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Memorable Trades · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to another trading episode of Pittsburgh Sports Memories.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your co-host, Steve Wert, and I'm joined by I'm Tim Hannon.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have not yet been traded for another host.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I know you're considering trading me for like, you know, another podcast and$150 cash, another podcast host, and yeah, and uh, you know, a technician to be named later or something.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: So today we're gonna discuss um, much like the stock market, you know, because Tim's real into the stock market, you can have these great trades, you know.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: You can you can buy ATT and then sell it for lots of money.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, or you could go broke.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: You could buy amalgamated buggy whip and be out of business next week.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Or Enron.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: More words.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Amalgamated buggy.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: They don't make them anymore.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's a bad business to be in.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I will make a I'll write.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: Do not buy amalgamated buggy whip.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's a loser.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: I lost a ton of money on that stock.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, um, sometimes, you know, with trades and sports, it can set your team up for long-term success.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it can send your team into the great malaise, to uh quote our former president Jimmy Carter.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so today we'll discuss some of the more memorable and forgotten trades.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Some of these trades are good, some of these trades are bad, some of these trades are like, eh, whatever.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: First, uh, we'll kind of start with the honorable mentions, and I'm gonna call this group the two early to tells.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the first one up would be the Jake Gensel trade.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we traded him to Carolina for some guy named Michael Bunyan.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: Bun Bunyan?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how to pronounce it, and some other prospects.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, any idea how this could go for the Penguins?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: I actually saw a rumor that I guess he's a free agent, so he's basically a rental player for Carolina.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: So the Penguins could, if they wanted to, re-sign him in this summer.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So correct.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, at the time of this recording, the the playoffs are going on for 2024.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: He scored another goal in the playoffs, Tim.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: He's like one of the greatest playoff goals scorers of all time.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if only the penguins were you know actually in the playoffs these days.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, you're right.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of those ones you you have no idea.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And like, and I think that's we're we're usually not on that end of it.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're usually on the other end where we're the ones trading prospects.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't think of too many instances, Steve, where the penguins have traded away prospects and that prospect became like a superstar on some other team.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't I don't know how much that works out.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: But he's good.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think he'll he's gonna be a good player no matter where he goes, and he's still got some prime years left.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that would be one Kenneth Pickett.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he was sent to Philadelphia when the Steelers got Russell Wilson um to make room for another person that will be on the too early to tell list.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was not happy to see him go.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what Tim's opinion was, but it seems like most of the fans that I've talked to were happy to see him go.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: I guess people were done with him from uh Pitt.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they're and I don't think it's just all Penn State fans.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: I just think it's I guess people just had seen enough of uh Kenny Pickett and including Mike Tomlin and Omar Khan.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: And those are the only two people's opinion that matter.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: I still wish him well.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of a weird situation because he went where at least having a chance to start to where I can't imagine he's ever gonna start in Philadelphia with any consistency.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: So this might be the the end of his career as a starter here.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: So um any thoughts on Kenny Pickett, Tim?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Just wish him well or Yeah, I wasn't I wouldn't classify myself as happy to see him go.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it I also get it.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was like the fact that he regressed so badly in a second season, you know.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean you you just you hope for like a general improvement, and the fact that he regressed so badly, I certainly understand why people were done, and I understand why the stealers were done.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I was I don't know, I was rooting for him, obviously, him being a pit guy, and it just didn't work out.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it is what it is.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, unfortunately.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: So um the guy they made room, he made room for is Justin Fields.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Justin Fields was acquired from Chicago, and he has one left, one year left on his rookie contract.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um Wheel of Steelers signed him after that.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: I would hope so because it seems like kind of a waste of time to bring him in here.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: I can't imagine he's even if he starts at some point next year.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: I I would put I would bet my house, my mortgage, my life insurance, you know, everything that Russell Wilson is your day one starter, no matter what happens.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Unless Russell Wilson gets hurt in preseason, he is going to start at least start the season for the Steelers.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Now, will Justin Fields come in later in the season?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: Depending on how things go.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: If they're in like a heated playoff race and they're winning games, then they're gonna stick with Russell Wilson.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: If they fall apart and they're nowhere near the playoffs, then they'll go to Justin Fields.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: So um, I don't know.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: This seems like a a no-risk move.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing with Russell Wilson, getting they're both like low-risk, high reward moves.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: You are they didn't really lose much when they traded him, traded for him.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: So um, I don't know.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's another one that's way too early to tell.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I I agree.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I but time will tell.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: So um going to trades that have happened and aren't too early to tell.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: We'll start with there's a couple I've noticed that are called the trade, but I think I remember this one being the trade.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: I remember this one distinctly growing up.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: So Tony Pena, April 1st, 1987.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think people thought this was an April Fool's joke, but it was not an April Fool's joke.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: So the Pirates needed to rebuild, and in 1987, they weren't as terrible as they were in 1985-86, but they still weren't like ready to compete yet.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: So in 1983, Tony Pena had a really good year.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think uh let's see, he was he had 15 home runs.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the Pirates had actually improved uh second in 1983.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: He did he led the National League with 976 put-outs from the catcher.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: He finished second to Gary Carter in fielding percentage, and um I think he actually won a gold glove that season.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: So he actually finished 12th in the voting for the 1983 National League MVP award.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: So he was a really good catcher and he had that cool stance.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: He would like stand on one leg behind the bat, and he wouldn't even have to stand up when he threw.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: He had such a strong arm.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: In 1986, uh poll major league managers, Penny was selected as the best starting catcher in the league.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: No joke there.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: He was an all-star for three seasons.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: He went to actually some Japan all-star game and he won that.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: He helped the uh Major League Baseball players win that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so they traded him in April 1st.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't an April Fool's joke.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: And who did they get for this?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: They got some guy named Andy Vance Lyke, Mike Lavalier, and Mike Dunn.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it's obvious that Mike Dunn is the key to this trade.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because remember, all those great Mike Dunn memories we have.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, he he had the um the Topps rookie card with the trophy on it.