It’s that time again, folks, Fred and the Fantasticks, Mark Mancini, the World’s Worst Sports Handicapper and Art Sorce.
We’re on BLEAV and PodClips and we’re heard everywhere. Love your emails at sportsfred@aol.com, sportsfred@aol.com.
You know, we were talking off the air about who’s going to be the next VP on the Democratic side.
I’m going to tell you right now. Former astronaut.
Uh, breaking news, Mark Kelly is what Fred comes up with on that one.
Mark, I knew you were going that way.
Not, not, not open to discussion.
Mark Kelly will be the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate.
And of course, uh, his, his wife, Gabby Giffords was shot in 2011.
And so, uh, he’s big, uh, anti-guns and things like that.
How old is he?
Uh, late fifties, early sixties, early sixties, early sixties, I think.
And that’s an important state, a growing state, the purple state.
So, I mean, yeah, that makes sense.
And a Democratic governor.
So he’ll, he’ll replace him with a Democratic senator.
And so it’s Mark. It’s Mark Kelly.
Remember now, Rose Silver, my aunt used to was a Republican,
but all her kids are Democrats.
They live in Arizona.
So I hear it first up.
My cousins tell me Mark Kelly can’t lose here.
I want to talk about HBO.
Well, we’re now in the, uh, almost the eighth month of the year and, um, we haven’t had Real
Sports after 29 years and eight months.
I’m very disappointed in HBO.
Now they’re doing a documentary.
It’s a four piecer, and I saw it on a Pete Rose, basically a Pete trying to get
into the Hall of Fame.
I don’t know if you guys have seen any of it, but very, very pro Pete Rose is
what you’re saying.
Uh, a little bit, uh, pro Pete Rose, but let’s start with Mark.
Do you have any comments and if you’ve seen it or not,
you think Pete Rose deserves to be in the Hall of Fame?
Well, you’ve known me, what, 20 years,
maybe even longer than that.
You guys, you know where I stand.
I don’t switch.
I think Pete Rose doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame.
I mean, I don’t think anything with betting on baseball
has anything to do with his hits.
And there’s a lot of guys that are in the Hall of Fame
to me that don’t belong in the Hall of Fame.
One would be David Ortiz, and then there’s guys…
Let me ask you a question. If Thom Brennaman can be back in broadcasting, maybe Pete Rose
deserves to go to the Hall of Fame too. You know, there is such a thing as paying your
penance. Has it been 30 years now, 35, 40 years, 50 years? I’d like to see him get
in before he dies. And I’m not saying what he did was right. I also feel the same
way about Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens. I actually think Mark McGwire, years from
will be considered to be a real sad situation because of what he did for baseball along with
Sammy Sosa in that one year. So it all comes down to personal opinion. But Fred, what do you think?
Well, no, I don’t think I would ever put him in the Hall of Fame. Here’s the thing. I think I saw a slogan
the other day and I thought to myself, gosh, says you never regret anything in life,
except the good you do to the wrong people, you know, helping out, helping out the, the
wrong people.
And what I, what I thought of that was the Hall of Fame.
When guys that saved the game in, in 94 end up getting thrown under a bus and rolled
over a few times.
And then the guy that gets to go in the Hall of Fame that sat in the car while
he knew they were robbing the bank is Bud Selig.
So I mean, it’s, I don’t know, at leaves a bad, I can forgive being a Christian,
but you don’t forget something like that.
So that’s, that’s a tough situation.
With Pete Rose, though, it’s more than just the fact
that he lied all those years about wagering.
And I’ll give him.
I don’t think he bet against his own team.
I think he just bet on.
Is that the Bud Selig line?
Let me let me finish.
But yeah, I’ll give I’ll give him that he
only bet on his team to win.
But you see,
If you bet on your team to win $10,000, that game you’re going to use your best reliever.
If you don’t bet, then all the people out there are going to say, well, he’s not sure,
so maybe I’ll bet the other way.
So he’s giving you the-
By not betting, it’s as bad as betting.
It’s the same thing.
Thank you.
And also, there are other circumstances with Pete Rose considering and concerning a 15
or 16-year-old woman.
Young ladies, yeah.
young lady that came out later. So it would be tough to put him
in the Hall of Fame. But Art’s point was well taken. He will be
put in the Hall of Fame once he’s dead. That, that, that I
would be willing to make a prediction right here on Fred
and the Fantastics heard on BLEAV and PodClips.
