Latest / Foul Territory / John Buccigross joins Tim Kurkjian’s “Is This A Great Game, Or What?”

Transcript

John Buccigross joins Tim Kurkjian’s “Is This A Great Game, Or What?” · Foul Territory

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome to Is this a great game or what? And
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Speaker 1: our special guest today is our dear friend John bucha Grass,
0:13
Speaker 1: one of the great anchors in the history of ESPN
0:16
Speaker 1: and now one of the great hockey guys that our company.
0:20
Speaker 2: Has ever had. Bucci. This is my son, Jeff.
0:25
Speaker 1: I think the last time you saw him was that
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Speaker 1: the Umpire Fantasy Ejection League when he was twelve years old.
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Speaker 2: You heard right, America. We once had an Umpire Ejection
0:36
Speaker 2: Fantasy League at ESPN. There's a fellow named Judson Birch
0:40
Speaker 2: who and I showed up. I first came across Judge
0:42
Speaker 2: and Tim in the ESPN Softball league. They played in
0:46
Speaker 2: the mornings during the week because we're primarily a nocturnal operation,
0:51
Speaker 2: and there's this guy in full get up doing absolute
0:56
Speaker 2: I mean, he's got everything. He's got the ball sock,
0:58
Speaker 2: I don't even think the softball in the little baseball bag.
1:01
Speaker 2: And he is taking this very seriously. I was not aware.
1:06
Speaker 2: And over time you get to meet Judson, who loves
1:08
Speaker 2: baseball more than all of us combined. And yeah, he
1:11
Speaker 2: came up with the idea of the Umpire Ejection Fantasy League,
1:16
Speaker 2: and yeah, we drafted umpires obviously based on reputation, and
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Speaker 2: that's another reason why the video replay review it's ruined
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Speaker 2: the umpire Ejection Fantasy League.
1:28
Speaker 1: Let's go anymore, right, Yeah, so, Jeff in two thousand
1:33
Speaker 1: and three, jud Birch came up to the press box
1:36
Speaker 1: having been down on the field. This is during the
1:39
Speaker 1: World Series in two thousand and three between the Marlins
1:43
Speaker 1: and the Yankees, and he looked at me with a
1:45
Speaker 1: look on his face that can just it was unbelievable.
1:49
Speaker 2: He says, You're not gonna believe who I just met.
1:52
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking it was like Derek Jeter is somebody
1:54
Speaker 1: said Angel Hernandez he met it, not Buyer, and he
2:01
Speaker 1: was absolutely he was taken back, like I got to
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Speaker 1: meet him?
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Speaker 2: Is that not Judd Byrd for you, Bucci? Oh? Absolutely.
2:10
Speaker 2: And the best part of the umpire Ejection Fantasy League
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Speaker 2: for me was coming up with the name of your team, right, yes,
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Speaker 2: Like one time Tony ran Dazzo missed a call it
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Speaker 2: first and one of my cats phrases was more normally good,
2:24
Speaker 2: So like, you know, here's Aaron Judge normally good, normally good,
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Speaker 2: probably good. And that came from an old Chris Russo
2:34
Speaker 2: Mad Dog Russo bit on w f A N where
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Speaker 2: he's talking about the whole steroids scandal and he was
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Speaker 2: kind of given ESPN an issue because he felt like
2:42
Speaker 2: we weren't questioning some of the players enough and he's
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Speaker 2: and Chris is.
2:46
Speaker 3: Going on not about ESPN. Carl Ravich normally good. That
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Speaker 3: was that was the first normally good? Was Carl Ravich
2:56
Speaker 3: normally good?
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Speaker 2: And now we should have so I would use it
3:01
Speaker 2: during Sports Center. Aaron Judge normally good. Just a guy
3:04
Speaker 2: who normally succeeds but doesn't what And then sometimes it
3:08
Speaker 2: gets silly at night, as you know Tim And there
3:10
Speaker 2: was a Bang Bang play at first and he was
3:12
Speaker 2: called safe but he was obviously out. This is twenty
3:14
Speaker 2: years ago, and I was like Tony Randazzo on Bang
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Speaker 2: Bang plays normally good. I don't have the data on that.
3:20
Speaker 2: I have no idea he might be normally bad. But again,
3:23
Speaker 2: at that point, we're trying to entertain each other late
3:25
Speaker 2: at night, whether it's Judd, Scott Clark or whoever the
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Speaker 2: producer and CP were, and so many things at ESPN
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Speaker 2: come from that deep love of sport, from little kids
3:35
Speaker 2: memorizing box scores, playing pitcher catcher in the backyard with
3:39
Speaker 2: entire lineups. With my next door neighbor Michael Lilja, we
3:42
Speaker 2: would just go the entire lineup on pitch like the
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Speaker 2: pitcher would call balls and strigs. Just play a nine
3:47
Speaker 2: inning game by ourselves with an Andy etcher, Baron ketchersmidt
3:51
Speaker 2: and then whatever glove we had. So it was But yeah,
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Speaker 2: Judd Birch, the Umpire Ejection Fantasy League, I actually forgot
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Speaker 2: about that. You know, I've been there thirty years now,
4:00
Speaker 2: so it's nice to get these reminders about things that
4:03
Speaker 2: have gone on in thirty years. I've now spent more
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Speaker 2: than half my life at ESPN. So the Empire Ejection Fantasy.
4:10
Speaker 1: League, right, right, So Judd had an expression when one
4:14
Speaker 1: of the Phillies hit, it would hit a home or
4:16
Speaker 1: like Ryan Howard, he would sell. He would say, fill
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Speaker 1: thine horn with oil and go.
4:21
Speaker 2: That was his home run call. So when I had
4:25
Speaker 2: the home.
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Speaker 1: It's a Bible versu and he used it for an
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Speaker 1: opposite field.
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Speaker 2: Home run by by Ryan Howard.
4:34
Speaker 1: So the name of my Fantasy Ejection team it was
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Speaker 1: a great umpire named Ed Vargo. So in the name
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Speaker 1: of my team was fill Thine horn with Oil and Vargo, which.
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Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't win.
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Speaker 1: I didn't win the Fantasy league, but I won the
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Speaker 1: most imaginative.
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Speaker 2: Name for a team.
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Speaker 1: Of course, Judge was the one that did all this.
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Speaker 1: Now Bouccie just to finish with Judd. I did not
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Speaker 1: know this until recently. He first off knows the uniform
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Speaker 1: numbers of all the umpires, which is just incredible to me.
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Speaker 1: But when he stins in the stands for a game,
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Speaker 1: which he does all the time, and in the seventh
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Speaker 1: inning stretch strike one, two, three strikes, you're out. He
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Speaker 1: does the call of the home plate umpire that night,
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Speaker 1: what he would say on strike one, what he would
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Speaker 1: say on strike two, and how he.
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Speaker 2: Would call his third strike. And it's a different umpire
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Speaker 2: every night. That's what Judd Burg does. Yes, I just
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Speaker 2: found that out.
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Speaker 1: About a month ago, and I thought, Judge, you're one
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Speaker 1: of my best friends in the world. You are the
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Speaker 1: strangest man of all time, but this takes you to
5:43
Speaker 1: another level. He does strike one, two, three strikes, you're
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Speaker 1: out with the call of the home plate umpire.
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Speaker 2: Well, I imagine if dutch Rennet was still umpire and
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Speaker 2: the people behind him screaming in their face.
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Speaker 1: Strike Jeff Judge was the guy that would turn his his,
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Speaker 1: his whole body to the side, like point everything in
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Speaker 1: one direction, scream as loud as he could. And nobody
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Speaker 1: does a better Dutch rheter than jud Birch.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, LUs name was decent. My name was. I thought
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Speaker 2: my name was decent. Phil Cuzy it hurts, I think,
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Speaker 2: I think that another great one. By the way, Phildine
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Speaker 2: Horne with oil and go is from the Book of
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Speaker 2: Samuel for you Bible buffs out there right, so boucie.
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Speaker 1: Just to finish with this ridiculous conversation, Jeff came in
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Speaker 1: once for the Umpire Fantasy Ejection League and he was
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Speaker 1: allowed by Judd to reach in and pull out like
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Speaker 1: who gets the first pick? So Jeffrey was, Jeff, you
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Speaker 1: remember being involved in the process.
