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"3 Run Home Runs Are Great!" (PST Episode 521) · The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views

• 0:25
  All right, everybody, you're listening to the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show,
• 0:28
  the longest running weekly Philly sports podcast show in the world. That's right over
• 0:32
  ten years strong. It is July fifth, twenty twenty three. Hope you
• 0:36
  enjoy the discussion. We have come in your way, gonna do something a
• 0:40
  little different this week. The first half of the show, we are going
• 0:42
  to get into some Philadelphia Phillies talk with our good friend Ethan Witty from the
• 0:46
  Good Fight dot Com. We're gonna break down what we've been seeing from the
• 0:49
  pitching staff and how this offense really needs to rebound in a lot of different
• 0:53
  ways. Great discussion with Ethan coming your way. But I'm Jeff Warren and
• 0:58
  I'm here my good buddy Eric Leonard, and hey man, Eric, we
• 1:02
  had a good discussion before we hit the record button. But I like what
• 1:04
  we're gonna be doing this week, talking some music and we're gonna be bitching
• 1:08
  and moaning about ticket prices too on this show. Man. I'm looking forward
• 1:12
  to it. God bless Ethan, by the way, because last week on
• 1:15
  the show I complained for a good minute or so about like I got nothing
• 1:19
  on the Phillies, man, Like what am I what am I supposed to
• 1:22
  say as a casual fan for this five hundred middling team. Yeah, and
• 1:27
  he can describe the nuts and bolts way better than I can. So,
• 1:32
  I mean, at least the pitching, we're seeing some good stuff from the
• 1:34
  pitching finally here, you know. But just the offense is just, oh
• 1:40
  my god, how my god, it's so rough, the offense. It's
• 1:45
  amazing. But we gotta we're We've got a good interview and discussion coming up
• 1:49
  for sure, um Eric, before we get into because we got a top
• 1:52
  three list, folks, it's gonna be your top three favorite songs of twenty
• 1:56
  twenty three thus far. That some of the music stuff we're gonna be getting
• 1:59
  into, and then we're gonna segue into how ticket prices for concerts, sports
• 2:02
  and other events are just really getting out of control and it's really starting to
• 2:08
  unfairly hurt supporters and fans of various you know, sports teams and just when
• 2:15
  we want to go out and see a concert or some sort of show or
• 2:19
  whatever. So we're gonna get into that, and then we're gonna get into
• 2:22
  our Phillies talk. But actually, before we get into our top three list,
• 2:24
  Eric, I just wanted to mention to everybody because I had had an
• 2:30
  individual tweet at me because I said that I'm now on Blue Sky. I
• 2:35
  decided to go down that route because Twitter's turning into crap. And I've also
• 2:39
  I'm now on Threads as well, so people can follow me on those two
• 2:45
  new social media platforms. But no, I'm not leaving Twitter. Folks.
• 2:49
  Had had Jimmy, one of our long time followers, and he loves our
• 2:53
  Eagles content here he tweeted at me, He's like, oh, you're gonna
• 2:58
  be leaving Twitter, aren't you. I'm like, now, I'm not gonna
• 3:00
  be leaving, you know. I'm like I might not be as much.
• 3:01
  We'll see. And he's like, oh, that means you're leaving. And
• 3:04
  I was like, oh no, don't worry. Everything's gonna be fine.
• 3:06
  Don't worry. So I just wanted to put it out there. People want
• 3:09
  to follow me on Threads, I'm over there, mister jeff Warren and Blue
• 3:14
  Sky at Jeffrey Warren and uh, I don't know, are you getting on
• 3:19
  any other social media platforms? Eric, I never even heard of those,
• 3:23
  Like, oh really, the past four months of coaching and my entire life
• 3:28
  just into that liken'. I didn't even know those exist. Yeah, and
• 3:31
  you need like any code you need, like a code and an invite for
• 3:35
  Big Sky for I'm sorry Blue Sky Okay. Yeah, Like I got one
• 3:39
  from our front one of our friends of the pod who was on recently,
• 3:43
  He's like, hey, if you want one, I got it. And
• 3:45
  just after what happened with Twitter this past week where You've exceeded your limit and
• 3:50
  everybody was freaking out, including myself, I'm like, what is this.
• 3:52
  I'm like, what is Elon doing here? He's limiting our the amount of
• 3:55
  tweets we could see because of data scraping. I'm like, what it's what?
• 4:00
  So I was just like, I'm like, forget this freaking sight.
• 4:04
  I'm going down with the ship, dude. So Jimmy's gonna follow me.
• 4:09
  The ship is being overcome with with with diarrhea waves and just I'm but I'm
• 4:15
  I'm sticking it out. I'm in the front of the boat going we got
• 4:17
  like, I'm a lieutenant Dan with the legs. I'm doing this. Jimmy,
• 4:23
  stay with me. Let's go down together. Okay, I'll get on
• 4:28
  Blue Note or whatever. Someday but I and what the threads you called it
• 4:30
  or threads? Well, threads, it's it's a new meta thing, you
• 4:34
  know. It's basically it's like a new Twitter, but it's connected to your
• 4:39
  Instagram. It's dude, it's really easy to say. It's how easy Mark
• 4:44
  Zuckerberg made it to set up is incredible. It's like it's like a Twitter
• 4:47
  for It's like an Instagram Twitter type thing. It's amazing. No, it's
• 4:51
  too hard. It's too hard. Okay, Nope, I'm not doing it.
• 4:55
  Oh, somebody turned into an old man. Listen, this is an
• 5:00
  old man I was. I told Jeff before the show, I coached a
• 5:03
  baseball scrimmage tonight and I took a bunch of nine year olds aside and said,
• 5:08
  you're lazy and your effort tonight was pathetic. That's how old I'm kidding.
• 5:14
  So you're rotten kids. I know. If I'm out here sweating,
• 5:19
  you should be sweating too. Real quick, Also, folks, and it's
• 5:25
  a good segue into the top three list that we're going to be doing.
• 5:28
  But if you go on over to Philadelphia Sportstable dot com, we have a
• 5:31
  new tab and at the top on our menu that says special podcasts, and
• 5:38
  what I did this past weekend was I took all of our PST special movie
• 5:43
  reviews, our docuseries reviews that we've done, certain podcasts that used to be
• 5:46
  on our Patreon platform, and for those of you who were on Patreon,
• 5:50
  and this is I mean going back to I think like twenty nineteen where we
• 5:55
  reviewed The Dirt, which was that movie about the Motley Crue story that was
• 6:00
  only on Patreon, but I did put it into our podcast feed if you
• 6:04
  want to listen to that, and again if you want to go over to
• 6:08
  Philadelphia Sportstable dot com and check out the special podcast tab and go through everything.
• 6:13
  It was. We've done so many awesome movie reviews on this show and
• 6:17
  it really made me kind of step back because we've done some music stuff too,
• 6:21
  whether it was our podcast called The Show Show with our good friend Mark
• 6:26
  Lacass. We also Eric back in two twenty one, we did a look
• 6:31
  at our favorite albums albums from twenty years earlier, from two thousand and one.
• 6:36
  We did a great podcast on the best and worst albums of that time
• 6:42
  and of that year, and that was so much fun too, and it
• 6:45
  led me to say, you know what we are in that lull time here
• 6:49
  in the sports world, as you mentioned, as we know the Phillies are
• 6:53
  playing right now, but we wanted to do it just a little something different
• 6:58
  here. So it's going to be a top three list of our favorite songs
• 7:00
  of the two thousand and twenty three year here thus far. And Eric,
• 7:05
  Eric, you and I we have a very We have certain music genres that
• 7:11
  we like, we prefer, and that are kind of like safe to us.
• 7:15
  But you and I, buddy, we like a lot of different music.
• 7:17
  We like listening to a lot of different genres. That depends on situations
• 7:23
  we're in, hanging out with certain friends, just the environment that we're in.
• 7:27
  We like a lot of different genres of music. And I think we're
• 7:30
  going to be getting into a few different genres here. Yeah. I just
• 7:33
  talk about being old and getting old, but I do feel like we still
• 7:39
  we're still in that like trying out new music, going to see bands.
• 7:43
  You and I do that a lot of our group of friends. You and
• 7:45
  I do that, Yeah, Yeah, And I will say the show Show,
• 7:48
  I still think it is our best shown we've ever done. Yes,
• 7:53
  Yeah, I think it's a great one because it's you know, it was
• 7:57
  kind of three middle aged guys but still talking about like we still give a
• 8:01
  shit, like you still want to go seed bands and go see new music
• 8:05
  and honest to guy, like my kids play me stuff and I'm like,
• 8:09
  yeah, I like that. I'll try that. I remember playing stuff kid
• 8:13
  for my parents growing up, and my dad just be like, like just
• 8:18
  that old man, like that's that doesn't sound like what I listened. Yeah,
• 8:20
  exactly, sound like music to me. Yeah, And I vowed to
• 8:26
  never be like that. So yeah, all right, Well, let's start
• 8:28
  off our list, our list of the top three favorite songs of hours here
• 8:33
  in two thou twenty three, buddy, why don't you start us off?
• 8:37
  What's your number? Three? So? Uh, this is my favorite band
• 8:41
  of like this new kind of wave of of not new like every every like
• 8:46
  three or four years, Like there's this new wave of younger, younger kids
• 8:50
  coming up and playing just straight up kind of death metal. Okay, but
• 8:56
  but there it's almost like their interpretation death metal, like death metal originally,
• 9:00
  you know, from the late eighties, early nineties, this straight straight drum
• 9:03
  blast beats and just playing your guitars fastest humanly possible and every song's about you
• 9:09
  know, zombies eating your face and stuff, but which I love. I
• 9:13
  still love that. I've been a Cannibal Corpse fan for for ages, but
• 9:18
  I really like this new wave of bands that's that's come out and they've you
• 9:22
  know, kind of they've kind of filtered, like they call came up in
• 9:26
  hardcore and punk and they're kind of playing this death metal version of it's death
• 9:33
  metal intertwined with hardcore and punk, and I love it. And there's two
• 9:37
  really good bands I love a lot, but one one band I really like,
• 9:41
  Frozen Souls Won and but this band called Creeping Death that is just straight
• 9:46
  up They name themselves after the Metallicas song and they are just straight up.
• 9:52
  They just straight up death metal. But they have hooks and they have breakdowns.
• 9:58
  They don't have straight up US beats like like like Cannibal. I still
• 10:01
  can't say the name of the drummer for Cannibal Corpse. He's a Polish guy.
