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Chuck in the Morning 8-6 hour 4: Hugh Millen joins the show for the final hour. · Chuck in the Morning

0:19
Speaker 1: Alright, nine o'clock hour here on this Thursday, Chuck Pyle,
0:22
Speaker 1: Ashley Ryan with you. Good to be here in studio,
0:25
Speaker 1: but we'll be back out at training camp tomorrow and
0:28
Speaker 1: at various dates going forward. Of course, I got to
0:30
Speaker 1: spend training camp mornings with Hugh Millon last week. Great
0:35
Speaker 1: to see him, and we had a couple of conversations
0:37
Speaker 1: off the air about things beyond just Seahawks training camp.
0:44
Speaker 1: And so just a quick little story that I want
0:46
Speaker 1: to tell you about, because this week we've had a
0:49
Speaker 1: lot of conversations about Trek Scooble, the Dodgers, whether or
0:52
Speaker 1: not they're ruining baseball, Is it going to lead to
0:55
Speaker 1: a lockout? Will the players associates Players associate ever cave
1:00
Speaker 1: on a salary cap which they claimed they never will. Well,
1:04
Speaker 1: once upon a time the National Football League had to
1:06
Speaker 1: go through the same sort of conversation, and I'm sure
1:10
Speaker 1: that the players thought that they weren't going to agree
1:12
Speaker 1: to it, but obviously they eventually did. And so, I mean,
1:17
Speaker 1: Hugh Millen provides you the best insights anywhere you're going
1:20
Speaker 1: to find into the Seahawks, into football in general. But
1:25
Speaker 1: I realized in talking to Hugh off the air. He
1:29
Speaker 1: was there. He was a player rep in his second
1:32
Speaker 1: year in the National Football League and was then a
1:34
Speaker 1: player rep every year after for the rest of his career.
1:38
Speaker 1: Into the bargaining that took place, the negotiation that took
1:43
Speaker 1: place between the NFL and the NFLPA to come up
1:47
Speaker 1: with the collective bargaining agreement that put the salary cap
1:51
Speaker 1: in place. So he was there part of the conversation
1:54
Speaker 1: in the room.
1:55
Speaker 2: And I thought, with all of.
1:57
Speaker 1: The conversations being taken place with baseball and school bull
2:00
Speaker 1: and the Dodgers and everything else, what a perfect time
2:03
Speaker 1: to bring him on and kind of walk us through history.
2:06
Speaker 1: So joining us now is your QB one, He's he's
2:09
Speaker 1: a There are a lot of layers to this guy. People,
2:12
Speaker 1: it'sh Millon joining us here on the radio program.
2:14
Speaker 2: Did I represent that the right way?
2:16
Speaker 3: Well, that's very flattering. I certainly didn't deserve all of that,
2:20
Speaker 3: but I appreciate the kind words and and yeah, I
2:24
Speaker 3: represented the Rams. In nineteen eighty seven, during the strike year,
2:29
Speaker 3: I was asked to testify in Washington, d C. About
2:32
Speaker 3: the state of readiness of the team coming out of
2:35
Speaker 3: the the strike, and and then from there on. Yeah,
2:40
Speaker 3: there's you know, a player rep per team, and you're
2:42
Speaker 3: in those meetings and and you know, we're we're hearing
2:46
Speaker 3: all the rhetoric from the owners and and and then
2:49
Speaker 3: of course, you know, as you should do, you listen
2:54
Speaker 3: to their concerns and and you try and come to
2:59
Speaker 3: a meet to agreement. There was a nineteen eighty seven strike.
3:03
Speaker 3: Players missed three games, and there were scabs. It was
3:06
Speaker 3: kind of an ugly situation. But in the room, the
3:11
Speaker 3: players always knew my sense, we knew that we had
3:16
Speaker 3: the anti trust laws on our hands. And you know,
3:18
Speaker 3: the draft is patently in violation of anti trust. And
3:21
Speaker 3: when you hear anti trust, it's a confusing term. It
3:24
Speaker 3: just means anti competition. So the sermon Anti Trust Act,
3:27
Speaker 3: the federal statutes that govern all businesses, we all benefit
3:31
Speaker 3: from them as consumers and in the workplace and what
3:34
Speaker 3: have you. And so you know things like that. At
3:38
Speaker 3: the time, there was the reserve clause for the NFL players.
3:43
Speaker 3: The baseball players that achieved free agency in nineteen seventy
3:47
Speaker 3: six was the first year football players did not have that.
3:50
Speaker 3: Joe Montana was probably the best player in the league.
3:53
Speaker 3: When his contract expired with the forty nine ers. Regardless
3:57
Speaker 3: of how many years he had, he was still the
3:58
Speaker 3: property of the forty niners. And and so we knew
4:02
Speaker 3: that that was against the the uh, the anti trust laws.
4:06
Speaker 3: So so ultimately we had to have a strike. What's
4:11
Speaker 3: created an impass And and you say, well, how do
4:13
Speaker 3: you supersede the ani trust laws? Well, the labor laws,
4:16
Speaker 3: specifically the Wagner Labor Act essentially says this.
4:20
Speaker 2: Uh.
4:20
Speaker 3: The courts will look back and say, hey, you guys,
4:23
Speaker 3: you guys have a system that violates the anti trust laws.
