Season 1 Episode 2 Jamie Campbell

The dynamic duo are back together again. This week I welcome my former broadcast partner Jamie Campbell from Blue Jay Central

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

This is Walk Off Slams with Greg Zahn on AM 1150.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the second ever edition of Walk Off Slams. I'm your host, Greg Zahn, and I'm coming to you from the beautiful uh AM 1150 studios in downtown Kelowna, British Columbia, my new home. As I am the new head coach of the Kelowna Falcons and here to hopefully impart some wisdom on some up-and-coming future major leaguers that are coming to me from college. But uh right now, my job is to analyze all things Major League Baseball, all things Toronto Blue Jays, and of course, we finished last show with my Sunday roast, which was all about my distaste for the world baseball classic. And well, I think we're gonna have to dive back into the WBC and talk about some more reasons why I can't stand it. Um I gotta tell you, the format for me, absolutely lame. You can't do tournament style play with ten teams. It's either four, eight, sixteen, or thirty-two. Well, clearly the WBC, they can't come up with ten rosters made up of kids that are born in the country that they're playing for. Heck, they couldn't even do eight, but let's just drop it back to eight and say maybe that would be the way to go. I mean, the pool at the WBC is some of the most watered down stuff I've ever seen. You're looking at again, 21% of the players in the WBC are American-born, USA-born, most of which you have not heard of. And I I can look at it in a in a straight mathematical way. If there were eight teams, and and trust me, we we can easily subtract two from this mix. I mean, right off the bat, check you. We're we're you gotta go. Like there's no history of baseball in this country, nothing significant. Why are we borrowing players from the United States just so we have ten teams? Can't think of any money any any other reason. Oh, wait, money. There we go. Uh, I think they're gone already. But you know, eight teams make it easy to figure out who moves on. It's straight wins and losses. Instead of let's calculate the highest exit velocity in the seventh inning with two outs versus a spin rate of greater than fourteen hundred in order to determine who moves on. Um, which leads me into uh poor Mark DeRosa. Uh like he didn't know that the United States hadn't clinched their way to the next round when they're facing Team Italy. He's given a bunch of guys a you know days off and they end up losing the ballgame. Um thank God uh the those guys came back and and did what they did against Mexico and and helped out the United States squad because I know I was pretty critical um of I don't know critical, but I was rubbing it in a little bit with my friends about you know my boys on Team USA winning the gold in hockey. Um, you know, after I listened to people booing our national anthem. I can't imagine how much grief, how much shade I would take if the United States didn't make it out of the first round in baseball. So uh I guess turnabouts fair play, but you know, you look at Mark DeRosa and the fact that he didn't know that they hadn't qualified. How is the general manager of the United States team not having daily meetings with the manager, the coaching staff, the team, uh figuring out what the strategy is? I mean, I'll I'll give you know Mark a little bit of grace here. He's dealing with all of the general managers of all the players that he has on his roster. I mean, they're dictating when the guys on the USA roster are gonna play and when they're not, uh, because they're worried about them losing time during the regular season. And I get that. I I spoke to it rather heavily in my roast last week about how ridiculous it is for people who have never earned the right to be on a professional baseball field getting the opportunity to alter the fate of a star player or the franchise that he plays for. So we have Mark DeRosa, who well, I'm not gonna call him a liar, but apparently the way the story goes down is he claims he didn't know, then he backtracks, then MLB network his main employer, they cover for him as you would imagine they would. I mean, they've got an Emmy winning show there and an Emmy winning show host. You know, DeRose is great at his job, it's a fantastic show on the MLB network. So, and and but here's the thing you know, managing a baseball team is not as easy for some people as one might think. It's why catchers make the best managers, it's why catchers make the best analysts. You know, infielders and outfielders are only slightly better at managing teams than pitchers. Pitchers make the worst managers, and the reason why catchers are the best at is because we're learned to think on the fly. We are learned, we learn how to micromanage situations within situations at 95 miles an hour. It's a skill that you develop over time. You see things happening, you see them coming, you can anticipate moves, you can almost predict results because of how fast the game moves behind the plate. And if you don't have the ability to think three, four pitches ahead, three days ahead, you're in trouble. And that's pretty much what's going on here. Uh, you know, these outfielders, the infielders, you know, they they've got their bats and their gloves and their cleats and their, you know, their fancy wristbands and all their all their swag, you know, and really the only thing they care about is, you know, what's my OBP? What's what's my OPS? Like, how am I doing? You know, and and they don't have to think about the other eight guys on the field and are they in the right place? Are they doing the right thing? Uh the catcher has to deal with all of that and has to be looking in the dugout for direction from the manager, the pitching coach, uh, your defensive, you know, alignment coach. That's why these guys don't get overwhelmed with silly stuff like, is my team qualified for the next level? So giving them a little bit of shade, giving them a little bit of grace. But you know what? They chose a guy that never managed anywhere before to manage the team USA. Now, I can't even understand why or how they made that choice. I'm not sure what it is, but you know, apparently they want Mark DeRosa to get this opportunity. You know, in my opinion, probably would have been a better choice if they had actually picked somebody who's managed before. But, you know, he's certainly a smart guy. Uh, you know, University of Pennsylvania, I think Wharton School of Business, I believe, like all kinds of crazy stuff. So clearly got the intelligence level to do it, but uh not exactly a good choice when we can't even keep track of whether or not we're qualified for the next round. Which uh, you know, brings us back to the players in the WBC. Here we got uh Jose Perrios, Toronto Blue Jays, Jose Barrios, not cleared to play for Team Puerto Rico, and of