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because he had a definitely greatness.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he had a really good rookie year, but uh the other two guys were more important.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he didn't really do much after his rookie year either.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: So um obviously Andy Van Syck and Michael Vallier, and he they be the cornerstones of the 1990 pirate team, and um Sid Thrift, who was the general manager at that time, really pulled off a heck of a deal, and this kind of launched the pirates into like because they already had Barry Bonds, and they get another guy I talk about later.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um, this was a very good trade.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember people at the time, like their reaction was people were very negative about this.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, Oh, I can't believe they traded him and all that.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so Tony Pena's contract would have expired anyway in 1987.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Pena won a World Series as a manager with the Yankees.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it was definitely a negative because I remember my my father being like, Oh, I can't believe they played it traded their only good player.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: But um also in 1986 he traded for Bobby Bonia.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: So that ended up and actually that's a weird situation.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: They they traded Bobby Bonilla to the White Sox, and then a couple years later they traded back to get him, and all they gave up was Jose De Leon, who was kind of a mediocre to bad pitcher.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: So do you remember how this was viewed, Tim, when in your younger years here?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: This was awesome.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember it very distinctly.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, number one, like you said, people seriously thought it was an April Fool's joke because April 1st.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, there's no way they actually would have traded Tony Pena.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's gotta be an April Fool's joke.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then, like you said, when people found out it was real, yeah, that was very negatively received.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: My dad, you said your dad, my dad came home from work.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I remember he was he was just like, that's it, I'm done.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Pirates just don't care anymore.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I was upset too because that was my favorite player.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you said he had that stance.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I used to emulate that stance whenever we play baseball.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how you did that.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess you were younger then.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I yes, I had a little more flexibility than I do now.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but he was my favorite player, so that was that was yeah, that hurt.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it it ended up it was one of those classic Steve, um, good for both teams trades because Tony Pena was older and he didn't have that many good years left, but the Cardinals were contenders at the time.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they were in the World Series in 1987 and they had been there in '85 also.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So they needed like a win now player.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Pirates were rebuilding, they needed some pieces to rebuild.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it was I feel like it was one of those like good for both teams kind of deals.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, yeah.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he went to the Cardinals.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: I forgot they that's where they because well it makes sense.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: I because that's where they got Vance Like and Lavallier and Dunn from.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: But um not necessarily not a salary dump per se, but it it's kind of one of those situations like the Jake Gensel situation.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he's gonna leave anyway, so let's get something for him, just in so when he leaves, we aren't completely empty-handed.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of those, like at some point when you're not winning, you have to say, even the good players, like you have to do something different, you know?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the pirates back then weren't winning, they were terrible.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like, could you keep the catcher that's your best player, or could you try to get two or three effective players and rebuild around that?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they opted for the latter, and it was the right move, even though all of us were super angry about it at the time.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very like Herschel Walker kind of trade.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Herschel Walker, of course, being for the Jimmy Johnson traded him to the Vikings for a bunch of picks that they built their Super Bowl contender in the 90s with.
• 11:57
  unknown: Yep.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, speaking of football, um, the Jerome Bettis trade in 1996.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so the Steelers lose Super Bowl 30, oh no, and Neil O'Donnell leave, and Ben Morris decides he likes to do drugs.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: So they don't have anybody, oh no.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: What are they gonna do?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: So they trade for some guy named Jerome Bettis.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember Jerome Bettis playing for the Rams, and this is the Rams when they're in Los Angeles the first time.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: He he ran them over in a game in '93.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: He had like over a hundred yards rushing.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: He had a very good season or two, and then he kind of fell off in '95.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: But the Rams stunk.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't think that was really what was the problem.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Was not Jerome Bettis.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: So Bettis was traded to Pittsburgh with a third round pick, and they picked up Steve Connolly, was who the Steelers ended up picking with that third round pick.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: So what did the Steelers give up?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: They gave up a second round pick in their fourth round pick in the 97 draft.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: The Rams ended up picking Lawrence Phillips, although it wasn't with that exact pick.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the exact picks was Ernie Conwell's and Ryan Tucker.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Ernie Conwell was actually a decent tight end.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think Ryan Tucker, was that the tackle played forever?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Might have been.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh in the aftermath was uh Bettis would go on to have a Hall of Fame career.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: And this is one of the better trades, probably one of the more lopsided trades in NFL history.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Tom Donohoe was the GM who pulled this out of this.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Is probably the greatest accomplishment of the Donohoe Tower, like I saw his personnel moves.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: And um the Rams draft, that didn't work out to say the least, about Lawrence Phillips, who did not work out in the NFL.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: He was already like considered a troublemaker before they drafted him, and he did not change his ways when he got to the NFL.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was that was a steal.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: The the there was the Rams thought Bettis was kind of like washed up and they could get, yeah, like you said, Lawrence Phillips was a Lawrence Phillips was a big star in Nebraska.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, I mean he was He was a good player, yeah He was really good, but like you said, there was all these red flags, and those red flags ended up carrying over to the NFL.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he ended up going to prison, didn't he?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he he died in prison.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I didn't even remember that.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So sad story for him.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was definitely the wrong move by the Rams.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but they made a lot of wrong moves back then.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they stunk for as long as they did.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: It always had like a top five draft pick.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, it's the like I said, one of the biggest, like probably one-sided deals in NFL history right there.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, going back to hockey, and we actually covered this in another podcast, but the penguins, they have traded John Cullen, oh no, Zarley Zelabski for Ron Francis, and that was March 4th, 1991.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: So in 1991, the Penguins are trying to get back in the playoffs.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: They've missed the playoffs, I think, the year before.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And uh they have Mary Lemieux, they have uh Tom Barrasso, they have some good players, and their second line guy is John Cullen, who's having a very good season, actually.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: And there's this team called the Hartford Whalers.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Does anybody remember when Hartford, Connecticut had a hockey team?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: And uh they had a uh they had a player named Ron Francis, and also Alf Samuelson and Grant Jennings, but really the the prize piece of this is Ron Francis.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: And this is another one I would categorize with the drone betestel was it just they got absolutely fleeced.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like the Whalers, I think this was a salary dump.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: There was something going on financially because they ended up moving to Carolina eventually.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that's probably what this was more of, but the Penguins uh gave up John Cullen, who is a good player, and Ron but not at Ron Francis's layer level.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Zarley Zapsky, who was a pick puck moving defenseman, more of like a Chris Latang type, but they really needed a tough guy.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: And they got that with Alf Samuelson and uh Jeff Cullen.