4:26
Speaker 3: But if the collective bargaining agreement, if you guys agree
4:31
Speaker 3: to and and what's what's subject to collective bargaining wages? Hours,
4:35
Speaker 3: in terms of employment, Well, that covers just about everything,
4:38
Speaker 3: chuck that that covers. Is there going to be grass
4:40
Speaker 3: field or or uh, you know, turf field? Is you know,
4:43
Speaker 3: are we gonna get are we gonna limit to a
4:46
Speaker 3: day's because we don't want to have two a day practice?
4:48
Speaker 3: That's you know, there are terms of conditions and hours
4:51
Speaker 3: and of course wages and compensations. So uh uh, the
4:55
Speaker 3: courts will look and say, if you guys collectively bargain players,
4:59
Speaker 3: you can you can uh, bargain away your rights under
5:02
Speaker 3: anti trust laws. And so then the players look and say, well,
5:04
Speaker 3: we want these certain benefits and and then we will
5:09
Speaker 3: agree to a system that violates the anti trust laws.
5:14
Speaker 3: So there's some other details that the NFL Players Associates
5:18
Speaker 3: Association had to decertify, which so the courts would stop
5:22
Speaker 3: looking at the labor laws superseding the anti trust laws,
5:26
Speaker 3: and then they would they would say, hey, hey, now
5:29
Speaker 3: we're just going to look at the uh, the system
5:32
Speaker 3: under anti trust laws.
5:33
Speaker 2: Guys.
5:33
Speaker 3: You guys can't have a draft, right because I mean
5:36
Speaker 3: you imagine in another industry.
5:38
Speaker 2: Oh you just like, stop my heart right there?
5:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, soft abtract the greatest holiday in America.
5:49
Speaker 3: You know what Jeffrey Kessler Advising says. You know what,
5:53
Speaker 3: we just can't. We can't break Chuck's heart. You know,
5:55
Speaker 3: we have to we have to keep acceding to this
5:59
Speaker 3: this nonsense. But no, I don't think it's nonsense at all.
6:02
Speaker 3: I think it's a fair way to distribute. And you
6:04
Speaker 3: know the play the owners that they they their concern was, Look,
6:09
Speaker 3: the value of the product is the entertainment value of
6:13
Speaker 3: two competitively matched teams. If I heard that once I
6:16
Speaker 3: heard it a thousand times, and it bears relevance to
6:19
Speaker 3: to what we're about to discuss with baseball. And and
6:23
Speaker 3: you know, their their cry was that all the players
6:28
Speaker 3: want to be raiders or cowboys, and the Packers will
6:31
Speaker 3: never sign anybody. I remember that one usually particularly being used. Well, actually,
6:36
Speaker 3: after we grounded it, grinded it out and we had
6:40
Speaker 3: a free agency in ninety three and then the the
6:43
Speaker 3: salary cap in ninety four. The irony was that the
6:47
Speaker 3: very first marquee signing was to the Green Bay Packers
6:52
Speaker 3: in the person of Reggie White. So we all kind
6:54
Speaker 3: of got a chuckle about all the hand ringing that
6:57
Speaker 3: had been you know, it advanced by the owners in
7:01
Speaker 3: to which the players we were saying, look, there's still
7:05
Speaker 3: gonna be other forces, like money that's going to distribute
7:08
Speaker 3: the talent, and so at an event, we can look
7:11
Speaker 3: in hindsight now at a lot of the of the
7:15
Speaker 3: hand ringing and kind of a chuckle on it, you know.
7:18
Speaker 3: And but as an enterprise, you know, at that time
7:22
Speaker 3: ninety three, the NFL had one point eight seven billion
7:26
Speaker 3: dollars in revenue. That's only ten million more than Major
7:29
Speaker 3: League Baseball, who had one point eighty six. Now fast forward,
7:33
Speaker 3: under the structure that we've had with a salary cap,
7:39
Speaker 3: with a minimum salary that now you've got NFL at
7:44
Speaker 3: twenty four point one billion, Baseball at twelve point four billion.
7:49
Speaker 3: Football has literally lapped baseball doubled, and you know, and
7:55
Speaker 3: and then the popularity and look, I'm not gonna commit
7:59
Speaker 3: the alcy of just saying, well, you know, I'm going
8:03
Speaker 3: to observe a phenomenon and then I'm to establish a cause.
8:05
Speaker 3: There's multiple causes. We can't isolate the variables, but we
8:09
Speaker 3: can make inferences, right, I'm aware obviously gambling and fantasy
8:14
Speaker 3: football and there's other factors. But the facts are we here,
8:17
Speaker 3: we sit, and we see the degree to which baseball
8:23
Speaker 3: their interest. You know, in nineteen the early nineteen nineties,
8:28
Speaker 3: the share of all Americans who watched the World Series
8:35
Speaker 3: was twelve percent. Now it's three point eight percent in
8:38
Speaker 3: this decade, whereas football has been over thirty three percent.
8:44
Speaker 3: Back then in thirty five percent now, so you're you're talking,
8:48
Speaker 3: you know, like nine times as many. And there's some
8:52
Speaker 3: weird series years where they're under ten million. So I
8:55
Speaker 3: think that all of the mistakes, by the way, the
8:58
Speaker 3: Blue Ribbon Panel in the late nineteen nineties for baseball
9:02
Speaker 3: suggested that baseball go to the model of football and
9:07
Speaker 3: have a salary cap and have a floor. But you know,
9:14
Speaker 3: right now, they're resistant for reasons I understand, but I
9:17
Speaker 3: think are foolish.
9:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I love it. I love this stuff. I
9:22
Speaker 2: find this fascinating.
9:24
Speaker 1: I'm trusting that our audience does as well, because I mean,
9:27
Speaker 1: this is how sports history has made, for goodness sake.
9:30
Speaker 1: And we've got Hugh Millan, who was right there basically
9:33
Speaker 1: signing the Declaration of Independence. He's like a forefather of
9:36
Speaker 1: the salary cap, and we've got him right here. We
9:38
Speaker 1: got like John Hancock with us right now here on
9:42
Speaker 1: the radio program explaining all of this.
9:44
Speaker 2: All right.
9:44
Speaker 1: So I'm sure there was handwringing and nervousness, and there
9:48
Speaker 1: might have even been an element with young Hugh Millan,
9:51
Speaker 1: you know, and other young players. We forget how young
9:55
Speaker 1: you guys were when you were making these decisions on
9:58
Speaker 1: behalf of future football players. I'm sure there was a
10:03
Speaker 1: nervousness like are we selling our soul? Are we giving
10:05
Speaker 1: up too much? Is this the right move to make?
10:08
Speaker 1: But now that we have hindsight now that we have
10:11
Speaker 1: all that success in history that has stemmed from that decision.
10:15
Speaker 1: If you were in a room with Bryce Harper, who
10:18
Speaker 1: might be the most outspoken baseball player against a salary cap,
10:22
Speaker 1: and I think he wears that like a badge of honor,
10:25
Speaker 1: like he's supposed to. He's got to stick up for
10:27
Speaker 1: all those that came before him. They never cave to this.
10:30
Speaker 1: He's never gonna as long as he's alive and can
10:33
Speaker 1: draw a breath, he's never gonna cave to this himself.
10:36
Speaker 2: What would you say to him?
10:38
Speaker 1: What would you advise Bryce Harper to maybe talk sense
10:42
Speaker 1: into him into why a salary cap might actually make
10:47
Speaker 1: sense even though it goes against logic. We're gonna sat,
10:50
Speaker 1: we're gonna cap the money spent, and yet it's going
10:53
Speaker 1: to make sense.
10:53
Speaker 3: For your league because you're gonna have a floor if
10:57
Speaker 3: they followed the NFL mods NFL right now, they have
11:02
Speaker 3: a rule. Now there's a formula over a three or
11:06
Speaker 3: four year period, generally a three year period that every
11:09
Speaker 3: team has to spend ninety percent of the cap, and
11:14
Speaker 3: the NFL as an entire entity, has to spend ninety
11:17
Speaker 3: five percent. Again, over a period it's not year to year,
11:21
Speaker 3: and there has never been a team that has had
11:24
Speaker 3: to pay. And this collective bargaining agreement says if you
11:29
Speaker 3: fall below that, you have to write a check in
11:32
Speaker 3: the offseason to all the players who are on the team. Now,
11:35
Speaker 3: the Raiders and the Jaguars have been close in recent years,
11:42
Speaker 3: and they spent at a level to avoid that penalty.
11:48
Speaker 3: So what I would be talking to baseball players is
11:52
Speaker 3: just focus on this before we talk about how it's distributed.
11:55
Speaker 3: And I got plenty of comments about Bryce Harp. Let's
11:58
Speaker 3: just talk about the pie. So there's two things we
12:01
Speaker 3: focus on. How how big is the pie? And revenue pie?
12:06
Speaker 3: And what what what percent share do the players get?
12:11
Speaker 3: And and I'm going to talk in some ways that's
12:14
Speaker 3: going to sound socialist. I'm a capitalist, like I think
12:18
Speaker 3: any sensible person would be. But think about, just pause
12:21
Speaker 3: for a second, the paradox of professional sports. Nordstrom uh
12:27
Speaker 3: is as a department store. There used to be a
12:30
Speaker 3: department store, Chuck, We may have heard of it, certainly,
12:33
Speaker 3: longtime satellites of Frederick and Nelson, similar store to Northstroam
12:37
Speaker 3: was better at business. They knocked Frederick and Nelson out
12:40
Speaker 3: of business, and so hey, good for Nordstrom. If the
12:44
Speaker 3: Dodgers knocked the Rockies out, who are the Dodgers going
12:47
Speaker 3: to play? And moreover, if the Dodgers play the Rockies
12:51
Speaker 3: and all the fans believe the score is going to
12:53
Speaker 3: be eight to one every time they play, what's gonna
12:56
Speaker 3: be the interest level. I just have outlined some of
12:59
Speaker 3: the the declining interest in baseball and how football has surprissed.
13:04
Speaker 2: So what did we say?
13:05
Speaker 3: The NFL owner said, our products of the entertainment value
13:08
Speaker 3: to competitively matched teams. So professional sports are in a
13:13
Speaker 3: competition with movie theaters and rock concerts and Netflix as
13:18
Speaker 3: a service technically worth service providing entertainment, and we're competing.
13:22
Speaker 3: And so when you look at a sports league, they
13:26
Speaker 3: are capitalists as they compete against other forms of entertainment,
13:31
Speaker 3: but they have to be socialists. And nobody did it
13:35
Speaker 3: better than the giants the mayors throughout the decades, going
13:38
Speaker 3: back to nineteen twenty five, they always said, no, we
13:41
Speaker 3: need to share the revenue. So the way that these
13:44
Speaker 3: owners can be savage capitalists is externally is to internally
13:52
Speaker 3: behave like socialists. So it get back to going back
13:56
Speaker 3: to before right around the time when we were doing this,
14:00
Speaker 3: the NFL at about forty percent of the revenue is
14:02
Speaker 3: going to the players. Baseball was up at fifty seven percent.