course uh Puerto Rico's GM, my former teammate Carlos Beltron, is pretty upset about it. Well, if you look at Blue Jays.com, his elbow is so cranky, he couldn't get couldn't get insured, and sure enough, now he's gonna go see a doctor about his elbow. So uh they're pretty they're pretty upset about the process, they're pretty upset about uh the clearance, uh, who gets cleared to play, who doesn't, who can get insured, who can't. Well, I say this it shouldn't even be a process. You've got professional guys, you know. Uh notice how I said Toronto Blue Jays, Jose Berrios, not Puerto Rico's Jose Berrios. Uh Berrios is the property of the Toronto Blue Jays when it comes to baseball. He finished last season on the disabled list with a bad elbow. So bad he kind of put himself on the DL and he missed the entire postseason. Um and he wasn't exactly lighting it up down there in spring training against the semi-pros. So uh probably a good choice for Puerto Rico that he's not going to be uh eligible. Now, again, my biggest problem with this whole thing is these guys are pros. They're not amateurs, they belong to their pro teams. And, you know, these aren't baseball people making the decisions about whether or not he gets to play. These are medical professionals, insurance companies, because they don't want to pay the millions of dollars that could potentially be on the line if he ends up on the shelf with a further injury to his elbow. Um, you know, and and here we come back to the inability of the tournament to field 10 teams made up of 30 guys that are actually born in the country that they're playing for. You tell me Puerto Rico can't find 30 guys? Like, holy smokes. But the key word is competitive guys. Competitive guys. They can't find 30 competitive guys that they want to match up against Venezuela, against Japan, against the USA. So they're gonna go grab a Nolan Arenado who played for team USA in 2023 to play third base for them. 20, 30, or excuse me, 30 competitive guys. You can't find 30 competitive guys in Puerto Rico. Mexico couldn't. I don't understand that one either. Um, but you know, I I gotta I gotta kind of move on because you know the WBC is giving me a migraine, and I'm sure you're probably already tired of me talking about it. But before I go, let's dive into the whole Rosa Arena versus Cal Raleigh. So I don't know if you guys are watching closely, a Rosa Arena comes to the plate, does the proverbial tap, you know, Cal on the shin guards, and apparently they don't like each other. And apparently Cal didn't want to fraternize with his Mariner's teammate, Randy A Rosarena. Well, I I don't know what's going on in that Seattle clubhouse, but unless this is manufactured to to make the WVC interesting, which it is not, uh, then there's some serious drama gonna pop off in that Mariner's uh clubhouse. And I gotta tell you, Randy, uh a Rosa Arena, baby, uh that's a PR campaign. You're gonna lose that one. This is Cal Raleigh, uh runner up to for the MVP, more home runs than God last year. Um he's the golden child in Seattle. You're not winning that PR uh war. So uh probably should uh tuck it and run and maybe backtrack, walk, walk back to comments a little bit. But uh I I'm not even I'm not even sure what that was all about. I just know that things are a lot different now. You know, these players, they're they're all best friends. You know, you look around the stretch circle, you look around the batting cage before the game. Hell, look at it during the game. Um, you know, there's a whole lot of slap and tickle going on out there on the field. And I remember, you know, one of the worst culprits that I ever had to deal with was Big Poppy. I love David Ortiz, he's he's a great human being. What a fun guy to be around. But he used to drive me crazy. And I'd be like, he'd come around the stretch circle and he'd start talking to all the Latinos, and I'd be like, Poppy, come on, dude, take him out to dinner. This is Boston. You're not gonna pay for anything. I said, come get these guys after the game and you know, take them out to dinner because this looks bad. There actually used to be a rule for those of you don't know that don't know, a rule about fraternizing. A rule that if an umpire came out onto the field and saw you in a conversation with an opposing team player, they could find you. They were all about the integrity of the game and everybody giving their best, you know, according to rule 21. Um, they didn't want anybody talking to the other team because maybe they would divulge strategy inadvertently, or maybe directly. Who knows? But the point is, my biggest problem with fraternizing with the enemy, and I knew everybody, we all grew up together, played minor league ball, some of us were teammates in the minor leagues. My biggest problem was I might have to smoke you later, fool. Like, I literally might have to dump you. Worse, we might have to fight because you know when I'm wearing a uniform, the colors don't bleed. I'm there to beat you down. I am there to whoop your ass. I'm sorry. I'm getting paid to beat you. And part of beating you might be buzzing you up and in, might be smoking you in your ribs because you hit our number three hole hitter. And if we fight, so be it. You know, most of the kids nowadays that are playing the game, they don't have a stomach for this kind of baseball, but they forget that baseball is a battle for real estate, and the more comfortable your opponent is with you, with being in the batter's box against you, stepping onto the mound against you, the more comfortable they are, the better chance that they have to beat you. And it's for that reason that I look at the fraternization in the game of baseball, and I literally think to myself, where have we gone? Like how have we gotten to the place where these guys are all buddy buddy? I mean, I understand nobody pitches in anymore, nobody nobody really wants to get into it. Um baseball fights are the the worst slap fests that you've ever seen. Okay, maybe not. The NBA is worse. But like, come on. We you're not playing for my team, and I need you to go away. I need you to get away from me, I need you to get away from my teammates, I need them to focus on us versus you and getting the right frame of mind uh for the game tonight. And so, you know, like I said, David was one of those guys, he he didn't really mean anything by it. He just liked to talk with people, and he wanted to make sure uh that the boys knew that he he was there for them. Um some big matchups, you know, uh about to pop off, uh, some bigger ones happening. Um, you know, in the WBC, we're finally gonna get to the marrow, so to speak, and uh we're we're gonna see some some pretty good baseball coming up here. And uh, you know, I I'm looking forward to to at least seeing if these guys are gonna get serious.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Leading off the latest MLB news.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

