Latest / Your Dark Companion Podcast / Rangers Reality Check, Rush Redemption & Madonna Confessions | Mac Engel | Ep 252

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Rangers Reality Check, Rush Redemption & Madonna Confessions | Mac Engel | Ep 252 · Your Dark Companion Podcast

• Nobody would have thought that I would be the one. Ryder, sports talk. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. With the big mic. Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah. Okay. Now I get it. We got a lightning strike, boys. What happened over there, Grego? We had a little lightning strike right outside the window. Alright. Alright. Here's a tip for all these Americano League teams. Don't wait. You said tip. Yeah. Tip. Okay. With a p. Would Keep jamming. The ticket the ticket colon, nothing but a big Gen X jerk off set. Is this a cool night or what? I wish somebody would hear that and go, bullshit. I'm back, bitches. Shout out to Panic Matt. I don't know where you are. I hope you're still around. I hope life is good for you, Panic Matt. I just wanted to start out today by extending a shout out to you because we were just talking about you. And good things. Oh, yeah. All good things. No bad things. Just a little shout out for you. That's all. Well, it is another episode of YDC. Hello to one and all. This is Monday, August 17, and it's episode number two fifty two, I'm told. And today, we are dipping into our pool of our Stolen Water colleagues and running one in here. This is one of my favorites. I have a lot of regard and respect for this man's work, have for a long time, and very glad to have him on board with us here at Stolen Water. You see his podcast known as the Ingle Angle. You read him in the Fort Worth Star Telegram and have for several years, one or two, right? Yeah. Twenty some. He is the great Mac Engel joining us here at Tech. Thank you very much. No autographs. I have three questions for you right off the top. You All right. Okay. So we did, thank you very much for having me. We did our fantasy football draft last week. Yep. Where does the nickname Shoopee come from? I think I've been told that story a few times now. Forgive me, I either heard it and forgot, very good chance, but I don't remember. It's really a stupid story. Okay. I've been watching some TV show and there was this, I can't even remember what it was, but on this show, it was an HBO show or a Showtime show or one of those. On this program there was a character, not the main character or anything, just kind of a background guy, but he was an old guy. And he thought he was so cool that he didn't have to bother to learn people's names. And so he would come up with, like in every episode, different pet names for them, you know? And one of those was Shoopy. No. It was Shoopy. No. It was Shoopy. Oh. And one day, for some reason, I called Grooves Shoopy, and he he laughed and looked at me kind of funny, and then turned the tables right back on me. And ever since then, that's what we call each other. I told you it was a stupid story. No, that's, it reminds me of one of my older brothers, I'm the youngest of six kids, And one of my older brothers- Wow, really? Well, there's five of us now. I lost one of them, but one of my older brothers, he would do that with people. And I, it was an inside joke. And if he called you Jimmy, that means he didn't care who you were and he was being a wise ass. So whenever I hear my brother say, Yeah, Jimmy, I knew what that meant, which was, You don't matter to me. And it was a wise ass thing and I've adopted, I don't use it very much. So if you ever hear me call you Jimmy, that's probably not a compliment. All right, my next question. Why would you, how much do you hate me to have me on at 05:00 on a Monday afternoon in Dallas? Lots. I was gonna say. Lots. When groups asked me to do this, I was like, Yeah, absolutely. And they said, 04:45 Monday. I'm like, 04:45? I was like, Yeah, okay. And then I looked at the traffic and I was driving over, I was like, Oh my God, this is gonna take me the rest of my life. How much does Mike hate me? I'm sorry, I'm I'm sorry, Mac. No, it's all right. Hey, I love doing this, this is flattering. And then the other part is, and I really need to know this one, what is your haircare treatment? Because that is remarkable. What are we taking? What combination of pills, steroids, GLP, whatever else? How are you doing it? Are rolling with what we got. Man, that is a good jet of jeans. To have that, that's Leslie Nielsen like. So I hope you're Well, you. No, that's, hey, I'm still very happy about this. Wearing a hat, because I need every day, every day I get up. Oh, please. You know? So I'm very impressed by that. Yeah, every day I get up and I go there and look, I go, please, no more today, no more. Let them all stay up. Just one more day. Give me one more day with every hair in That's all I want till tomorrow. Because every day after fifty, the forehead becomes a five head. Yeah. Then a six head. And I'm at a seven head right now. Yeah. And I just, I still got it. I'm I'm very at about a 15. A 15 head? Yeah. Yeah, that's right, both hands. So how are you man? I have no complaints, unless we want me to complain, and then we're probably gonna need, I don't know if the internet's big enough to hold my list of complaints, and what I have discovered is that no one really wants to hear me complain. No, they don't. Don't. They don't to hear you complain. I mean, if you want to sit here and complain, you can. I can. Yeah, but I learned also that nobody wants to hear me complain, so I just don't. I heard recently What? What you think people might like to hear you bitch just a little bit? No, they don't. They don't, and I don't want to. I don't wanna be a bitcher. I've been around too many bitchers in my life, and I don't like bitchers. This is what people wanna hear, especially from Mike Reiner, and I say this not sarcastically at all. They don't wanna hear you bitch, but they would listen to you trash people. Oh yeah. They would. People cannot get enough of that. They can't. Especially if somebody has some clout or degree of fame. If I gave you the platform and I said, Tell me about your worst interviewer, your worst this or worse that, they would listen to that. Well, they would probably do the same thing with you. Yes, they probably would, but you'd be a lot more interesting about it. I don't know about that. I'm good, I'm good. Thank you very much for asking me. And thanks for having me. And I do understand what you went through to get here, and I do appreciate that. That might've been a backdoor bitch, you know? Well, bring it on through the front door, man, just go for it. Cause it is no day at Marineland, and I do know and understand this, actually, I was thinking we were going to do Riverside today. No, no, no. I love this morning. What? That was this morning. Oh, who was? Canceled on. Really? Mhmm. That's cold. What are you talking about? We were supposed to have a Riverside this morning. With who? Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. This was supposed to be a two podcast day. Fortunately, it's not. It's just us. No. I love coming over here. And one of the reasons I well, one, I enjoy seeing you all, and I enjoy your sports memorabilia collection. I do. I always and I've been here multiple times and I'm always looking at it as if I've never stepped foot in here before. And I don't know if you change it at all. No, no. You don't? Uh-uh. No, I really like some of that stuff. It's really, when did you stop collecting? Did you have a date, do you have a time in your life where you recognized, I don't need to collect any more of this stuff? Yeah, yesterday. About 12:30, yeah, I don't think I need any more crap. Yeah. I I mean, I really do have enough. But, I mean, over the years, what what can I say? I've been I was into it for a while, but along the way, I've been given by the masses out there. I love you all. I do. But I've been given some pretty neat shit. Oh, yeah. And it's stuff that you know, there came a time when I was moving or something like that, and in certain places, I've had more wall space than I do in others, and I've probably got some stuff somewhere that I just don't have room for, that in other places would have been up. But I don't know, I try not to be a pack rat, but I can't help myself. It's tough to avoid it, especially now with the availability of all of these things. And it used to be when we were, at least when, you had to go places and stumble into these things to find these rare possessions. Now you can just go to the internet and find them online in 2005 yeah, sure. So it's kind of taken the fun out, in a way it's taken some of the fun out of it. And it's also dropped the value of the prices exponentially. Yeah. Well, of this has been given to me, some of it I just liked and went out and bought, but most of it was given to me by someone, somewhere along the line. It's pretty neat. Do you have any Tom Pelly thing in here? I don't think I do. I've never been really big on going overboard for his stuff or anything like No kidding, okay. Because I noticed, is that the Beatles up there? The Beatles? Yeah. I thought maybe you would've had a petty thing. Where is that picture from the Beatles? Let's see, which one is that? That one over your right shoulder? Dallas. That's in Dallas? Yeah. Where is that? That is when they were here, for their one gig here. That was at their press conference. They did a press conference that day, and that picture is taken at the press conference. Where'd they do the concert, do you remember? Memorial Auditorium. How big was that? It's at about 10,000? Yeah, some nine, ten, something like that. It was the biggest room in town back then. 10,000 people for the Beatles. Because that was before they built the Tarrant County Convention Center, and Memorial Auditorium was a little newer and a little bit bigger than Will Rogers, which was the biggest room over in Fort Worth at that time, I Yeah, it was, yep. So yeah, when the big acts came through here, they played Memorial Auditorium, and that's the way it was until the Tarrant County Convention Center came along, and then they all started going over there. Yep, and that one's getting ready to come down this month, I believe. Yeah, that's what I heard. It is, well, that's been on the list for a long, long time. But you know, it's funny seeing that reminds me, had a neighbor one time, Mike, I love this story. She was older, she's no longer with us. One time we were talking about great concerts. And she said, Oh, when I was a kid, I went down to Corpus Christi and we didn't tell our parents where we were going. So said, Who'd you go see? Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. I said, You saw Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley? She said, Yeah, in the old, there was some small auditorium there in Corpus. I don't know if it's there, still there anymore. And I thought, You saw Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. She said, Oh yeah, there was probably 5,000 people there. Yeah, I remember that I learned, I don't remember this, but I learned that they did do some gigs together back then. Can you imagine seeing that? Oh, man. I know. I mean, that'd be $10,000 and we thought Taylor Swift's Eris tour was expensive. I can't even imagine, given the star power, if you were to put that in today's dollars, what they would have charged and the size of the arena that they would have played. Man, just shoot really high Yeah, on those and then double it. Yeah. I did see Elvis once. You did? Yeah. Where? He played, I think that was at the Tarrant County Convention Center too. So that would've been old fat Elvis? Drug wiped out? Yeah. How was he? Pretty lame really. Was he really? Nothing special. I wasn't expecting greatness and I didn't get greatness. He delivered? Yeah, yeah, he delivered on what I, he was what I thought he was. But I never saw Johnny Cash, man. That's a bummer. That would've been a neat one. There are certain performers I've missed, and you've lived in an era where all these guys played, so you could've seen a lot of them. Yeah. Like of all those different acts, and I love, I can talk about this forever. And if you ever get Babe Lofenburg on this, but Babe Lofenburg can talk about this stuff for a month, uninterrupted, without breathing, no restroom breaks, he can talk about going to musical acts forever. Oh. Oh, yeah. I've gone down that path with him before. Have you? Yeah, Yeah, he can. Do you have a best show you've seen? I don't have a best show I've seen. I've had seen a lot of really, really good ones. And I've seen a lot that I'm really glad I saw. I saw an interesting one just a few weeks ago. Who? Rush. Oh, went to one of those shows. Oh, you did? I did. I went to their second one and I enjoyed it. I was really blown away by their drummer. Yeah. The girl that they recruited. Yeah, Annika Niles. Yeah, who I learned this weekend is 43. I didn't know that. Yeah. I know she resisted their offers. Like when they were recruiting her, she wasn't necessarily on board doing it. And that's a tough act to follow, Neil Oh Perth or Peart? Peart. Peart, that's a tough act to That's a dreadful act to follow, especially in a situation like that. Yeah. You're right. Because in addition to playing drums, he wrote the lyrics to all Oh, the right. He did. I totally forgot about that. And I don't know if they've got new music up their sleeve or if they're gonna do any more new stuff or if they're just gonna go out every now and then, do a little tour, do a tour, gig, make some money, that's it. But I don't know what they're gonna do about lyrics now. Well, the part that surprised me was Geddy Lee, he hit some high notes, and he was still hitting them pretty good. I was like, Wow, that's pretty tough. I was pleasantly surprised by that. He kind of lost a little bit of fastball toward the end of the show. I guess you could say he made a couple of business decisions there. That's a good way to put it. I got a show tomorrow night in Kansas City, I can't be doing this again. I've done about all I can. I got other gigs on this tour we got to do. Right. But the thing that really stood out to me about the whole thing was just how great a bass player he is. Yeah, yep. I mean, that's one thing that's easy to get lost when you listen to Rush. And it's really, I've had a strange path with them. Like love hate? Yeah, because for years and years, I didn't like them at all. To me it sounded like music for teenage mental patients. And I wanted no part of it. Then I got into petty theft and started playing with a guy in petty theft who is a Rush fanatic. And he knew what I