14:06
Speaker 3: Baseball is just at the whim. In twenty fifteen, at
14:10
Speaker 3: the baseball fell to thirty eight point six percent of
14:15
Speaker 3: the revenue. Meanwhile football is locked at forty eight point
14:20
Speaker 3: eight percent. So as an NFL player is saying, hey,
14:24
Speaker 3: we're at forty eight point eight percent. Now who gets
14:27
Speaker 3: the money? How much Mahomes gets. That's we'll set that aside.
14:31
Speaker 3: We are going to get forty eight point eight percent.
14:34
Speaker 2: So what do we want to do.
14:35
Speaker 3: We want to grow that damn pie because the more
14:38
Speaker 3: the pie grows, the more our forty eight point eight
14:41
Speaker 3: percent grows. So so, and I just outlined that twenty
14:47
Speaker 3: four billion in revenue, which which doubles baseball in the
14:51
Speaker 3: most recent years. So I would say to the to
14:55
Speaker 3: Bryce Harper, you are advocating for a system that everybody knows,
15:03
Speaker 3: from a correlation standpoint in this decade, the champion the champion.
15:13
Speaker 3: Actually I'll get to that in a second. That if
15:17
Speaker 3: you run a correlation to money and winning football has
15:22
Speaker 3: a fifty correlation. Think of a baseball player who hits
15:26
Speaker 3: fifty five to zero Baseball has a five to fifty
15:30
Speaker 3: correlation the number of franchises who were If you go
15:37
Speaker 3: back to two thousand and excuse me, nineteen ninety eight,
15:41
Speaker 3: that was the first year of thirty teams in each
15:45
Speaker 3: twenty of twenty eight World Series champions are in the
15:50
Speaker 3: top ten in baseball, only ten out of twenty eight
15:54
Speaker 3: are in football. You would expect if it was just random,
15:56
Speaker 3: you would expect one third. So you're getting more than
15:59
Speaker 3: double the rate where correlation to money is a factor.
16:04
Speaker 3: And the Dodgers in their luxury tax pay one hundred
16:08
Speaker 3: and sixty nine million. The Dodgers pay more in luxury
16:11
Speaker 3: tax than half the owners are are are paying in
16:17
Speaker 3: their entire payroll, including the Seattle Mariners. So you have
16:23
Speaker 3: this incredible discrepancy that they the difference between the Dodgers
16:27
Speaker 3: at the top three hundred and fifty million twenty four
16:32
Speaker 3: versus the Marlins sixty seven eight. This this is for
16:37
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five. It's the last year we can compare
16:39
Speaker 3: football to baseball. So that gap, that's a four hundred
16:44
Speaker 3: and sixteen percent gap between the highest and the lowest
16:48
Speaker 3: in football. It's only a twelve percent gap, so in
16:54
Speaker 3: real dollars. So, now what you have is a system
16:57
Speaker 3: where there are fan bases that just feel helpless. Yeah,
17:03
Speaker 3: because of the of the the fact that they have owners.
17:07
Speaker 3: Now there's a couple of isolated UH, small market teams
17:13
Speaker 3: that are managing their team well. But the correlation again
17:17
Speaker 3: to the UH, the the top ten spenders and playoff
17:23
Speaker 3: teams and winning World Series what have you is is
17:27
Speaker 3: more than double. So I would look, I would challenge
17:30
Speaker 3: Bryce Harper. I would say, hang on, you were the
17:35
Speaker 3: revenue has gone up two hundred and forty seven percent
17:40
Speaker 3: and the salaries have only gone up one hundred forty
17:43
Speaker 3: nine percent.
17:45
Speaker 2: Uh.
17:45
Speaker 3: In that rate, your declinent, you are the player. The
17:49
Speaker 3: baseball players are at forty six percent of a pie
17:52
Speaker 3: that is not growing. The football players are at forty
17:57
Speaker 3: eight point eight percent of a pie that is doubling.
18:00
Speaker 3: Whereas right before free agency, I told you there's only
18:03
Speaker 3: ten one point eight seven to one point eighty six.
18:05
Speaker 3: There's only ten million dollars separating the revenue of the two.
18:08
Speaker 2: They were.
18:08
Speaker 3: They were neck and neck, And look at the degree
18:11
Speaker 3: to which football has stretched. It's its popularity, its revenue
18:17
Speaker 3: in every way, and when I say double, that's that's
18:19
Speaker 3: being conservative because there's many of these metrics where where
18:22
Speaker 3: it's it's it's uh many times that right.
18:25
Speaker 1: Hugh Mellan is with us our QB one. Uh yes,
18:29
Speaker 1: I've been fascinated by this topic here as of late.
18:33
Speaker 1: You know, the future of baseball seems to be a
18:36
Speaker 1: bit murky with the collective bargaining agreement coming up. For
18:40
Speaker 1: a long time I was against Major League Baseball adopting
18:43
Speaker 1: a salary cap, and in the last few years I've
18:46
Speaker 1: done a bit of a one eighty on it, and
18:48
Speaker 1: now I think it absolutely has to happen. And so
18:51
Speaker 1: Hugh is with us. Now I'm do you mind sticking
18:55
Speaker 1: around for another segment?
18:56
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, not at all.