• 10:05
  Yeah, I've always tried. I still can't say. I'm a fellow
• 10:07
  pole Like, I still can't say his name. But uh, but this
• 10:11
  being Creeping Death has a song called Boundless Domain. That's that's the name of
• 10:15
  the record it just came out a couple of weeks ago, and that I
• 10:20
  just love the energy they do kind of they do some hardcore like spin kicks
• 10:24
  on stage. I've seen YouTube clips. I said, I think I sent
• 10:28
  you one, and uh, I just love it. I just love that
• 10:31
  falls out shirts off. I'm a sweaty, fat guy lead singer and I
• 10:37
  just love this. I just love this genre music. I'm going for it
• 10:39
  hard. And actually they're they're playing here in Central PA. I think it's
• 10:45
  next Friday, and I don't think I told you yet. My son and
• 10:50
  I might be going. Um, he's super duper in Like I played him
• 10:56
  the YouTube clip I sent you and I was like, do you want to
• 10:58
  go? It's like I think I do, Like I kind of want to
• 11:03
  see this. We'll stand in the back and might put him on my shoulders.
• 11:05
  He'll be the one kid, Like there's always like one or two kids
• 11:07
  of those shows, you know. I told him I would buy him deer
• 11:11
  plugs. But he gets off on the energy as do I, and that
• 11:16
  that energy is kind of universal. Yeah, Like if you like this kind
• 11:18
  of music, man, I don't care if you're fifty or ten years and
• 11:22
  all. Like my son like that that that that that energy is just contagious
• 11:26
  and I just absolutely love this band. And the song is Boundless Domain off
• 11:31
  their new record. You asked Lennon and I if we wanted to go to
• 11:35
  the show, and I do know who Creeping Death is. I have heard
• 11:39
  their music. I like what they are doing within that particular genre that you
• 11:43
  outlined very very well. And the day that they are out in central Pennsylvania
• 11:48
  performing is my freaking wedding anniversary. I'm like, I'm like, of course,
• 11:54
  of course the show that I really want to go to see with you,
• 11:56
  that's my wedding anniversary. So unfortunately told you're not gonna happen. You
• 12:01
  told her what I told you to skip it. Oh yes, you did
• 12:05
  skip your anniversary. Come on, man, it's Creeping Death. I'm just
• 12:09
  gonna be hey, Michelle, Creeping Death is playing. I need to hear
• 12:11
  Boundless Domain. If you love me and respect our marriage, yes, nice,
• 12:18
  I like I like it a lot. I'm gonna be going my number
• 12:22
  three and maybe you are gonna know this band because I've I've liked them for
• 12:26
  many many years. I've been I've played them a number of times. You
• 12:31
  know, when we get together. But they are an old band at this
• 12:37
  point. I think they have been around for a good like twenty six twenty
• 12:39
  seven years at this point. And yes, they are from Finland. They
• 12:43
  are a goth band and they are the sixty nine Eyes. They just came
• 12:46
  out with an album this year called Death of Darkness, and that's the song
• 12:50
  in particular, Death of Darkness. It's a song, it's it's so simple
• 12:56
  as goth music usually tends to be, but it's a song straight up about
• 13:01
  love and how love leads us to the light. Just very simple, and
• 13:05
  it sounds like something that this band did about twenty five years ago actually when
• 13:09
  they first started. If you listen to their catalog, they've really evolved over
• 13:16
  the years some of their uh, some of their some of their music and
• 13:20
  even on this particular album, it's not like all gothic gothic sounding. It's
• 13:24
  very how can I say, like glam. There's there's some bits of glam
• 13:28
  in this album that they released just a couple of months ago. But I
• 13:33
  am I am absolutely digging the Death of Darkness song by the sixty nine Eyes,
• 13:37
  and I got I knew who the sixty nine Eyes were because you know,
• 13:41
  Eric and our Huh what your first date? My first date? Yeah,
• 13:46
  I mean that was that was Michelle's my first date. We went to
• 13:48
  the sixty nine Eyes show down in a down on South Street at the TLA
• 13:52
  and but I was listening to them because it was one of Bambar Jara's favorite
• 13:58
  bands and I to get the Viva La bands, uh CDs back of the
• 14:03
  Day, you know you and I we've watched the c k y videos with
• 14:07
  bam Marjara and of course Jackass and stuff, but the sixty nine Eyes were
• 14:11
  part of that in terms of the music, and I've always just loved the
• 14:13
  group. And I've always been into goth music. I always have been.
• 14:16
  So I'm going to Death of Darkness sixty nine Eyes here for number three.
• 14:22
  I like it. I like the sixty nine Eyes. Um they're not straight
• 14:26
  goth like see, I'm a huge fan of um. They definitely have a
• 14:31
  little more metal to them, a little more edge. Yeah, I mean
• 14:33
  framed in Blood is one of my favorite songs. That's so yeah, Yeah,
• 14:37
  all right, very good. Alright, Uh number two for you?
• 14:41
  You're number two of your top three songs here in twenty twenty three, Buddy,
• 14:48
  Okay, So one of my favorite shoegaze band shoegaze bands is putting a
• 14:52
  new record out called Slow or the band Slow Dive, and they're they're they're
• 14:58
  kind of like My Bloody Valentine is kind of the pinnacle, that's the band
• 15:01
  that always gets gets tagged with that that shoegaze term. But they were kind
• 15:09
  of like the next generation that kind of right after My Blody of Valentine.
• 15:11
  Tons of sound, tons of atmospheric, tons of noise, and but they
• 15:16
  they've kind of they put a record out like twenty seventeen, they've kind of
• 15:22
  like scaled it back a little bit and they kind of do kind of a
• 15:24
  slow gaze pop sound. Now they have a new record coming out I think
• 15:30
  like next week actually, but they released one track called Kisses, and they
• 15:35
  just do this beautiful It's just straight up shoegaze pop music. It's really simple,
• 15:43
  but it's just I for some it's one of those sounds. It hits
• 15:48
  me in my chest. It just kind of makes me smiles, makes you
• 15:52
  drive to work, Like I like this song. I just feel about this
• 15:54
  yeah, And I love that they kind of turned into that because you can
• 16:00
  only do that sound for so much. It's almost like the Jesus and Mary
• 16:03
  Chain when they did their first record, and after that they kind of went
• 16:07
  to the pop sound because you can only do that sound for so many albums,
• 16:11
  to the point where like, okay, how much noise can we make?
• 16:15
  And songs like you can barely hear the lyrics. Yeah, you know,
• 16:18
  like even my Billy Valentine kind of does more poppy music now. But
• 16:22
  uh yeah, slow Dive Kisses is a great song. The new album comes
• 16:27
  out soon. They're playing Philly in September. I'm definitely freaking going. I
• 16:33
  want to be. I want to hear the new songs, but I also
• 16:36
  can't wait till they go into the old the old stuff and the catalog and
• 16:40
  just blow my brains out with that, just clean, like that's gay sound,
• 16:45
  which I I don't know. I'll go to the show with you,
• 16:48
  man, if you want somebody to go. You know me. I love
• 16:49
  going to show, especially with you. I mean, I will definitely go
• 16:52
  to that show if you want. And it's a Union transfer. It's on
• 16:55
  a Friday night, I think September, Yeah, And I don't know.
• 16:57
  I just love of that, like like blow my brains out with shoegaze.
• 17:03
  Yeah, but but but make me feel good. If you know that kind
• 17:08
  of if you know the kind of music, you understand what I'm saying,
• 17:11
  right, Yeah, there's something to be said about I gotta be careful how
• 17:15
  I phrase this. I guess like simple type of music. And what I
• 17:18
  mean by simple type of music is that it just it is what it is.
• 17:22
  But like you said, there can be a song, there could be
• 17:25
  chord progressions within a song, and just how the melody is laid out within
• 17:30
  those chord progressions which just will make you feel good. It's amazing how even
• 17:36
  the how the most simplistic type of music and sounds and songs inevitably can just
• 17:41
  make you feel good. You know, the simplicity of what music is.
• 17:45
  You know, whether you go back to the Beatles or the Rolling Stones,
• 17:48
  you know they had a lot of simplistic riffs, and they had a lot
• 17:49
  of simplistic type of just just songwriting in general. But inevitably, at the
• 17:56
  end of the day, it made people just feel good. Simplicity and music
• 18:00
  music is something I think that is extremely extremely underrated. Man. For me,
• 18:04
  like just a wave of sound knocks me out and always as and that
• 18:10
  that kind of sound like like masted On. I've seen them live a couple
• 18:11
  of times, and they're almost like shoegaze metal in my opinion. And I
• 18:18
  like being overwhelmed by a band and their music, and it's just how music
• 18:22
  hits you as a person, you know. And for some reason, the
• 18:26
  first time I heard of shoegaze song, I was like, holy shit,
• 18:29
  I get this, like this is there's depression involved, there's all kinds of
• 18:33
  stuff I deal with daily, but there's also like a really sweet sentiment to
• 18:37
  their music. Yeah, that I really hits me my empathetic heart. So
• 18:42
  I love this band and I definitely am going in September. You might whist
• 18:47
  out, I don't know. I'll get you tickets. Might have another wedding
• 18:51
  anniversary. You're a Mormon. You got two two wives? Fine by me?
• 19:00
  All right? My number two here, I don't even know. I
• 19:03
  don't know if you've heard of this artist, but I learned about her last
• 19:07
  year. And her name is Billy Pettinger and she's she's a folk singer and
• 19:12
  songwriter. She was on a podcast that I listened to just about whenever they
• 19:18
  put one out. They used to put one out weekly. And now they
• 19:21
  don't. But Jesse Leech from Killswitch Engage and a very famous DJ over in
• 19:26
  England, Matt Stocks. They do a podcast called Stoke the Fire and it's
• 19:32
  really focused on mental health, bringing other artists and they would even bring get
• 19:37
  like they would actually bring listeners of the show onto the show to talk about
• 19:41
  just mental health issues, struggles, their stories, things like that. Billy
• 19:45
  Pettinger was one of these individuals that Matt Stocks and Jesse have known for many
• 19:49
  many years. She's again singer songwriter, mainly from a folk standpoint from Vancouver,
• 19:56
  British Columbia, and amazingly enough, she played drums in Vancouver's longest surviving
• 20:03
  Ramon's cover band, which was called the Remours. But she's known as Billy
• 20:07
  the Kid as well, and she's kind of picked up that moniker over the
• 20:11
  past year or so. But her albums and her discography is pretty incredible.