thought about him. I made no secret of that. And he'd just listen to me bitch about him and say, Okay, have you ever seen him? And I'd go, No. And I don't want to. And every time they'd come around, he'd call me and say, Hey, why don't you go to rush with me tonight? I go, No, no, I don't want to. You know where I am on those guys. I don't want to, and I wouldn't go. And this happened over the course of, I don't know, twelve, fifteen years, three or four tours, you know? You really held firm. Yeah, I did, but somewhere along the line, and I don't know how this happened, this probably is what happens when you turn into an old guy, and you better listen to this. Yeah, okay. But somewhere in there, you kind of lose your edge a little bit. And you maybe soften on some things. And one day I found myself driving around, listening to the radio. Rush comes on. And instead of getting out of there as quick as I possibly could, I thought, okay. This time, I'm going to listen to this and just see. Well, I listened to it and I don't know if I had a conscious thought of, Hey, that's not too bad, or something like that. But from that point on, I didn't dislike them as I wasn't quite as dug in on it as I once was. I wonder what it was that What did you hear that you thought, Okay, they're not bad. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe this just happens to you when you turn into an old guy. You kind of lose your edge on some things. The part that surprised me, and I had heard them, but I had not heard them in a long time when I went to that concert, was when I heard them, and obviously that's a heavy, that's very guitar band, right? And I'm listening to it and I swear to God, I thought I could hear a faint echo of the late Eddie Van Halen. I really think when I was listening to those guys, they made a real impression on Eddie Van Halen. The way their guitar sounded. And they predated Eddie. And I know Eddie Van Halen is the best of the best, he's great. But when I listened to those guys, you could really hear the influence that they had on '80s guitar. And I enjoyed it. I'm not sitting there thinking that I'm listening to anything that isn't what it is, which is fun rock and roll music. But I thought it was pretty good. I enjoyed them. Yeah. I got to say I liked it a lot too. I was all set to go in there and come out going, Okay, I was right. I was right the first time. But no, no. Liked it quite a bit. That was my last concert. Rush? Or the most recent one I went to. I don't know if it'll be my last one. That's the most recent one I went to. Had an interesting experience in the same arena, Dickies Arena, which I think is a fantastic facility, by the way. I took my daughter to see Lady Gaga in the spring. I've seen her too. She's great. She is great. She's awesome. And the one thing I didn't know about a Lady Gaga concert, I walked in basically wearing what I'm wearing now, middle aged white guy attire. Right, you're in uniform. Absolutely, I am in uniform. I can fit in very seamlessly at some neighborhood function or some, anything along those lines where middle aged white guys convene. But I'm in a Lady Gaga concert and I look around, I'm like, Oh. Well, I did not realize gay men love Lady Gaga. Oh yes. Oh I know that. And they were dressed for the part. And needless to say, I stuck out just a little bit. Yeah. But it was a great show. It was a great show. She's awesome. I did too. And I didn't really take that into account either. I don't remember being particularly surprised or shocked by it, but I did notice it. Have you been to one of those types of concerts that's predominantly, where the audience is predominantly female at the American Airlines Center? Have you done one of those yet? Like who? Who are we talking about here? Britney Spears type audience. Okay, no, I've never Cher, Britney Spears. Else Would would Madonna fall in here? Probably, yeah, Madonna, Dua I took my daughter to see Dua Lipa. I took her to see, who's the other one, who's the real popular Rodriguez? Olivia? Olivia Rodrigo. Olivia Rodrigo. I took her to see Olivia Rodrigo. And there's so many females in attendance that they convert, I think, half of the men's rooms into women's restrooms. Well, it's been a few years since I saw Madonna, and I don't remember a phenomenon like that coming down. How was that? I've never seen her. Oh, man, it's fantastic. Was she? Yes. Probably in the It's definitely a top 10 concert of all time for me. What year would that have been? Oh, this would have been Like at her height? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she was way up there at that time. Now you hardly hear anything about her anymore. Not much. But back then she was either at or near the height of her scene. You know it's weird, I don't know if you ever go back and go down a rabbit hole of videos or whatever else, you think about how impactful she was on pop culture because she was constantly pushing the envelope with her attire and her lyrics and these videos that were so racy. And if you watch them now by today's standards, you could put them on at 10:00 in the morning on a Saturday. Who cares? It's like going to Sunday school almost. But back in the day, oh my God, kids, cover your eyes. Now it's more like, hey kids, come watch this. But yeah, she's the number one hot babe of all time for a reason, and for me she still is. Really? Always will be, yes. Madonna is your number one hot No, babe one of all hot babe of all Wow. And I took the guys on Wayne's World to tell me that, but once they threw it out there, I thought, Yeah, they're right, she is. Went and saw Dua Lipa, Mike, and my daughter's with me, at one point she said, Dad, you're drooling. And she probably wasn't wrong. I've seen a thousand shows, I've seen a thousand performers, I've never seen a show where I'm watching a performer and we had terrific seats, we had really good seats. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, Oh my God, I am absolutely in love with this woman. It's just the most electric show I've ever seen. And I knew she was, I listened to her music, but there are certain performers that you see that you're like, Oh my God. And I was in love that night. I thought she was the best. Would I know a Dua Lipa song? Probably, but you also claim that you don't know Taylor Swift. So That's right. I don't. Do you not? I don't I've never knowingly heard one Taylor Swift song. Well, the the trick with that is you probably have heard these songs. Yeah, probably so. But you just don't know them by title. Yeah. And I'm guilty of that a lot of times. Would I know a Dua Lipa song? Physical, levitating. Hold on a second, y'all keep talking and I'll play you one. One. Oh really? I know. This might be fun. Know. Ain't that Dua Lipa song with Mike Yeah. We could go through the whole three hour set list for- No? Didn't do it for you? I don't know that. Okay. This sounds kind of familiar, but if I gotta say, yes, I know it or no, I don't. No, I don't. Ashley, you could do, you could do multiple episodes of Name That Tune with Mike Reiner. We have done a couple. Have you done this? That's good. No can do. No can do, Aleppo. But this is when we do groups. He can he can make this easier on you. Is he good at that? He can pull all of it up over there. Oh yeah, yeah. If he were here, he'd be He would've been so on top of this, it's