18:57
Speaker 1: Okay, So we'll cover anything else on this front that
19:01
Speaker 1: we need to with Hugh Millan, because I'm sure there
19:05
Speaker 1: is more ground I gotta answer.
19:07
Speaker 3: I gotta answer your Harper questions to you. So we'll
19:09
Speaker 3: get to that in others.
19:10
Speaker 1: All right, we'll get into that next Sports Radio ninety
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19:38
Speaker 2: Good morning to you.
19:39
Speaker 1: It is Chuck, and it is Ashley with you and
19:42
Speaker 1: with us right now. And he's not in the mode
19:45
Speaker 1: of QB one right now, he's in the mode of
19:48
Speaker 1: player rep one. As we are tapping into the history
19:53
Speaker 1: that Hugh Millman had with the National Football League and
19:57
Speaker 1: it's you know, historic negotiation to accept a salary cap.
20:02
Speaker 1: And of course it says in part unlocked unbridled success
20:08
Speaker 1: for the National Football League financially, popularity wise, you name it.
20:12
Speaker 1: And so as baseball, the last of the major organizations
20:17
Speaker 1: here really in America to adopt.
20:22
Speaker 2: A salary cap.
20:23
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, they seem fiercely determined never
20:27
Speaker 1: to adopt a salary cap, the Major League Baseball Players Association.
20:32
Speaker 1: And then we have this Tek Scoogle story this week
20:34
Speaker 1: which has really highlighted it. We have a collective bargaining
20:36
Speaker 1: agreement negotiation that's going to happen for twenty twenty seven.
20:40
Speaker 1: There's fear there's going to be a lockout. We've had
20:43
Speaker 1: so many discussions about this the last week that I'm
20:46
Speaker 1: bringing Hugh Millin aboard because he was there. He was
20:49
Speaker 1: there working on drafting that famous, that historic collective bargaining
20:54
Speaker 1: agreement in the National Football League that unlocked so much
20:57
Speaker 1: of its popularity, and so using him today to try
21:01
Speaker 1: to advise Major League Baseball on why they should go
21:06
Speaker 1: with a salary cap. And Hugh, I asked you about
21:09
Speaker 1: what kind of advice you'd give Bryce Harper, who seems
21:12
Speaker 1: to be the most active in saying no chance are
21:17
Speaker 1: we ever going to have a salary cap? If you
21:18
Speaker 1: got to sit down with them in a room, what
21:20
Speaker 1: would you tell him?
21:22
Speaker 2: Uh?
21:22
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, I think I need to, uh
21:25
Speaker 3: preface by there's never been a part of me that
21:29
Speaker 3: thinks there's one uh you know, jod Or Tittle that
21:32
Speaker 3: would be different with the NFL had I not been
21:34
Speaker 3: in the room, you know.
21:36
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, look, I I had the floor. Yeah,
21:41
Speaker 2: you know, on on on. Uh.
21:43
Speaker 3: I want to say numerous occasions, but there's you know,
21:45
Speaker 3: there's twenty eight teams, twenty eight reps. So you're, you know,
21:48
Speaker 3: everybody's gonna you know, the we all fly sit in
21:50
Speaker 3: a hotel room and talk about this, you know, and
21:53
Speaker 3: we're getting advised by Dick Bertleson, the lead attorney, and
21:58
Speaker 3: Jeffrey Kessler, who's still prominent. He he he won the
22:01
Speaker 3: Austin case and and he represented Soresby and so he's
22:05
Speaker 3: a guy that just wins everywhere he goes. Quite honestly,
22:08
Speaker 3: he's Michael Jordan of of Anti Trust Attorneys for better
22:11
Speaker 3: or for worse. But but you know, you know the
22:14
Speaker 3: thing about Bryce Harper and Scooball, Juan Soto, Max Surs
22:20
Speaker 3: or you know, all the Scott Boris guys. They you know,
22:25
Speaker 3: Boris is in a unique situation because he comes on
22:29
Speaker 3: with softy and dick sounding like a donkey, that that
22:32
Speaker 3: he's going to just say that, uh that somehow football
22:38
Speaker 3: is broken. And you know, the the the magnificent what
22:43
Speaker 3: was his wording, you know, the the genius owners that
22:48
Speaker 3: that are at the top of baseball, that are competing
22:51
Speaker 3: with all these guys, you know and signing his his players.
22:54
Speaker 3: Scott Boris seventy six point five of his clients are
22:59
Speaker 3: in the top.
23:03
Speaker 2: Whoa, what was that? Some just pop?
23:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, he just disappeared. Let me see if I can
23:08
Speaker 4: fall Oh.
23:09
Speaker 2: Boy, that did not sound good. Hopefully everything is okay.
23:14
Speaker 2: I just went just like that.
23:17
Speaker 4: He just went away, just disconnected.
23:19
Speaker 2: Is that right? Huh? I know they've haddled. Yeah, okay,
23:24
Speaker 2: all right, Well.
23:24
Speaker 1: Hopefully we'll get Hugh back because he was just starting
23:26
Speaker 1: to tear into Scott Boris and I wanted to.
23:29
Speaker 2: See that flesh ripped apart. I wanted to see that
23:32
Speaker 2: limb by limb. Yeah, I'm just getting ready.
23:35
Speaker 4: I gotta figure out what happened to him.