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: If you know where Jeff Cullen is, uh call us because I think his face is on the back of a milk carton at this point.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: So he's definitely uh went to oblivion.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: So Grant Jennings, he was kind of an enforcer guy.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember Grant Jennings doing a terrible amount.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and this this kind of propels the Penguins.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: It does, it propels the Penguins, gets the attention of the team, wakes everybody up, you know, just stunned the fan base.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody's like, oh my gosh, I can't believe they traded all these people.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: But then, you know, wait a minute, we got like a Hall of Famer and two pretty good guys.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: And uh getting Ron Francis leads, I would say, directly to two Stanley Cups for sure.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the Penguins ended up winning a cup that year.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: And uh fun fact, John Cullen actually returned to the Penguins for one season in '94 and '95, weirdly enough.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: So um, I just stunned.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: I remember when this happened, this was just like a big time stunner.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: This was probably more shocking than even the Tony Pena trade, only because the Penguins were actually contending for a playoff spot at the time.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like the Tony Pena trade was like before the season started.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: This was literally as the Penguins were contending for a playoff spot.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was a trade, yeah.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: This was like a trade line, trade deadline defense.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And John Cullen was in the top five in the NHL in scoring.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: He was in the top five.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, it was like Gretzky, Brad Hall, uh Iserman, and and like John Cullen.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was your like top, you know, your top scorers.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh at the time because another player I really liked, and uh, I think I told the story before he I he had autographed my street hockey stick, I s which I still have somewhere in in my house.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it was shocking to see him going.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, who's Ron Francis and Olf Samuelson?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and Ron Francis was a good player for Hartford, like that's why they called him Ronnie franchise, but I think it was he played in Hartford, so nobody really knew who he was.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but like you said that's a steal.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's an absolute steal.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably the greatest trade in Pittsburgh sports history.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I we can talk, we can debate that at the end, but it's it's it's up there.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it like you said, Steve, it directly led to a Stanley Cup.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and I know Francis was certainly the key piece, but Alfie, I mean, if they don't have Alf against Cam Neely and the Bruins that year, yeah.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I uh you know, that's that's that's I don't know.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Did they come back from two games to nothing down in that series without Alf Samuelson?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, great, great trade.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: A goal in game, was it game six, the one of the playoff series?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: He scored a goal.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: He scored the he scored the first goal.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: You'll notice uh anybody that listened to our game winning scores episode or championship winning scores.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: That was in that same season, wasn't it?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was the the eight to nothing game against the North Star.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: He scores the Stanley Cup securing goal, is all is in.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: So uh moving back to baseball, and um, I know Tim, Tim was definitely alive for this when this all happened.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Ralph Kiner.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: That happened on June 4th, 1953.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so a little background is for since nobody who probably listens to this was alive at this time.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: In 1952, the Pirates stink.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: You say, well, what's new or different about that?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm talking historically stink.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: They had 42 wins and 111 losses.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that's still to this date the worst season in team history.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's one of the worst in MOB history.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's top 10 in MOB history.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: It puts them up where with like the 1962 Mets, the lovable loser Mets, and the uh did you know the Tigers only had 40 wins in 2003 or no 43 wins in 2003?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember they had like a historically bad team.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I thought the Cleveland Spiders or something.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they have, but it was a 111-game season and they had like 20 wins, so I don't know.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that was like the 19th century, so I didn't that's all time worst, but I I I don't know how to count that.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's gonna have like 14 asterisks because probably like guys like you know didn't show up for the games because they had like another job where it was paying them more money or something.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like it wasn't like it wasn't the same.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: Had to go fight and you know, and the the Spanish American Yeah, there you go.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: The Spanish American War.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, the main just blew up.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, hold on, you can't play this baseball game.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: So um the Pirates uh in 1953, they're stinking again.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, for the season, they would finish 50 and 104 in 1953 when the trade happens.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um they trade uh Kiner along with future broadcaster Joe Gargiola and George, who's this guy?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: Metagovich, and Howie Paulett.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: And they trade them to the Cubs.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um who did the pirates skip?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, a whole lot of nobody.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Bob Schultz, Toby Atwell, Gene Hermansky, Preston Ward, Bob Addis, George Freeze, and$150,000 in cash.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the only person I've ever heard of on that list was the$150,000 in cash.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I I guess Preston Ward was apparently the uh the char the infielder they really wanted.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: But um what happened was um GM Branch Ricky famously said to Ralph Kiner, We can finish we finished in last with you, we can finish in last without you when he traded them.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Kiner Was actually making$90,000 that season, which was the highest in the National League at the time.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: Ralph Keinert actually won the home run championship, I think, four or five years, which is the most home run in the majors or national league at least, for like years in a row, like four or five years.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean it's it's a tough one to say.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: They really didn't get much of anything.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I think we're gonna call this a push.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: The Cubs didn't win a World Series with Kyner, although that gave them they had another guy that was a power hitter, so that helped did help the Cubs.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh 90,000.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, funny thing about the$90,000 was Kyner actually had to go over Branch Ricky's head and went to the Galverex and negotiated his one because he was on a one-year contract that season.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: And he actually negotiated his one-year deal directly with the Galbreths because once again Branch Ricky was going to lose without him as well with him.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's kind of filed like there I I found like old letters, like letter to the editor about this.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: And there's like people like, oh, you need to keep Ralph Kyner.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: No man is indispensable, but men of character with uh spectacular skills in their respective professionals are generally retained.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um therefore it is my my opinion that you're suggesting that training Ralph Kiner is illogical.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know if there's like some steel mill worker that was like, no, we gotta keep this guy.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh the Pittsburgh area youngsters follow Kiner, you know, he's a once-in-a-generation home run hitter, he's a class act, hardworking guy.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, oh those gamblers, it's the big time gamblers who want to see him go.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's too little hero worship today.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thoughts seem to be directed toward making a fast buck, and it doesn't matter where where hero is trans underfoot.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, somebody in favor of hero worship, that's refreshing, I guess.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, and there's also another article where like Branch Ricky like says, Boy, I hope the fans kind of forgive me and show up for the games.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: And there were also stories I've heard more anecdotally, is like what I guess Kiner would bat like what third or fourth, right?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes he would bat in like the seventh or eighth inning, and people would just leave after Kiner would either hit a home run or got out or whatever because there was no reason to even stay for the end of the game because the pirates stunk that bad.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's a lot going on there.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's well, so a couple of of thoughts there.