not even funny. Well, can't imagine you had me come all the way over here to talk music. Did you wanna talk music the We entire can do whatever you want, Mac. No, this is your show. Know, but I accommodate my guests. That's very kind. Usually they have something that they wanna talk about, or I've got something like Troy Aikman with him, I have something I want to talk to, some stuff to talk to him about. Okay, I have a topic I want to talk to you about. All right. Because I know it matters a lot to you. I know it really, really matters a lot to you. And that is the current state of the local baseball team. Now, hang on, let me give this a chance to set this up. Right. The Rangers at this time are a couple of games under 500. They have flirted with 500 pretty much since the start of the regular season. They have been in first place a couple of multiple times, long stretches, but they haven't really jumped far out ahead of 500, which is why they have fallen back down. And they recently came off of a thoroughly depressing road trip where they lose three of four to a terrible Angels team, an Angels team that has quit on the season, and an even worse- Worst team in baseball. Sacramento athletics team where they dropped two of three. Their road record against the American League West is absolutely awful. The state of the division is so bad and the wild card teams is so bad, it's kept the Rangers in it by just because everybody else is so bad. Yeah. Who do you lay this, the current state of the team at the feet of? The GM president or the owner, president of baseball operations, Chris Young, or the ownership? I'm not thrilled with what we've seen from the President of Baseball Operations this year, but that said, I don't think he was given anything to work with. So I laid at the feet of the owner. So do I. But I would say that I think the thing that's most troubling to me is that when Ray Davis, and it was Ray's decision in 2021, the off season of 'twenty one, which is we have all this money, let's go out and spend it. So they go out and spend it on five guys, John Gray, Corey Seager, Marcus Simeon, and there's one other name I missed. There's two other guys, but those are the big money guys, And then they go out and they spend more money and they bring in Jacob deGrom who cost a small fortune. And then they really go for it when they hire Bruce Bochy to convince him to come out of retirement because he's not cheap. And they give Mike Maddox, the pitching coach, a bunch of money. And then I'll be damned to win the World Series, right? And their thought was, okay, as these guys get older, we will bring up young up and coming prospects to sort of flesh this out. And it totally hasn't worked. And that to me is on a combination of John Daniels, the farm system, and now Chris Young. And then overriding all of it is the ownership group led by Ray Davis, who this off season said, Okay, improve within because I'm sick of spending all this money. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll lay it more on Ray's feet because as we've all seen, trips to the playoffs can be bought. Yeah. You can go out there and spend money if you want to, if you want it bad enough, you can go out there and spend the money and get your team into the tournament. That can be done, especially this year. Well, when you Yeah, generally you're right. There's outliers, like the New York Mets payroll is a bazillion dollars. They're awful. Well, I, yeah. But that's an outlier. Yeah, that's And an there is a certain way that you have to do it, you No, you're right. I mean, you gotta be smart and you've got to understand the concept of team and look at your whole group and say, Okay, we need more of this. We've got too much of this. We need more of this, and adjust it accordingly. That can be done. But you know what? I think they they would never admit this. But I think the Rangers and virtually everybody else in baseball before the thing started, we were talking about the American League and just the kind of shape that it's in and everything. I think everybody in baseball is operating with one eye on what lies ahead. You're talking about the lockout. Yeah. Well, so my view on this has really evolved since I started covering pro sports in 2001, because when I was covering in 2001, I used to hear the same language that we're hearing now in terms of, gotta have a salary cap, players say we'd rather die than have a salary cap, fans say we need a salary cap, if the small market team's gonna compete, etcetera, etcetera. So I've heard all of this rhetoric has pretty much been a constant at various decibels since 2000. And really even go back to the late '90s when the Yankees won three straight World Series, And they had a big payroll team. And even go multiple decades back before then when George Steinbrenner's influence on sports and specifically Major League Baseball really started to change things. So I've been hearing this and it's hard. And one thing that I've changed my tune on because I covered the National Hockey League lockout and they wiped out the entire season is I will never again buy the owner's rhetoric ever. And I will never ever buy it. I will always say, and I tell fans this, always take the side of the players. You have more in common with the players than you do the owners. And whatever money that the owners make, they will never pass on to you as the fan ever. They will never do it. They will sit there and say, well That's true. We want to make it affordable to a family of four so a dad can take their kids and blah, blah, blah. No, they don't. They're full of shit. All they want to do is maximize their which is fine. But just don't sell me that line of BS because you don't mean it. This is entirely about protecting yourself against yourself so you can get the cost down. It has nothing to do with, oh, we want to make it more affordable. No, you don't. No, don't. No, no, they don't. They don't. So with what the Rangers did this time, I think some truth to that, that they're operating with the idea of, well, if they get a salary cap, what could be grandfathered in and what may not be grandfathered But I think it's an excuse, although I think it's just an excuse not to spend any money. Yeah, well, when I say what lies ahead, they're wondering what's gonna happen next year when there's no games. When the season rolls around and they haven't even been to spring training yet, there'll be no games. Mean, the clubs still on some level had to operate, you know? Yeah, I mean, yeah, they do. They're going to work. They'll have layoffs and things like that, but nope, they're still operating. But you think there's going to be a long lockout? I'm hoping there's not, and I really can't convince myself that there will be because I think somewhere in there we'll reach a point sooner than later, I think, where good sense will prevail. As a Rangers fan, do think as a Rangers because one thing that we've seen, Mike, with the Rangers is that this is a top five media market, but the Rangers baseball team has never really functioned like a top five media market club because they don't have those kinds of revenues like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers. I'm probably missing the Cubs and maybe one other one in there that they don't. Phillies maybe. So do you think the Rangers need a salary cap in order