23:36
Speaker 1: Hold on, okay, all right, all right, Ashley's going to
23:38
Speaker 1: figure that out. Look, uh, I mean, we're gonna try
23:42
Speaker 1: to get him back. And I don't know how much
23:44
Speaker 1: more of the story that he had to tell. We
23:46
Speaker 1: might be crunched for time by the time that we
23:49
Speaker 1: reconnect with Hugh.
23:51
Speaker 5: Millene could go to break early and then come back
23:53
Speaker 5: and kind of use him as our one last thing.
23:55
Speaker 5: It would give us time to okay, connect, I don't know,
23:58
Speaker 5: just a thought.
23:59
Speaker 2: Oh okay, and if.
24:01
Speaker 4: You want to try to get him back.
24:03
Speaker 1: Let's try to get him back here in a little bit.
24:06
Speaker 1: But maybe we will do that. But I just, you know,
24:11
Speaker 1: I was kind of against the salary cap, but I
24:14
Speaker 1: was just doing it purely from a baseball perspective. I
24:18
Speaker 1: was fighting against the argument that the smaller to mid
24:21
Speaker 1: market teams can't compete. When I knew that they could.
24:25
Speaker 1: It was more difficult, but I knew that they could.
24:29
Speaker 1: And now we seem to have two different arguments going
24:31
Speaker 1: on right now.
24:33
Speaker 2: And there's those.
24:34
Speaker 1: That say that the smaller market clubs can't compete against this,
24:39
Speaker 1: and then the other side of it is that if
24:42
Speaker 1: they can't compete, it's their own problem.
24:45
Speaker 2: Look, the Milwaukee Brewers are right there, but it's.
24:47
Speaker 1: Usually like the same people that have been bashing on
24:50
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball for a number of years.
24:52
Speaker 2: So I've kind of been against.
24:54
Speaker 1: The salary cap. But for me, it really is about
24:57
Speaker 1: a PR. It has become a PR situation right now
25:02
Speaker 1: that we got flooded so much by the thought that
25:06
Speaker 1: small and mid market teams can't compete, even though there
25:10
Speaker 1: were plenty of examples of over the years of that
25:14
Speaker 1: not being true.
25:15
Speaker 2: But now it's.
25:16
Speaker 1: Turned into such a PR nightmare that so many fans
25:20
Speaker 1: of so many baseball cities now believe fully that they can't,
25:25
Speaker 1: and then they see what the Dodgers are doing, and
25:27
Speaker 1: they already have advantages, and then there are more advantage
25:30
Speaker 1: given to them with their advantages. That continues to grow
25:35
Speaker 1: out there, That continues to be a situation in which, yes,
25:41
Speaker 1: that sentiment is growing, the pr sentiment that you can't compete.
25:46
Speaker 1: And as long as ninety percent of your potential customers
25:49
Speaker 1: feel that way, then I don't think that you can
25:52
Speaker 1: have a successful successful venture. Quite frankly, they need to
25:58
Speaker 1: change it. It could be far more successful successful, don't
26:00
Speaker 1: get me wrong, but it could be far more successful
26:04
Speaker 1: if we could follow the National Football League and its
26:07
Speaker 1: game plan. We've got to get fans to the point
26:10
Speaker 1: where they are tuning in for a baseball season thinking
26:13
Speaker 1: that they've got a chance to win that year. And
26:17
Speaker 1: even though I feel they always have had a chance,
26:21
Speaker 1: we need to get them to the point where they
26:22
Speaker 1: feel strongly that they do have a chance to win
26:26
Speaker 1: that year. And that's going to, by the way, encourage
26:29
Speaker 1: more because right now baseball is wildly popular locally, but
26:34
Speaker 1: it's not nationally. I mean, people are getting behind the sport,
26:38
Speaker 1: love the sport, because they will follow the sport on
26:41
Speaker 1: a nightly basis with their home team. But once you
26:45
Speaker 1: get to national games, there really is no not near
26:50
Speaker 1: the interest that it used to be. And the feeling is,
26:53
Speaker 1: why do if my team can't be there, why do
26:55
Speaker 1: I want.
26:56
Speaker 2: To watch the Dodgers win? Again?
26:58
Speaker 1: Well, that's a terrible position for baseball to be in,
27:01
Speaker 1: and your national television contract is about as big a
27:05
Speaker 1: source of revenue as you can have in sports, and
27:07
Speaker 1: the fact that we don't have one, the fact that
27:12
Speaker 1: the Major League Baseball is operating without a huge national
27:16
Speaker 1: audience these days, should tell them all that they need
27:20
Speaker 1: to know. So let's wise up, Let's get this done.
27:22
Speaker 1: Let's follow Why would we not follow in the footsteps
27:25
Speaker 1: of the National Football League? Why would we not want
27:28
Speaker 1: what the National Football League has? And that really did
27:32
Speaker 1: begin with that historic collective bargaining agreement that took place.
27:36
Speaker 1: And there are other factors, as you pointed out, but
27:39
Speaker 1: that historic collective bargaining agreement which put us in the
27:42
Speaker 1: position for every football fan everywhere to feel like this
27:47
Speaker 1: is really about whether our general manager can get the
27:51
Speaker 1: right players, and really about whether our players can play
27:54
Speaker 1: good football. It's not about because we didn't spend as
27:58
Speaker 1: much as the Chiefs. No feels like a more even
28:01
Speaker 1: playing field, right.
28:02
Speaker 2: Does it not?