• 20:18
  And there's a song that she put out this year, a single called Take
• 20:22
  the Money, and it kind of goes back to what we were just talking
• 20:25
  about Eric about the simplicity of a song, but how it can just kind
• 20:30
  of hit you in a way you read the lyrics or do you hear the
• 20:33
  lyrics of take the Money, and for me, it's basically how she's either
• 20:40
  talking about somebody in her life that just took a lot from her and ran
• 20:45
  very simplistic, or about the music industry in general, how they just completely
• 20:52
  our leeches and just take money from artists. I love the message that she's
• 20:57
  putting through in the song, but at the end of the day, it's
• 21:00
  just a solid piece of music and more from a folk standpoint, just a
• 21:06
  few chords, that's all. She's playing a few chords, and she's playing
• 21:08
  all the instruments drums, bass, guitar and singing at the same time,
• 21:14
  and it's it's fantastic And Billy Pettinger has become one of my favorite artists over
• 21:19
  the past year for sure. But this song, take the Money, it's
• 21:22
  it's a great, great song. I recommend everybody should should listen to it.
• 21:27
  I've never heard of her, Yeah, they tried out. She called
• 21:32
  Billy the Kid, Billy the Kid. Yeah that on YouTube trying to find
• 21:37
  her. Everything says Billy the Kid. Yeah. She reached over the past
• 21:41
  couple months. I actually actually reached out to her on Instagram and I was
• 21:45
  like, because she has this great, great album that's that's called look at
• 21:49
  Me. I'm Fine, and all of a sudden it just went away on
• 21:52
  Apple Music. And I actually reached out to her. I'm like, I
• 21:55
  was like, did something happen to your discography on Apple Music? And she
• 22:00
  said, yeah, I'm redoing a lot of things from a marketing and branding
• 22:03
  standpoint. And then she's like, she goes, if you want, She
• 22:07
  goes, I have I have some CDs if you want me to send you
• 22:10
  one. She goes, I do you have a CD player? I said,
• 22:12
  uh, said, thanks for the offer. I appreciate it, but
• 22:15
  no thanks. But uh but man, what a what a great artist she
• 22:19
  is. I mean, she's she's played with with Man, she's played with
• 22:23
  Bob Dylan before, Garth Hudson, Frank Turner, like, she's she's a
• 22:29
  great, great musician, an overall songwriter. So I would I would very
• 22:33
  much recommend anybody checking out Billy the Kid on I have Apple Music. I
• 22:38
  know you do too, Eric Um. So she's great, Billy Pettinger,
• 22:42
  Billy the Kid, She's great. I'll look it up. I've never heard
• 22:47
  of her, but I'll definitely try it. Um the next time you message
• 22:49
  her. Can you tell her that they need to work on the name of
• 22:52
  that Ramons cover band? Just terrible, the remorse it doesn't work, terrible,
• 23:03
  absolutely horrendous. All Right, before we head into our break, we
• 23:07
  got to do the number one number one song that we've been listening to here
• 23:11
  in twenty twenty three, What's Yours buddy? The kind of means that really
• 23:15
  hits me too. Besides Shoe Gay's death metal, it's just a damn good
• 23:19
  pop punk song. Yeah, Like I'm a huge Bob Mold fan. I
• 23:23
  love his band, Sugar Husker, do Um Guided by Voices, pop punk,
• 23:27
  you know, through and through Um. There's a local Philly band called
• 23:33
  wed Wing, which you and I saw this past December, and it had
• 23:38
  such a great interaction with the lead singer. After they played, I bought
• 23:42
  their T shirt and I was like, hey, but your shirt. You
• 23:45
  guys are great. He's like, oh cool, I can like like pay
• 23:48
  my rent and I can pay my rent next month. Yeah, And it
• 23:52
  was such a human moment. He's like, uh, I'm this is this
• 23:56
  ain't easy, man, this is like this music does not make money.
• 24:00
  And I and I had huge respect for them in that moment. But the
• 24:03
  music itself is just so good. And they finally put out their three song
• 24:07
  EP this year, and I'm a huge fan of web Wing and this song
• 24:11
  I'm Feeling Alive. Just we went to go see Soul Blind and this the
• 24:17
  band before web Wing was like straight up just punk, through, through and
• 24:21
  through. Yeah, it was Gel. Yeah. The thing came out and
• 24:25
  I was like, I was completely waiting for the same kind of sound as
• 24:29
  Gel, but they were just like they're like Weezer, Yeah, like kind
• 24:33
  of more of an edge, and they just sang songs about like life ain't
• 24:38
  easy, but I'm trying my best ye and it was kind of in the
• 24:41
  It's kind of in the vein of the Descendants, you know, like just
• 24:45
  really human, down to earth kind of kind of sound. Yeah, just
• 24:48
  awesome hooks, great guitar, great drums, great rhythm section overall, and
• 24:55
  uh, I really really liked them. And they put the EP out My
• 25:00
  got It, three songs, probably six minutes total. I must listen to
• 25:03
  this thing fifty one hundred times when it came out. It's so such an
• 25:07
  easy to listen, but the lyrics are fun and but really kind of insightful,
• 25:12
  like you know, like not not freaking Bob Dealon like you just said
• 25:15
  earlier, or Bruce Ringstein, just like everyday guys like man, you know,
• 25:19
  I'm I'm I'm I'm doing my best here doing my best. Yeah,
• 25:23
  yeah, I love that song I'm feeling alive. And if you can,
• 25:27
  you know, if you get a chance, you live in a Philly area
• 25:30
  and you see they're gonna play, go check him out. Probably cost ten
• 25:33
  bucks. Great band, fun and that that's probably my favorite song right now
• 25:37
  this year. That was a great show. It was a great band to
• 25:41
  watch too, because you just that entire show, whether it was soul blind
• 25:47
  gel webbed wing, it was authentic. It was just authentic music. And
• 25:52
  I know that may sound general to a lot of people out there, but
• 25:55
  like I find any more, you know, when my kids are listening to
• 25:57
  certain songs or bands or artists, there's a certain lack of authenticity at times.
• 26:03
  I think that we hear in a lot of music, because, let's
• 26:07
  be honest, music in general, creating a beat somewhere, creating a melody
• 26:11
  somewhere, especially with AI now, and I mean AI has been around for
• 26:15
  a while, folks, I mean it hasn't just like creeped up in the
• 26:18
  past month or so. You know, it's been around for quite some time.
• 26:22
  It's kind of quote easy to make songs and make music, but the
• 26:26
  authenticity of webbed Wing and I know that's that song. I'm feeling alive.
• 26:33
  It's a great song. Eric, It's just straight up, you know what.
• 26:34
  I'm out here playing music. I like, we're doing our best.
• 26:37
  And I got Eric Leonard to help me pay my rent with buying the shirt.
• 26:42
  You know, he must live in a ship because I'm sure it was
• 26:47
  like twenty bucks. Yeah, all right, I love it. I love
• 26:52
  your number one, and my number one goes to a band that has absolutely
• 26:56
  blown up over the past year. From a more I guess you would say
• 27:00
  metal, progressive metal, you know, maybe an alternative rock side to them,
• 27:06
  and it's sleep Token and specifically off their new album, the song The
• 27:11
  Summoning. It's it is such an amazing piece of music to me, and
• 27:18
  I think I did send this to you, Eric, um, but man,
• 27:22
  it's it is. It's actual intelligent music. I view this as like
• 27:29
  intelligent music, and I guess I'm sounding snobby about it, but it's it's
• 27:33
  it's about the specific beat that is going on the time signature, what the
• 27:40
  guitars are doing. And by the way, this genre of music, my
• 27:42
  god, they have they're doing like seven and eight string guitars here. Because
• 27:47
  I was like trying to figure it. I was trying to figure this out
• 27:48
  on my guitar. I'm like, I know they're dropped down big time on
• 27:52
  that E and I'm like, that's not even a freaking E string. It's
• 27:56
  it's it's got to be like an h H string guitar. I'm like,
• 27:59
  there's never anyway I'm gonna be able to play this unless I buy an each
• 28:02
  string. And I'm not buying an each string just to play the Summoning by
• 28:04
  Sleep Tooken. But the song in general, it's just it's a deep,
• 28:08
  like emotional connection type of song where and whether it's a man and a woman,
• 28:14
  man and man, woman and woman or whatever, there's just this sense
• 28:17
  of love and connection, physical attraction between two people, and there's reflections of
• 28:23
  self improvement within the song itself and also uncertainty within the context of a romantic
• 28:32
  relationship. And I mean, this song like really touched me from a very
• 28:37
  how can I say, like a psychological standpoint, just because of what I've
• 28:41
  gone through in my life, how I'm trying to get better in a lot
• 28:42
  of ways in terms of self improvement and just love and connection. How I
• 28:48
  think about that now as I'm in my mid forties. So I don't know,
• 28:52
  I love Sleep Token. I've been digging this new album and the Summoning
• 28:56
  is a fantastic song. I recommend everybody go out there and listen to it.
• 29:02
  I don't know, I know you like Sleep Token. We're and by
• 29:03
  the way, we're gonna be talking about them and just a little bit too
• 29:07
  with our next particular story that we're gonna get into. But I wanted to
• 29:11
  go with you to see them. But man, they are huge. They're
• 29:14
  blowing up and their shows are selling out in like twenty four hours. And
• 29:18
  that that's what struck me too, was like when you told me to,
• 29:21
  uh, you want to get tickets and they were gone like like a time.
• 29:26
  They I think they play Unit Transfer in Philly and it falled out in
• 29:29
  no time. I was like, oh shit, I guess they're really They're
• 29:32
  big. Um. But one thing struck me about them when I did listen
• 29:36
  to them, and your summation was was right on point. Um. They
• 29:41
  almost took like like they're definitely they're definitely like uh emo fans, right,
• 29:48
  they like that full emotional connection with your with your audience. But they took
• 29:52
  it another step further because the one thing that one thing always bothered me about
• 29:56
  the emo scene was like complaining about your life. This sucks. Yeah,
• 30:02
  but there's no you don't go to the next step and it's a forty six
• 30:07
  year old man who's been in therapy. You're like, that's cute music,
• 30:10
  but what what do you what the fuck are you going to do about it?
• 30:11
  Right? Right? Yeah, exactly, you know, and these guys
• 30:15
  are kind of more engaged with that and like they they talk about their feelings
• 30:18
  like what's going on with themselves, but they also go to the next step
• 30:22
  of like, Okay, this is how I want to these are the next
• 30:26
  steps I need to take. This is how I want my relationships to work,
• 30:30
  and this is what's gone wrong, this is what's gone right. And
• 30:33
  it's like, yeah, it's again super pretentious. Let's let's not lie to
• 30:37
  the audience here, right, right, But that's okay, Like I like,
• 30:41
  they definitely put their stake in the ground and that's kind of what they
• 30:45
  do but I like that as opposed to that like premature ejaculation of EMA music
• 30:55
  that's like this is so stupid, like and that's all I got for you.