to be a better franchise? No, I don't think they need a salary cap to be a better franchise. I mean, we've seen what they've done in years past when there was no salary cap, and they operated just fine. They went out and spent money. They got guys in here. I mean, you may not like the guys they got in here, but they still got guys in here. Yep. You know? It's a place where, especially now, with the new ballpark, and the guys, you know, know that every single night, they're not gonna go home at the end of a a four hour and thirteen minute game, and they're just gonna be so run down that they can't do anything because they've been out there sweating ass for the last four hours. They don't have to do that anymore. So the Rangers have it pretty good, you know? I think one of the problems with the Rangers, like when Jacob deGrom declined the trade opportunity to Atlanta, to me that said two things. He loves it here, he's 38 years old. He does not want to move again. The Rangers are just good enough that he's not playing for a bad team. He's not playing for a good team, he's not playing for a bad team, which is different. And to me, it speak to one of the bigger problems this team's had for the last twenty five years, which is there is no belt to ass urgency in that clubhouse at all, because everybody's so rich and everybody's just so damn comfortable. Yeah, and I agree with that too. Why do you think that is? Because that's been a problem across multiple ownership groups. I really don't know. The easy answer to that is that they need a kick ass manager. But these days, guys won't play for a kick ass manager. I I don't even know if those guys, yeah. That that that's That's I mean, if you want your guys to go out there and play for you, then that is an unrealistic proposition because they won't do it. Give me a manager from the nineties that you thought, That's a kick ass manager and he would never last in today's game. Do you think of anybody? God, I don't know if was- Johnny Oates? No, no, I wouldn't say he was a kick ass manager. Well, he could be prickly. Yeah, he could be prickly, but he was mostly prickly with us. Now, I'm sure in the room when he needed to be prickly, he could be, but as far as being a real my way or the highway guy, I don't think he was. No, I don't. Ron Washington? Ron will never get a job like that again. No, never. Ron had some, you've gotta, it's pro sports and the players make all the money. Ron had a little bit more of that in him than I think I realized initially in terms of this is what we're doing and this is what we're doing. Yeah, but to me, he was always one of those guys who would try and talk you into doing it his way. He wasn't a real hard ass or anything. He would just convince you that this is a better way to do this because of this and that. This is what I'm trying to get you to see. Well, I think it also too is person specific. How you sell the message to, let's say, Adrian Beltray, is gonna be a lot different than how you sell that message to a second year player who's trying To Niki Lopez? Yes, that's totally different. And I like Skip Schumacher. I think Skip's a bright guy. He's a lot different than Bruce Bochy a lot. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. The thing to me, biggest indictment on the Rangers is, and this is just baffling to me, is the fact they can't develop their own talent. No, they can't. Josh Young is a really nice player. He can't stay healthy. Evan Carter. I don't know what he is anymore, but I know what he's not. Which is? What they thought he was gonna be. A 100%. That was one I'll say, I'll give myself credit on that one. That one's when I predicted. Because remember he started as a rookie and he's killing it. I'm like, once the league catches up to him, what's he gonna do? He hasn't adjusted well and he's been hurt. Great guy. Man, I bought in. Did you? I bought in fully. I thought that once the way he started out was the way it was always going to be, but I was reminded once again, the game catches up. Yeah. And then it's your adjustment based on the round adjustments. The one that I'm still really high on is Wyatt Langford. Yeah. I think he's going to be at the very worst, a solid guy. Yeah. That's pretty good. A solid guy for Now a number of he may be better than that, but- The idea that he was gonna be Mike Trout, I thought was absurd. Yeah, I never really bought into that. Yeah, that was a lot. What would you do, if you were a Rangers management, what would you do with Corey Seager? He's gonna have a no trade, full no trade clause here at the end of the season. The no trade's gonna kick in? Right now it's limited to eight teams. Okay. But the trade deadline's passed, so to trade him now would take an act of God. So at the end of the season, he will be in his fifth season as a vested veteran, which means he will have full no trade clause power, veto power. What I would do is I'd be working those phones right now on those eight teams for sure, and I would be trying to trade him because I just really think that he's kind of a bad vibe guy. He's a weird guy. Yeah, he's a weird guy. It's one of the more unique athlete stories that I've seen in this market in terms of, this is one of the, and he's having a bad year, but this is one of the best athletes in the state. Is. If you looked at all the pro athletes in Texas, he's way up that food Yeah, mean, he's at his best, a great player. Yeah, yes. Hall of fame player. Yeah. And Let he's me correct myself here. I don't know if he's necessarily a bad vibe guy because we've seen bad vibe guys. And I don't know if he's like them, but he's he doesn't do promote much to promote the idea of team chemistry. No. And hey, we're all in this together. He doesn't seem to do much to promote that idea. Well, he does what he wants. Yeah. And think the range, and I think one of the deals is when you sign a free agent, and when you have a free agent of that level, they have all the power. So in those negotiations, you can sit there and say, I wanna do this, this, and this. And if the team is desperate enough, they said, Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And they think that's not gonna be a problem. Well then it's totally different to sign off on those things, whatever those specifics are, and then you gotta live with it. And with him, he doesn't hit with a team, he does everything pretty much by himself. And if you're putting up, you're batting three twenty and hitting 28 home runs and 50 doubles and driving in a 100 runs, you can live with anything. Yeah, you can, you can. Well, compounded, then that becomes an issue. If you're not playing, you're hurt all the time, which he is, your numbers are horrific and the team stinks, and you have the highest salary on the payroll by a lot. I don't know, even if they wanted to trade them by now, I mean they're not gonna trade them anytime soon, but if they wanted to, I think they would have to eat a lot of that salary. Yeah, I think they will too, if it happens. If it happens. Do you think they will trade him? I don't think anything of note, but I was wrong, Mike, about the last time there was a threat of a lockout. And I don't know if you remember this, there was a threat of a lockout that was gonna wipe out games and stuff like that back in '21. And that's when the Rangers signed all those guys. Yeah. That's