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, that is interesting about the the hero worship being spun as like a positive thing, like a good influence for kids and stuff like that.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's that's a different time for sure.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, the the branch Ricky quote, I mean, talk like that's the one thing that survived all these years later.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like we can finish in last place without you.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's a, I mean, that was good logic.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: I hate to say it.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like he just didn't get anything for him.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: He got maybe the$150,000 helped, I don't know, paid for his contract for the year, at least.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like the the Tony Pena trade made sense because you spun that into, you know, this guy can help you win now because you need to win now.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: These guys can help us win later because we're rebuilding.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And those are the those are the kinds of trades you want to do.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but it doesn't always work out in this case where it didn't work out.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: So unfortunate.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: But again, I get the logic.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: It just would have been nicer to get like some prospect that was really young that winded up being really good years later.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: The pirates would get competitive later in the decade, but there's no none of those guys that were in this trade were really involved in that.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, but at least we have something to quote, you know, seven years later.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, sticking with baseball, uh, here's a trade that I think people kind of forgot about.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: And this is kind of up there with the Ralph Kiner trade.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it involves the Pirates.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yay.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: The Chris Archer, the trade line deal of 2018.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so in 2018, the Pirates weren't really supposed to be that good, but they had gone on a late winning streak around the trade deadline, and they're they're kind of in the mix, they're really in the mix, and they're trying to keep pace with the other teams in that division.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: So at the trade deadline, they deal for a pitcher named Chris Archer.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: And Chris Archer had been really good up to that point with Tampa, but he was getting a little older and he had some injury issues, but the Pirates seemed to kind of overlook that, and they're like, Well, we're gonna trade and try and get this guy and build around him.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like they were thinking he was still in his prime enough where oh, who was the guy who did who they did that when they came back to prominence?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: The the other pitcher.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um used to call himself Batman.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: A A AJ Burnett, Steve.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: That was the yes, that was the Batman player that they had built around it, a veteran pitcher.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, that guy they were gonna, they were kind of trying to do that, I think, again.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: The problem was the people they gave up, two of these guys ended up being really good for Tampa Bay.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: That would be Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: And they gave up a guy named Shane Baz, but that guy really didn't do anymore.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so the the reaction and the aftermath, at the time, it was very positive.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: I remember everybody on the radio was positive.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: I was skeptical, but the one thing I did appreciate was that finally Bob Nutting had spent some money and made a move and done something.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: It was like all those years of not doing anything, it was kind of like, okay, I don't even care if it's the wrong move.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: At least you made a move, at least you're trying.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, MLB Network called it the biggest prize of the trade deadline that year.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that's MLB Network.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's not a the Pittsburgh Post because that's that's not one of the yokels, that's you know, one of them.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh in the long run, it's seen as one of the worst trades in team history.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: Chris Archer is hurt and not very effective.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think he has an ER area of 5.19 and 100 and some innings.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um the Pirates do, for their credit, that year, do finish with 82 wins, so they do not have a losing season.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: But unfortunately, because the division was really good that year, they only finished fourth in their division.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, they tried, you know, and Glasno and Meadows end up um you know being very good for the Rays.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I think since when this trade didn't work out, that kind of like really hurt GM Neil Huntington's career with the Pirates, and this was kind of like one of the nails in the coffin.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: And uh that winning streak in 2018, I I think that fooled them.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: They thought the team just kind of was on a hot streak and was overachieving.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: And they they were fooled into thinking they had some people that they didn't and they didn't have the talent that they thought they did, and the team wasn't as good as they as it was.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so that that kind of really it really torpedoed Neil Huntington and the team in general.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: Boy, we'd kill for 82 wins this year with the Pirates, boy.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: So this one, yeah, this one's uh tough because it's it's like it was obviously a bad trade, but at the same time, like you said, they were trying.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they w they never did, yeah.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they never did.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't it wasn't like the Matt Morris deal.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the Matt Morris trade when I think that was Littlefield uh at the trade.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: I just remember he was over the hill.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: He was completely done.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: Matt Morris.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: I never thought wasn't he done at the time?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was completely done.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: And they they but I don't think this guy was completely done because he actually pitched a couple years after that and came back and was mediocre.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the Matt Morris trade, like they weren't even remotely, if I remember correctly, even remotely containing at the time.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: That was more like a a little field, like I'll show you.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: We can we'll we'll trade for somebody high priced, and that was that was a complete farce.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: This one actually made sense.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it wasn't like you yeah, I want to criticize it because it was terrible, and the guys they gave up.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh my gosh, that was such a mistake.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: Austin Meadows and Tyler Glasnow.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they paid way too high.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: But again, it's like but then it's like you don't you don't want to criticize them too much because it's like but but then they'll never do it again.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, you almost feel like like it's like this positive thing, you went, oh, positive reinforcement.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: They need positive reinforcement from the fans, or they'll never make another trade.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: And they've never really made another trade, they've done everything, just trade people away and not gotten anything for them.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think they had Josh Bell on that team, too.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, so I just they still had talent that was still from the run of years they had when they got back to respectability and competitiveness, but they just you know couldn't keep it going.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it'd be like if you were trying to get your kid to cook their own breakfast and you kept teaching them, hey, just make your own breakfast, but then they accidentally burned down the kitchen.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, well, you tried.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like, well, okay, you messed up, but I do appreciate how you were trying to do what we wanted you to do.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I can't take that away from you.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's the that's unfortunately the way we have to always look at the pirates.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like but good try, guys.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: You actually you actually behave like an actual, you know, professionally run franchise for a few minutes.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't want to just we just want to be careful about living any kind of criticism lest you get discouraged and never do it again.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they got discouraged, that's for sure.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: Another guy who I kind of fits into the um you know Chris Archer realm would be Jerome McGinla in March of 2013.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the Penguins are in a Stanley Cup run, Tim, in the 2000s.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: What a shocker.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: They see this is like the exact opposite of the Pirates, where it was a shocker where they were in the contention.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like the Penguins for like how many years every year they were in contention, every year they were buyers at the trade deadline.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, and they needed a veteran forward to help Sidney Crosby, because like Lord knows how many different wings have Sidney Crosby gone through.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Jake Kensel's probably the most successful out of all of them.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: But so who did they get?