• 31:00
  I don't know, but yeah, that music typically came from like people
• 31:03
  like people in your twenties, you know, like they don't know the next
• 31:07
  step. That's what I was just gonna say, like, like I would
• 31:10
  love that I did. I like that some of that emo stuff back in
• 31:11
  my twenties because it resonated with me. But now in my mid forties,
• 31:15
  you know, as somebody has who has been through therapy, learned a lot
• 31:19
  about myself, where my crap comes from, how I need to deal with
• 31:23
  it to better myself, you know, my family, you know, how
• 31:26
  to be a better man, a better person in general. You know.
• 31:30
  Now now I'm there, and that's why that's why I sleep token and specifically
• 31:33
  this song resonates with me so much because, like you said, it's the
• 31:37
  next step after the bitching and moaning, we're actually doing something about it here
• 31:41
  self reflection. It's a good thing. And let's just say it. The
• 31:45
  music is better like it is the music twenty year olds where you're just ramming
• 31:49
  your guitar like like they way more atmospheric. They kind of stretch themselves out
• 31:55
  as musicians, and they make more sense in your forties. I can't imagine
• 32:00
  twenty year old's going to just being like I feel like they go because they
• 32:04
  feel like they have to. Yeah, good band man, Yeah, but
• 32:07
  and like halfway and they're like, this is you want to go to the
• 32:08
  bar? Like I can actually see that happening quite a bit at their shows.
• 32:14
  All right, nice, great top three list here, Absolutely love it.
• 32:19
  Let us know what your top three songs of twenty twenty three are so
• 32:22
  far this year. We'd love to hear it. We'd love Eric and I
• 32:24
  love music. We'd love to you know, share it with other folks as
• 32:28
  well. And if you're new to the show, No, we don't talk
• 32:30
  to music every week. We usually are talking sports on Philly Sports. But
• 32:35
  we'd appreciate if you'd subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're on, and if anything
• 32:37
  happens to your feed, you can head on over to Philadelphia Sports Table dot
• 32:42
  com. We've got all of our shows over there, and again we've got
• 32:45
  our special podcast that I mentioned at the top of the show. We've got
• 32:46
  a lot of movie reviews, a lot of fun discussions. Make sure you
• 32:51
  follow us on the social media at Philadelphia PST. Follow Eric at brick Pola
• 32:54
  and me at Jeffrey Underscore Warren on the Twitter dot com, and we are
• 33:00
  on Instagram as well. Search out Philadelphia Sports Table there. We're gonna take
• 33:04
  a quick break and we will be back in just a bit. All right,
• 33:07
  we are back, and we're talking about earlier. You know, some
• 33:12
  songs that we love, and we love seeing artists as well who are performing
• 33:15
  these songs. But sometimes it's a little difficult because Eric, ticket prices for
• 33:22
  concerts, sporting events, and needs just general events out in the world are
• 33:27
  just it's getting out of control, the prices of things and of these events
• 33:32
  that we love to go to, and I think it's really hurting in a
• 33:37
  way supporters and fans of bands and of sports teams, and it's really getting
• 33:43
  to a point where you have to be er uber rich in order to go
• 33:46
  to an event or to go to a specific type of concert or show.
• 33:52
  I mean, let's from a sports perspective, I have some stuff that I
• 33:55
  just want to go through real quick. Here from a sports perspective, the
• 33:58
  Denver Broncos a resale ticket price last year ranked near the middle of the NFL,
• 34:05
  which is fine, Okay, this year it's up ninety four percent from
• 34:09
  last year. The gouging is incredible. I took a look at some Phillies
• 34:15
  games, Eagles games, and a specific concert as well. Did I just
• 34:19
  want to bounce off everybody real quick? Phillies Padres gonna be coming up if
• 34:22
  you wanted to, like get I've always actually wanted to be behind home plate
• 34:25
  and I have never been behind home plate at a Phillies game. Two hundred
• 34:30
  and eighty six dollars for one ticket. Eric. And then if you want
• 34:35
  to go to an Eagles game, you know you want to. You want
• 34:37
  to see what might be a good game. Eagles Vikings I think would be
• 34:39
  a I personally would like to see that game. I think the Vikings are
• 34:44
  going to be somewhat of an intriguing team this year. Section one eighteen of
• 34:49
  the link. If you wanted to get a ticket there four hundred and fifty
• 34:53
  dollars for one ticket Eagles Commanders, which I believe is going to be the
• 34:58
  next game after that. Top level Section two twenty four of the link.
• 35:01
  Row thirty by the way, two hundred and seventy dollars. We talked about
• 35:07
  Sleep Tooken, right, we wanted to go see them, and I was
• 35:09
  like, oh my gosh, the Union Transfer at the time, the resale
• 35:14
  ticket for that I believe was around two hundred and fifty dollars at Union Transfer.
• 35:19
  I checked out the tickets at Webster Hall in New York City for Sleep
• 35:22
  Tooken resale general admission on the floor. Eric five hundred and seventeen dollars.
• 35:30
  What the fuck? Man, Like, something has to be done, because
• 35:35
  this is the resale tickets are only going to get more and more expensive,
• 35:40
  you know, Like I was reading an article recently cheap seats at Madison Square
• 35:45
  Garden to watch the New York Knicks against Sacramento Kings on a Sunday night,
• 35:51
  Okay, two mediocre basketball teams, you know, you can say can cost
• 35:54
  upward up to two hundred dollars. So you're basically like sacrificing a week of
• 36:00
  groceries at the grocery store for this experience. But again, like, the
• 36:05
  big issue that's contributing to these really expensive tickets are the resales. Of course,
• 36:09
  we know people are buying tickets when they're at a reasonable price. And
• 36:14
  they're just basically scamming people by reselling them for a much more unreasonable and higher
• 36:20
  price. You take a look at what happened with Taylor Swift's recent tour,
• 36:23
  perfect example of why ticket resales contribute to expensive ticket prices. I mean,
• 36:29
  god, she tried to actually keep the ticket prices down, the lowest cost
• 36:34
  being forty nine dollars, but you weren't getting a forty nine dollars seat to
• 36:37
  see Taylor Swift on that on her tour. So man, like, I'm
• 36:42
  getting to the point where it's like it's upsetting at times because I want to
• 36:45
  see certain artists. I would love to go to certain games. You know,
• 36:50
  my wife took me to see a Sixers game this past year for it
• 36:52
  was one of my Christmas presents. And I'm not one hundred percent sure what
• 36:57
  she paid for him, but I'm pretty sure it was probably in the neighborhood
• 37:00
  of three to four hundred dollars for two tickets. And it's like, man,
• 37:05
  that's just it's just a lot. It's just a lot for like a
• 37:07
  middle class family anymore. And I know I may just sound like old man,
• 37:12
  okay, where things are getting way too expensive here but I honestly believe
• 37:17
  this is getting to the point of where we're actually past ridiculous. Eric,
• 37:22
  And again, only the rich folks in this country are going to be able
• 37:25
  to go to specific events and enjoy that atmosphere and environment with other rich folks.
• 37:31
  You know. I don't know, man, It's something needs to be
• 37:35
  done. And this is where I honestly say, Okay, let's get the
• 37:37
  government in some way, shape or form involved to help put some restrictions on
• 37:42
  this, because this is this is gouging. We are getting gouged at this
• 37:46
  point. I don't know what are your your thoughts about this at this point?
• 37:50
  Well, it's all disgusting, I mean, and the government is in
• 37:54
  on it too. I mean they're all corporate bought in sports are just corporations
• 38:00
  now, you know. Yeah, and the whole like you know the Green
• 38:06
  Bay Packers thing right where the city owns the team, right? How much
• 38:09
  other tickets? I mean, come on, right, I'm sure it costs
• 38:14
  four inner bucks per seed to go watch Jordan Love throw two interceptions this year.
• 38:20
  Um, but it it's gotten disgusting and I always go back to uh
• 38:28
  So two years ago, I took my son to see the Sixers and Timberwolves.
• 38:31
  Yeah, like Radford Thanksgiving, And he's told me many times I was
• 38:36
  the best nine of his life. He had such a blast and it really
• 38:39
  was so much fun. But I'll say this, the tickets were three fifty
• 38:45
  apiece for the two of us for his skinny ass to sit in a little
• 38:50
  tiny seat was three hundred and fifty dollars, right, yeah, And and
• 38:54
  and two train tickets down to Philly Subway, the restaurants, the whole deal,
• 38:59
  hotel. I mean, I dropped like twelve hundred bucks, yeah,
• 39:04
  to give him the night of his life. Like it was worth it,
• 39:06
  right. But I'm I'm in an middle class just like you, and I
• 39:12
  can't do that more than how many times a year, right, Like that's
• 39:15
  that's a once a year thing, once every two year thing. Um.
• 39:20
  And unfortunately, I think for people like you and I to try and keep
• 39:24
  up with that and to take our kids to stuff like that and to have
• 39:29
  fun is we use credit cards and we go in debt, you know,
• 39:32
  to give our kids experiences, which you know, it's really disgraceful, and
• 39:38
  we've kind of been delegated to minor league baseball. You know, I take
• 39:45
  I take Viny all the time to go see the Harrisburg Senators and we have
• 39:47
  a we have an awesome freaking time. And my tickets cost thirteen dollars a
• 39:52
  piece, and I spend maybe eighty dollars, and you know, on a
• 39:58
  given night, and I took him to see uh, his favorite rapper,
• 40:02
  Grandson, a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, hit, oh my god,
• 40:06
  it was. It was so perfect. It was. It was kind
• 40:09
  of funny because at the end of the night, we're driving home, I
• 40:12
  did tell him, like, listen, this is never gonna happen again.
• 40:15
  The stars aligned. You had the night of your freaking life. You met
• 40:19
  grandson. He had dinner across the street at Silk City Dinner, which is
• 40:22
  a cool spot. And we paid like I think twenty five bucks a pop
• 40:28
  for for the tickets. Yeah, but like I said, that was a
• 40:31
  perfect scenario, and those don't come along very often. Most times you have
• 40:38
  to drop over a thousand dollars just to have a good night with By the
• 40:43
  way, just my son. If I had to bring my wife and daughter
• 40:45
  into this thing, yeah, to the Sixers game, We're talking four thousand
• 40:50
  dollars, whatever the hell it would be exactly. That's what I was thinking
• 40:52
  about with the Eagles Commanders game that I was just mentioned where it was two
• 40:55
  hundred and seventy bucks it up and two hundred level two twenty four Section two
• 41:00
  twenty four Row thirty and that's two hundred and seventy bucks for one ticket.