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Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, you know.
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Speaker 4: I was ill, young enough to be excited to be
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Speaker 4: at ESPN and excited for this, but old enough to
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Speaker 4: be like, these are grown adults.
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Speaker 1: And.
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Speaker 4: Do the higher ups know this is happening in a
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Speaker 4: conference room at ESPN. But the higher ups were there
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Speaker 4: and involved, so that was the coolest part. I remember it, Dad,
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Speaker 4: and I remember the energy surrounding the room, and and
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Speaker 4: what I love the most is I felt like it
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Speaker 4: wasn't just there to entertain jud right, to entertain our
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Speaker 4: friend and do something for him. Everybody who was genuinely
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Speaker 4: really excited to be a part of the umpire Injection League,
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Speaker 4: which is so special.
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Speaker 2: Competitives at our core, we're all competitive people from kids
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Speaker 2: little league, and that's really the genesis of the ESPN,
7:47
Speaker 2: especially in those first ten twenty years. These are people
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Speaker 2: who are serious athletes who reached a point where they
7:52
Speaker 2: weren't going to play pro, but they were big and
7:54
Speaker 2: inner murals, literal league, high school. Some of us made
7:57
Speaker 2: high school varsity teams very competitive place and I mean
8:02
Speaker 2: early on ESPN gambling fantasy leagues. I mean it was rampant.
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Speaker 2: Obviously when things become corporate in the mid nineties. When
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Speaker 2: Walt Disney buys ESPN in nineteen ninety six, the same
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Speaker 2: year I was hired, things slowly that kind of gets,
8:17
Speaker 2: you know, pushed out. I'm not sure ESPN had an
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Speaker 2: HR department told the late nineties, I'm not really sure,
8:23
Speaker 2: but there was all kinds of that that was kind
8:26
Speaker 2: of the crux of the place. It was like your
8:28
Speaker 2: local sports bar. The place in Steubenville, Ohio. Shout out
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Speaker 2: rich Donnelly called the Spot Bar. The name of the
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Speaker 2: bar is the spot Bar. It's a legal operation in
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Speaker 2: this way. Before gambling became legal in the last decade.
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Speaker 2: I'm talking the sixties and seventies and eighties and nineties,
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Speaker 2: you could go place a bet at the Spot Bar
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Speaker 2: next to Lieutenant Flanagan who was there laying sixteen points
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Speaker 2: on the Stubavill Catholic Central to beat justuson Union.
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Speaker 1: That's so great, Steubenville, Bucci. We just had rich Don
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Speaker 1: Ley on our podcast the other day, and of course
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Speaker 1: he told he told the greatest stories ever. He's the
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Speaker 1: greatest batting practice pitcher ever. He's one of the greatest
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Speaker 1: third base coaches ever. And he talks about Steubenville relentlessly,
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Speaker 1: especially those Friday night football games. He's right about all that, though, right,
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Speaker 1: you know all about this, correct?
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I was born in downtown Pittsburgh, adopted by a
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Speaker 2: couple of New England parents who had moved there in
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Speaker 2: their mid twenties. In the early sixties, moved to Indiana, Pennsylvania,
9:41
Speaker 2: and I was two home of Jimmy Stewart and that
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Speaker 2: my dad was a seer store manager trying to work
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Speaker 2: his way up the corporate ladder. Born during the Depression
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Speaker 2: in South Boston, Massachusetts, the only Italian in Irish South
9:53
Speaker 2: Boston kind of where he went got the GI bill
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Speaker 2: paid for his last two years of Boston College, which
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Speaker 2: was like seventeen dollars to go a year, you know,
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Speaker 2: it's like five hundred and so he went to Pittsburgh
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Speaker 2: to try to become a store manager, make something of himself.
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Speaker 2: And so we moved about every seven years. So I
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Speaker 2: moved to Steubenville when I was eleven, and man, Indiana,
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Speaker 2: Pa is kind of this idyllic little college town home
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Speaker 2: with Jimmy Stewart, it's a wonderful life. It looks like
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Speaker 2: it's a wonderful life. You could have shot it there,
10:19
Speaker 2: And that was probably part of his idea, maybe in
10:21
Speaker 2: the whole set. And I think he brought out a
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Speaker 2: lot of Indiana, Pennsylvania in his performance and what the
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Speaker 2: people were like there. And so I moved to Steubenville
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Speaker 2: and woo, that was a slap in the face. This
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Speaker 2: is a hard scrabbled, blue collar football still mill town.
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Speaker 2: I still kind of have. That's how they still mill Town.
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Speaker 2: I don't really have my Steubenville, Ohio Valley Pittsburgh accent.
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Speaker 2: This kind of amalgamation of an accent Western pa Ohio
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Speaker 2: Valley and little West Virginia tucked in there too, so
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Speaker 2: it's a different accent. But yeah, so it was just
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Speaker 2: a crazy place of characters. Dean Martin's from there. I mean,
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Speaker 2: you just this is still in the seventies and eight
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Speaker 2: You know, there's like prostitution houses in the spot bar
11:03
Speaker 2: and this is like the eighties, and you know, the
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Speaker 2: high school kids can buy alcohol at the corner. They're
11:08
Speaker 2: like fifteen years olders go buy a twelve pack. Like
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Speaker 2: that literally happened. It was unbelieved. So if characters like
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Speaker 2: Ridge Darley and the characters he talks about are real,
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Speaker 2: and my my friends are the funniest people in the world,
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Speaker 2: they all should be sitcom stars and stand up comedians.
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Speaker 2: Just the characters from this again Polish, Italian, Irish. This
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Speaker 2: is this big melting pot, little Pittsburgh they called it.
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Speaker 2: So it was a blessing to end up there. I
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Speaker 2: still go back, and I played golf with Rich almost
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Speaker 2: once a year, back at the golf course that I
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Speaker 2: first learned to play golf. My dad's address when we
11:41
Speaker 2: moved to Stubenville four or five two for Fairway drive.
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Speaker 2: So if you're a young kid and you just move,
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Speaker 2: you lose all your friends and you're trying to make
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Speaker 2: new friends in this suburban world, which is difficult. To
11:53
Speaker 2: have a golf course right across the street. It was
11:55
Speaker 2: awesome for me just because I could do that by myself. Right,
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Speaker 2: you can shoot hoops and you can play golf by yourself.
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Speaker 2: You know, you need to you need someone else to
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Speaker 2: play catch, to play ball. But those two things, shooting basketball,
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Speaker 2: playing golf was kind of a god send for me
12:07
Speaker 2: moving to this tough town with no friends. And it
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Speaker 2: was weird when I when I left Indiana, Pennsylvania again
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Speaker 2: a kind of town that was all my friends gave
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Speaker 2: me like goodbye presence. I don't know if kids still
12:16
Speaker 2: do that anymore, but one of them, market Labber, gave
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Speaker 2: me this Mickey Mantle bobblehead, which I believe if it's
12:23
Speaker 2: in good shape, it's actually worth something. This is like
12:27
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six. Unfortunately Mick has lost his spine along
12:31
Speaker 2: a long way the line. You know, a lot of
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Speaker 2: moves since nineteen seventy six. But it's beautiful, the Yankee uniform,
12:40
Speaker 2: and I think in mint condition these things are actually
12:42
Speaker 2: for Mickey Mantle collectors, at least they were in the
12:44
Speaker 2: hot you know, nineteen eighties nineties is one memorabilia and
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Speaker 2: baseball card collecting, which I did a lot of as
12:49
Speaker 2: a kid growing up. That's when I really hit his
12:51
Speaker 2: apex so. But yeah, that's that's that took me from
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Speaker 2: Indiana and Mickey Manto bobbleheads to rich John Lee Steubenville.
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Speaker 2: But man, it toughens you up a competitive Just think
13:01
Speaker 2: of all the athletes from that area, you know before
13:03
Speaker 2: my you know, Phil Neekro, John Havlachek, Bil Mazarowski, go
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Speaker 2: on and on and on and on. And that's because
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Speaker 2: people were hungry and tough and competitive. And you put
13:12
Speaker 2: those people in that cauldron, you're going to create like
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Speaker 2: you like you create steel, right, Like iron sharpens iron.