The prospect cut down continues. I mean, it's just unbelievable. I don't understand um how these ball clubs, with all these guys gone, playing in the WBC, how they can be cutting down some of these guys that are just super uh phenom prospects. You know, the Dodgers sent Nelson uh Rada down. I mean, just just an incredible uh young talent. Uh the Diamondbacks, uh Ryan Waldschmidt, Jesus Made for the Brewers, 18-year-old kid, number one prospect. Um, I I don't understand. Like you've got all these at-bats, you've got all these innings, and you've got plenty of opportunity for these kids to get seen against big league caliber talent. You know, I've been waxing on both episodes about you know kids not being, you know, not being good enough to be out there against the stars. Well, hey, we're not talking about the stars. We're talking about, you know, we're just regular old Joe Big Leaguer. But if I'm a GM, if I'm a manager, I want to know whether a kid like Nelson Rada is is a is a candidate to be called up. And the more the more I see of him with my own eyeballs, the better chance I have to make an evaluation on whether this kid can help me. I want to see him in a bunch of different situations. I want to see him up against different types of major league players to see how he matches up. How how's he going to react to failure? Uh that's as important to me as how much success the kid has. And so when you look at how much of the headlines the WBC take up takes up, it it's all WBC out there. But for me, it's more about the the prospects that are getting sent out early. They're only getting 10, 15 at bats. And uh, to me, that's that's criminal. I think these these clubs should be holding on to these kids until the guys from the WBC come back and force them out so that they can rejoin the team, uh, start to get that chemistry going with their teammates, and you know, start to get ready for opening day. That's the important thing for me. Um, you know, in a typical year, in a typical non-world baseball classic year, uh, these kids don't get that kind of opportunity. You know, they they they get the token, you know, invite to bring to big league spring training, especially if they're on the roster. Uh, they might last a couple of weeks or at least until uh the minor leagues start playing exhibition games, and and then they they get cut out and they're on their way out. But this year's a great opportunity for them. Uh, one of the only positives of the WBC, I think. It's a missed opportunity to get a real look at these these kids. Um, speaking of uh a golden opportunity, uh my next guest in uh on the second edition of Walk Off Slams, uh the golden boy himself, um you know, the ginger, my brother from another mother, uh, my former broadcast partner, Jamie Campbell, will be joining us here on Walk Off Slams.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