• 41:04
  If we if I wanted to take Michelle and the twins, my god,
• 41:07
  I mean to be, it'd be over. It would be like a thousand
• 41:09
  bucks. It's a joke. And I did like what the Cure did this
• 41:15
  past year when Ticketmaster came out and they were just like, no, we're
• 41:19
  not doing this. And but unfortunately, like you know, like a Pearl
• 41:25
  Jam for years was trying to fight Ticketmaster, you know that that was kind
• 41:29
  of a thing in the nineties, and they did their best, you know,
• 41:32
  they even kind of went off the Ticketmaster thing and tried to do their
• 41:36
  own thing, and it failed miserably because Ticketmaster has a strangle hold on the
• 41:42
  whole ticket thing. But God bless them, you know, they caught a
• 41:45
  lot of shit for it, like, oh, you know, you're you're
• 41:47
  trying to fight the corporations, mean while you're part of the corporate but good
• 41:52
  for them. They actually tried, you know, but it actually takes a
• 41:54
  band like The Cure, who's been together for thirty five fucking years. They're
• 42:00
  in the Rocket Hall of Fame. They had to swing their big dicks around
• 42:02
  just to get tickets down to the point where what you didn't go poor?
• 42:07
  Right, like like they had to use their strength and power as a band
• 42:10
  thirty five fucking years and they still got it down like one twenty five a
• 42:16
  pop. Yeah, And like, but my god, Like that's it's just
• 42:22
  incredible to me, Like, like what's a band like Sleep Tooken gonna do
• 42:27
  or in any smaller kind of band they have no say? And I this
• 42:31
  is kind of a it's kind of a lost cause, like this is where
• 42:35
  we're at, and sports is probably the worst at it. Yeah, Like
• 42:38
  like it drives me crazy, Like it drives me insane to hear that,
• 42:43
  like the Phillies are charging two fifty a ticket. They have one hundred and
• 42:46
  sixty two games eating one home right, Um, the fact that the Sixers
• 42:52
  are gouging fans and it's my favorite team, but they do it. They
• 42:55
  have forty one home games and like I just want to give my kid an
• 43:00
  awesome experience again. But I have to get a second job, right,
• 43:06
  Do it like that? That? That really sucks? So guess what I'm
• 43:08
  going to take him to see the senators where he can meet the mask guy.
• 43:12
  It's big, smelly, hairy dog. Is gross, puts his arm
• 43:15
  around him. Right. But but guess what he gets to see fire stand
• 43:20
  the night he gets ice cream? Yeah, and I don't go poor.
• 43:22
  Right. So I was reading recently an article and I think it was it
• 43:28
  was just about the cost of everything. This is from a music standpoint,
• 43:31
  Okay, concerts and touring, how expensive it has gotten for bands to go
• 43:37
  out on the road. And it's because of the pandemic and because of just
• 43:44
  all of these various elements of what makes up a tour for a band or
• 43:49
  an artist, and the absolute gouging of the actual band an artist by say,
• 43:54
  for instance, the bus company to rent a bus. I think I
• 44:00
  think the band was it might have been Five Fingered Death Punch. They spent
• 44:04
  two million dollars on a standard regular touring bus over the course of their tour
• 44:12
  for a few months or something like that. It was like two million dollars.
• 44:15
  And it's like it wasn't because they wanted the lap of luxury at all.
• 44:19
  It's what they had to do in order to get out on the tour.
• 44:22
  And I think I could be mistaken that it was five Fingered Death Punch,
• 44:24
  but it was on one of the bands in that genre. But two
• 44:29
  million dollars eric for that, And these bands are coming back from tour not
• 44:34
  making any money at all. Some bands that I have followed and continue to
• 44:38
  follow, come back. They'll post on Instagram saying we actually lost money,
• 44:43
  Like we actually came back from this tour and we actually lost like fifteen thousand
• 44:46
  dollars. You know, smaller type of bands who are trying to get their
• 44:50
  name out into the music sphere, but coming back saying we lost money because
• 44:55
  we have to pay our drivers. You know, we have to pay the
• 44:59
  booking agents. See, we have to pay our management, We have to
• 45:00
  pay the merch folks and all that. There's so many different avenues within the
• 45:06
  music industry that folks need to be paid. When there's a tour that the
• 45:10
  artists who are on the stage actually performing are getting screwed, and inevitably the
• 45:17
  audience, the fans, the ones who buy the tickets are getting screwed too
• 45:22
  because that money needs to be gotten from somewhere, so it is from the
• 45:27
  customer, it is from us, And it's so freaking enraging that it's not
• 45:32
  just necessarily the owners of you know, the sports teams and stuff. It's
• 45:37
  other elements as well, And of course it is it's the owner's fault for
• 45:42
  keeping the ticket prices where they are. But in terms of the music stuff
• 45:45
  too, there's so many different elements which make it so much more difficult for
• 45:50
  bands and artists to go out on tour. It's it's really enraging to me,
• 45:52
  man. And it breaks up bands, you know, and it does,
• 45:58
  it always does, And how many bands have you ever heard like like
• 46:01
  the uh the death knell story is always always surrounds either like they're on tour
• 46:10
  and they're fighting all the time. They're at each other's throats. But it's
• 46:14
  not over music. It's not like it's not over like oh my song should
• 46:19
  have been on the album. It's always like T shirt sales and we just
• 46:22
  couldn't. Like like Black Flag, like name a band that broke up at
• 46:27
  some point eventually it came down to finances and it always comes back to scumbags.
• 46:34
  There's scumbags in every avenue of life, and especially this genre of sports
• 46:43
  and live bands. And it's man, I want to see your band,
• 46:49
  I want to see your sport. I want to see your team. But
• 46:52
  you know what I like, I said, I'd rather go watch the Double
• 46:55
  A baseball team. And this sounds like an old guy, but not really,
• 47:00
  you know, Yeah, I just want to give my kid a good
• 47:04
  time. Yeah, I want to have fun. And you know it again,
• 47:09
  the Cure thing really struck me is like a band of that stature and
• 47:15
  like that magnitude they went out. They're like, you know, we're gonna
• 47:17
  go on tour. We're gonna play all the hits, We're gonna do like
• 47:21
  three sets. We're gonna destroy the crowd, and can you assholes just not
• 47:24
  gouge them? Please? Just please my God, Like they love us,
• 47:30
  can you not fuck this up for us? Like? Good discussion for sure.
• 47:36
  Let us know what you're thinking about this subject. We'd love to talk
• 47:38
  about it more here on the show and respond to at Philadelphia Sports Table at
• 47:43
  gmail dot com. Would love to read your email here on the show and
• 47:45
  respond to it. So Eric, buddy, I'm gonna let you go.
• 47:49
  Man, that was good discussions. I really enjoyed this show. We didn't
• 47:52
  get into any sports here on this first half here, but it was it
• 47:55
  was a good discussion. We should do this more often. We kind of
• 47:59
  did with this orts like stop shoving up our asses teams. True. Yeah,
• 48:06
  make sure you're following Eric on Twitter at brick Polite. And we're gonna
• 48:09
  take a quick break and when we get back, Yes, we are going
• 48:12
  to get into some Phillies talk. Stay with us, we'll be right back.
• 48:15
  All right, we are back. Phillies talk coming up. It's what
• 48:19
  we're throwing down on the table and now on the table coming to us from
• 48:25
  the Good Fight dot Com. Absolutely love reading his material as articles, everything
• 48:30
  they're putting on that site, and especially his content as well. You can
• 48:34
  find him on Twitter at Ethan Underscore Witty. We have the one and only
• 48:38
  Ethan Witty. How you doing, Ethan? I'm doing good, Jeff,
• 48:42
  how about you? I'm doing all right. I wanted to bring you on
• 48:45
  to talk about this this Phillies team that is just boy, what an up
• 48:50
  and down season we of course have seen from them thus far. It's it's
• 48:57
  it's the type of season that we didn't think I think initial league, coming
• 49:00
  off the World Series, coming off what was such an unexpected twenty twenty two
• 49:06
  season, and now to see where they're at right here, like before the
• 49:09
  All Star Break two, and especially with regard to the first guy we're going
• 49:13
  to talk about on this team, which is Aaron Nola, and I wanted
• 49:15
  to get your take on just who he is as a pitcher right now and
• 49:21
  what type of season he's having, what we can expect from him in the
• 49:24
  future, because, look, he has certainly deserved criticism this season for the
• 49:30
  way that he has pitched. Hasn't had the best RA in the world.
• 49:34
  Granted, he had a fantastic showing arguably his best game of the season against
• 49:38
  Tampa Bay Rays this week, But as a guy who has a career three
• 49:44
  point six six ERA this year as of us recording this on July fifth,
• 49:49
  he has a four point three zero RA, He's not knocking anybody socks off
• 49:53
  here. Really. You know, we've seen some really nice games from him
• 49:58
  this season, but then the offense isn't there to support him during those times.
• 50:01
  Is this season for Aaron Nola Ethan just kind of a blip on the
• 50:06
  radar here, or are we really starting to see the down slide of Aaronola's
• 50:09
  career and that's possibly starting to manifest itself. What are your thoughts with regard
• 50:14
  to Aaronola, what we're seeing from him and what we could potentially expect from
• 50:17
  him personally. I think it's just a blip. I don't it stinks.
• 50:22
  It's hard to see this year because every every outing you never really know what
• 50:28
  you're gonna get from him. It's kind of like, are you gonna get
• 50:30
  what we saw yesterday on July fourth, or are you gonna get what we
• 50:35
  saw the start before that in Chica. I just I know because I was
• 50:38
  there. When you're in Chicago, when you're cruising right along, then all
• 50:42
  of a sudden, it's the fifth inning and he's at like ninety five pitches
• 50:45
  and he's about to give up five more runs. It's just like it's the
• 50:52
  jekylin Hide season for him. And it reminds me so much of the Cole
• 50:55
  Hammill's two thousand and nine season where he was just overworked in two thousand and
• 51:00
  eight because he was so good and they went on a World Series run,
• 51:04
  and then the next year he just needed to get caught up with all the
• 51:07
  innings with Nola. You throw in the whole pitch clock thing that he still
• 51:12
  seems to be struggling with. I don't know why it's July. You should
• 51:15
  be on it by now, but he's one of the slowest workers there was
• 51:19
  in the league last year. By this point he should have it. It
• 51:22
  still seems to be bothering him. I think he's I think it's just a
• 51:25
  blip and I think headed into the I mean, the big question is do
• 51:30
  you resign him or let him go because you know he's going to get expensive
• 51:35
  very quickly, and I think even with this season, he's not going to
• 51:38
  be cheap. Anyone thinking there's gonna be a discount because he's been not as
• 51:42
  good this year is sorely mistaken because there's no one available. I mean,
• 51:46
  you've got Otani as the pitcher, but that's only for a select four or
• 51:50
  five teams that are gonna be able to get him, and Nola's going to
• 51:53
  be the next best pitcher that's available. He's not going to come cheap.