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Speaker 2: That's what the Ohio Valley was, iron sharpening iron. And
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Speaker 2: there were not only great athletes, but there's funny people
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Speaker 2: like there's a there's a thousand rich Donolly's in Steubenville.
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Speaker 2: Can you imagine that this guy's the most special guy
13:30
Speaker 2: in baseball. There's a thousand of them in steuben Zo.
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Speaker 4: We had him on the podcast and it was it
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Speaker 4: was so much fun.
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Speaker 2: It was he is so full of stories, so full
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Speaker 2: of life.
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Speaker 4: And you're right, but imagine having twelve of those in
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Speaker 4: a diner.
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Speaker 2: I don't think I could handle it. No, that's when
13:51
Speaker 2: I was a two point zero student. They don't make
13:53
Speaker 2: me laugh in school the time, or the ones who
13:55
Speaker 2: always went to Catholic schools in Steubenville. So we go
13:57
Speaker 2: to church once a week.
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Speaker 3: Right, there's tears went down my eye during the our
14:01
Speaker 3: father you know, I can't.
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Speaker 2: I changed control and I'm playing golf with rich Ones
14:06
Speaker 2: and somehow Wendell Kin came up. You know, just Wendell Kim.
14:09
Speaker 2: I can, as Tim knows, I can drop baseball names, players, coaches,
14:12
Speaker 2: umpires out of the sky. He was, Oh, Wendall Kim,
14:15
Speaker 2: great magician.
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Speaker 4: Who knew.
14:20
Speaker 2: It's a great you get magic tricks in the.
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Speaker 1: Bullpen, incredible boochie with all the moving around that you did.
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Speaker 1: As you've acknowledged, who was your guy when you were twelve?
14:32
Speaker 1: Who was your baseball player that you love when you
14:34
Speaker 1: were seven?
14:35
Speaker 2: Who was your guy growing up? That's my guy right there.
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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Pop, how great, that's probably that's probably
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Speaker 2: nineteen seven. Remember the Pirates got those hats in nineteen
14:50
Speaker 2: seventy six, like about eight or nine other teams, everyone
14:54
Speaker 2: else got rid of them, the Pirates kept them, so
14:57
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six they kept them around for ten years.
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Speaker 2: So obviously seventy nine comes around, and that's probably I
15:04
Speaker 2: think that that could be seventy nine because it's close.
15:08
Speaker 2: I look about thirteen there. I look thirteen till I
15:11
Speaker 2: was twenty nine, you know, just one went but he
15:15
Speaker 2: at twenty six. The first year of baseball for me,
15:18
Speaker 2: when I moved up from you know, minor league to
15:21
Speaker 2: Little League to Babe Ruth the high school, that first
15:23
Speaker 2: year was just torture. I was like an Ulsen twin,
15:26
Speaker 2: you know, facing Greg Swing Dowt when he was seventeen,
15:29
Speaker 2: you know, no chance. And so then as I got
15:34
Speaker 2: to my last age in my age group, and then
15:35
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, like I hit five hundred,
15:37
Speaker 2: it was like a like an all star, you know.
15:39
Speaker 2: But those first couple of years, so that looks like
15:41
Speaker 2: I could have been thirteen. But Willie was my guy.
15:43
Speaker 2: You know. Again, the Pirates were good when I grew up.
15:46
Speaker 2: You know, there I can mimber. My dad always worked
15:48
Speaker 2: around the house. We didn't have air conditioning in Indiana, Pennsylvania.
15:51
Speaker 2: He always did thing himself, building shelves, gigantic, toolbox, gigantic
15:56
Speaker 2: you know, tool desk and shed and work area. And
15:59
Speaker 2: I go get him a bee. In Iron City. He
16:01
Speaker 2: always let me open it up and take the first sip.
16:03
Speaker 2: I can still taste that first sip of cold Iron City.
16:06
Speaker 2: I'm eight, you know it was, but I never was.
16:11
Speaker 2: It did leave to anything else. I never was a drinker,
16:13
Speaker 2: never was a beer drinker. I became a serious host league.
16:16
Speaker 2: Didn't drink at high school, unlike every other Stupen Villa
16:18
Speaker 2: Healthley type. But yeah, the Pirate games are always on
16:23
Speaker 2: the radio. You know, every game wasn't on TV, so
16:25
Speaker 2: Bob Prince and Nellie Fox on the radio. And the
16:28
Speaker 2: Pirates won the World Series when I was five. I
16:31
Speaker 2: don't remember that, but you know, it's certainly getting into
16:33
Speaker 2: my subconscious. Right my dad's watching TV. He's listening to games,
16:37
Speaker 2: an occasional Pirate game on television, and they were and
16:40
Speaker 2: then again they're still good the entire seventies. They're losing
16:43
Speaker 2: heartbreakers to the Reds in the Championship Series. Bob Moose
16:46
Speaker 2: Wild Pitch. Obviously, the Phillies and the Piots big battles,
16:50
Speaker 2: so they're always good, and you know culminates. And I'm
16:53
Speaker 2: thirteen years old when Willie Stargel hits the home run
16:55
Speaker 2: off Scott McGregor and they win the nineteen seventy nine
16:57
Speaker 2: World Series. And then he retires a couple of years later,
17:00
Speaker 2: and I felt like my childhood ended there. When Willie
17:03
Speaker 2: Stargar retired. I felt like that was my childhood ending.
17:07
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just entering high school and you know,
17:09
Speaker 2: I moved once, and it just felt like, you know what,
17:13
Speaker 2: there's that's kind of it. I made the transition to
17:16
Speaker 2: the Red Sox because my parents were from Boston that
17:19
Speaker 2: both had fick Boston accents. In Stupenville, my friends would
17:22
Speaker 2: come over to the house just to listen to my
17:24
Speaker 2: parents talk because it felt like they were from the mall.
17:27
Speaker 2: It sounded like they were from Mars because the Boston
17:30
Speaker 2: accent wasn't a commodity yet. It wasn't until Goodwill. Goodwill
17:34
Speaker 2: Hunting made the Boston accent a thing, right, It maybe
17:37
Speaker 2: a commodity. No one could do it well before that.
17:40
Speaker 2: Matt Damon and bet Affleck were the first ones who
17:43
Speaker 2: did it correctly. Because when you grew up with an accent,
17:45
Speaker 2: you know, it's not John, it's John. They hear pack
17:49
Speaker 2: and cap, so they think it's John. No, it's John
17:53
Speaker 2: pack John, you know. And so my friends like, who
17:57
Speaker 2: are these people? Why are they talking like this? Because
17:59
Speaker 2: you did hear it on TV?
18:01
Speaker 5: You couldn't.
18:01
Speaker 2: Even Cheers did not do a very good Boston accent.
18:04
Speaker 2: He's the only one who tried in Cheers, right, and
18:07
Speaker 2: it wasn't that good. It was like a fourteen hand
18:09
Speaker 2: at Boston accent, you know. Well, yeah, so I made
18:14
Speaker 2: the switch to the Red Sox. This was the Ralph
18:16
Speaker 2: Hawk Red Sox. They weren't really that good. They were
18:18
Speaker 2: five hundred teen. But I knew, I knew. I always
18:21
Speaker 2: grew up around kind of economically depressed areas. Indiana was
18:23
Speaker 2: kind of a mining town that was going in the
18:25
Speaker 2: opposite direction. Stubendo was the steel mill town. You know,
18:29
Speaker 2: you could work in the mill, make sixty grand a year,
18:32
Speaker 2: buy a house for forty grand, play slow pitch softball,
18:34
Speaker 2: have a couple of kids, buy a Buick, have a life.
18:36
Speaker 2: It was a good life, you know, and that life
18:38
Speaker 2: was going away, and I looked up in New England.
18:41
Speaker 2: I saw the sports teams are doing well, the economy
18:44
Speaker 2: was doing well, and just something told me I should
18:46
Speaker 2: end up there. I should go there for my so
18:49
Speaker 2: I made that switch to the Red Sox in the
18:51
Speaker 2: early eighties and eventually went to high school to college
18:53
Speaker 2: in Ohio, but then went right to New England and
18:56
Speaker 2: that started my TV career and I've been there ever since.