You're listening to Walk Off Slams with grades on on AM 1150.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Welcome back to Walk Off Slams from my beautiful studio downtown Kelowna, British Columbia, AM 1150. You know, and people ask me all the time, they ask me, you know, you're more of a coaching type of guy. Like, how did you end up in television? And, you know, of course, people joke all the time and they tell me I have a face for radio. Well, look at where I'm at now. So I always tell them the story about uh one fateful day at the Rogers Center, standing in front of the fence there by the dugout, and uh my next guest, my brother from another mother, Jamie Campbell, coming up to me and asking me if I wanted to do some postseason analysis. And I said, uh, does it mean I get to stay in Toronto an extra month? And he's like, Yes, it does. It certainly does. And so without further ado, my former broadcast partner on Blue Jay Central, as I said, my brother from Another Mother, Jamie Campbell. Welcome, Jamie.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Jesus, lovely to hear your voice. This would be the first time since you and I have known each other where you are interviewing me.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah, yeah, isn't that crazy? Isn't that wild? Gosh, you know, I I it's funny that you say that. I used to describe my job as getting interviewed every day by one of my best friends. And uh they're like, well, that sounds like a really good job. And I said, Whoa, you don't know the half of it. I mean, just ordering dinner was an Olympic sport for us. It was a lot of fun. A lot of fun. You know, uh people have heard my version of it a bunch of times, but I I don't think I've ever asked you exactly why did you approach me? When when did you decide it was going to be me?