• 51:58
  Do the Phillies want to invest in him? I think, personally, I
• 52:01
  don't see how you can't because of two players, and that's Bryce Harper and
• 52:06
  JT. Ro Muto. If they're in their prime, you can't waste that
• 52:09
  prime. Yeah, by hoping that the kids come up and perform well.
• 52:14
  I think Andrew Painter going down, I think there was like a small possibility
• 52:20
  that Nola wasn't resigned if Painter was completely healthy this year and did what we
• 52:23
  all kind of thought he could do. But the second that he went down
• 52:28
  to injury and it looks like he's still hurt. Yeah, the second he
• 52:30
  went down to injury, that's it. You've got to sign Nola. You've
• 52:34
  got to keep that window open. I think what's interesting thinking about what his
• 52:38
  rest of season is going to be, Ethan if he is able to somehow
• 52:44
  and I know it's one game again, we mentioned the July fourth game arguably
• 52:47
  being his best of the season. If he is able from a confident standpoint
• 52:52
  to capitalize on that the rest of the season here, then I think it
• 52:54
  could be fantastic for this pitching staff in general. I think it's going to
• 53:00
  help out a lot considering Aaron Nola has basically been the number basically like a
• 53:04
  number four pitcher on this team. Do you think that's potentially going to happen
• 53:07
  or are we going to continue to see these type of struggles? Do you
• 53:12
  think based on the type of productivity that he got last year when you compared
• 53:15
  him to what Cole Hamil's was from two thousand and eight to two thousand and
• 53:19
  nine, I mean, might we just be seeing these up and downs from
• 53:21
  Aaron Nola the rest of the season At this point it being July, I
• 53:27
  think you have to kind of count on the up and downs. I mean,
• 53:29
  we're too far into the season to say, oh, it's a small
• 53:31
  sample size or anything like that. I think at this point you're just saying,
• 53:36
  if we get what we get yesterday, great, I mean, that's
• 53:38
  a complete bonus. He just beat the best home team in baseball and held
• 53:42
  him to one run. If you get that, great, you've kind of
• 53:46
  got Wheelers. You're one, and Suarez has been the number two as of
• 53:51
  late. You're only asking Nola to be the number three, number four,
• 53:54
  depending on the day on how Walker's performing. That's fine, that's totally because
• 54:00
  if you get those performances, that's great. It's it's just a boat us.
• 54:02
  Yeah. But I think at this point that you know the beginning of
• 54:07
  July, I don't see why I would expect him to replicate yesterday every start.
• 54:12
  Now, I just think, now you're going to get an in between
• 54:14
  that, and you're going to get in between what he did in Chicago five
• 54:17
  runs, five innings, And if we get that, that's you know what,
• 54:21
  that's actually really productive, right right? I think I think so.
• 54:23
  And I think, of course we know that, you know, those of
• 54:25
  us Phillies fans that are following this team, you know, on the flip
• 54:29
  side of Aaron Nola, the majority of this pitching staff is doing some really
• 54:31
  good things on the mound. You mentioned Ranger Suarez, We've got Tylan Walker.
• 54:36
  They've both been pretty phenomenalized of late. Here in your opinion, Ethan,
• 54:39
  who is the most consequential pitcher for this team during the second half of
• 54:45
  the season in your mind? And why? Well, the guy that the
• 54:50
  one that I would say the most consequential that's currently on the team is Suarez,
• 54:54
  Because if Suarez is pitching the rest of the season like he has been
• 54:59
  of eight, that's a that's a weapon, right, I mean, that's
• 55:02
  a weapon that you've got right there. If you're talking about consequential not on
• 55:06
  the team, I think it's painter because if he can, if he can
• 55:09
  come back and be anything. Now you're kind of avoiding the trade market needing
• 55:15
  a number five like they did last year. You can use whatever trade capital
• 55:21
  you've got to put into the offense, which I know we'll get to in
• 55:22
  a couple of minutes. You kind of want to avoid giving up too much
• 55:28
  to get a pitcher that wouldn't pitch in the playoffs, right you know when,
• 55:30
  Like for me, if you're going to trade for somebody as a pitcher,
• 55:36
  you want that guy to be able to start in the playoffs, and
• 55:37
  right now, that would just be astronomical as far as the price. So
• 55:43
  for me, it's for the most consequential on the team as Suarez. I
• 55:46
  know everyone's worried about Nola, but I'm just kind of passed the point with
• 55:50
  Nola expecting him to get back to what he was. I'm just pasted it.
• 55:53
  If there's just no point in thinking he's going to get there. Now
• 55:57
  you've got to go with, Well, you assume Wheelers you're one, if
• 56:00
  Suarez is your two and Nola is your three, and it really doesn't matter
• 56:02
  depending on matchups too. You can flip flop those Yeah, I think Suarez
• 56:07
  is the guy you got to watch because if he's able to be what what
• 56:13
  he's been the rest of the season, that's a weapon that they I mean,
• 56:16
  how often have they have left handed starters that could do that? Yeah,
• 56:20
  since Hamil's really nobody. Yeah, so if you've got a left seed
• 56:23
  that can do that, that neutralizes a lot of players. I think it's
• 56:27
  really interesting how you say we got to get past the Aaron Nola stuff at
• 56:30
  this point, I think for our listeners out there, folks, yes,
• 56:32
  Ethan is absolutely correct. Correct, we have to start getting past it and
• 56:37
  understanding that there are some incredibly positive things happening from the mound, and I
• 56:43
  think we do, but understanding who Aaron Nola was, what he could potentially
• 56:46
  be this season and even in the future. We need to start getting past
• 56:51
  it. But the one thing that's been incredible to watch as we look at
• 56:54
  the bullpen, Ethan, is Craig kimberrel Oh my god, it's just National
• 57:00
  League Reliever of the Month here for June. Just an unexpected, incredible arm
• 57:07
  coming out of the bullpen for this team. I had no idea to be
• 57:09
  thrown the ball this season the way that he has been and as of us
• 57:14
  recording this, he's got twelve saves on the year, hasn't blown one yet.
• 57:19
  The bullpen is generally generally been performing well throughout the season. So who
• 57:23
  are some of the under the radar players from this bullpen outside of Craig Kimberll
• 57:28
  that we should be really focusing on more as as the second half of the
• 57:32
  season is right around the corner here, I think the number one guy is
• 57:37
  Sir Anthony. They if you look at their right handed depth behind Kimbrell,
• 57:44
  it's not much right now with Dominguez injured. Yeah, they've got Soto,
• 57:50
  They've got Alvarado for the lefties. You know, are you a big Are
• 57:54
  you a big fan of Junior Marte? Me? No, really, he's
• 57:59
  pretty fun at this point. You know, Vasquez is cool. I you
• 58:05
  know, he never throws fastball, He only throws sliders, it seems like,
• 58:07
  but he gets the job done for what his job is. He gets
• 58:10
  his job done. Again, like you said, at this point with kimber
• 58:15
  I think it's not you know, a flash. I think it's real.
• 58:20
  You know, he's gained what three four miles an hour on his fastball this
• 58:23
  year? They did they did something, and I think yesterday on the broadcast
• 58:28
  they said he's really resurrected his career, and he has. You know,
• 58:31
  he's he's pretty much priced himself out of the Phillies range for next year,
• 58:35
  which is fine. I'm not worried about that. Um it's Soranthony. They've
• 58:38
  got to get Soranthony right. Even before. He just didn't look right this
• 58:43
  year again. It could be another thing of going deep into October November last
• 58:47
  year, it catching up to him. You know, he's got the oblique
• 58:52
  right. I think that's the injury, which you never know with pictures how
• 58:55
  long that could take for me. Just as long as they're doing fine,
• 58:59
  they've got they've got the arms in the bullpen. Now just keep going.
• 59:01
  Let him get completely healthy. Don't rush him back. There's no reason too.
• 59:06
  He's the key because if he gets right again like he was last year,
• 59:08
  now you've got kimberal Domingez Alvarado Soto. You're only really asking your pitchers
• 59:14
  to go five innings. You know, they give you six seven it's a
• 59:16
  bonus and two guys are going to be saved for the night after. But
• 59:21
  if Domingez is right, this bullpen is top seven in the league easily.
• 59:25
  Absolutely. I think it's amazing what a deep postseason run can do to a
• 59:30
  pitching staff and generally, and I think we're really seeing that still even here
• 59:36
  at the beginning of July. That deep postseason run last year, it affected
• 59:39
  Zach Wheeler too, of course he had a rough start to the season.
• 59:44
  Man, I don't think it's actually talked about, and of course everybody talked
• 59:47
  about initially the World Series hangover, but still here in July, that deep
• 59:52
  postseason run. It has had consequences for sure. Yeah, and that's fine
• 59:59
  because you'll take it. Take a World Series run, you worry about the
• 1:00:01
  future in the future, I don't care. You do everything you can win
• 1:00:05
  the World Series because you never know when you can get back. You know.
• 1:00:07
  With the Phillies, developmentally, are not the Dodgers where they can bring
• 1:00:10
  up three pitchers a year that are going to turn into lights out relievers or
• 1:00:15
  something like that. They're not the Astros who they've got nine players who can
• 1:00:19
  throw one hundred miles an now or they're not them. So when you have
• 1:00:22
  the run like they were on last year, you ride it and you do
• 1:00:24
  whatever you can to win, and you worry about the next year, the
• 1:00:27
  next year, and that's what that's what we're doing. Luckily, they have
• 1:00:30
  some depth. You know, they're five six deep in the bullpen now,
• 1:00:34
  so they're not like they were last year where they were relying on the two
• 1:00:37
  guys three guys at the game. They've got players that can bring up.
• 1:00:42
  But you know, hopefully next last year's experience and showing them how to prepare
• 1:00:47
  for that of postseason can helpfully get them ready for what should be when they
• 1:00:52
  should make the postseason. This year, they should be ready. I mean
• 1:00:55
  now that they've had experience doing it. You know, Alvarados had time off
• 1:01:00
  this year, Domingez has had time off this year. I wouldn't be surprised
• 1:01:04
  if somewhere Soto has a quote, you know, inured injured list needs somewhere
• 1:01:07
  just to give him some time off. Right, it can only benefit them,
• 1:01:12
  right, absolutely, Again, folks were talking to Ethan Whitty from the
• 1:01:15
  Good Fight dot Com. Follow them on Twitter at Ethan underscore Witty. He
• 1:01:19
  is a great, great follow and while the pitching certainly has carried the Phillies,
• 1:01:25
  Ethan during the month of June, the bats in the offense need to
• 1:01:29
  really really start pulling their weight. I mean on paper, and everybody says
• 1:01:32
  it all the time. On paper, this is an incredibly stacked offense.