18:58
Speaker 2: I've been three jobs kid Cable for five years, Providence,
19:03
Speaker 2: Rhode Island for two, in the ESPN for thirty. You know,
19:06
Speaker 2: I've been so lucky these three jobs. In thirty I
19:09
Speaker 2: got hired August of nineteen eighty nine, so this this
19:12
Speaker 2: August on my first TV job. But that's what thirty
19:15
Speaker 2: seven years, so very very lucky. But yeah, I made
19:20
Speaker 2: that switch to the Red Sox and then also the
19:23
Speaker 2: literary you know, the volumes of literary work on the
19:26
Speaker 2: Red Sox, all the books in the history. I've always
19:28
Speaker 2: loved history, go back to a little kid, a revolutionary war,
19:31
Speaker 2: and I think the Vice Centennial when I was ten
19:33
Speaker 2: probably had the big impression on me. My parents. It
19:37
Speaker 2: just appealed to me. Baseball in history and box scores
19:40
Speaker 2: are looking back. And so the Red Sox, with all
19:43
Speaker 2: that richness on the Curse of the Banbino, Bob Ryan,
19:46
Speaker 2: Dan Shaughnessy, all these amazing books on the Red Sox
19:48
Speaker 2: had fed that part of me too, and so I
19:51
Speaker 2: kind of switched to the Red Sox.
19:53
Speaker 1: Right Boochie, back to Willie Startled for a minute, and
19:56
Speaker 1: back to jud Birds for a minute. Picture this Boochie
20:00
Speaker 1: jud goes to a game and sitting right and this
20:03
Speaker 1: is years ago. Sitting right in front of him is
20:05
Speaker 1: a guy with a Willy Stargel jersey on and proclaims
20:09
Speaker 1: to everyone in the stands he's the greatest Willy Stargele
20:13
Speaker 1: fan ever. And then his buddy asks, this guy was
20:16
Speaker 1: Stargel on the seventy nine Pirates team. And this guy said,
20:22
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if he was on the seventy nine
20:26
Speaker 1: Pirates team and Judd. Judd is ready to strangle him,
20:31
Speaker 1: but he just politely taps him on the shoulder, the
20:35
Speaker 1: Willie Stargele guy and says.
20:37
Speaker 2: Yes, he was on that team.
20:39
Speaker 5: Can you imagine Judd having to handle something like that.
20:44
Speaker 2: The Phillies fan as the Arbiture of Pittsburgh Pirate Knowledge.
20:48
Speaker 2: But I have some other show and tells. I like
20:51
Speaker 2: getting autographs on things with the sports the guys didn't
20:55
Speaker 2: play like. I have a Carlton Fisk autograph golf ball,
20:59
Speaker 2: which I really like. Wow, Pudge Beyond the Sixth Game,
21:03
Speaker 2: Peter Gammon's great book that left a big impression on
21:06
Speaker 2: me as right then. But I also have I have
21:08
Speaker 2: Ray Bork's autograph on a base on a baseball. Wait. Yeah,
21:13
Speaker 2: I kind of like doing stuff like that where it's
21:14
Speaker 2: like a little different, you know, and support like baseball.
21:18
Speaker 2: Fisk obviously loves golf. I got that like a golf tournament.
21:20
Speaker 2: But I like doing things like that with my little
21:22
Speaker 2: memorabilia things and kind of a to change it up again.
21:25
Speaker 6: But Todd father, are you hitting some games this summer?
21:29
Speaker 6: What's the deal golf?
21:30
Speaker 2: Of course?
21:31
Speaker 7: And it's real simple, Scotty Braun. You know how it is.
21:34
Speaker 7: You go to seat Geek and you can find any
21:36
Speaker 7: deal you want in any section you want, even if
21:38
Speaker 7: the game sold out. Go to seat Geek and you'll
21:41
Speaker 7: find something that you love, affordable for your family, that
21:44
Speaker 7: you can enjoy anywhere anytime at any ballpark and stadium
21:48
Speaker 7: you want enjoy it.
21:50
Speaker 2: It's the best opportunity to go see a beautiful game
21:52
Speaker 2: of baseball.
21:53
Speaker 6: And that's the thing that you can be so last minute.
21:56
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22:02
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Speaker 6: to your account so you can use it later.
22:32
Speaker 1: Jeff on the Chris Mullin scoop off of a building
22:35
Speaker 1: and then bounced in the basket on one bucci. When
22:38
Speaker 1: he threw it up against the giant side of the building,
22:42
Speaker 1: he announced, tell me when it goes in the basket,
22:45
Speaker 1: and like a second and a half later, it went
22:48
Speaker 1: in the basket like he already knew it was going
22:52
Speaker 1: to happen.
22:53
Speaker 2: It should be that it should be shown on a loop.
22:55
Speaker 2: It's like Jack Nicholas, my favorite Jack Nicholas video. He's
22:58
Speaker 2: like seventy years old. He just designed a course. He's
23:01
Speaker 2: got this what one hundred foot putt that goes over
23:03
Speaker 2: like a picture's mind another picture's mound, and Johnny Miller's like, Jack,
23:07
Speaker 2: this is a stupid hole. This is a dumb green
23:09
Speaker 2: this puts. I don't know how to hit this putt.
23:11
Speaker 2: Nicholas waddles down. It's all you can find it. It's
23:14
Speaker 2: not hard. He watched. It's one of my favorite videos
23:17
Speaker 2: of all time. It's the greatest athletic feet after Chris
23:21
Speaker 2: Mullen I've ever seen. The guy's like seventy five, you know,
23:23
Speaker 2: if he's not even he's twelve or twenty five or thirty.
23:25
Speaker 2: Jack Nicholas in his prime. This is one hundred and
23:27
Speaker 2: twenty foot pot it's not a ten foot twenty footer,
23:30
Speaker 2: and it's all over these miles like a roller coaster
23:32
Speaker 2: and it goes right in the middle. It's like, and
23:34
Speaker 2: there's a crowd there right because they're like, I'm veiling
23:36
Speaker 2: this new golf course that Jack Nicholas just designed and
23:40
Speaker 2: Johnny Miller's there and he's given Jack little twerp and
23:42
Speaker 2: a chirp, and it goes right in. It's unbelievable. Like, no,
23:48
Speaker 2: that's no accident, he says.
23:49
Speaker 4: He says, you want me to show you how to
23:51
Speaker 4: putt it, and he just throws the way you would
23:53
Speaker 4: do it in a putt and green. He just throws
23:54
Speaker 4: the ball, kind of rolls up. He looks at it
23:57
Speaker 4: for what two maybe a second, and then just kind
24:02
Speaker 4: of goes.
24:02
Speaker 2: It goes in twenty foot button. It's a big backswing
24:05
Speaker 2: with his putter. It's a long putt and it doesn't
24:08
Speaker 2: even react.
24:08
Speaker 4: The crowd is going wild because they saw seventy year
24:12
Speaker 4: old hit this. But in this amazing bo it's one
24:14
Speaker 4: of my favorite videos ever.
24:15
Speaker 2: Oh it's so good post. Yeah.
24:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've only done baseball essentially in my career. But
24:22
Speaker 1: you have done baseball, basketball, football, golf, hockey, everything. Give
24:27
Speaker 1: me another guy that you have met along the way
24:29
Speaker 1: where you recognize, Oh my gosh, I'm going to interview
24:32
Speaker 1: this guy on live TV or you know, from the
24:35
Speaker 1: studio whatever.
24:36
Speaker 2: And this is a guy that I worshiped growing up.
24:39
Speaker 1: That there has to be somebody like that in one
24:42
Speaker 1: of those sports where you said, Bucci, I'm talking to
24:45
Speaker 1: this guy right now?
24:46
Speaker 5: Who is that guy?
24:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I probably would look towards the older guys right
24:51
Speaker 2: when they're because they were not as accessible. We didn't
24:54
Speaker 2: have as much television, We didn't have as much inventory
24:57
Speaker 2: of things. Yet I always talk about, you know, being
24:59
Speaker 2: a music fan. When I was, like in the seventies
25:03
Speaker 2: and eighties, we didn't have a lot of inventory of
25:05
Speaker 2: music to choose from. So we only had twenty years
25:08
Speaker 2: of rock and roll. Where the kids nowadays, you know,
25:11
Speaker 2: they have seventy. So it's kind of you know, we
25:14
Speaker 2: kind of chirped the kids like, you know what, you've
25:15
Speaker 2: never heard of Earth Wind and Fire, or you never
25:17
Speaker 2: heard of Donnie and Marie or you know, or led Zeppelin.
