, although he did have a contract through the 1977 season. And Boikun Vito, Charlie Finley's attempt, Boikun the commissioner, Finley's attempt to sell the contract to the Yankees. Did the same thing on January 30th, 1978, a trade announced by the Reds at the Winter meetings that would have sent Blue to Cincinnati for Dave Revering and $1.75 million. In both cases, Kuhn said the trades would be bad for baseball because they would benefit already powerful teams without making them give up any significant talent and return. Well, I mean, he couldn't stop the floodgates. Free agency came in. He basically lost his entire roster. Vida Blue was pitching for a bad team in 1977. He went 14 and 19 and gave up a lot of runs relative to the time, 3.83 ERA. And to wind up leaving for the San Francisco Giants where he would start the All-Star game the next year. And the relationship between Vida Blue, which Vida described in 1971 as a close-knit relationship, was anything but that. But he had a great career and I think most of us who are alive and remember that time from 1971 remember what a sensation Vida Blue was. Young to die, 73, no cause of death yet. But what a year that was and how baseball responded to a guy who got lit up in the opener here at RFK Stadium. Pretty amazing. Coming up, I want to talk more NBA and Nicole Jocch with the Crazy T last night in the Nuggets loss and Warriors Lakers preview. As Steve Kerr, the coach of the Warriors says it's not a must win, but is it a must win? We'll look at it as we continue with the Andy Poland show ESPN 630. The Andy Poland show on ESPN 630, the sports capital. We got Tony coming up at 11. They spend a lot of time on PTI on the NBA and Wilbon is on today. So I'm sure they're going to spend a lot of time on what happened at Phoenix last night. I imagine if Wilbon was there, let's see, it was that no, that was a, I think it was a TNT game. So I guess he would have been in the studio for the ESPN game earlier in the day. But Wilbon of course lives in Phoenix and he goes to a lot of Suns games and he's very close with Chris Paul and he's kind of invested in that team. And last night, Phoenix hosted Denver. Phoenix is playing without Chris Paul. They really don't seem to have much of a chance to beat a team that has been terrific all season long, has the MVP of the league here. And they have done an unbelievable job in what they have been able to accomplish over the course of that time. But they have a team here that they're facing in Phoenix which didn't go on away. And we got a series that's at 2-2. And last night, it's in the first half. It's 2-36 left in the second quarter. And you got Nicole Jokic who's trying to get the ball back in bounds quickly. He does this because he said we had a 5-on-4 and he wants to get the ball quickly to the referee so they could take advantage of it. Well, the ball goes into the stands and while Jokic is trying to get the ball, Matt Ischbia who is the owner now of the Phoenix Suns, a former walk-on at Michigan State when they won the National Championship in 2000, knows something about playing basketball. I think played this up a little bit to the hilt here because as they struggled for the ball, there may or may not have been an elbow from Jokic. But Ischbia knew how to flop and he took a flop back into the crowd and the referee teed him up. He teed him up for that play. After the game, Jokic was asked about that and why in fact the referee had teed him up. He told me he was the elbow in the fan. But the fan put the hand on me first so I thought the league is supposed to protect us or whatever so but maybe I'm wrong so we will see. Did you happen to know who the fan was? He's a fan of...he's a no-no-no-no-no. I know who he's about. He's a fan, isn't he? If he's a senior. Phoenix Suns owner. He's sitting on the court and he's a fan, isn't he? That doesn't mean that he's a...whoever he is in, he's a fan. He cannot influence the game by holding the ball. Do you worry that this may lead to a fine or suspension or anything like that? Just if the NBA official said that he thought you shoved him. Mm-hmm. So, but his hands on me, so they're not going to protect me. They're going to protect the fan. I mean, not me. Not me as a person. I'm talking about as a player. Yeah. I mean, they can do whatever, of course. They don't care, but I think they're supposed to protect players. Were you surprised that he didn't just hand you the ball? I mean, that's what I expected. Maybe what happened? The fan would... Even if he didn't, I was trying to rip the ball and so he didn't let go. So, he's influencing the game. I think he's supposed to get kicked out if he's influencing the game. Now, Tony Brothers, the referee, was asked about this and explained his decision not to eject the joke, because he could have done that, rather than just give the technical foul, he said he didn't just run over and hit a fan. There were some engagements, so I deemed the technical foul the appropriate penalty. So, there's that. This is Mike Malone. He is the coach of the Denver Nuggets. He's baffled by this. I think it's crazy that Nicole got technical foul in that situation. He's going to get the ball, and some fan is holding onto the ball. Like, he wants to be a part of the game. Just give the ball up, man. You know what I mean? And, you know, they deemed Nicole doing something that was excessive, I guess, in the game in the tech, but I still don't really understand it. Yeah, I don't get it either, and especially they knew who Espia is. I mean, he's the owner of the team. The referees know that. And they also know that he played college basketball at a high level, and knows what the game is about, and has watched enough flopping in his life to know how to flop. And he was taken to task on the post-game show by Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley. I'm with you. I hope they don't do something stupid. Like, it was unfortunate. It happened. It's over with. I just hope they don't do anything stupid. And don't either of you guys do it again. Okay? Yes. Matt Ishby, don't hold onto the ball. Joker, don't make him flop. Yeah, and they're hoping that there's no suspense. I can't imagine that they will suspend Jokech after that. There could be a fine, or they may just move on from it. The technical may just stand up enough. And they lost the game. You know, they lose by one. They lost by five. So I don't know how much of a factor it played in the game, but Devin Booker had a great night for Phoenix. 