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: They got Jerome McGinla.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: Who did they give up?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know, Kenny Agostino, Ben Hanowski, a first-round draft pick, and a copy of Sudden Death, the movie.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um that's about it.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: See what I mean?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: See what I mean though, about like usually I'm telling you, usually when you're a buyer at the NHL trade deadline, the the seller I I I don't know.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody I'm sure crunched some data on this, but I bet I bet more often than not the seller ended up not getting anything that really turned their team around in the future.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: I bet.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: At least in hockey, it doesn't seem to work out that well.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um the aftermath and fan reaction, uh, it was positive.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it was kind of like that uh who was the guy for Boston who went to Colorado?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: Ray Bourke?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: Ray Bork.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: He went and got a got his cup in Colorado, right?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was kind of like that.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like the guys, he's still a decent player, but he's not what he was.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, it was he he was gonna be Sidney Crosby's right wing.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um unfortunately, the move did not work out because the Penguins end up losing to the Bruins in like the Eastern Conference Finals.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: It was like Aginla had no points in that series.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: And for the 12 games he did play for them, he only had four goals and eight assists.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Andy was uh for 12 points total.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: Andy was a minus player.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: He was a rental player because he was uh he had his uh his contract was up the next year.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: He ended up playing a couple more years.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: He did go to Boston and make the playoffs, but that was it.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: After playing for Boston next year to playoffs, he never made the playoffs again.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: So Jerome McGinla, good guy, good player, but just never was able to uh win that Stanley Cup.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: What say you to mobile?
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean one of the biggest problems was that uh Jerome McGinla was a right winger and Dan Balsma played him on left wing.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh then Crosby had gotten hurt in the regular season, so they put him on I think it was Malkin's line.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so and then I think in the playoffs, I don't not even sure they moved him back to Crosby's line.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like it they just completely misused him.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the whole point was playing right wing that they just couldn't do it.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: Was it Chris Kuhnitz or somebody like that?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it might have been Dupuy at the time.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it just it was the whole thing was just uh I don't know.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: It just didn't work out.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was like everybody was so excited when we got him.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: And even the Calgary fans, I remember I don't know.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_03: They were happy.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: They were happy, they were all happy for him because they're like, good, go get him a cup because he deserves that.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they were so gracious and rooting for the penguins at that point because they wanted to see him win a cup after all those years in Calgary.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and the funny thing, like, I it would be interesting to do an episode about that season because the penguins made it to the conference finals.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like, that's nothing to sneeze at, but then they But they were just totally shut well, Tukarask was just totally shut them down.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: They scored two goals in the entire series.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Series, not one game, two goals in the entire series.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was such a a lopsided disaster.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I think everybody remembers that season so sorely.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: Was that the season two where Flurry got benched in the playoffs?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: No, that was the um Yeah, actually it was.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was what's his name?
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was the other goaltender.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um I he was like Vokoon.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: You got it.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was like he, you know, that was back when Flurry would make like an amazing save because he messed up with the rebound.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: And like Flurry did that a lot.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like he would make like this unbelievable save.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, dude, if you just made like a normal save on a normal shot, you'd be fine.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then save the spectacular saves for when you need them.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: And Thomas Voukun was kind of like steady Eddie, like just make the decent saves, don't make anything spectacular, don't let it be an easy goal.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: But like when you're scoring two goals in a series, that's not really your goaltending, is not the problem.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, it wasn't.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, you know, we kind of talked about the um we talked about the penguins of that era a couple of times.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was just they went through a couple of really crappy years there, and then Bausmine that ends up getting fired the year after that.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it it just it just wasn't a good uh it just is one of those things that really they James Neal too, and yeah, it's just yeah.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was a it like I think that was a little bit too much.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: The inmates were running the asylum a little bit.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: What happened at the end of Balsma.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then Sullivan is the opposite, he doesn't let them do whatever they're doing.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they were sort of like the Steelers of that era, like they had these really talented players who just weren't guys you were gonna win a championship with.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: James Neal was front and center for that, but but you know, Againla was not one of those guys.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Againla was uh Againla was a hall and he's a Hall of Famer, he's an all-time.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: But he just was fading.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: He wasn't he couldn't carry you.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: That was like he was gonna be like an additional player.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, which would have been great, but then they again they played him on the wrong wing.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like that that just that you know, people still talk about that to this day.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like when people talk about Dan Balsma, I think that's one of the things that unfortunately always gets remembered is is again love being played on the on the left instead of the right.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it it just didn't work out, but um, oh well.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think he ever won a Stanley Cup either.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: No, he did like I said, he went with Boston in the playoffs the next year and they got eliminated in the first or second round.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: So um moving back to baseball, and I know this is one of Tim's favorite trades.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um the John Smiley trade to the twins, and that would be March 17, 1992.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um John Smiley, for his credit, was a 20-game winner, I think the year before, even, and one of the best pitcher in the National League.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think he was only second in wins to um Glavin or one of the Atlanta pitchers.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: He was like right behind that guy.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Glavin won the Cy Young Award.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I think Lee Smith finished second and Smiley finished third.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was how the voting went for the Cy Young Award that year.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Lee Smith was a closer.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, uh, but he was, yeah, I mean, he was literally, you know, almost won the Cy Young Award.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was that good that that 91 season.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: So who the Pirates lost, obviously John Smiley, and who they got.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's funny, like once again, Tim, like the sellers, you know, they really don't get much, do they?