25:21
Speaker 2: You don't know who led. But they have seventy years
25:23
Speaker 2: in inventory. It's harder for them. We had very limited
25:26
Speaker 2: There was a very limited video. We saw the same
25:29
Speaker 2: things on television over and over again. So they become
25:32
Speaker 2: really legend and myth because there just wasn't a lot
25:36
Speaker 2: And so when I got to interview someone like Maurice
25:38
Speaker 2: Rocket Rashard not a Canadian fan. This is the late nineties. Again,
25:43
Speaker 2: I'm at that point. I'm probably still more of a
25:45
Speaker 2: baseball guy than a hockey guy. Again, I grew up
25:48
Speaker 2: loving every sport. I just happened to all, you know,
25:50
Speaker 2: like most kids in America, football, basketball, baseball. I just
25:53
Speaker 2: happened because my dad was from Boston. Added hockey, which
25:56
Speaker 2: turned out great for my career because I knew the rules,
25:59
Speaker 2: the knowledge, the players, the history, the feel I played
26:03
Speaker 2: a little bit so understood. That gives you a little
26:05
Speaker 2: bit of insight on the difficulty. But to my rocketshard,
26:10
Speaker 2: he's a black and white athlete. I call him right
26:13
Speaker 2: Like all his video, his still pictures, they're all black
26:16
Speaker 2: and white. That's like a whole different level of mysticism romanticism.
26:21
Speaker 2: So someone like that, where now everyone is so accessible,
26:24
Speaker 2: we've lost a little bit of that magic. Like if
26:27
Speaker 2: I were to see Tom I never met Tom sever,
26:29
Speaker 2: but like to meet Tom Sever that would be a
26:32
Speaker 2: huge deal to me. To meet Michael Jordan would not
26:36
Speaker 2: as much. It would be I haven't met him either.
26:38
Speaker 2: I'd enjoy that. It'd be a short list of like
26:41
Speaker 2: probably five people they were like, Wow, this is really cool,
26:43
Speaker 2: but it wouldn't have the same effect as meeting Tom
26:46
Speaker 2: sever in nineteen eighty nine. They were just different levels
26:52
Speaker 2: of that romanticism and mysticism. And Rocket Rashard was the
26:57
Speaker 2: one athlete I can think of from that era forties
27:01
Speaker 2: and the fifties that I got to interview amazing.
27:05
Speaker 1: Jeff Tell Bouchier, Tom sever story from Cooperstown.
27:09
Speaker 4: So we used to go to the Hall of Fame
27:11
Speaker 4: induction every single year as a family, me, my sister.
27:14
Speaker 2: And my parents.
27:15
Speaker 4: I know, and the first and I don't know how
27:18
Speaker 4: this happened, and I as now a thirty two year old.
27:21
Speaker 4: I don't know how this conversation went. But the first
27:24
Speaker 4: year that my mom and my sister didn't go is
27:28
Speaker 4: widely known as arguably the greatest induction year of all time,
27:32
Speaker 4: that of Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. I don't
27:35
Speaker 4: know why that year they were like, I think we're good.
27:38
Speaker 4: So I went with my dad on my own. It
27:41
Speaker 4: was the most amazing trip of all time. I was thirteen, twelve,
27:46
Speaker 4: thirteen years old, and I got to go to the
27:49
Speaker 4: dinner that happens right after the parade. So they parade
27:52
Speaker 4: in and all the Hall of Famers are there. It's
27:54
Speaker 4: pretty amazing. Well, here I am. I kind of lost
27:58
Speaker 4: my dad in the crowd, but I'm holding my own
28:00
Speaker 4: and I talked to Tom Seaver and his wife. We
28:02
Speaker 4: were in the black room and we're talking about my
28:06
Speaker 4: love for theater and my love for performing and my
28:09
Speaker 4: love for and they're asking all these quotes, when's your
28:11
Speaker 4: next show?
28:12
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
28:13
Speaker 4: And all of a sudden, my dad sees me yucking
28:16
Speaker 4: it up tomceiver and kind of looks at me afterwards,
28:21
Speaker 4: and you know, comes in to make sure I'm not
28:23
Speaker 4: bothering them or do they need to be saved or
28:25
Speaker 4: do I need to be saying whatever it might be.
28:28
Speaker 4: Here's just talking about nicely, nicely Johnson and guys and dolls.
28:35
Speaker 2: Boochie. It was incredible. Nancy was his wife's name, Nancy?
28:39
Speaker 1: Nancy, Yes, of course?
28:41
Speaker 2: Why yeah, my head to go, I think, Dancy, Why
28:44
Speaker 2: would I still be in my brain? But that's you
28:47
Speaker 2: once told me.
28:49
Speaker 1: I asked you once, how do you know all this stuff?
28:51
Speaker 1: And you just told me simply, I pay attention and
28:54
Speaker 1: you do. But that day we saw Tom Seaver get
28:56
Speaker 1: this Gus Ramsey, formerly of ESPN. He and his dad,
29:00
Speaker 1: Wally were there, so we had this great conversation, but
29:03
Speaker 1: it took about ten years of me knowing Gus Ramsey
29:07
Speaker 1: before he told me that he once caught Tom Sever
29:11
Speaker 1: in his driveway. Tom Sever was gonna make a comeback
29:15
Speaker 1: after retiring, and he goes over to Wally Ramsey's house
29:19
Speaker 1: because he wants to start to get loose, So he
29:21
Speaker 1: says to Gus.
29:22
Speaker 2: Can you catch me in the driveway.
29:24
Speaker 1: So Gus got his giant first basement's mitt, went out
29:28
Speaker 1: and caught Tom Sever in the driveway and did okay,
29:32
Speaker 1: And then Tom Seaver said now I'm gonna throw some sliders,
29:35
Speaker 1: and Gus is thinking, oh my god, I'm gonna catch
29:38
Speaker 1: a slider from Tom Sever. Bouccie, you would have introduced
29:42
Speaker 1: yourself to people, wouldn't you have saying, oh hi, I'm
29:45
Speaker 1: John Butcher.
29:46
Speaker 2: Graz I once caught Tom.
29:47
Speaker 5: Sever in the driveway.
29:49
Speaker 2: Am I wrong? That's the first thing. Yeah? That was Greenwich, Connecticut,
29:54
Speaker 2: down where in fact the nicely he showed me a
29:56
Speaker 2: picture of it. He's either a family member or I
30:00
Speaker 2: thought it was even maybe you just you know, Gus
30:02
Speaker 2: grew up with Bill Simmons, of course, and he might
30:05
Speaker 2: have been there that day too. I think they must
30:07
Speaker 2: might have been hanging out together. But I saw the
30:09
Speaker 2: picture of sever throwing to Gus in the driveway. He
30:12
Speaker 2: once brought that in. But you're right, I lead with that.
30:15
Speaker 2: I lead with that bit of information. I never played
30:17
Speaker 2: catch with a big leaguer in my life, so that
30:20
Speaker 2: was and that would have been something.
30:23
Speaker 1: Right, So, Buccie, I don't know anything about hockey, I'm
30:26
Speaker 1: ashamed to say, but I did meet Wayne Gretzky in
30:28
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. He was having dinner at a dear friend
30:31
Speaker 1: of mine, Matt McCoy's house in LA and Wayne Gretzky
30:35
Speaker 1: walks in and it's going to eat dinner with us
30:37
Speaker 1: at my buddy Matt's house. And he introduces himself and says, Hi,
30:41
Speaker 1: I'm Wayne, Like no kidding. He I was just mesmerized
30:45
Speaker 1: sitting next to a guy who was at the time
30:49
Speaker 1: and maybe still is the greatest hockey player of all time.
30:52
Speaker 1: And not like I know anything about hockey. But the
30:55
Speaker 1: Russian coach once said after playing against Gretzky, he said,
30:59
Speaker 1: you see him, then he disappears, then there's a goal.