when they signed Simeon. That's when they signed Seeger and they spent all this money and they got it into the gun. And I don't know, I don't think this time it's gonna function like it did that time. So I'm just assuming they're gonna sit tight until they know what the new model looks like. And depending on how the season finishes, yeah, I could see them taking calls this time. I don't think they did last time. No, they got called last time, but they said no. This time I think that would be a different conversation. I think it would too. Do you think the owners had the stomach for the fight on this thing? So the difference is on baseball's ownership situation is not nearly as unified as it is in basketball, hockey, or football. And some of that's because of the commissioner, but really it has more to do with seven or eight clubs that wield the most power, make the most money from local broadcast rights. So they're under tremendous amount of pressure. There's twofold things. They need to start playing games because they want that revenue from local media rights contracts. And they're operating on totally different revenue wavelengths than the Reds, than the Mariners, Diamondbacks, Marlins, I mean the Marlins, oh my God, the Rangers. So there are factions within baseball's ownership group that creates dissension, which the players for forty years now have exploited to their game. So baseball ownership ostensibly caves and doesn't have the stomach to hold out for particulars in their collective bargaining agreements that football, basketball, and hockey have all rammed down the players' throats. Baseball could do it, but you just gotta wait. And can you wait long enough for players to say, okay, turn the money back on? Well, now this time, the owners are making more noise about sticking it out than they ever have before. Do you buy that? Because I don't. I think we're going to lose games. I know when I covered the National Hockey League lockout for the entire year, they wiped out the year. And the reason was because the league had the full support of broadcast partners, because the broadcast partners didn't, there wasn't enough money, they weren't losing enough money for it to be significant. Baseball's totally different. Everybody was on board with what Gary Bettman of the NHL was selling. Yes, do whatever you need to do. You need to lock them out for a year, go ahead. And the minute they did that, that union completely fell apart. And baseball, it would happen in baseball, but it takes a long time to get over. And no one wants to lose a year. I suspect what will happen is it gets serious once you start going into spring training, because that's free money for the owners. So they get serious then. And I suspect they'll probably lose at least the first month of the season. And then after that, I think they're going to come up with some salary cap ish type deal. I think it'll be closer to the NBA than certainly what we see in the NFL or the National Hockey League. So I think they're gonna lose games for sure. Yeah, maybe it'll be a, I don't know, a salary fedora as opposed to a salary cap. Has tassels. I don't know, the noise seems a little bit different this time than it ever has been before, we're still way off. Well do you think, it's all set, this is, it was no different than it was similar to 'ninety nine, two thousand when the Yankees were beating everybody, they had all these big, and they're running around signing big name free agents. And now it's the Dodgers and the Dodgers payroll plus their tax is well over $400,000,000 Dodgers have won back to back World Series. They go out and trade for the Detroit Tigers. Best pitcher, Schuylkill. They signed Kyle Tucker in the off season to a bazillion dollars. They've deferred all these big money contracts into the February, including Ohtani. Do you think they're bad for baseball? I don't know. I don't know if they're good for baseball, but I also don't know if they're bad. A villain's good. A villain is good. Cowboys were villains. Anybody think Cowboys were bad for football in the '90s? No, nobody did. Yeah. The difference is now the money's just gotten. Oh my God. I mean, if you look at what the Tampa Rays, Miami Marlins, hell, if you look at what some teams All right, but still, I mean, you just mentioned a team that has spent most of the year in first place. Tampa, Tampa In is a division with the Yankees, in a division with the Red Sox. Now I know the Red Sox haven't, they've had one of the weirdest years I think I've ever seen. No, but they've rebounded somewhat. Yeah, they've rebounded somewhat, but now they're turning back the other way again. Yeah, I know. And you know who else is in the division? The team that came within a hair of winning the World Series last year, Toronto. Yeah. And they've had a terrible year. Yeah. And they're in last place. Are they in last now? I think so. Baltimore jumped ahead of them. Yeah. So Tampa's model sounds so easy, but only Tampa's doing it, which is every couple of years, we're going to build a really good team, and then we're going have to break it down and build it And back up that means you got to draft really, really well, develop really, really well, which they've done, but- But you got to keep guys. And do know how many World Series they've won? Zero. Yeah, none. You know- Where does Milwaukee fit into this? Milwaukee's another one. I mean, they're that group that says, because they beat the Dodgers in a series. That's a regular season, but I keep coming back. Like, the best thing for baseball is to have a dominant team. Nothing sells like a dominant team, right? The Bulls, UConn basketball, Alabama football, the Patriots, the Cowboys of the '90s, nothing moves the needle like a dominant team. So having the Dodgers is great. Having the Dodgers at $425,000,000 and them win the World Series again, I'm not sure that's great for baseball. No, I don't think it is either. The Do you like that? Do you like the dominant team? No, but I understand its value. When you're trying to sell something, a third grader can understand it. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So that part of it, I appreciate the marketing element in terms of how easy it is to sell that storyline. No, I like where the NBA is right now in terms of all these different teams are winning championships. That's what I like. But I know in terms of you're trying to market and package something, lot of people love watching Tiger Woods play golf and they didn't give a crap about golf. And I think, Oh, the Dodgers aren't, because part of the charm is let's see if they lose. That's one of the biggest points of sports confusion for me. What's that? This big markets, everybody else thing. Yeah, it's tiring. That whole dichotomy. I don't know, I understand what you're saying about the big market teams and everything like that, and I get all that, but still, I wish there was some form of parody for everybody else. I agree, because you want to be able to sell hope, right? Yeah. And you're right. In theory anyway, you do. Do we have time for the mid show read? Should we do that? We should yeah. We can do it at the end. It doesn't need to be in the middle. Okay. Alright. It's 05:53 right now. Alright. Do I have do I have time to ask you questions? Sure. Okay. So this is something that I I wanted we went long on