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Denny Nagel.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: Remember Denny Nagel?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: He was mediocre.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was okay.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, that wasn't the centerpiece of that trade.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: The other guy was.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: So Denny Nagel ends up being a two-time all-star in World Series, but um World Series winner with the Yankees, I think, later in his career, the 2000 Yankees, but he wasn't really a key part of that team.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: They got this guy named Midre Cummings.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: And uh let me see, what did they say about the I have a pretty good quote.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think it's the the Beaver Times or whoever one of the papers described Midre Cummings as an enigma with the ability with ability and aloofness.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: So he was very talented, but not very friendly and didn't try.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: And the Pirates ended up like he went from like being the key piece to this trade to like two years later the pirates like basically DFA'd him.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think they just said, see ya.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: So he was more of an attitude issue.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, so uh with the Reds in '95, Smiley actually finished third in the Cy Young, so he had a couple more good years.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: Smiley was starting to trend down, like he probably was going towards the end of his prime.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um Benny Nagel, like I said, was mediocre.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: Media Cummings stunk.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: And um, this was definitely another salary dump by the Pirates.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Smiley would have been a free agent after the season.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I would say this trade is viewed very uh negatively by the fans and the media, so much so that it was on an episode of the TV show This Is Us.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: With the person actually playing John Smiley in the episodes.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: The funny thing is in that episode, the the plot is that young Kevin um is like trying to help John Smiley find, like, I don't know, housing in Minnesota or something.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: I forget.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they said, Oh, there's a bowling alley or something.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's him like having a big heart trying to be like is my favorite player.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry to see him go.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: But in the episode, the way it's characterized in the episode is that um that Kevin knew he was about to get traded because it was in the newspaper.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: There was all this chatter he was about to get traded, but that's not how it happened.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was shocking.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was very like, you know.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they just kind of did it.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: In 92, that was still they were still kind of in their prime of like competing.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: They were.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and that was right before the season started.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that that really sent some shock waves.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: I I for I think they ended up trading for Zane Smith that year, didn't they?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, that was a couple years before it, but that was that was when they were that was a trade deadline.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: That was like a buyer one.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: This was a seller one.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, for for a couple of years there, Bonds and Bonilla specifically were complaining about the pirates being cheap and about the pirates, you know, they want to dump people.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they always got a ton of pushback from the fans because we talked about this.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like the the at the time, man, it was you fans always sided with the team.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: The team could do no wrong.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the players were just greedy, you know, go go work at the at the mill like I do for eight hours.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to make whatever money you make.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're playing a game.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I th I think people don't really think like that as much anymore, but at the time, that's how people thought.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when the smiley trade happened, it was the first inkling of, oh crap, maybe those guys are right.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then the 92 season, Draybek and Bonds, you knew they were gonna be free agents, and as that season wore on, you it became really obvious, like they're gone.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Bonia had left, smiley had been traded, and that's why the the Sid Breen game hurt as much as it did, because even when they were never gonna be competitive, yeah.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't like, oh, we didn't know at the time that was our last shot.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, we everybody knew when Sid Bream crossed home plate, that's the end of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and that's why it's the worst moment in Pittsburgh sports history because because of that, and that smiley trade, like I said, was to me, that was like when the light bulb went.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Off.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, okay.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like a beginning of the end moment.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like I've been reading a lot of World War II.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's the midway of our of our Pittsburgh.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like the war the war isn't over, but it it's definitely going the wrong direction at this point.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: And to be fair, like John Smiley was always he was a good pitcher.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: He really was.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: But he was never like that seems Well, you see his career, like he gets nominated for the Cy Young.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: He has some good seasons, and maybe like if they have him, they can bring him in out of the bullpen in that seventh game, or maybe they win in six games because they have him.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, instead of but what they what they surmised is that he was never going to have a season like that ever again.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: He was never going to be a 20-game winner again.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they were right.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he was they weren't wrong.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: They weren't wrong about yeah.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and if Medre Cummings would have been the prospect that that people thought he could be, we'd be like we'd be like, what a great trade.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: We we dumped John Smiley, but like and the twins, remember the twins won the World Series in 1991.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: So again, it was very much like the Cardinals five years earlier, where hey, here's a team that's contending now.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna trade them this 20-game winner and we're gonna get their best prospect because they don't need a best prospect.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're they just won the World Series, they want to win it again.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if that would have worked out, we would all have been like, oh, what a great trade.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Got rid of Smiley while he was hot.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it didn't work out.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: Reminds me, reminds me of um uh Frasier, Adam Frazier, a couple years back.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like everybody's like, I can't believe it.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: It was like that was like another player you knew.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, this guy's just red hot right now.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's never gonna, it's not like he's gonna continue this.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: He might be good in the future, but he's not gonna be this good.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you can just tell that about a player.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I can't put my finger on it.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's that was Smiley.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I like like, yeah, they guessed right on that part, they just guessed wrong on what they picked up, and and and I think it being part of a larger trend is what hurt.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like if they would have if they would have re-signed Drayback and Bonds and you know what I mean?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like if they would have done all that and traded Smiley to try to like you know capitalize on his success, then even if it failed, it would have been more positive.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: But they were just dumping at that point.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: Dumping is the appropriate word.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: So speaking of salary dumps, uh Yammer Yager, July 11th, 2001.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: So um the Penguins, uh, they have not won a Stanley Cup since 1991 at this point.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: They're in dire straits financially.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: Howard Baldwin has bankrupted the team.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um they can't afford to keep Yarmer Yager.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_02: And guess what?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: They don't have a salary cap in hockey, the fourth most popular sport in America.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: So the only teams that can really afford to pay anybody would be Toronto, New York, and uh, who else, Tim?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody?
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: Detroit?
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe even Chicago couldn't afford stuff like back then.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_02: Los Angeles, maybe.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah, I mean it was basically Toronto and New York.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: Basically were the two big teams that were paying out all kinds of money.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: So uh what happened was the uh the penguins go, well, we gotta trade Yammer Yager, because they they still had Lemieux, I think, on the roster at that point.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: And um they they were like, well, let's we gotta pay Lemieux and we're gonna let Yager grow.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: So who they lost, they traded Yammer Yager.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: Who they traded.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, hang on, hang on.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can I guess?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have it in front of you.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: Who they got?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try to remember this off off the top of my head.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: Chris Beach.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: Michael Roosevelt?
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: Not really.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: You kind of got the name half right.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: Mikhail Civek and Ross Lu Pashek.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: Lu Pashek, okay.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: And a bag of beans from their magic house.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: Don't forget about the bag of beans.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, the bag of beans, also.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so you know, fans' media reaction predictably, this this really started the dark days of hockey in the city.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we this is like started the whole penguins are gonna move.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think it harkened back to like you gotta remember the Steelers were stinking, the pirates were totally in the midst of their 20 years losing and not even signing anybody.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: And uh they they were signed by uh this guy named uh Ted Leonis down in Washington, who I don't know if it was he a I think he owned a cable company or something, and so he paid a ton of money to get Yager, and it's kind of funny because this is like there's trades that you can like see, oh, it worked out better for this team or that team.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: This is a trade that worked out for nobody.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: They're like literally, you know, this was you know, snake eyes, everybody loses.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like the Capitals did nothing with him, and the Capitals had a couple other good players, and um actually the Capitals, funnily enough, they trade for Yager.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: And do you know the next season they missed the playoffs with Yagger?