28:03
Speaker 1: Even though statistically baseball has had more turnover, playoff wise,
28:07
Speaker 1: and more different champions than what the National Football League
28:10
Speaker 1: has had in the modern era, it still feels to
28:13
Speaker 1: us that the National Football League is fair and Major
28:16
Speaker 1: League Baseball is unfair. How do you run a competitive
28:19
Speaker 1: business that way? They're already making gads of money. How
28:23
Speaker 1: much more could they make if ninety percent of their
28:26
Speaker 1: consumers weren't obsessed with Our owner doesn't spend enough money, and.
28:31
Speaker 2: He's ruining my summer, you know. So that's where we
28:34
Speaker 2: got to get in to.
28:35
Speaker 1: All Right, we're gonna take a break. We're gonna come
28:37
Speaker 1: back on the other side with one last thing. Sports
28:39
Speaker 1: Radio ninety three point three KJARFM. All right, Well, unfortunately
28:54
Speaker 1: we were I was on the edge of my seat.
28:57
Speaker 1: Seemed like he was getting into the really good stuff there,
29:00
Speaker 1: and yet we popped off the air. Somehow, he just
29:03
Speaker 1: popped off the air, So a little technical difficulty there.
29:07
Speaker 1: He assures me on text that he's fine and that
29:10
Speaker 1: while he was talking to himself in his home, it
29:12
Speaker 1: was some of the best material he's.
29:14
Speaker 2: Ever delivered on the airwaves.
29:15
Speaker 5: He called me and said, when did I go away?
29:17
Speaker 5: I said, I don't know, like nine thirty two or
29:19
Speaker 5: nine thirty three. He goes nine minutes ago.
29:22
Speaker 4: I said, well, yeah, I tried calling you.
29:25
Speaker 1: So, I mean, man, I was on the edge of
29:28
Speaker 1: my seat. Yeah, I'm sure others were as well. It
29:32
Speaker 1: seemed like he was really getting to the great stuff
29:35
Speaker 1: right there with the Scott Boris commentary. So we'll have
29:39
Speaker 1: to get him back on here soon and pick up
29:41
Speaker 1: where we left off. But unfortunately, part of the business
29:45
Speaker 1: and sometimes you have some technical difficulties, So we'll work
29:49
Speaker 1: on that, we'll strategize, we'll figure out how to pick
29:52
Speaker 1: up that conversation, because I, for one, want to know
29:54
Speaker 1: what he has to say about Scott Boris.
29:57
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, at a person to leave us hanging on.
30:00
Speaker 1: Hey, yeah, all right, one last thing to close out
30:02
Speaker 1: the show, Ashley, what do you got?
30:03
Speaker 5: I mean, I didn't even know what I had because
30:05
Speaker 5: I was so thrown off by all that. I was
30:08
Speaker 5: just still thinking about last night's game, and I feel like,
30:14
Speaker 5: you know, I feel like there were some games last
30:16
Speaker 5: year where I couldn't wait to come into work and
30:19
Speaker 5: talk about it. Yeah, but last night's game. It was
30:21
Speaker 5: a different feeling. I don't know that I've had that
30:24
Speaker 5: feeling in a long time, or even maybe ever. It
30:27
Speaker 5: was like I was excited to see what everybody was
30:30
Speaker 5: saying about it on Twitter and to come to work
30:32
Speaker 5: to talk about it, but not in a I'm so
30:35
Speaker 5: pumped up way. It was just I was so fascinated
30:38
Speaker 5: by everything that happened in that game. And I don't
30:41
Speaker 5: know when the last time I remember watching games start
30:44
Speaker 5: to finish where I just kind of was like, Wow, what.
30:47
Speaker 4: A baseball game?
30:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, true, And that's kind of how I felt about
30:51
Speaker 5: it last night.
30:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was.
30:54
Speaker 1: It was one of the best games of the year
30:56
Speaker 1: in terms of entertainment, no doubt about it. And yeah,
31:01
Speaker 1: I think you kind of summed it up well from
31:03
Speaker 1: six o'clock this morning, where it was sort of a
31:07
Speaker 1: I got your back kind of game and goes all
31:10
Speaker 1: the way to the spire Wilson, you know, brawl moment,
31:16
Speaker 1: and if that's a if that's a representation of the
31:20
Speaker 1: game and maybe it will lead to some greatness going forward,
31:25
Speaker 1: Maybe it will be the spark.
31:27
Speaker 2: I mean, we keep waiting for the spark.
31:28
Speaker 1: It certainly wasn't the Cole Young three or on Homer
31:30
Speaker 1: a couple of Saturdays ago. It wasn't the dom Canzone
31:33
Speaker 1: three run over. I mean, maybe that saved us from
31:36
Speaker 1: the Abyss.
31:37
Speaker 4: Yeah they did. Those were necessary, that's.
31:39
Speaker 1: For sure, but it didn't provide that spark, that momentum that,
31:44
Speaker 1: you know, that fire starter of getting this team to
31:48
Speaker 1: play better more consistently over a big chunk of time.
31:52
Speaker 1: Maybe that will now begin. If it is, I'll give
31:55
Speaker 1: Spire all the credit.
31:57
Speaker 2: On Planet Earth.
31:58
Speaker 1: Yes, along those lines, just to correct history a little bit,
32:04
Speaker 1: because I got a little bit of you know, Jesse
32:07
Speaker 1: Winker reminders here in the last twenty four hours.
32:12
Speaker 2: I think this is worth noting.
32:14
Speaker 1: No one in the organization gives Jesse Winker any credit
32:18
Speaker 1: for that.