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Well, there were a couple of reasons. First, from a very practical standpoint, I knew as the host of postseason baseball every year on SportsNet that we had established a little bit of a revolving door of analysts. And for a short time, Ryan Dempster played that role, but things got busy for him at some point, and and he just could not commit to continuing uh to join me. And I was always on the lookout for someone that I felt was A opinionated, B capable of handling the English language in a clear Thought and C had an outstanding ingrained knowledge of the game. And I remember conversations with you around the batting cage that had nothing to do with broadcast and everything to do with baseball. And your clarity of thought just caught my attention at some point. And, you know, I always thought, wow, this guy is here in the city. He's a catcher. And as we know, catchers make the best analysts because they have to have an idea of how the game is played from every perspective. And given that you were a Blue Jay, there was a cachet attached to that. And I don't know what it was that prompted me to ask. I'm glad that you responded with the affirmative because it led to, you know, some wonderful postseason runs where you and I got to uh roll right through to the end of the World Series. And of course, the Blue Jays, while you were playing for them, were never a postseason team, so it meant you were available, right? And uh and then that fostered uh an opportunity for you to come on board full-time as my co-host on Blue Jay Central, and uh and I'd say it was a good choice, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Well, I I think I need to send Ryan Dempster a thank you card for having a busy life because you know that that you know gesture by you led to twelve years of broadcast work. Um five as a as an active player and another oh seven or eight uh when I retired, so maybe thirteen. Um and obviously, you know, spawned a a lifelong friendship, you know. And I just I just loved love the amount of time that we got to spend together. The the the non-baseball conversations for me uh you know still stick out. Our our manipulation of song lyrics, uh the the the the old days and aging court ordering, you know, licks burgers and and and you know, my I fell in love with Swiss Jalais, as as we affectionately call it the Swiss Pidge.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

To explain to the listenership, you know, our studio at the time that you joined me, and I think our first postseason together was 2006, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Um, the year in which the incredibly the uh St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series with a lesser record than the Toronto Blue Jays, um, who didn't make the postseason that year. And we were situated in a studio that was way up in sort of the northeastern quadrant of Toronto, um, unlike where our studios are situated now, which is in the heart of the city. And so our food limitations were significant when it was time to have a meal and watch whatever game we were um hosting. So that's I think that's where the introduction came to you to the joys of Swiss chalet delivery.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

And the double leg dinner.

unknown 25:09

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Um, which I I don't know, Greg, I haven't had that in probably three or four years easily.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Oh my goodness. I do it almost every every week at my house.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Well, we did it, we did it like every night for seemingly decades. And then if you'll recall, once we got to the Rogers Center and Blue J Central was live from the concourse, um, at some point it got replaced by Chipotle.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

It did. It did. It got Chipotle.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

We we had You had Chipotle on Speed Dial. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

And and Jake the Snake would go go over across the street and pick it up for us. Yeah. Love it. Jake's Jake Shannon, yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, some obviously some fun memories. A big, big portion of of my my life, you know, certainly my my postseason career uh really took off there in Toronto with you and and broadcasting for the Blue Jays. Uh that was a a a fun time for me, and and I really enjoyed you know working with you. I tell people all the time, you know, Jamie Campbell, you know, just teed it up for me for the better part of a decade and allowed me to make friends, enemies, for enemies. Uh we we certainly ignited uh uh some passion surrounding the the program and the ball club. I I remember uh you were a lot better at figuring out the numbers than I than I was, but uh listening to uh certain front office personnel talk about how I was bad for business, how we were bad for business when we were critical of the team. And yet the first three years that we worked together, the record for the Jays went down, down, down. Yet the attendance went up, up, up, and so did the ratings on the program. So I'm scratching myself on the back right now thinking, you know what, we were a good partnership, and I had I had a ton of fun. So this is a thrill for me to to have you. And I and I know you are are really close to the ball club. You you're a big fan of the Jays, big fan of Canadian sports uh i i in in all uh facets, but uh I think what's what's on everybody's mind right now is the Blue Jays pitching. Um what are you hearing out of the Blue Jays camp with regards to uh Beaver's forearm tightness, the presence of Max Scherzer? I mean, this was a strength of theirs coming in, and yet we're hearing some negative things. Uh Berrios doesn't get put on Puerto Rico squad because he can't get insured. What's really going on down there in Dunedin, Jamie?