• 1:01:37
  Why do you think the offense has just seen its shaff struggles over how many
• 1:01:42
  weeks and even the past couple of months here, especially during the month of
• 1:01:45
  June. What are your initial thoughts about why the bats in the offense has
• 1:01:50
  just been struggling so much. I don't know. I think they're sorry.
• 1:01:58
  It's one of those years they're just not consistent. It's all like they're suffering
• 1:02:01
  from Reese Hoskins disease, where they're great for a couple weeks, then there's
• 1:02:06
  stone cold for the next couple weeks. They've never really had anybody outside of
• 1:02:10
  Nick castiandos be consistently good this year. Everyone's had their ups and downs,
• 1:02:15
  and home runs hasn't helped. And I know we're going to get to him
• 1:02:21
  in just a second, but man, these guys need to hit home runs.
• 1:02:23
  That's the team. There's no power, that's they're concerning. The concerning
• 1:02:28
  thing for me is there's no power. Yeah, outside of Schwerber. Now
• 1:02:31
  I say power, I mean over the fence power. You know, I
• 1:02:36
  understand, and I get kind of yelled at online sometimes about double still a
• 1:02:39
  kind of power. I get that. But three run home runs are cool,
• 1:02:43
  you know, Yeah, I like seeing I like seeing three run home
• 1:02:45
  runs. And outside of Scherber and you know, is that it at this
• 1:02:51
  point, Mini castiandos has been great. You can't say anything bad about him
• 1:02:54
  this year. He's been awesome. But outside of those two, has anyone
• 1:02:59
  else really been a power our hitter? And it just goes to show how
• 1:03:01
  big of a loss Hoskins was in the spring. You know, I know
• 1:03:07
  he's everyone's favorite whipping boy as far as offense, but he was twenty five
• 1:03:13
  to thirty home runs, eighty to eighty five RBIs every year like Clockley,
• 1:03:15
  you knew what was happening, you knew what you were getting, and now
• 1:03:19
  all of a sudden that's gone, and it's a bigger loss than I think
• 1:03:22
  they anticipated it. Absolutely, absolutely, folks, I think we got the
• 1:03:28
  title of the show. Three run home runs are great. Absolutely, I
• 1:03:32
  think that is. It is so obvious, but it is just what it
• 1:03:37
  what needs to happen for this team. We got. We've got the title
• 1:03:39
  of this podcast. Ethan Thank you so much for that. Thanks for helping
• 1:03:44
  us out there with that happen. But getting into Bryce Harper too, It's
• 1:03:46
  just it's really weird to see a player like Bryce Harper just not hitting home
• 1:03:50
  runs, at least on a consistent basis. Here, Rob Thompson has indicated
• 1:03:52
  that, you know, he's increased his pregame workout. You know, Okay,
• 1:03:58
  that's fine, all well and fine, but I tend to think as
• 1:04:00
  fans, you know, the majority of us had some very high expectations for
• 1:04:04
  Harper even coming back so quickly from that injury. How do you assess what
• 1:04:09
  we've been seeing from Harper and when do you think he might get back to
• 1:04:13
  his true form. Might not even be this season, maybe next season.
• 1:04:15
  What are your thoughts? Well, for me, everything up to next week
• 1:04:19
  is a bonus because he wasn't even due back until next week. I mean,
• 1:04:23
  he wasn't due back until the All Star break. So anything he's given
• 1:04:26
  you now is just a complete bonus. I'm totally fine with it. Like,
• 1:04:30
  we never really got that Bryce Harper is back emotional balance that we were
• 1:04:34
  all kind of expecting. You know, the leader of the team is back,
• 1:04:38
  your MVP is back. And they never really got it, you know,
• 1:04:41
  they Yeah, and June. June was great, but again he was
• 1:04:45
  kind of absent in June. He didn't really hit for the power that we
• 1:04:49
  thought. Still, I still think he's recovering. I tend to give him
• 1:04:54
  a pass on basically this entire season. You know, whatever he's going to
• 1:04:58
  give you is a bonus. I think the hour will come back. I'm
• 1:05:00
  not worried about that. I think he'll be fine even next year. But
• 1:05:05
  again, what are we really We're not what are we really complaining about.
• 1:05:11
  We're complaining about the lack of power, Yes, but nobody's really hit for
• 1:05:14
  power. His on base his on base percentage is still near four hundred.
• 1:05:18
  I mean, prior to his coming back, they didn't have that. You
• 1:05:21
  know, there were still people not getting on base. As long as he's
• 1:05:27
  hitting the ball, you know, not striking out as much and getting on
• 1:05:31
  base, I'm fine with whatever he's gonna give now the real fun And I'm
• 1:05:36
  in the process of finishing up a draft for tomorrow about the defense. That's
• 1:05:41
  gonna be interesting. Yeah, that's gonna be when he goes to first base,
• 1:05:45
  that's gonna be really interesting. I tend to lean on the side of
• 1:05:49
  he's not gonna be playing first base as much as everyone thinks he is.
• 1:05:53
  Okay, I think he'll be two three times a week in DH the other
• 1:05:57
  times because you've seen the movie Moneyball. Oh yeah, playing first base isn't
• 1:06:04
  that hard to tell? And wash It's incredibly hard. I think the expectations
• 1:06:09
  for him to just jump in and be above average, I think are just
• 1:06:13
  a little too overblown. Yeah, I'm I'm more expecting just be a little
• 1:06:18
  bit better than Reese Hoskins level. And Hoskins wasn't the greatest, but he
• 1:06:21
  was competent. Yeah, you know, he's more than adequate for what they
• 1:06:26
  need. I'm just looking for that. That's good enough for me. But
• 1:06:31
  as far as his whole season, I'm fine. I'm totally fine with him.
• 1:06:35
  I have no qualms with him at all. Part of me feels like,
• 1:06:40
  though we need from a power perspective with Harper for him to get back.
• 1:06:44
  I don't even know at what level necessarily Ethan, but if they are
• 1:06:47
  getting to the postseason, they are going to need his bat in order to
• 1:06:51
  advance throughout. You know, if they do want to get deep into the
• 1:06:55
  postseason, they are going to need Bryce Harper, and I just don't know
• 1:06:58
  if that's going to be possible this year actually, you know, based on
• 1:07:00
  what you're saying as well. Yeah, we're worrying about Bryce Harper's power in
• 1:07:06
  July. I worry about Bryce Harper's power in September and October. Right right
• 1:07:11
  now, I'm not That's when I'm more worried about it. He'll be closer
• 1:07:15
  to a year's full recovery of the surgery at that point when you kind of
• 1:07:19
  expect the power to start coming back around. Yeah, if he's still hitting
• 1:07:24
  for you know, singles and the occasional double on September twenty fifth. Okay,
• 1:07:28
  now there's now there's an issue so long as the team didn't upgrade the
• 1:07:31
  offense around him. Um, but right now, I'm totally fine. Okay,
• 1:07:39
  all right, sounds good. And I wanted to move along here with
• 1:07:44
  regard to the the the manager of this team because boy, there, this
• 1:07:49
  gentleman has certainly gotten some hate on the interwebs out there and specifically Twitter,
• 1:07:55
  and you know, Rob Thompson. I thought it was interesting at a recent
• 1:07:59
  press conference how Rob Thompson said he wants to investigate the slow starts to the
• 1:08:02
  season that continue to plague this team year after year. How he wants to
• 1:08:06
  do that during the offseason after this season is done. He indicated they may
• 1:08:11
  need to make some adjustments to the spring training regiment. I gotta be honest,
• 1:08:15
  he like I like a manager who is reflective like that, because I'm
• 1:08:19
  not necessarily sure we've seen much of that coming from the Phillies managerial brass over
• 1:08:27
  over the years that we've been following this team. And I just want to
• 1:08:30
  get your thoughts on how Rob Thompson's really been managing this season with a lot
• 1:08:35
  of trials and tribulations. With regard to the staff. You mentioned Rhese Hoskins.
• 1:08:40
  You know, we've talked about it on this podcast. Losing him was
• 1:08:42
  probably a lot worse in various ways than we thought it was going to be.
• 1:08:47
  The pitching situation and injuries that have happened there, whether it's you know,
• 1:08:51
  with Andrew Paynter, with some folks in the bullpen. You know,
• 1:08:56
  a lot of unexpected things have been happening. But I like a manager that
• 1:09:00
  is reflective, like I said, and I think we've seen a different or
• 1:09:05
  I want to get your assessment on what kind of difference we have seen from
• 1:09:08
  last season to this season. As it pertains to Rob Thompson and how he's
• 1:09:13
  been managing things with this team, what are your overall thoughts. I think
• 1:09:17
  he's pretty much like the perfect guy for this team. I think it's interesting
• 1:09:21
  you're talking about the spring training with slow starts. If I'm not mistaken,
• 1:09:27
  Rob Thompson was the I'm not you know, he was the bench coach for
• 1:09:30
  Kapler and the bench coach for Girardi. Yeah, And if I'm not mistaken,
• 1:09:33
  he was the one that made the spring training plans all those years.
• 1:09:40
  Okay, if he's the manager this year, he's not the one that was
• 1:09:45
  making the spring training plans this year. It makes you wonder does that have
• 1:09:48
  anything to do with it? Yea, yeah, you know, they were
• 1:09:51
  never really known for their quick starts to a season in those years anyway,
• 1:09:56
  so I don't think it matters all that much, but it makes you wonder
• 1:09:59
  was he a little more hands off with how he wanted the team to prepare
• 1:10:01
  for the season. I don't know. That's one of those things we'll never
• 1:10:04
  know. You know, that's there's internal things, But as far as what
• 1:10:08
  we can see, I mean, there's not a player who doesn't love playing
• 1:10:13
  for him. You can see it. They all love playing for him.
• 1:10:15
  They're all the fact that they were able to bounce back and have the Junes
• 1:10:19
  they did, and now they're tied for the third wild card position. When
• 1:10:23
  I mean and even as late as May they looked almost dead in the water.