this, but I wanna do this with you because of your So are you familiar with the Proust questionnaire? I think I've heard of it, but I'm not sure. Okay. So Marcel Proust was a Frenchman way back when, he came up with these questions and they're kind of fun to ask, and Vanity Fair uses a lot, and so I have fun with this with guests occasionally. I need to use it more, but this I like Vanity Fair. Okay, yeah. What is your idea of perfect happiness, Mike Reiner? My idea of perfect happiness is really pretty much all those around me at any given time being happy. Wow. Okay. What is a trait that you most deplore in yourself? A trait that I most deplore in myself? Yes, sir. All right, this is a relatively new trait that has presented itself more as I've gotten older. It hasn't always been there. But now, I don't have quite the stick to itiveness I used to have, and that bothers me. Okay. I used to be a really big stick to it guy. And now? Now I'll say screw it real easy. What is your greatest extravagance? My greatest extravagance. Oh, God, I don't know, I'm an individual of very few. I don't have too many real extravagances. I don't really treat myself to things or anything like that. Occasionally, although I haven't done this in a long time, occasionally I'll take a nice trip. Nice trip? Yeah. Okay. On what occasion do you lie? My answer is most of them. My answer is which one do I not lie Let's see, what quality do you most like in a woman? Quality do I most like in a woman? Level headedness with a sense of humor. Level headedness with a sense of humor? Now that's probably two. That's close enough. What do you consider your greatest achievement? Making it seventy six years. It's a good one, seriously. I'll take that. Okay. All right, making it seventy six years and not having spent one night in a hospital yet. Oh my God. Knock on wood. What? Come on. Hit some wood. Hit some wood something. There we go. Just ask him for voodoo. What talent or which talent would you most like to have? I'd like to be able to dance. If we know you can dance. No, no, I can't. I cannot dance. Oh, it could be an episode. I cannot dance. I'd love to dance. Okay. I'd love to be able to dance, but I can't. Who is your hero of fiction? Popeye. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? The lowest depth of misery, boy, could take on a number of different forms. There we go. Probably spending one night in the hospital. If you could change one thing about yourself, Mike Reiner, what would that be? If I could change one thing, I don't know. I wish I could be on time a little bit better. Okay. I used to be, but I'm not anymore. Blame the traffic. Yeah. Oh, that's Yeah, that's an easy out. Do you believe in regret? I hear a lot of people say, Oh, can't regret things. Bullshit, yes you can. Do you believe in regret? Yeah, I do, but I try not to do it. I generally will on the side of you do what you do and you live with the consequences. I'm done with that. Oh, here's a good one. How would you like to die? Natural causes? It's just vague enough. That's age. I always laugh when somebody's like, well, I read like an obituary, the guy's like in his 90s, died of, I'm like, He died of old age. It's okay to say he died of old age. Yeah, it is. That's perfectly acceptable. Well, old age is a natural cause. Damn right it is. Okay, this is a good one. Where would you most like to live other than here in beautiful Downtown Dallas? Where would I most like to live? Some years back no. No. I can't say that. I can't say that. That's not true. I was going to say Canada, but Canada's too cold. It's chilly. Yeah. Yep. It's snowing there now. Yeah. I mean, I love Vancouver, but Vancouver's in Canada. Canada's too cold. Guess got, do I have to go on the Lower 48? You can go anywhere you want. Okay. I mean, you want say Hearst, you could say Hearst. Bedford. Actually, Euless is my preference. Okay. Which historical figure do you most identify with, and you cannot say Stalin? Cannot say Stalin? Can't say Stalin. Because I'm sure that was probably on the tip of your tongue. Brutal global dictator. That was a player. Right. Let's see. Historical figure that I most identify with. Rue McClanahan. That's the number one hot babe of all time material there. She brought it. And she did bring it. She did bring it. Girls Although signed me I was really into B Arthur, don't ask me why. Well, okay. You got a little something there. Historical figure that I most identify with. Probably John Lennon. Oh, that's a good one. I haven't thought of that one. Okay. If you could die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? And I have to encapsulate all the traits of that thing? Good question. It does not specify. With no idea of what I used to be? Yeah, you just totally know. Like when you come back as this noun, personal place or thing, you have no idea what Mike Reiner, who or what Mike Reiner was. Okay, give me dog. Dog? Yeah. I thought of that one. Dogs have a good life. Some of them do, my dog does. Some of them do, some do. I bristle when I hear we don't deserve dogs because there's certain dogs that I look at and I'm like, Brother, I don't know what you did deserve that life. Yeah. I mean, you're living pretty good. What is your motto, Mike Reiner? You must be weird or you wouldn't be here. Last two, these are mine. These are not part of the Marcel Proust questionnaire. Favorite all time interview? And you can't say this one. Oh, god. Gosh. This one's so great, though. This is great. Favorite all time interview? You've interviewed a lot of guys. Yeah, I have interviewed a lot of guys and none of them are coming to mind right now that you put me on the spot. Kevin Fox? Uh-huh. I like him. He's a good guy. Yep, he is a good guy. You can't think of anybody? No, what about you? Oh, well, hang on. I'll answer that. Let me ask this one. What's your least favorite all time interview? I'm sure you had somebody on a ticket one time, you're like, Get this guy off the air. All right. I'll give you a favorite. Give me a favorite. If we may go back to that. Okay. As you can probably tell by some of the things on the wall in here, I'm a big Johnny Unitas guy. Oh, that's a good one. And we got to talk to him, and everybody up there knew that I was a big Johnny Unitas guy. And for those who don't know, Johnny Unitas was a quarterback of the Baltimore Colts in the 50s and the early 60s. They're halcyon days. They were good every year, and Johnny Unitas was a boss. Not only was a great player, but if you weren't holding up your end of the operation, he would send your ass to the sideline and not have a second thought about it. And I really admired that about him. But anyway, he was in town for something or other, and we got him to come up to the station. Really? Yeah, got to interview him. He stayed with us for about an hour. Wow. He was really great. What year would that have been? This was pretty early. Was '80s? No, this would have been at the ticket. Oh, was at the ticket, okay. Yeah, it was probably 'ninety eight. So he was doing pretty good? Yeah, he was doing pretty good. That would have been neat. Do Yeah. You have a least favorite? Anybody you're like, Oh, God. There's been some pretty big jerks in the Rangers clubhouse. Some guys that we didn't care too much for. You names? You want names? Who would that have been? Oh God. You didn't talk