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Well, there's there's a couple of things, but but I'll say this first. You can never have enough depth in every position in baseball. It's it's the funniest thing to deal with in spring training, where there are certain players that come into camp with what we'll call guaranteed jobs, and yet there are certain depth players that have such a great spring, and by virtue of their performance and their numbers, deserve a spot on that 26-man roster, but it's not available to them because there are incumbents and veterans who have earned that position on opening day. And where the Blue Jays rotation is concerned, you know, there was a point a few days ago when they they literally had eight prospective starting pitchers, all of whom had the credentials, the resume, and the right to be part of a big league starting rotation on opening day. But, you know, one of the things that works, and listen, you know, Shane Bieber, when he was acquired in 2025, was coming off a year away as he was recovering from Tommy John. Um, so you know, I think it's probably wise that uh regardless of of where his aches and pains are, they just bring him along slowly, because you know as well as anybody, it's 162, and you need some horses and some bullets at the very end of the season. So they're going to monitor Trey Savage, for example, um, and probably piggyback him uh with a guy who probably deserves a spot in the rotation in lefty Eric Lauer. But what you haven't heard from Eric Lauer this spring is complaint. And that's one of the reasons why the Blue Jays were as successful as they were last year, is that nobody put up a fuss when they were made aware of their role with the club. Um, and I think that is a testament not only to um management in the upper office and management in the clubhouse, but the veterans themselves, because I know that at the end of 2024, the veteran core of that team, Chris Bassett, Kevin Gossman, Bo Bachet, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., um, Dalton Barshow, some of the players who had been around for some time gathered and collected their manager and said, look, this cannot happen again in 2025. They finished dead last, as you know, in 2024. The veterans said something has got to change, and we need everybody to buy into winning and making winning the sole focus. And if that means letting go of more talented players to get someone who is team-oriented, we need to do it. So the foundation for a World Series run actually started a year prior at a time when nobody knew that they'd end up going all the way to game seven of the World Series. So I know there has been criticism, and a lot of people are wondering why would you stall the progress of someone like Treya Savage? Well, here's a kid who threw about 140 innings last year, which is about 50 more than he'd ever done in a single season. And 30 of those innings were in high pressure playoff situations. And you know as well as anybody, Greg. The game has changed. You know, you don't you don't go out and start 32 games anymore or 33 games and throw 90 miles an hour and get away with it. You know, kids are coming up now, and they don't even have a chance in the big leagues unless they're unless they're at minimum hitting 95. And that's the way the game has changed. So these measures have to be put in place, as the Blue Jays are doing, to protect those arms. Um, you saw how Jose Barrios himself went on the uh IL late last season, in essence, because he was out of bullets. And now, you know, his immediate future is being called into question with um some concern over his his right arm at this very moment. And it's very unlikely, I guess, that he'll be a part of the opening day starting rotation. So thank goodness for depth, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Yeah, no doubt. I mean, you you you hit the nail on the head. You gotta have depth. And uh so that kind of leads me to my next question. Uh it's amazing how we ebb and flow. It's like we worked together before. Um, you know, who's the next Trey Savage? What are you hearing around camp? Who did the Jays love? Are there gonna be any surprises? A dark horse, possibly, to make a team?