36 points, 12 assists that he got us a point. He did his job. Jokech scored a career high. 53 had 11 assists. He made 20 of 30 shots after posting a triple double of 30 points, 17 rebounds and 17 assists in the loss in game three. In the past two losses, Jokech is averaging 41.5, 10.5 rebounds, 14 assists and 63% shooting. I mean, you talk about being under the radar. Wow. You know, partly because, well, these games are being played so late and there's just so much attention on the other series, which, well, and rightly so, you know, you've got the four time champion warriors with Steph Curry who had 50 points to get them to this game. And he got LeBron who's still playing at a high level, but this has been a really enticing series so far. If you're staying up to watch it and truthfully, I'm not. It did watch last night because it started early enough. But Denver won the first game, 125 to 107. They win the second game, 97, 87. Then Chris Paul's hurt and you think, OK, that's it. Phoenix is cooked. They come back and win game three, 121, 114. And then last night, Phoenix wins again. So now it's off to Denver. And this becomes, I think, tomorrow night, you know, didn't shape up that way early in the series, but kind of a must win for Denver, don't you think? You know, they don't win on their home court. Then they're facing elimination at Phoenix and then maybe, you know, Phoenix wins. They win the next two. Chris Paul's healthy enough to play either the Lakers or the Warriors in the Western Conference finals. Now, the Lakers pulled a surprise. I think winning at Golden State in the first game, 117 to 112. Then Golden State said, no, no, no, no. We're not going to let Anthony Davis run all over us. And they came back and blew him out, 127 to 100. So now they're in Los Angeles last night. And you think, wow, OK, they got Anthony Davis figured out and they're going to use the momentum of that. This is this is Saturday night and they're going to use the way that they stopped Anthony Davis. And you got to like Golden State in this game. They lost by 30, 127 to 97. And Anthony Davis had a nice game. He had 25 points, but LeBron, who didn't really shoot in the first half, 11 shots, just 11 shots in the game. They were 21 points and they were big shot after big shot at the end of the game and helped to put that at a reach. I mean, the Lakers outscored Golden State in the fourth quarter, 41 to 29. They just put them to bed. And so now as they head now back to Golden State for game five tonight as the game four tonight, Los Angeles, they don't go to Golden State until Wednesday. So tonight game four in Los Angeles and not that teams can't come back from three one, but they rarely do it. They don't they don't often do that. And you would think if the Lakers win this game tonight, boy, boy, you know, Golden State really has their back to the wall because they would have to win at home and then come back and win in Los Angeles before a possible game seven, which would be a week from tonight at Golden State. Now, this is this is preview that was done on TNT preview of tonight's game last night. And it starts with Steve Kerr, the coach of the Warriors and Steph Curry looking at this game tonight. And whether or not it's a must win, Kerr says no, it's not. Most win is when you're when the other team has three wins. And if you lose, you're done. That's a must win. I have faith that our team can win any series as long as we have more games to play. A lot of self-inflicted wounds across the board and you hate that you had to keep learning that lesson at this stage of the season, but we did. Now it's about how we have a response. Man, Golden State game two, 127 to 100 over the Lakers. Lakers turn around game three, 127 to 97. By definition, Steve Kerr saying, yeah, this is not a must win, but is it? I think it is. You never want to be down three one because, you know, in the next game, you have to play well. So, you know, they, they said we know they're going to bounce back. They're definitely battle tested. Now, usually when you smack Golden State around, they come back with the vengeance and they play well. So, I think it's a must win for LA. You don't want to mess around with a team like Golden State. I don't like talking about this, but if those two for splash brothers get going and, you know, take a step back in the past, you know, series could be over. So, you know, they were hot the other night, especially in Golden State. They didn't really shoot the ball too well last night. So, you talk about must wins. I think it's a must win for the Lakers to let them know that we're serious. Three one. And, you know, I think they get the three one. If A.D. plays like he played game one and game three, if he plays like that, close this team out. So, you know, the Lakers definitely need to take care of business tomorrow. The, the, Anthony Davis thing is fascinating to me. If he plays great, the Lakers are going to win, but he's due for another bad game tomorrow. I mean, it's so, why do you think that could ever happen to someone? Not me not, not the, you know, like you say, you go from 40 to a lap to 15. A great player. How does that happen? A great player does not have a player who's talented, who's inconsistent, can have those variations. You can never be a great player if you were giving me 40 and 15. So, why does a talented player, you were talented. How did you turn it into greatness? Well, it's, it's all mental. Like, I enjoyed kicking guys ass. That's what