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and of course the Penguins, you know, I think the Penguins missed the playoffs.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: Did the Penguins make the playoffs today?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't know yeah, so they were pretty bad.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: The Penguins are pretty bad until about 2005, till some guy named Crosby, even when Crosby first walked in the door, they're really bad until probably what 2007, really, 2006.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they started to turn it around finally and made the playoffs again.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: So this definitely, and this was the the penguins can't get a new arena, the penguins are gonna move to Kansas City, the Penguins are bankrupt.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: There this really like looked like this might be a um John Smiley type moment, huh, Tim?
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that one hurt.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like it you knew even in the they made the run to the Eastern Conference Finals the year before, but you knew as soon as that ended, that was the end of Yawger, and it was like, okay, so you kind of accepted like this is where we are, but man, it's the best player in hockey.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get it, we'll get something for him that would help us rebuild.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Chris Beach, Chris Beach.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody was like, Chris Beach, Chris Beach, yeah, Chris Beach.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: They would have been better off honestly getting draft picks.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: They would have been better off getting draft picks, and then they at least could have maybe parlayed that into something.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is the teams you're trading with are win now type of teams, so they're slow.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: Low draft picks.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I I get it, but man, there had to have been somebody in the Rangers or Maple Leafs or somebody's system that was better than Chris Beach and those other guys you mentioned.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: It just that's what Bitchek.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: I can't even pronounce report Ross's name.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: Ross Lubitchek, yeah.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: It just it was such a bad trade.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then the thing that really killed was like two years later, uh Washington gets wins the lottery for the first overall pick and gets Ovechkin, which I just felt like was so cheap because it's like here they are spending all this money, you know, trading for the best players, and now they're gonna get this highly heralded goal scorer who you know is gonna go on to become the all-time uh NHL's all-time goal scoring leader.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, like they didn't deserve that, you know what I mean?
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like they didn't deserve that.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, they did, Tim, because they finished in the bottom five of teams.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you would have gotten that draft pick from them instead of Chris Freaking Beach, you would have had uh Malkin Annovetchkin.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: So just saying.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I I don't know what to say about this.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's just they really killed both franchises.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_02: And you don't see that's another one of those you don't see that too often where like both franchises really did not benefit from this all and actually probably made both worse.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good point.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: Say it really hurt the Penguins because they almost went out of business.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, but like you said, the Capitals were in the playoffs before Yogger.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then I don't know, Yawger really, and then he went to the Rangers and then what, Philadelphia at some point.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_02: He and then, I don't know, somewhere in the Czech Republic where he's still playing.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: He played for Boston, he played for the Florida Panthers.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure he played for every single team at one point.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: Winnipeg Jets.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, there's like a group of fans that they call themselves the Yawgers, and they just like a Yawger through the years.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like just one guy wears a penguin jersey, one wears the Capitals, one wears the director.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but yeah, so I he I don't think he's ever won another Stanley Cup since he left the Penguins in nine uh in 2000.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: 92 is his last Stanley Cup, right?
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he he was he was on that Boston team you mentioned earlier that beat the Againla Penguins in the conference finals.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: So he played in the Stanley Cup Finals at least once, one other time, but they lost that year to Chicago.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, and he's still playing hockey today.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: He is 2024 at 50-some years old.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so uh another trade dump.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that would be Aramis Ramirez, July 23rd, 2003.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: This is pretty bad.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the pirates are sellers at the deadline.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, what a shocker, Tim.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: They're sellers at the deadline.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_02: Can you believe it?
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: And they don't want to pay for a guy's contract the next year.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: Can you believe that?
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's like I feel like I'm in Groundhog Day.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: How many times have we said this about the pirates?
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like four or five times already.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: So uh Ramos Ramirez, um, who they lost.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: They lost Ramirez and Kenny Lofton.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_02: Kenny Lofton was a good player towards the tail end of his prime and his career.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not too upset about losing Kenny Lofton.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, he they he was a veteran, but Ramirez really hurt because he went on to the Cubs and he had a great career with the Cubs and was like one of the best third basemans in all of baseball for a very long time with the Cubs.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: Although he never won a World Series with the Cubs because he had retired by the time the Cubs finally figured it out.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, who did they get?
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they must have got some great, great prospects, right, Tim?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: Matt Brubeck.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: He did so well that he never appeared in a game for the Pirates, he never even made it out of the minor leagues.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's strike one.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: Jose Hernandez was an old in-fielder when the Pirates got him, and he was mediocre to bad when they got him.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: So, and then he was just mostly bad for him.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_02: But the gem of this trade, this is the guy we're really banking on, Tim.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_02: This guy's gonna come through, replace Ramos Ramirez.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna forget who even Ramos Ramirez is.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_02: That would be one Bobby Hill who batted 267, was just horrible and out of baseball by 2005, two years later.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_02: So, um, all in all, just an absolutely horrible trade.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: It was I remember the national media totally scout like just criticizing the pirates up and down for doing this, that it was a salary dump.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_02: And like the national media, like as much as they criticize baseball, because the baseball media never says anything bad about like you know, the economics of baseball because there's such an uh elephant in the room, and they're they actually they'll defend the economics of baseball.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_02: Have you seen that, Tim?
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: Where they're like, oh, it's fine, it's fine.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: They'll go through their fake stats, like, oh, you know, all these different teams have won World Series, and it's like, yeah, but look at their payroll.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's all top five payroll teams every year that win the World Series, but nobody says anything like that.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, uh, do you remember this trade, Tim?
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's that was a David K.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: Littlefield special.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's all that was.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_02: It was just I I I get rid of money, get that money out of here.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, get yeah, get get nothing for it.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the five-year plan that was always a five-year plan that never materialized.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: It makes it a 10-year plan.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's gross.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's all it is, is gross.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: The whole era was gross, all those moves were gross.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they they could have got somebody.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like all those trades, all those guys that they get rid of, they're always sellers, and they never got any, like they never never rebuilt.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think it goes back.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: I like your point where you said when they were a seller, like even in general, even when the penguin, like when the penguins made a trade when they were buyers, the teams were weren't getting much in return.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: They just like I think it's kind of like one of those things in negotiations, like when somebody knows what that you're desperate in desperate to get rid of people, they just you know, you're not gonna get much for it.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_02: That that makes sense you don't have much strength in negotiation.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense for like Jake Gensel.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's like he's a rental player, you know you're only gonna get him for this season and nothing else.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not gonna give up everything for a guy like that.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: But like Aramis Ramirez.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't like Ramirez came out of nowhere, like, oh my goodness, who knew he was gonna be this good?
