It’s that time again, folks, Fred and the Fantastics. BLEAV and PodClips, and this, that and anything in sports, and a little bit more. With Art, with Laura for Matthew, for Mario, I am Fred. Email us again at [email protected], [email protected]. Folks, we’re taping this at one o’clock in the afternoon on Friday, four hours away from Game Six of the World Series. Just discovered that George Springer will be playing for the Blue Jays tonight. Art. You thought the Dodgers, I think, would win? I thought the Dodgers would win. What do you think now?

I actually took Toronto in seven. I still like the bet. But you know, right now, I gotta tell you it’s the best time right now to bet the Dodgers. Because this is still the best team money can buy. And if you go down through the lineup from A, from one through 26, there is no better team in baseball. But they also have a great pitcher on the mound. Who, if you look at this series and the previous National League Championship series, Yamamoto has been the battleship. He’s the guy that’s put them right in position. They need a big game out of him, and then it’s all hands on deck at game seven.

Mark, you’re a big Toronto fan, make your case.

Well, first of all, if you looked at Game Three, Artie, the Blue Jays lost, and they didn’t complain. They kept their composure, and after that Game Three, they could have mailed it in. I didn’t see anybody complaining about calls getting thrown out at third. They were just resilient, and I think the Dodgers were gassed, and then they came back to the next two, and they rolled them. And now the inevitable is gonna come. The nails are definitely going in the coffin on one of these two games. I’m thinking tonight the nails will definitely be in the coffin. And you bring up a good point, Artie. But that point has been brought up all year about how the Dodgers are this or that. I don’t think the Blue Jays really care because they took out one billion-dollar club in the Yankees; they’re about ready to take out a second one.

Laura, you’re a big Dodger fan. You’ll be watching the game this evening. What do you think?

I’ll be watching the game and crossing my fingers. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, if Yoshi pitches a good game tonight, which, you know, it’s a lot to ask from what he’s been doing. You know, the Dodgers certainly have been disappointing, but they do tend to rise up in the clutch, and so many of their good hitters aren’t really hitting. I mean, I think their batting average is like .217 or something.

Mookie needs to have a big game tonight.

Mookie needs to be Mookie.

That’s right.

But you know, the other thing is, you know, the Dodgers are really not a young team. And maybe that’s catching up with them. All the travel and back to the East Coast, and you know, who knows? I mean, I think it’s actually a toss-up right now as to who’s going to win.

You know, they’re actually favored on the road.

John Hyman, fine baseball writer, says that what’s going on with Mookie Betts is too much shortstop. He’s too tired from playing shortstop. Art, what do you think?

I agree wholeheartedly. I mean, I would like to see him out in right field, put Rojas in at shortstop, and here’s my theory on that. The shortstop’s constantly having to make signals, talk to the infielders; he’s focused on so many things, and Mookie’s done a great job, okay, but I’d like him to worry about one thing: getting a fastball on the inner half and putting it up into the Rogers Centre stratosphere.

Well, you guys are Dodger fans, and I’m sorry, Matt. The one thing I noticed in this whole thing, the Dodgers, and I don’t know if it’s Dave Roberts, maybe the analytics have caught up to him, maybe they figured out the top three. But it just seems to be a blame game if you listen to these guys after, where the layoff and this and that. And John Wooden once said, No excuses, make adjustments.

You’re the world’s worst handicapper, right, Mark? Where can you get the Dodgers to win the World Series at plus 225? That’s where they are right this second. Think about that for a minute.

If you play the game enough, you could flip the script.

I’m not saying it won’t happen, I’m not saying it won’t happen. I mean, I bet Toronto to win the Series, but my bet right now is to take the Dodgers to win the next two games, plus 250. You can’t do much better than that on the Dodgers.

Matthew DiBiase,

I’ll say this.