32:19
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't imagine people forget.
32:22
Speaker 1: Now, they went on a tear after that, and they
32:24
Speaker 1: were like five games under five hundred, and that was
32:26
Speaker 1: in mid June.
32:26
Speaker 2: I thought that was later in the season.
32:29
Speaker 1: But it was like in mid June, and I think
32:31
Speaker 1: people think that he sparked it and we rallied to
32:34
Speaker 1: win and then yeah, we did play really good and then.
32:38
Speaker 2: Really did take off after that.
32:41
Speaker 1: But that game that Winker flipped off the Angels fans
32:44
Speaker 1: and started the brawl. We were already on a five
32:48
Speaker 1: game winning streak. Mariners already won five straight games. That
32:51
Speaker 1: actually ended a winning streak. So the organization feels like
32:55
Speaker 1: that moment a lot of fans think that that was
32:58
Speaker 1: the spark. Yeah, a lot of the players, well not
33:02
Speaker 1: a lot all of the players. All of the organization
33:05
Speaker 1: feels it was more of a deterrent because remember they
33:09
Speaker 1: had we had long stretches of time where we had
33:11
Speaker 1: to play without star players who got suspended because of that.
33:14
Speaker 5: Yes, at least they spaced it out, but I remember,
33:17
Speaker 5: and then we still kept winning them and.
33:19
Speaker 2: They kept winning.
33:19
Speaker 1: They kept winning, so it had some sort of effect
33:22
Speaker 1: on the team, But the organization itself felt No, we
33:26
Speaker 1: were already starting to play the brand of baseball we
33:30
Speaker 1: ended up playing. And if anything, Winkers Angels moment may
33:35
Speaker 1: have caused more of a distraction than anything else.
33:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, well winker was a bit of a distraction in general,
33:40
Speaker 4: wasn't he.
33:41
Speaker 2: Anyway.
33:42
Speaker 1: My one last thing, though, is going to be there
33:44
Speaker 1: is a player in the National Football League, and unfortunately
33:48
Speaker 1: at least Woodwards stole my thunder a little bit earlier.
33:51
Speaker 1: There is a player in the National Football League. We
33:53
Speaker 1: do talk of camp during Seahawk's training camp. We always
33:58
Speaker 1: talk about the guy that's creating the buzz in that moment.
34:02
Speaker 1: There's one guy that is creating the most buzz in
34:06
Speaker 1: the entire National Football League at his respective training camp.
34:12
Speaker 2: Got a guess, or did you hear?
34:15
Speaker 4: I didn't hear. I don't know.
34:19
Speaker 2: Denzel Boston.
34:21
Speaker 4: Oh man, that's not surprising.
34:23
Speaker 1: Denzel Boston is having the camp of camps. Apparently, the
34:29
Speaker 1: stories that are being written are Denzel Boston is so
34:33
Speaker 1: far better than every receiver in the Browns organization, including
34:38
Speaker 1: the veterans, that it's not even comfortable.
34:42
Speaker 2: So he ended up being a second round pick.
34:45
Speaker 1: The entire draft process, he was projected as a first rounder,
34:48
Speaker 1: he ended up being a second round pick.
34:50
Speaker 2: I don't know what's gotten into Denzel Boston, but.
34:53
Speaker 1: He is light in the world on fire apparently at
34:57
Speaker 1: Brown's training camp right now. He is the talk of
35:00
Speaker 1: camp period in the National Football League.
35:03
Speaker 4: I love that.
35:03
Speaker 5: Oh, and where are you going to be tonight?
35:06
Speaker 1: Oh?
35:06
Speaker 2: Talayala Resort Casino.
35:07
Speaker 4: What's you going for?
35:08
Speaker 2: George thorough Good concert?
35:09
Speaker 1: And we will prefunk at five o'clock at the Circle
35:12
Speaker 1: Bar Temple to Lalup Temple to Lalup Resort Casino.
35:16
Speaker 2: Coming out and be a part of it.
35:17
Speaker 1: If you're already planning on going out, get out there
35:19
Speaker 1: a little early.
35:20
Speaker 2: Come say hi.
35:20
Speaker 1: We've got some prizes to give away out there, so
35:22
Speaker 1: it should be a lot of fun. If you weren't
35:25
Speaker 1: planning to go and you're like that really sounds like
35:27
Speaker 1: a great time, I'm sure there are some tickets available
35:29
Speaker 1: at Ticketmaster and then in corporate five to seven at
35:33
Speaker 1: the Circle Bar at to Lalap Resort Casino.
35:36
Speaker 4: Don't let Chuck drink alone.
35:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't let me drink alone. I'm going to really
35:40
Speaker 2: really nurse two beers.
35:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, but don't let him nurse those alone.
35:45
Speaker 1: All right, We'll talk to you tomorrow at six am.
35:48
Speaker 1: I don't know when we'll reak connect with you, but
35:50
Speaker 1: we'll try. Coming up next Greg Bell, Jessmin McIntire Sports
35:53
Speaker 1: Radio ninety three point three KJRFM.
35:56
Speaker 6: You can't miss a thing from today's show because we're
35:59
Speaker 6: on demand.
36:00
Speaker 2: Their podcast will be up right after the show.
36:02
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36:05
Speaker 6: three KJR dot com and click on checking Bug podcast
36:09
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36:13
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36:16
Speaker 2: This report is sponsored by Audible.
36:18
Speaker 4: There's been a long term rollover crash into Cooma