to John Rocker or Carl Everett, did you? No, no. Knew those guys. You interviewed them? Yeah, yeah, they were in 2002. That's when I was still covering the team with T. R. Sullivan and they brought in Carl Everett, who was interesting, and John Rocker, who was damaged significantly. John was nice to me. He was not gonna cure cancer and his career was at the end, and I think he was trying so hard to hang on, but his relationship with the media was so bad at that Oh my god, it was. And he created that for himself, mean, he did that to himself. Yeah. He was okay with me, but I mean, it wasn't like I was going to him a lot. Well boy, you're about the only one. No, I mean, he was, but I try, because I knew there was no point, but he was all right with me, but again, I didn't go to him very much and he was not the sharpest blade. Carl Everett was done and he didn't know it. That's a lot of those guys get like that. They Our didn't know vibe with him was just stay away That from was probably a good move. You're asking me my favorite interviews? Yeah. I have like three or four, and I've been very fortunate because I've been able to interview these people who are in things not related to sports. One is Doctor. Bob Ballard. Do you know Doctor. Bob Ballard? I don't think. He found the Titanic. Oh, really? Yes. So he was coming to Arlington. He was a guest speaker at UTA and I called UTA, Hey, can I get him to advance? Yeah, sure. And I had him on the phone for a half an hour. I could have kept him on the phone for five and a half hours. I interviewed him. I interviewed the guy, does the name Jeffrey Weigand mean anything to you? I don't think. He was the key witness against Big Tobacco. He was the guy that they modeled the movie, The Insider Around. So he was the whistleblower against Big Tobacco. He was fascinating. I've maintained a friendship with him. I haven't talked to him in a long time, he was great. Hoe, David McCullough, the historian was really excited. He was great. I love David McCullough. Was a really nice man. He's no longer with us. But the one recently, and I did a Zoom with him and this is one where I was starstruck. Because I wasn't sure if it was gonna be audio or visual. I wasn't even sure if he was gonna show up. And then his face appears on my computer screen and you can just see my face light up. I mean, I couldn't contain it. I just, boom, radiant. It looked like I'm on my wedding day, like some, I was so excited and it was Stuart Copeland, the drummer of The Police. Oh yeah, yeah, I interviewed him. Yeah, remember you told me that. He's got Yeah, he was great. Oh, he's great. And so sometimes you meet these guys and they disappoint you. He did not. He did not. He was great. No, no. He was great. And he would talk about anything. Anything, yes. And he didn't, there was no question that was off limits. Not that I was gonna ask anything wildly inappropriate. Because I could have fanboyed him about the police for an hour. And he was sure, and I didn't, but I could have. And I've had a bunch of those. Vince Gill was great. Danny Elfman was fantastic. There's been a bunch of those. I've been really lucky to have those experiences. I've been very lucky. Man, that's one of life's real pleasures, is getting a good interview. When they're Yeah, into getting to talk to somebody and it's somebody that, number one, you're interested in, that you like, you're a fan of, or you're curious about or whatever, and you get to talk to them and they're into it too. That's the part When you connect with that guy. Well like, because I'm sure you had interviews at the ticket and probably other ones, where they're just doing it to promote the movie, the album, the show, whatever, and they're just looking at a clock, right? And then there are other ones where they, yeah, they're aware of the clock, but they're engaged. Yeah. At the ticket, we were really, really good about that. I mean, I don't know what it was, but we really found a way early on in the interview to connect with whoever we were talking to. Well, you loosened them up. You guys were really good at that, really good at that. I meant to say this to you, we were doing one of these remotes at the place in Dallas, the Something Rose, whatever it's called, I can't. Smokey Rose. And it was five of us around a table and Grego was there. And there was a window of time in there where you guys locked on and it was great. It was magic. And I could see, I was like, Wow, that's still really good radio. Yeah. No, and I meant to tell you that some time ago. And that was a very, very special, and I'm sure you recognize it now, but when you had guests on, they were always so comfortable with you guys. Yeah, we were really, really lucky. Oh, you were good at it though. You weren't lucky, mean, you were lucky, but you were good at it too. It was a lot of fun when you connect with one of those guys and the thing transcends the interview and turns into just a conversation. Yes. That's when you know you're doing it right. Well, then they're not, if the PR person isn't there, they're not aware of the clock. That's something Like I did that with Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter. I had him one time and he was ready to talk. He wanted to talk, he could have talked to me forever, but the PR person's like, Okay, we gotta go. And he wanted to talk college football. There are a few times when the PR person wanted to go and then look over and say, Just give us a few more minutes. Really? Yeah, oh yeah. Oh, that's, Yeah. That has not happened to me. That was really cool. And this has been really cool too, having Oh, thank you very much. I always love coming over here, Mike. Thank you very much for your Well, I think you're really good at what you and I really enjoy having you in this little thing of ours and and I really appreciate you, pal. Likewise. Thank you very much, Mike. He is the great Mac Engel. You can read him in the Fort Worth Star Telegram. You can hear him right here at Stolen Water, the Ingle Angle. Go to stolenwatermedia.com. Find his podcast. Find this. Find all the rest of them that we have. Check them all out. There's good stuff all around no matter where you may turn. At stolenwatermedia.com. Now I must leave you with this. Is your fantasy football draft losing its allure? Are you starting to think about it the way you think about that old girlfriend not living up to the fantasy? Well, let's change things this year. Let's change things up. 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That's August nineteenth through the thirtieth at Dudley's in Rockwall. Now, this is not the same old lobster fest. This is Wild Caught Maine Lobster live music signature cocktails, exclusive merch, and swag, daily giveaways, and a $1,000 raffle. All of that from your friends at Dudley's. Check em out in Rockwall. Check em out on Henderson. Just check em out. You will not be disappointed at Dudley's. Is that it? That's it. Alright. Thank you, Mac. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Ashley. Thank you for being by the channel out there. If you like what we do, then get us out there on your social media. Help a brother out here. I'm just trying to hang on in this world. So help me out, man. Till next time. Bye. Alright. I'm gonna go take your pants off. You're Dark Companion is a stolen water media presentation.