31:04
Speaker 1: Does that accurately? Does that accurately describe to uh? Wayne
31:10
Speaker 1: Gretzy to you a great hockey guy. Does that Does
31:13
Speaker 1: that mean something?
31:15
Speaker 2: Yes, I've always been kind of drawn to the smart athletes.
31:18
Speaker 2: I like to watch smarts in action. And no one
31:23
Speaker 2: had better spatial awareness than Wayne Gretzky. You know, wasn't
31:26
Speaker 2: the biggest, strongest, fastest, shot at hardest, just a he
31:30
Speaker 2: paid attention to everything. You know, he grew up on
31:34
Speaker 2: a backyard rink, so he probably developed a lot of
31:36
Speaker 2: innate instinctual things. Didn't have drills. He used to watch
31:41
Speaker 2: games on TV and kind of draw where the puck
31:44
Speaker 2: went and where it was going, so he knew it
31:46
Speaker 2: where it was going to go. When he played the
31:48
Speaker 2: old line, don't go where the puck is, go where
31:50
Speaker 2: it's going to go. And uh, you know that's like
31:54
Speaker 2: Derek Jeter when he made the famous cutoff play in Oakland.
31:56
Speaker 2: He wasn't going where the ball was. He was going
31:59
Speaker 2: where the ball is going to go. That's why he
32:01
Speaker 2: just felt like, I should probably roam in that area.
32:04
Speaker 2: Nothing might happen to nine out of one hundred times,
32:06
Speaker 2: nothing's going to happen. But in that moment the ball
32:09
Speaker 2: came to him, he was able to make the play
32:11
Speaker 2: go where the ball was going to go go where
32:13
Speaker 2: the puck is going to be, That's where you go next.
32:17
Speaker 2: And he understood patterns, and that was as a young kid,
32:21
Speaker 2: you drawing on watching the game on TV and then
32:24
Speaker 2: implementing it in this obviously his own innate spatial awareness
32:28
Speaker 2: as well. But yeah, hockey is a game of spatial awareness.
32:31
Speaker 2: Hockey sense they call it because it's a fast moving
32:33
Speaker 2: game and you need to be half a step ahead.
32:35
Speaker 2: So the term hockey sense was big growing up. You
32:38
Speaker 2: don't hear it as much anymore. Players are more skillful today,
32:41
Speaker 2: but they don't have as much hockey sense. Baseball is
32:43
Speaker 2: probably a lot in the same line, where pitchers throw
32:47
Speaker 2: it faster, players hit it harder, But do they play
32:50
Speaker 2: like Dustin Pedroia and Derek Jeter, the two smartest players
32:55
Speaker 2: of my ESPN run in terms of watching guys think
32:59
Speaker 2: the game in every pitch and again, every single pitch
33:04
Speaker 2: they're in every pitch, never took a pitch off to
33:07
Speaker 2: anticipate just in case where the ball was going to go.
33:10
Speaker 2: Give them just a little clue, a little information to
33:13
Speaker 2: maybe I could will help me make a play.
33:16
Speaker 4: So we had Tom Glavin on the podcast, and we
33:19
Speaker 4: had him Dad, remind me, I think it was right
33:22
Speaker 4: during the NHL draft.
33:23
Speaker 2: It must have been last year, Yes, and it was again.
33:28
Speaker 4: You know, we had will Zalatorus on, we talked about hypotheticals,
33:31
Speaker 4: so non baseball related. When we had Glavin on, we
33:34
Speaker 4: talked about hockey for twenty minutes. Have you in that crossover, Nate, Like,
33:40
Speaker 4: who's an athlete you love talking a different sport with?
33:43
Speaker 4: Is it Glavin? Because he you know, he got drafted
33:45
Speaker 4: above Brett Hull, right, Dad, So I mean.
33:48
Speaker 2: He did, Bucie.
33:49
Speaker 1: We famously asked him, stupid Tim Kirkchin hypothetical, if we
33:53
Speaker 1: gave him ten penalty shots, you know, we'll give him
33:57
Speaker 1: half an hour to get in shape at age sixty
33:59
Speaker 1: whatever he is, is, how many penalty shots could he
34:03
Speaker 1: score on an NHL goalie when knowing, you know, forty
34:08
Speaker 1: years earlier he was a great hockey player. So Tom Glavin,
34:12
Speaker 1: you know, the most modest man in the world, he said,
34:16
Speaker 1: I might be able to score one. Does that sound
34:21
Speaker 1: about right, Buccie? That these NHL hockey goalies are just
34:25
Speaker 1: so ridiculously good that even Tom Glavin.
34:29
Speaker 2: Would have trouble scoring once? Does that sound right to you?
34:33
Speaker 2: It does. Yeah, I saw Tommy at Sean McDonough's annual
34:37
Speaker 2: charity golf tournament here in New England last year. We
34:39
Speaker 2: talked about getting drafted a little bit of hockey talk
34:41
Speaker 2: as well, and yeah, I remember ESPN. We used to
34:43
Speaker 2: have a little pickup game. This is back in two
34:44
Speaker 2: thousand and one Stanley Cup final, when Ray Bork finally
34:48
Speaker 2: won his Stanley Cup. I got to know him and
34:50
Speaker 2: work at ESBN and play some golf with them, and
34:55
Speaker 2: so we got out there once. So we're doing some
34:57
Speaker 2: on ice demonstration, so we decided to have a little
35:00
Speaker 2: you know, shootout on Darren Pang, the former NHL goalie
35:03
Speaker 2: five foot three inches tall, right Rookie of the Year finalists,
35:06
Speaker 2: the smallest goalie ever practically, and I would and we
35:09
Speaker 2: always just came out on him and you know, tried
35:11
Speaker 2: different little shootout moves and I did again. I can
35:14
Speaker 2: always skate played a little bit. Wasn't Tom Glavin level,
35:17
Speaker 2: but to come up you think it would be, especially
35:19
Speaker 2: this little guy. Plus he's you know, forty eight years
35:22
Speaker 2: old at the time and he's five foot three and
35:25
Speaker 2: he's not playing a lot of goalie. But there was
35:27
Speaker 2: no chance, like zero chance. So yeah, so Tom Glavin
35:31
Speaker 2: coming down on Sergei, Bobrovsky or you know, Henrik Lundquist
35:35
Speaker 2: and his prime, Yeah, probably not going to happen, you know,
35:38
Speaker 2: like I said, maybe a bar down off a crossbar
35:40
Speaker 2: or something. But it really is the level of skill
35:43
Speaker 2: of all these athletes at each of their positions. It's
35:46
Speaker 2: hard for the average fan to really understand because obviously
35:50
Speaker 2: they're playing with like minded and like athletic ridden players.
35:56
Speaker 2: So everything's going to kind of slow down because there's
35:58
Speaker 2: no there's not that this parity of talent, like if
36:01
Speaker 2: they jump into a high school game then you would
36:03
Speaker 2: see it. They're all pretty close enough to make it
36:06
Speaker 2: look even easier because why can't that guy just do that? Right? So, yeah,
36:11
Speaker 2: that was I do believe that it would be very hard,
36:14
Speaker 2: as great as Tommy was in hockey to do to
36:17
Speaker 2: score on an NHL goalie.
36:19
Speaker 1: Right again, Bouchie, it's all about the levels. And speaking
36:28
Speaker 1: of the levels, Boochie, would you please explain to my
36:31
Speaker 1: son Jeff and to all our listeners the annual deal
36:36
Speaker 1: that you would have where you would eat something before
36:39
Speaker 1: one show per year before you go host Sports Center.
36:43
Speaker 1: Would you please explain what I'm talking about and why
36:47
Speaker 1: you would possibly do that. It's one of the most
36:49
Speaker 1: impressive things I've ever heard.
36:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, bucket of chicken night. It really began with Stan
36:55
Speaker 2: Forrette not believing that I could eat an entire bucket
36:58
Speaker 2: of chicken. I've always been very skinny, at a hard
37:03
Speaker 2: time gaining weight in high school. In college, I was
37:05
Speaker 2: a late bloomer and I wanted to be a big, strong,
37:07
Speaker 2: strapping athlete. It was difficult for me. A hard gainer,
37:11
Speaker 2: as they call it. Hard to gain weight, hard to
37:12
Speaker 2: gain muscle in the gym just didn't come natural. And
37:16
Speaker 2: so and so, I think people look at us and
37:19
Speaker 2: feel like we can't eat because we don't eat enough. No,
37:22
Speaker 2: I eat plenty. I would sit down in college and
37:24
Speaker 2: have five bowls of cereal in a row before I
37:27
Speaker 2: even went and got in the breakfast line, like I
37:29
Speaker 2: could eat. I had a big appetite. And plus us
37:32
Speaker 2: skinny guys, we have the advantage in these eating contests
37:36
Speaker 2: because our stomachs can expand we have room to grow.