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like you could argue that with like the Chris Archer trade.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't think anybody saw like Austin Meadows or Tyler Glasnell becoming like as good as they did.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like Ramirez was good and you knew was gonna be good.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was just horrible.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can't say anything else about it other than just the horrible.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we're gonna finish this up with a positive note.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_02: On a positive note.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I kind of lumped these are like actually three separate moves, and they're all trades, but they're all separate at times.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: And uh this is this is done by a gentleman who liked to trade a lot with his tenure with the Penguins, and that would be Jim Rutherford.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_02: And this I called it assembling the HBK line.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_02: And this happened from July of 2015 to January of 2016, and Jim Rutherford really struck gold.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: He hit he ended up getting three players from the summer of 15 to the winter of 2016, who actually, you know, send the penguins on a run here.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: So who they got?
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: Phil Kessel, July 1st, 2015.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: They got him from Toronto, Nick Benino, July 28th, 2015, from Anaheim.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then in January of that same season, they they get Carl Haglin from Anaheim also.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um who they gave up, I'm not gonna list all the players.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_02: I I tried to come up with people you might remember.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_02: For Kessel, they gave up Caspery Catherine for like the first time, um, because they end up getting him back like three more times.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's like it was like a bad pair of shoes.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like us in Toronto kept trading him back and forth.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um for Benino, um, ever heard of Adam Benning, I never heard of it.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: But I remember Brandon Souter was okay, was an okay player.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_02: He was mediocre.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: And for Carl Haglin, like literally David Perron and Adam Clending in a bag of hockey pucks, I it's like seriously, they gave up nothing.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because Haglund for some reason had fallen out of favor in Anaheim.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: But I remember him from the Rangers, and I remember thinking that guy was good.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was really happy with the Carl Haglin trade, and I know people with the Kessel trade were pretty excited when it happened, but these trades didn't really get a much of much press except for the Kessel one.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_02: The Kessel one definitely got some hype, but the other two kind of went under the radar, and it really didn't make any sense sense, or really nothing came together until yeah, you have Genny Malkin got injured.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: Remember that they only put this line together after Malkin got injured.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_02: They did not you know, even play them, and then once they put them together between them and Crosby's line, I mean they had three lines when Malkin came back that were just absolutely unstoppable.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that 2016 cup run, unbelievable.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_02: Or yeah, and then the next year the crop the they run two back-to-back cups on the strength of this line and Matt Murray.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I would call this I mean, I I would call this probably the greatest deal in Pittsburgh sports history.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: I know Tim might argue with me on that.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I I I mean when you combine them.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_02: We got two Stanley Cups out of it in one of the greatest lines in hockey history, yeah.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a that's like a good call, Steve.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really think about that.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um it it really is because it didn't happen all at once.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't like the 91 show where you got all those people at the same time.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was kind of more piecemeal, but yeah.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I think you're right.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh um, you know, it's funny because like you said, the Kessel the Kessel trade definitely got a lot of press because of who he was and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: The the Benino for Adam Benning and Brandon Suter.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_00: Souter was the guy that replaced um Jordan Stahl as the third line center.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: He was always an underachiever, so it was like, okay, out with the old and with the new.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's try somebody else down there.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Benino was was good.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, ended up being good, obviously, once, like you said, they got that line together.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then Haglin, you said you remember him from the Rangers.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: Funny thing, the so that was 2016 that they made the Haglin trade, right?
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: Middle of the season.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the year before that, do you remember how the 2015 season ended for the Penguins?
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_02: Wasn't it Carl Haglin?
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_00: On a Carl Haglin overtime goal.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: When he played for the Rangers.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't know if he was like, I can't remember if he was a pretty good one.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: He just was a speed guy.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like that was his there was a criticism.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_02: He wouldn't because he's like a I think he's is he Swedish or Finnish or something like that?
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_02: So he's not like a big like Chris Kuditz, check people in the corner, get the puck guy, but he's fast enough he can go get the puck before the other guy gets there, kind of guy.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that that's his game, and I don't think Anaheim played that kind of game.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it took Mike Sullivan almost, you know, from January to almost the one of the playoffs, May, April, to figure that out.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how long did it take to for they finally and they only put them together because Malkin got hurt, because I think they had Kessel and Malkin together, which does kind of make sense from a standpoint, you know, Kessel should be a good you know winger for Malkin, but boy, when they put this, I think it was just the culmination, too, that this line was pretty worked well together, plus they were going against the third defensive pair.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like nobody could take a chance on not playing their second best pair against Malkin.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, of course, Crosby's always going to draw the top line.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_02: So you're going against their third best defensive pair with a team that would probably be a top line team on any other team.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and the um back to the haggling trade, I don't remember how what circumstances he ended up with Anaheim instead of the Rangers.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_02: I just remember he he like went there and he fell out of favor.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like I remember when he they they just didn't like him in Anaheim.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it doesn't work out with a player in a system.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: And David Perron, who who was kind of the the big guy that they traded for him, remembered that was a whole disaster because the year before we had traded away a number one pick to get David Perron.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_02: David Perron, yeah.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like, and at the time it was like, okay, this Haglin guy better be good because that you basically, if you really turn it around, in less than a year, you traded away a number one pick, ultimately to wind up with Carl Haglin.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, like you said, it was worth it.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_00: That worked out very well.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's when um Rutherford went from like this is an old guy that clearly doesn't know what he's doing, to a genius hall of fame general manager that we were so happy to have, was when when he made all three of those deals.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I I can't argue with you, Steve.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I think if you put all those like individually, not one of them is the greatest trade, but if you kind of combine them together, it's hard to argue that it's not.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it did all it isn't like it happened over three or four years, it all happened within one season.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's fair to put them together.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, that no all three of those guys did not play for the penguins the year before.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of them ended our season the year before, so well, I think that's uh that's it.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_02: So uh Tim now agrees with me because I'm right all the time.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: Umfraid not to.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_02: He's afraid uh he'll he'll get traded.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I just want to say thanks for listening.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's greatly appreciated.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_02: If you'd like to uh trade this podcast, uh sure you can try, but yeah, we'll just we'll just come back.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: We're like a bad penny, but we'll just come right back on you.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um but no, thank you for listening.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh check us out uh on all your favorite uh listening uh podcast websites, and um we'll talk to you next time in Blood Flying.