Fred, we’ve got the Olympics coming on in what, two hours, opening opening ceremonies the
whole shot. Mike Tirico gonna be right there. I hear Peyton
Manning is on the telecast with NBC, he’s going to be doing a
bunch of different things around town with Payton, which
you know, you’ve seen the commercials for Visa. Are you
excited about the Olympics? What are your trepidations?
What are your thoughts? You’ve, like me, you’ve seen a
lot of them at our age.
Oh, well, again, I don’t follow it as closely because
it’s not amateur anymore. So it doesn’t mean the same to
me. I do hope Simone Biles does very well gymnastic-wise
because, you know, we saw her three years ago, and I’m
sure most of us did in Tokyo. Psychologically, she just couldn’t get it done in the three
years. Hopefully, she’s back to where she was before, because when she’s 100%, she’s
going to win it and I hope she does. She’s amazing. She’s amazing, as you said. So
I’m hoping for that, and I’m not sure too much else I care about nowadays. I used
to love volleyball. I used to love women and men’s volleyball and things like that.
I don’t care at all about the soccer. How about the old original track and field stuff?
Uh, go ahead, Mark, tell me what you think.
Well, I was gonna switch, I was going to switch gears on it, but, you know, what about the revival with the Chicago Bears?
The guy getting the haircut, the white pants, Caleb Williams, Hard Knocks, I mean it’s amazing what’s going on in Chicago.
The Bears they’re the monsters of the midway.
The Bears are ready to roar on the midway? Is that what you’re telling me, Markie?
Yeah. Let’s go.
We got to talk about the training deadline in baseball.
We’ve got some teams that really need,
got the Dodgers need pitching.
You got the Braves who are dropping pitchers,
like, between the two of them, 20 pitchers are out.
Even Harbaugh is saying Lamar Jackson is the best
quarterback he’s ever seen.
Really? I thought he missed the first three days of training camp.
Oh, boy. I’ll tell you, these coaches,
You know, it’s like the rites of spring and spring training. Everybody’s gonna win the pennant in March.
Right, Russell Wilson, Justin Fields.
Let me make, let me make this case if you’re talking about the, the trading deadline
the Braves punch to, to the head happened a couple of days ago when
Albies, the second baseman went down now for two months
I, he so he might be back the last week or two of the season, but that’s about it.
They’d already lost Acuna for the year.
Harris, I don’t know where the hell,
because I thought he was going to be an MVP candidate.
He got hurt a month ago.
I’ve never seen as many injuries that they’ve had.
And the Dodgers, of course, again,
they’ve had 15 different starting pitchers.
If they trade for a pitcher, you
know the pitcher is going to get hurt.
So they’re not going to give up too much.
And if they’re not going to give up too much,
they’re not going to be able to make the trade.
And if you’re let’s say if you’re Crochet of the White Sox,
You’re going to ask for a long-term contract.
The Dodgers already have given Yamamoto $325 million over 12 years.
They’ve given Ohtani $70 million a year.
Yeah what’s the prognosis on Yamamoto?
Is he getting close to coming back? They say Mid-September.
They said a month, but what does that mean?
First time back, he’ll hurt himself again. I’m in, I’m out.
That’s worse than a Biden press conference. I hear you.
You know, I’m willing to take the field in the National
League and give you the top seeds except the Phillies. But I don’t know.
The Phillies to me are a dangerous squad. They went out.
They got a guy in the case now, but then I think around two out of three.
Last, I don’t want to knock it, but Fred, I think the Dodgers are playing
with, you know, Jacks and nines and these other teams are playing with
Aces and Kings here.
They’re dropping.
You know, the Phillies are going to load up. Look at the rotations of
the best teams in baseball.
Okay. And the Phillies right now, you know, and they have very little injuries. They have
five good starters. All right. If you look down baseball, it becomes, okay. And then
you got to look at the top three starters because of the playoffs. The other guys are
going to fill in, you know, with a couple of innings here and there, the way modern
baseball is my guy went did great. He got me five innings. Yeah. Okay. But hey,
we got a no hitter the other night, the Padres with their second no hitter in
history. I mean, that was unbelievable.
Okay. Dylan Cease was a White Sox. The Dodgers
could have had him. They were first in line. They didn’t offer
enough because they, they always try to just get a little bit too much.
What’s going on with Reinsdorf and the White Sox? I mean,
they come up with all this talent and they just ship it
away. They’re like the Pirates were for 10 years.
You know, Garrett Cole and down the line. It’s like crazy.