SPEAKER_02 32:38

You know who was Treya Savage before Trey Ya Savage got there was Ricky Tiedeman, the lefty. And Ricky Tiedeman, three years ago, was the talk of camp and you know, a future Cy Young award candidate, but he's been beset by injuries. Um in fact, he had Tommy John as well. In fact, one of the reasons why they're being so cautious with people like you Savage is because, and I heard this recently that two years ago, I was wandering around talking to the minor leaguers down at the training complex two years ago, and almost every young pitching prospect um I spoke to in camp either was en route to having Tommy John or ended up having to get it middle of the season. I think two years ago they lost nine prospects to Tommy John, including um a former first-round pick by the name of Brandon Barriera, who's now recovering. Uh, Tiedeman was one of those guys. Chad Dallas, who you may see in the big leagues this year with the club, they have a number of arms down in the system that could conceivably come up. Tiedeman, I think, is the one that they hope figures things out and gets healthy enough to do so. There's this big six foot four, two hundred and thirty-pounder who will probably start in Buffalo this year by the name of Grant Rogers, that I would uh I would keep an eye on. He uh I believe he was in Vancouver for a spell last year, and um I watched one of his bullpen sessions and and uh and I did so with Pat Hankin, and Hankin was just raving about this kid's ability to fill the strike zone. And then in future years you're gonna you're gonna hear about kids like uh Johnny King, who was, I think, a second or third rounder out of high school last year. So as you well know, you have to build a franchise now as well as you can through the draft and through development, and you're constantly stockpiling arms. It seems like pitching is the most important uh position in the game these days.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Oh, it's definitely I'm finding out the hard way the last few years, you know, in independent ball building rosters, even now, you know, uh managing the Kelowna Falcons, trying to find arms, trying to find guys that could throw 90 miles an hour somewhere near home plate, so I can give Josh Towers, my pitching coach, form of blue Jay, uh something to work with. You know, we we we feel like we're gonna be a competitive club, but finding those arms is huge, and you know, you you're you're bang on. I mean, it it takes a lot. Um so switching gears a little bit and as far as you know you know building the the foundation, we're gonna lose Buck Martinez this year. And uh, you know, he's been a hallmark with the the Blue Jays broadcast for decades now, and and I mean he was there when I got there, he he was there after I left. Uh what are they gonna do to fill those shoes?