37:39
Speaker 2: So to eat a bucket of chicken, in my mind,
37:42
Speaker 2: you know that was no. But Stan just didn't believe it.
37:45
Speaker 2: So I said, I'm going to do it. Right now,
37:47
Speaker 2: I'm going to drive down to Queen Street and Subbington
37:49
Speaker 2: and get me a puppet of chicken, and I'm going
37:51
Speaker 2: to eat it here while we write Sports Center, and
37:54
Speaker 2: then we're going to go to do Sports Center. And
37:58
Speaker 2: so I would do it once a year and then eventually,
38:00
Speaker 2: you know, the producers at ESPN, we do so much television,
38:03
Speaker 2: they're looking for anything to maybe give them not a
38:05
Speaker 2: night off. But what can we do different? What can
38:07
Speaker 2: we do? So they kind of started to run with
38:09
Speaker 2: bucket and Chicken Knight, and you know, we would talk
38:12
Speaker 2: about it, and they would put up a full screen,
38:15
Speaker 2: you know, with how many calories and saturated fat and
38:19
Speaker 2: sodium that I had that night. It was a full
38:21
Speaker 2: screen from like a Baseball Tonight, full scream with my stats.
38:26
Speaker 2: You know, my war that night was off the chart,
38:29
Speaker 2: so twenty nine point six. So yeah, so I would
38:32
Speaker 2: just do it, and then I would have everyone signed
38:34
Speaker 2: the bucket who was a part of the show. I
38:36
Speaker 2: got like nine buckets downstairs in my office. So yeah,
38:40
Speaker 2: we again, those are things we did at Sports Center.
38:43
Speaker 2: It was just a great little communal thing. Always we
38:46
Speaker 2: would quiz with the young production assistants. They get out
38:49
Speaker 2: of college, they want to work at ESPN. They're twenty
38:50
Speaker 2: three to twenty four to twenty five. That first level.
38:53
Speaker 2: You watch a game, you do the highlights, and you
38:55
Speaker 2: come give the shot sheet to the anchor and say
38:57
Speaker 2: here's here's Yankees raise anything great happened? And what happened here?
39:02
Speaker 2: And Gus Ramsey was great with these reindeer games. Like
39:05
Speaker 2: we would say, okay, we asked the next ten, pas,
39:08
Speaker 2: can they name the Four Beatles? How many can do
39:11
Speaker 2: it out of the next ten, and we would wager
39:14
Speaker 2: on that and like I got one, you know, I'm
39:17
Speaker 2: gonna go three. And we would ask them to see
39:19
Speaker 2: if they could. And again this is more and this
39:20
Speaker 2: is back in the late nineties. So the Beatles only
39:22
Speaker 2: broken up for twenty five years. It's not like now,
39:25
Speaker 2: I get it. It's harder. Although, being a good parent,
39:27
Speaker 2: I've instructed my son Jack on the Four Beatles and
39:30
Speaker 2: he can identify their singing voice, all right, Jack, who
39:33
Speaker 2: is that John, Paul or George and occasionally Ringo. So yeah,
39:37
Speaker 2: that's the that's the important part of parenting. Give them
39:40
Speaker 2: some things that will give them a step ahead. My
39:43
Speaker 2: son can name the four Beatles, but so little things
39:46
Speaker 2: like that. But yeah, Bucket of Chicken Night was one
39:48
Speaker 2: of those things. You just anything that you know, we're
39:50
Speaker 2: there late at night, day after day till one two am.
39:54
Speaker 2: How can we make this fun? How can we make
39:56
Speaker 2: this a little more enjoyable here in amongst our cubicle
40:00
Speaker 2: with this crazy job that we're lucky to have. We
40:03
Speaker 2: were in the toy department of life. It is such
40:06
Speaker 2: a blessing and we're so grateful, and so yeah, bucket
40:08
Speaker 2: a chicken Night was a thing. I think I should
40:11
Speaker 2: probably retire from it. I learned the first couple of
40:14
Speaker 2: times i'd get it, I would get so dehydrated. I
40:16
Speaker 2: was like very concerned. I would have a help out.
40:19
Speaker 2: So now I go into it. When I do go
40:22
Speaker 2: into it, maybe I'll do one more. I fast all
40:25
Speaker 2: day so like I don't eat, drink a lot of water.
40:28
Speaker 2: So that makes it really easy. Because a couple of
40:30
Speaker 2: times I have finished and didn't want to. It was
40:33
Speaker 2: like this is a battle. Now, this is an absolute
40:36
Speaker 2: fath But what we did and we did and now
40:40
Speaker 2: boujie chicken parm is your thing? Have I have I
40:44
Speaker 2: overrated this? But what what is the deal with Chicken parm.
40:48
Speaker 1: Nobody loves chicken par more than I do.
40:50
Speaker 2: So where did that come from? Yeah? I really think
40:53
Speaker 2: I single handedly brought chicken par into the forefront of
40:56
Speaker 2: the American consciousness. I really do when I when esp
41:00
Speaker 2: And brought me in to do my you know, when
41:02
Speaker 2: you send in your resume tape, I said it in
41:05
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six, never expected to get a call back.
41:09
Speaker 2: I just saw this article in the USA Today. This
41:11
Speaker 2: guy's name Al jaffe His job was to look at
41:14
Speaker 2: resume tapes. I happened to go into work that day
41:17
Speaker 2: at Channel twelve in Providence. I happen to see this
41:19
Speaker 2: USA Today on someone's desk. It was a little profile
41:22
Speaker 2: on Al Jaffie. People send him tapes. He looks at
41:25
Speaker 2: him and you know, they might file him away if
41:27
Speaker 2: they think someone has a shot or something. And I go, oh,
41:29
Speaker 2: look at that. You know, especially at that time, you
41:31
Speaker 2: couldn't get to people. There's no real internet yet, there's
41:34
Speaker 2: no emails, like how do I get to somebody? How
41:37
Speaker 2: do I apply for a job to work in baseball
41:40
Speaker 2: or anywhere? Now you can email on GM, you know,
41:43
Speaker 2: you can direct message, you can direct message will Zalatorus
41:46
Speaker 2: on Instagram. You know so, but I saw this article
41:51
Speaker 2: and a guy that's his job. Why don't I send
41:53
Speaker 2: a tape there? Just because? On a whim? And that's
41:55
Speaker 2: because you know again, now kid might want some work
41:58
Speaker 2: for Apple. Why do I send Apple or resume? Who's gonna?
42:01
Speaker 2: But I think, well, our job is different. It's actually
42:03
Speaker 2: on a video so they can see you, they can
42:05
Speaker 2: see your work. So yeah, I'll send a tape down Jaffee,
42:08
Speaker 2: never even thinking twice about it. Two months later they
42:10
Speaker 2: call me, Oh my goodness, and they want to come
42:13
Speaker 2: for a tryout. So you drive out night before, stay
42:15
Speaker 2: in the hotel across the street, and used to you
42:17
Speaker 2: write a little ten minute sports center. You do sports Center,
42:20
Speaker 2: You go to Chili's, you come back, talk with three executives,
42:22
Speaker 2: and you go home. It's like an eight to nine
42:24
Speaker 2: to five tryout night. Before I go up, there's a
42:27
Speaker 2: place called val Turno's right next door. They had this
42:29
Speaker 2: thing Chicken parmeersan I didn't grow up like I grew
42:32
Speaker 2: up with McDonald's. Was a good night out in Indiana, Pennsylvania.