They had an attendance figure.
I don’t know if you guys caught it,
but the Dodgers have been averaging 40, 47,000.
The second closest team was 39,000.
That was the Padres.
And then you had all these other ones in the 28, 20,
the Pirates were 20,000.
The last, but the last two games that Skenes pitched,
they had 34,000 people in PNC.
So if there is a phenomenon there, the kid’s for real,
everything I’ve talked to or heard from regarding people in and around
Pittsburgh and LSU, he is physically a talented human being.
And, you know, I, I think they’ve got something going here and you know,
we’ll see what happens at the trading deadline.
Let me, let me, let me go back.
Let me go back to the Dylan Cease no-hitter.
He had 94 pitches through seven.
If he’s pitching for the Dodgers, he doesn’t pitch the eighth.
No. Did you see Schultz and him talking in the dugout?
They actually had, there were six guys around him and they had a
discussion in the, in the seventh inning.
He said, he said, Skip, let me go. I feel great.
I got a no hitter in me.
And Schultz said, yeah, go for it.
You know, that was great managing.
You mentioned, uh, Tom Brenneman before and Marty Brenneman, by the
way, is a lot is on a lot on the HBO documentary on Pete Rose.
One of my favorite broadcasters, a friend for many years. He was doing the Reds games and during a break he didn’t
know his mic was on and he made an anti-homosexual comment and for four years he has not worked and
Art you think it’s okay that he’s back now? He can be working for CW. Go ahead. I’m saying
that he made a full apology. He actually took classes. He basically said that
he learned his lesson and you know he’s lost like five million dollars in total income from both Fox
and Major League Baseball, so he’s paid the penalty in other ways as well, and like Mark always talks
about and I talk about the United States is a nation of second chances and if you truly do
are humbled by what you did wrong then you come out and you face the music and you say
you’re sorry, you know, I don’t know how long it, but that’s, that’s what I believe
in. You know, not talking about murder.
Mark, Tom Brenneman, four years ago has Artie said, uh, lost $5 million over the four
years back with the CW doing football. Uh, is that okay with you, Mark? You’re a religious
guy.
Well, I mean, how many people go to work every day and get in an argument with somebody
then shake their hand and have a beer after. I mean, you know, if you’re, if, uh, I, I,
I think it’s to the point where, you know, he gets caught in the cookie jar on it, you
know, I mean, I don’t know. I mean, there’s a lot of people, they’re probably walking
around that, you know, he’s going to get booed the next time it goes to Kansas city. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s,
you know, that’s the thing. So, I mean, I don’t know, but like I said, and Artie
alluded to, you know, we live in a country where Steve Howe was given nine chances with
the Dodgers.
You know, so I don’t know, Steve Howe was a different thing.
He was hurting himself in every situation, merits its own, well, I think, I think, you know,
whether it’s hurting yourself or not, it could be perpetrating others too, because
the sad part is I think he’s a good broadcaster.
I love them on the Fox and the NFL.
He did a good job there.
He was number two in the pecking order on Fox.
He had a great job in Cincinnati.
He came from a legacy.
His dad’s a Hall of Fame radio announcer on WLW with Joe Nuxhall for many, many years.
I mean, yeah, what he said was way wrong.
It’s a tough one, Fred. Again.
All right.
Final 30 seconds already.
Tell us what you think.
I’m just excited. You know, I’m kind of bummed that the Olympics is such a big fiasco.
I miss Bob Costas. I miss your show, you know, that with, with, with Bryant Gumbel. I love that show.
Yeah. Real Sports because they, they tackle the part of sports that nobody wants to talk about,
which is the inside stuff that means the most. But other than that, it’s the middle of summer.
It’s the dog days of summer, do the best we can. I’m looking forward to a great weekend
of sports and I just hope everything works out and we stay healthy and prosperous.
All right Mark, darn I’m gonna miss you next Thursday. Mario needs a day off so
I’ll be back the following by the way Mark has anybody told you that you’re fantastic?
No, just a piece of a puzzle with you guys but I feel good. The Pirates going to the…
My final comments would be I opened with this Mark Kelly will be the
And I would not be shocked if they make a change as far as the VP for the other side.
And you’re diving in the Seine later, right?
Would not be shocked if they make a change.
Diving in the Seine later, right?
Mario, thank you very much, Art.
Thank you very much, Mark.
Thank you very much, folks.
Thank you for listening to Fred and the Fantastics on BLEAV and on PodClips.
Bye, everybody.