• 1:10:27
  Um, it was concerning. And the fact they were able to turn
• 1:10:30
  around again under Thompson, it just it tells you what kind of a manager
• 1:10:36
  he is. You know. Um, he's just kind of the perfect guy
• 1:10:42
  for the team. And I don't see any reason. You know, you
• 1:10:45
  see those people online, you know, fire the manager when when the team
• 1:10:49
  was going bad, Like my god, people, I think Rob Thompson has
• 1:10:54
  earned some some slack from last year's run. I think, you know,
• 1:10:58
  we've got time. He's not going where anytime soon, nor should he,
• 1:11:01
  because that's going to be a real issue if that were to be a problem.
• 1:11:06
  He's just I have no qualms with anything he does. I like it,
• 1:11:11
  like you said, I like he looks back at what he does.
• 1:11:14
  I like that he's kind of always worrying about today's game. We'll worry about
• 1:11:17
  tomorrow. Tomorrow. Let's try and win today's game today. It's one of
• 1:11:21
  those things we've missed over for a while. We went from Sandberg to mccannon
• 1:11:27
  to Kapler to Girardi, and it's like, it's if you think about it,
• 1:11:31
  it's been a while. Yes, it's been a while since they've had
• 1:11:33
  a manager like this. It's ben since Manual, absolutely, which enrages me.
• 1:11:38
  When we haven't our mentions, people are like, oh, Rob Thompson
• 1:11:41
  needs to be fired, get him out of here where. I actually somebody
• 1:11:45
  actually said worst manager in Major League Baseball and I was just absolutely perplexed by
• 1:11:49
  it. And I don't think they were joking or being sarcastic. I really
• 1:11:53
  don't, And I'm thinking, what are you watching? Yes, it was
• 1:11:56
  a rough stretch in May, for sure, but holy CA. I mean,
• 1:12:00
  I think when you have a locker room and a clubhouse that is able
• 1:12:05
  to rally around your manager, there's something the manager is doing right and that's
• 1:12:10
  the foundation to help build a successful team on the field in the end.
• 1:12:14
  Yeah, I think it's hard to especially in the city that you know we
• 1:12:18
  are around in Philadelphia, where every sport is taken from a fan experience of
• 1:12:26
  a football mindset. Every game. There's only sixteen game or seven whatever there
• 1:12:30
  are in football now, Yeah, there's seventeen games. Every game is win
• 1:12:33
  or die. Well, that's not like that in basketball. It's not I
• 1:12:36
  like that in hockey's and I like that in baseball. And you can't take
• 1:12:40
  that. You can't take that kind of mindset into a baseball season. There's
• 1:12:45
  one hundred and sixty two games. Yeah, these guys are going to go
• 1:12:47
  through five to six seven game losing streaks. The thing to watch is how
• 1:12:53
  is the team reacting. And as long as Thompson has been there, they
• 1:12:57
  really just kind of let it roll. They let a roll off our backs.
• 1:13:00
  Yeah, we'll be fine. It's no worries. Is it concerning?
• 1:13:02
  Yeah, I mean I think we were all concerned in May rightfully. So
• 1:13:05
  they were playing, they were playing poorly, and they deserved a lot of
• 1:13:10
  the criticism they were getting. But the one thing we look back on now
• 1:13:15
  with twenty twenty hindsight is as long as they're all pulling in the same direction,
• 1:13:20
  everything will be fine. If you it seems that's kind of Thomson's biggest
• 1:13:25
  gift is he's got everyone rowing at the same time in the same direction and
• 1:13:29
  that's what you want. That's that's what you want for sure. But closing
• 1:13:32
  us out here, Ethan wanted to get some quick assessments from you on the
• 1:13:36
  NL East at this point in the seasons. As we're concluding our discussion here,
• 1:13:42
  My god, the Marlins and I just don't I'm still absolutely enamored by
• 1:13:45
  what we are seeing from this team and where they are at right now.
• 1:13:50
  Of course, the Braves absolutely killing it. As many of us thought during
• 1:13:55
  the during spring training, we thought they were going to be a force to
• 1:13:59
  be reckoned with. They I've been what are your overall assessments with the NL
• 1:14:01
  least at this point, and where do you think this Phillies team fits in
• 1:14:05
  there as well? We start from the top down. Braves are the best
• 1:14:10
  team in baseball, full stop, There's nobody. I don't think there's any
• 1:14:14
  even if even before they went on this role they were the best team in
• 1:14:17
  baseball. I still think they're better than Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay's come back
• 1:14:21
  to earth since that incredibly hot start, and Atlantas just kept plugging along.
• 1:14:27
  They're just it's gonna be so hard to beat them for any team in the
• 1:14:30
  playoffs. I just don't see out anyone beats them now. Probably said the
• 1:14:34
  same thing last year and they kind of got throttled in the playoffs. Who
• 1:14:38
  did that? But I'm just okay, exactly the Marlins. I still don't
• 1:14:43
  believe it until I see it, say I just I won't believe the Marlins
• 1:14:45
  until I see them do it. But saying that too, but it's like
• 1:14:48
  half the season and I'm like, that's fine, then that's fine. Until
• 1:14:54
  they do it, I won't believe it. Alcantara has been He's not been
• 1:15:00
  the Alcantara of last year, but the kid Juri Perez has been great.
• 1:15:06
  I don't know if you saw his month of June, but wow, yeah,
• 1:15:10
  I'm pretty positive he had five six starts and the era A collective was
• 1:15:14
  under zero point. I think I think it's something like that. He's incredible.
• 1:15:17
  Yeah. But the other thing is too the team has been open about,
• 1:15:21
  you know the possibility of strasbourging him and kind of slowing him down towards
• 1:15:26
  the end. How does that work with that? You know, how is
• 1:15:30
  that going to work with that team? Like I said, they're good,
• 1:15:31
  there's no denying it. We're going to see it firsthand this weekend. But
• 1:15:35
  until they do it, I just I'm not a believer. You know,
• 1:15:39
  the Phillies. I still have no no worries about the Phillies at all.
• 1:15:42
  I think they'll be there in the end. The Mets are The Mets are
• 1:15:45
  interesting in that I think their biggest criticism of the entire off season was they
• 1:15:50
  were old, and they were kind of like, oh, it'll be fine,
• 1:15:54
  they'll be fine. They're old, but they're good. Now you're seeing
• 1:15:56
  that they're old. Yes, they're they're they're old, they're old. That
• 1:16:00
  that's just how it is. But again with them, I still I still
• 1:16:04
  think there's a run from them in there somewhere. Um, you saw the
• 1:16:09
  other day they needed a reliever for the bullpens, so they essentially bought two
• 1:16:15
  guys. It dropped him right away because they wanted the one guy. You
• 1:16:18
  know, the owner is going to spend you know, he's not dropping three
• 1:16:21
  hundred million dollars in his team to kind of sell off players. Right.
• 1:16:25
  I still say there's a run in there somewhere. We'll see if it's real.
• 1:16:30
  I don't know. And the National stink and they're just terrible. They're
• 1:16:33
  not good. They do have pieces, you know, they do have some
• 1:16:38
  decent little they do have some decent things. Um, they're picking number two
• 1:16:42
  in the draft, they'll get somebody there. They'll get one of the two
• 1:16:44
  kids from LSU, whoever that would be. Um. I just the Braves
• 1:16:49
  are the class of the team, or the class of the league. They're
• 1:16:51
  they're just by far and away the best team in baseball. I don't even
• 1:16:55
  think I really don't think it's close. Yeah. Yeah, we'll see if
• 1:16:57
  they can continue with it. What would happen with them in the postseason.
• 1:17:01
  The best teams in baseball, usually during the course of the regular season,
• 1:17:04
  don't always fare too well in the postseason. There, Ethan No, no,
• 1:17:09
  that's why. The thing. That's the thing with the Phillies at this
• 1:17:12
  point. Just get in. It's like last year. Just get in.
• 1:17:14
  That's all you gotta do. Absolutely at Ethan underscore Witty on Twitter, and
• 1:17:19
  you can find his work over at the Goodfight dot com. We love reading
• 1:17:23
  all the content over there, Ethan man, thank you so much for taking
• 1:17:26
  the time to jump on the pod this week. Have a great rest of
• 1:17:29
  your summer. I would love to have you back on down the road,
• 1:17:31
  my friend, anytime. Jeff, I'm available anytime, See you later.
• 1:17:34
  Man. Always great talking to Ethan, and towards the end of our discussion
• 1:17:39
  there as we're saying that you just have to get in in terms of the
• 1:17:43
  postseason in order to really make that run, you just have to get in.
• 1:17:46
  And we know that it happened to the Phillies last year and this team,
• 1:17:51
  even though there are the challenges with the Phillies that continue to persist because
• 1:17:56
  of injuries, because of just being up and down, of talking about Aaron
• 1:18:00
  Nola and what we should expect from him this coming season. I thought Ethan
• 1:18:04
  laid it out really well in a very common sense, rational logical thought process
• 1:18:09
  in terms of Aaron Nola, Folks, we gotta get past it at this
• 1:18:12
  point. There are still a lot of great cogs in this Phillies wheel that
• 1:18:15
  are getting this team and I think will continue to get this team to the
• 1:18:19
  point where they will actually make the postseason. Yes, I am saying that
• 1:18:25
  I think that we need to concentrate on those positives of course moving forward.
• 1:18:29
  So hope you enjoyed the show this week. Make sure you follow us on
• 1:18:33
  Twitter dot com at Jeffrey Underscore I'm sorry at Philadelphia PST that's the show at
• 1:18:39
  Jeffrey Underscore war and that's where you can follow me. Follow Eric again at
• 1:18:42
  Brick Polite, and again Ethan at Ethan Underscore Witty. And if folks,
• 1:18:46
  if you want to follow us on the Instagram, we are on the Instagram
• 1:18:50
  as well. Search out Philadelphia Sports Table. If you want to follow me
• 1:18:55
  on Instagram as well, feel free. I don't post that much sports stuff
• 1:18:59
  from my personal Instagram, but feel free to follow me, mister jeff Warren.
• 1:19:03
  That's what I do, Mr jeff Warren, and I am on Blue
• 1:19:08
  Sky now I am on Blue Sky at Jeffrey Warren. You can follow me
• 1:19:13
  over there as well. I gotta I got a feeling we're gonna be seeing
• 1:19:15
  some transitions, folks, from Twitter to Blue Sky. I think we're really
• 1:19:21
  starting to see that, and especially what happened on Twitter over the course of
• 1:19:26
  this past week, I think we're really gonna start to see that things in
• 1:19:30
  the social media world changing and alterning for sure. All right, folks,
• 1:19:33
  you all take care, make sure you're subscribed. Enjoy the content. We
• 1:19:39
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• 1:19:43
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• 1:19:45
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