42:36
Speaker 2: Same with Stupidville. There's no nice restaurants. I went to
42:38
Speaker 2: my first steakhouse. I was thirty four when I had
42:41
Speaker 2: my first state at ESPN. I didn't grow up with
42:44
Speaker 2: chicken parmers, and I never heard of chicken parmy shop. Ah,
42:48
Speaker 2: this is good. You know, why did my mom make
42:51
Speaker 2: chicken park We had spaghetti's and meatballs, angel hair and meatballs.
42:54
Speaker 2: That was our Italian dinner, you know, And it just
42:57
Speaker 2: felt it just this is amazing, and and so I
43:01
Speaker 2: just kind of and then when Ray Ferraro shout out
43:04
Speaker 2: Ray on the other side Ray Ferraro, NHL of four
43:07
Speaker 2: hundred eight career goals and now works at ESPN, he says, yeah,
43:10
Speaker 2: a lot of hockey players like chicken parm in the
43:13
Speaker 2: afternoon because he had a little carbs, a little proteins,
43:15
Speaker 2: just kind of a good meal before their nap or
43:17
Speaker 2: after their nap to get ready for the game at night.
43:19
Speaker 2: I said, oh, wow, that's that makes a lot of
43:21
Speaker 2: sense too. So then it became kind of like, oh,
43:23
Speaker 2: after I work out, awesome chicken parm So I just thought, so,
43:27
Speaker 2: you know, i'd say winter winter chicken dinner. I was
43:29
Speaker 2: like kind of the first person to say that on TV.
43:31
Speaker 2: You know, your chicken dinner should trade. I should have
43:34
Speaker 2: trademarked it. I would not be working today, but then
43:37
Speaker 2: I would add, you know, winter Winter chicken Farm dinner,
43:39
Speaker 2: and then just became kind of thing with you know,
43:41
Speaker 2: with with Twitter starting Instagram, you kind of threw a
43:44
Speaker 2: picture of oh look, I made chicken parm and then
43:46
Speaker 2: someone would make one and they asked me to rate it.
43:48
Speaker 2: And then it just because like so many things like
43:51
Speaker 2: bucking a Chicken Nite or other things at ESPN, they
43:54
Speaker 2: happen organically. That's what everything about me just kind of
43:56
Speaker 2: happens based on of fun. When I was in college,
43:59
Speaker 2: I would rank the top twelve intermural basketball teams at
44:02
Speaker 2: Heidelberg College. I would put it on the cafeteria door
44:05
Speaker 2: every Monday. People could not wait to see that top
44:09
Speaker 2: ten UPI I think I call it like the upi APA,
44:13
Speaker 2: you know, ap top ten innermural Heidelberg basketball teams. And
44:18
Speaker 2: they would love that. And I just always enjoyed doing
44:20
Speaker 2: fun stuff like that. And that's how you know, the
44:23
Speaker 2: Bucci Overtime Challenge. Never expected that, the college hockey, the
44:27
Speaker 2: chicken palm, It's just based out of fun. And that's
44:30
Speaker 2: kind of like what I do on Twitter. I think
44:32
Speaker 2: that's people kind of sense that it's authentic. It's just
44:35
Speaker 2: me having a good time. I have no planning meetings
44:37
Speaker 2: about how can I market this. I don't think about
44:40
Speaker 2: that stuff.
44:41
Speaker 5: I just do it.
44:42
Speaker 2: Like like what the umpire ejection fantasy league or anything
44:45
Speaker 2: like that. It's just based out of fun, camaraderie, ship
44:49
Speaker 2: almost like a family familiar type of you know, cohesion
44:53
Speaker 2: that you just that's what life's about, right, It's about
44:56
Speaker 2: loving the person next to you, having a good time,
44:59
Speaker 2: pushing each other, achieving a goal. I'm doing good work
45:03
Speaker 2: whether you're a writer or an editor or a broadcaster,
45:06
Speaker 2: and just creating things. I've always been kind of a
45:09
Speaker 2: creative mindset.
45:10
Speaker 1: Right, Boocie last one for me. We could keep you
45:13
Speaker 1: for five hours. And I'm sure I've got the wrong guy.
45:16
Speaker 1: But one of the great cohesion stories that I heard
45:19
Speaker 1: at ESPN was guys did a hockey game one night
45:22
Speaker 1: and Ray Ferraro went out. I may not be Ray Ferraro,
45:25
Speaker 1: it's not important. And they go out to a bar afterwards,
45:28
Speaker 1: and they get there right before closing time and they're
45:31
Speaker 1: like six guys there, so and the bar is going
45:34
Speaker 1: to close. The guy goes all right, it's last call.
45:37
Speaker 1: So Ray Ferraro said, all right, I want to give
45:39
Speaker 1: me thirty six beers.
45:41
Speaker 5: So we ordered thirty six beers because it was last
45:46
Speaker 5: call and everyone wanted to have He wanted everyone to
45:50
Speaker 5: have like a six pack before they went home.
45:52
Speaker 2: Am I right about this? Is the story? Right? And
45:55
Speaker 2: was it? Ray Ferraro? It sounds like right. Well, as
46:00
Speaker 2: you know, after games, after shows, it's hard to find food, right.
46:04
Speaker 2: And that's where players in broadcasters have a lot in common.
46:09
Speaker 2: We're in an adrenalized state. We prepared all day for
46:14
Speaker 2: this game. At night, we kind of reserve our kind
46:18
Speaker 2: of energy batteries to make sure we peak at that time.
46:21
Speaker 2: And then the game is happening. We're riding the emotions
46:24
Speaker 2: with it. Our brains, our synapses are fully firing to
46:27
Speaker 2: make sure we get the story right. Call the goal right,
46:31
Speaker 2: describe the action right. You're also a competitor. You're a perfectionist.
46:36
Speaker 2: You want to do a good job, you want a
46:37
Speaker 2: good final product, you want a great column. It happens,
46:41
Speaker 2: and you're so you're still in this heightened adrenalized state,
46:45
Speaker 2: but you're also the come down kind of starts as well,
46:48
Speaker 2: and you just need something. You need to talk, You
46:51
Speaker 2: need other humans to kind of to get out of
46:53
Speaker 2: your head and talk to and talk about what we
46:55
Speaker 2: just did, what we just saw, and just kind of
46:57
Speaker 2: bring it down to get back to that that you
47:01
Speaker 2: want to get back to, regressing to your boring human
47:03
Speaker 2: mean And so yeah, those you go out and you
47:06
Speaker 2: do anything for food, anything, you know, and I mean
47:10
Speaker 2: rich Lerner, I just he just wrote a great book
47:12
Speaker 2: on golf. The Golf Channel broadcaster talked about that, and
47:15
Speaker 2: he couldn't find food. It was a late night, it
47:17
Speaker 2: was an early morning. He had to eat breakfast. It
47:19
Speaker 2: clothed after his morning hit, and he went to a
47:21
Speaker 2: local gas station. There was Pepperoni pizza rotating underneath that
47:25
Speaker 2: incandescent light or whatever it is, and that was his
47:29
Speaker 2: breakfast because he had to eat. You know, we have
47:31
Speaker 2: to eat at night and have a couple of drinks
47:34
Speaker 2: at night to get together and bond over our experience
47:36
Speaker 2: and share it with wondering. That's what this is about, right,
47:38
Speaker 2: It's about sharing, and that's why we play sports. That's
47:41
Speaker 2: why we work at ESPN, that's why we do podcasts together.
47:44
Speaker 2: While we're we have friends to begin with. Is that
47:46
Speaker 2: that's sharing. And I've always said it's better to love
47:49
Speaker 2: than be loved. That's the great gift to actually love.
47:53
Speaker 2: For me, I prefer to love then be lomd And
47:57
Speaker 2: that's what that to me, That feeling is what it's
48:01
Speaker 2: all about.
48:02
Speaker 1: It's so good, Bouchie all right, if you get the
48:04
Speaker 1: last word here with our great guest today.
48:07
Speaker 4: Now I was gonna say, I think he summed it
48:09
Speaker 4: up perfectly. This has been a joy a guest that
48:13
Speaker 4: has been on our list since the very beginning of
48:16
Speaker 4: our podcast.
48:16
Speaker 2: And to have you on for a.
48:18
Speaker 4: Little show and tell that was awesome. And there's Mickey.
48:30
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us.
48:32
Speaker 2: We really appreciate it. Thank you great members with Tim
48:36
Speaker 2: at ESPN, just just the best