SPEAKER_02 35:40

Well, first of all, as we were discussing earlier about how you and I met up, talked, and found you a path into broadcasting. You think about it all these years later, that decision you made to join me has literally made you a resident of this country. You're living in British Columbia for the most part, Greg, right? Yeah, yeah. Because you took up my offer of coming and joining us at SportsNet for the postseason over 20 years ago. Buck Martinez had a similar path. Um, I always love to tell people when he replaced me in the play-by-play role after the 2009 season, and somebody asked me if I was upset, and I said, How could I possibly be upset at being replaced by a guy who was in professional baseball the year I was born? So Buck joined professional baseball in 1967, and he's been around it ever since. Um, at the point where he thought his career was about one or two years from ending, he got traded to Toronto. He was dumbfounded because he didn't know much about the place. You know, and now I assume at some point soon we're gonna see his name on the level of excellence for what he did, yes, as a player, but mostly as a broadcaster. That's clearly how he'll be remembered in this country. There are so many people that think of his voice as a friend and a companion. Um and as you know, he's experienced some health scares in recent years with a fairly aggressive form of cancer that needed to be treated and was successfully. Um I believe he's now seventy-seven years of age. So you know, time catches up to all of us, and maybe he just figured that instead of jumping on a plane and you know, and flying to uh Toronto for ten days and and then off to New York and perhaps Tampa Bay or Kansas City or wherever the road trip was gonna take them, maybe it's best to spend those years with his wife, Arlene, and their grandchildren and you know, and relax. I haven't had he and I have texted a little bit. I haven't had a good conversation with him as to why it was uh announced in uh in early February that it was his decision to hang it up. But um we should all be so lucky, Greg, that we get to decide when we walk away.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Yeah, for sure. That was probably the the one of the biggest blessings that I ever had in the game was my ability to make that final decision when I wanted to walk away and uh move on to something else, which turned out to be eight straight glorious years with you, my friend. And with with that, I want to say thank you for joining me. Uh I definitely want to have you back on as soon as I can because it's just uh you know, being here in Canada, obviously it uh it grew on me enough to where I want to live here. So I'm here in British Columbia, and you know, it it is it is because of your decision to approach me and and me saying yes. Um what a treat to have you on today. Uh always bringing the great insight with this ball club and and you know, being here in Canada, I'm gonna be heavy blue jays. So uh definitely going to be uh calling on you, my friend, for for some knowledge and some pearls during the summer. And uh with that out I will uh bid you adieu and let everyone know that when I come back, I will be bringing you the next installment of the Sunday roast on Walk-Off Plan. And now Sunday Roast. One of my favorite movie quotes of all time is from Cadyshack, where Judge Schmelz says gambling is illegal at Bushwood, and I never sliced. Well, Schmelz inevitably slices it into the woods, and just like Judge Schmelz, Major League Baseball sliced one into the woods with the way they handled the death of Pete Rhodes. In fact, they can't get the way they tend to with most of their policies, especially gambling and drug testing. Now I'm thrilled the Hit King is in. Long overdue in my mind. His playing career was Hall of Fame worthy, and in my not so humble opinion, the hall was grossly incomplete without the all-time hit leader. He broke the hallowed rule 21 and gambled on baseball, though. He bet on himself to win as a manager. Yes, you heard that right. He bet on himself, and for that, he received a lifetime ban, which is in fact prescribed by the most hallowed of hallowed rules. Uh it says that if you bet on a game you have a duty to perform in, you receive a lifetime ban. Simply betting on someone else's game only gets you a year. Rule 21 goes on to say that if you don't give your best effort to win, you're in violation and subject to banishment. Uh I'm here to argue Pete Rhodes gave the strongest effort of any manager in history because he had money riding on the games. So tell me this. Uh if your interpreter places the bets for you, what do you get? Oh, I think we already know. Nothing happens, especially when you're the face of the game and the key to billions of dollars in the Asian markets, further proving that money talks and Major League Baseball does actively decide who they want their stars to be. Now let's look at their drug policy. They don't test for drugs like cocaine, marijuana, or ecstasy, but they do test for stimulants and steroids that might actually help you play better. They didn't seem to have a problem with them when Sosa and Maguire were saving baseball back in 1998, after the lockout in 94 almost bankrupted the game. They'd like to put an asterisk on every number achieved during the so-called steroid era, but they'll go as far as to buy the company Rawlings and juice the balls to make it easier to hit for power. I mean, the average home run total for a Major League player with 600 plate appearances is now 20 home runs. The home run total for AAA spiked by 40% the year they bought the baseball maker. Really? We're not having asterisk chit-chat about the baseballs. There's even some pretty credible info that suggests that they went as far as sending super juice balls to New York to make sure that Aaron Judge got to 60 jacks in 2024. You see, they decide who they want to be stars. They allow antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication, and they will even let a guy use testosterone if he happens to lose a testicle to cancer just to level his playing field. They let guys who claim they can't concentrate ewed at all, but if you are one of the guys on the fringe, hang with him. Doesn't sound level to me. Fact is, a level playing field doesn't exist anywhere in life. Always gonna be bigger, faster, stronger, and have the ability to concentrate better longer. Where's the field leveling exceptions for shorter, slower, and weaker? They don't exist. And if a guy tries a workaround, he gets banned as well. They decide who stinks and who swims. Whatever fits the narrative this year. One year it was woke, then it was let them play. Twenty years ago it was stop pitching in and let guys with undocumented injuries wear body armor. That's making the outer half a playground for power hitters. I once had a teammate who needed a pharmacy to deal with his anxiety, fear, and depression. The cocktail he was on allowed him to swat 50 home runs in a season and get seriously paid. I wonder how he and guys like him would do as gladiators in the arena. Uh guessing those guys are gonna get fed to the lions the way they fed the interpreter to the justice system. Good thing for the Dodger fans that there's a lot of money in Japan. It's Sunday. Can you smell that roast?