make you a star. Like, they can't, like when you, when you're a star, you're better than 99% of the people in the world. You should want to showcase, I couldn't wait to get to the gym, especially doing the playoffs when you get days off. Everybody's watching. Like, like Shaq says all the time, your numbers should go up during the playoffs. Like, if you average in 24 during the regular season, you should be close to 30 with days off and things like that. Every, every great player's numbers should go up. And if I had a bad game, my 26, 28 was going to be 20. It wasn't going to be 11 or 12. And that's where it's perplexing about the end of the day. I'm sitting here watching this, how stupid some of these guys are on television after game, after game one, and the Davis was great. And game two, they're like, Oh man, those warriors, they changed it up, Dream on guard Anthony Davis. And he was physical. I'm like, Yo man, if after Davis play, they can't guard him. And you see him come out in game three and says, Yo man, they can't. And now, I can't wait to watch that game tomorrow night. And the answer to your questions already one of the months, then after your question is called being comfortable. Right. Be comfortable being great is uncomfortable. They're damn I have 40 in game one. I gotta get it again. I gotta get it again. I gotta get it again. So these, you know, I had a great game. The best of Mahalo Famer and his jury is going to be there. It's comfortable. So, you know, when you're with a towel, as one of the greatest is a uncomfortable feeling. So we'll see. 25 points for Davis in the last game. What does he do tonight? Does he show up big or not? We shall see. That's a late game coming up tonight as it's a 10 o'clock start on TNT. Got some baseball stuff to get to some baseball stupidity and the numbers for the first month on time. Pretty good. We'll get to that more as we continue. It's the Andy Poland show ESPN 630. The sports capital. I'm going to give Tony a little early start today. He's got a long show coming up. So would be scooting out here a few minutes early. Just wanted to finish up with a couple of baseball things. There was a national anthem standoff. Yes. A national anthem standoff between Red Sox reliever cutter Crawford and Phillies left-hander Matt Stramm. Not only resulted in an ejection, but Major League Baseball has fined them as well. It's related to the pitch clock, believe it or not. umpires had to eject both players after receiving a warning that they would be thrown out if they didn't go back to their respective dugouts. Being that Crawford is on the 15 day injured list, his fine is being ejected as much as being is being higher than Stramms. But Red Sox manager Alex Cora says he'll get help from a certain teammate. I know there's a guy who went to the same school as him probably going to take care of that. Chris Sale and Crawford both went to Florida Gulf Coast University. So a sale makes a lot of money. He can pay the fine. Stramm used to be teammates with Crawford and the rest of the Red Sox. He explained the situation on WEI. He said zero of it was planned. He said, just the anthem was over. I looked across and cutter kind of gave me a grin and I knew exactly what the grin meant. So I stood there. If you know me, you know, competition is everything to me. So I kind of felt like I was being called out right there. Looking back on it, probably not the wisest decision I made in my Major League career. It's unknown how much each of them was fine. I mean, basically a staring contest, which wound up being very expensive for both of the players who were ejected from the game. And I saw this George Will column over the weekend. And he's very happy with the pitch clock. Loves the pitch clock. He says, in this season's first 383 games scoring was up over this point in the 2022 season. The average nine inning game took only two hours and 36 minutes. Writer Jason Stark notes that in 2022, there were 232 nine inning games at least three hours and 30 minutes more than one day for six months. In other words, you're on the field for an extra day over the course of the season with that time difference. He says, if 2023 games are on average 25 minutes shorter than last year, this will effectively spare position players in a six game week from the equivalent of a full game on their feet. Wow. Think about that. Now, he's a baseball guy. It's not a football guy. And this is more from George Will in the column. Baseball is reconnecting with the past. His poised to reclaim the title of national pastime. It temporarily lost this to the NFL, which like boxing involves the public deriving pleasure from watching athletes, except a high risk of brain damage. You can agree or disagree on that, but no, baseball's not going to overtake the NFL. Baseball is drawing for the World Series about 11 million viewers. The Super Bowl is drawing over a hundred million viewers. Come on. Let's let's stop that, George. He says baseball has revived itself by remembering something that is encoded in America's DNA, something that has been intensified by life lived at a digital speed. Impatience. One of professional baseball's founding fathers, AJ Spalding, noted two hours is about as long as an American can wait for the close of a baseball game or anything else for that matter. Okay. And I'm with you, George, on the length of the games. But no, it's not going to overtake football. I know you're hoping for that, but that is not likely to happen. I like what they're doing. I like the plans. I like all that. But no, no, that is not going to occur. All right. As I mentioned, you got a long Tony show coming up. He's off tomorrow. So we got three hours to stretch out and talk about a whole bunch of other things. Max Kellermann do to join us tomorrow as well. And all the other good things that come along as we roll through the week. But stay tuned. Tony coming up next year on ESPN 630. And I'll see you tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.