Matthew DiBiase, sports historian,

Yeah, I’ll say this. A week ago, I said the Dodgers had to do it in five. They failed in that regard. As soon as Toronto took Game Four, I thought, Oh boy, here it comes, because it’s just like they did against Seattle; they forced it to go back to Toronto, they got the momentum, and believe me, Sky Dome. I was talking to a Canadian friend of mine, she’s there in Toronto, and she said, They are going to be so sky high,

It’s going to be bananas.

Yeah, they’re going to be insane and all that.

They’re talking 60% of the Canadian people will be watching and tuning in to this game.

Artie. You’re going against, first of all, you’re going against the best home record in baseball. Number two, hockey is like a religion in Canada. Now, baseball is taking over Toronto.

Yeah, but I’ll tell you another thing. Roberts stayed with Snell much too long in Game Five.

They figured him out.

He stayed too long.

I agree.

I would have had Kershaw on standby, and the first sign of trouble, I would have put in Kershaw.

Yeah, Roberts has had weird pitching decisions.

Yeah.

He keeps going to Blake Treinen, Fred. What are your thoughts on that?

I was surprised he was even on the roster.

Maybe he’s not making the decisions.

But also, Toronto solved the Ohtani problem by doing the Barry Bonds routine with him, too.

They just walked him.

As indicated,

Yeah, well, just like they did to Barry Bonds,

They don’t give him anything to hit.

Right? You know,

As indicated,

But also, L.A. was just self-destructing in Game Five. They were making those mistakes, that wild pitch, they were self-destructing.

Fred. I want to hear what Fred has to say here.

No, I was going to say that Treinen or Tanner Scott will win the Cy Young over Paul Skenes, so I think that,

Well, the other thing you’re battling is nobody’s repeated in the National League since the Reds.

Yeah, that’s a long time ago.

I’m going to say something. Artie’s, I think, point is well taken. You get two to one, two-and-a-half to one against the Dodgers, winning it, I think that’s a pretty good wager. I really do.

I do, too. It’s just, and I’m not saying it’s smart, I’m just saying, when you look at odds, the way odds are set up. I mean, I’ve been laying 185 on the Dodgers all year long, I mean, you know, and they didn’t really come through as much. They were in my mind, 17 games below the Mendoza line for them, which I thought was like 107 or 108.

But Artie, any time you look at it, when you do these predictions and everything down the line, beginning of the year, they’re graded by prognosticators, you know, and that’s, you know, and how many times do we see the predictions come true in these things?

Well, I loved Toronto in the beginning of the year.

You love Toronto?

Yeah.

I mean, we knew the Dodgers were going to be one of the three teams in the National League to be there. So this is not a real secret. I think it was said best by Buster Olney. These are the two best teams in Major League Baseball, and they’ve proven that.

You know, an interesting thing nobody’s talking about, or not talking about much, is the youngster, Yesavage.

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Folks, if you don’t know the story. He started in Single-A this year, and now he’s pitching in the World Series. Yeah, and he struck out 12 against the Dodgers. But from the other side, you know, his sinker sometimes sinks before home plate.

Yeah,

And the umpire continues to call it a strike. It’s not a strike if it doesn’t reach home plate. And so you can’t have it both ways. I don’t, what I’m saying is the umpiring, I’m watching it at home, I’m not the umpire. But it seems to me they can’t have it both ways. The pitch doesn’t reach home plate; it cannot be a strike. Art. What do you think?

I agree. And you know what they used to tell us against the splitter when I was playing baseball? And I played against Rod Boxberger, who had a great splitter. They always said, Get up in the box, because I’m a switch hitter, so I’d bat left-handed. I’d move up about three feet in the box, try to get it before it started to do its dipperoo. And I always swung, like four to six inches lower than what I thought. And every once in a while, you’d get lucky and pop one.

You know what these guys need to wear tonight? Forget about wearing the Toronto Blue Jay outfit.

I was going to say, jockstraps?

No, no, no. They don’t need to wear the white uniforms; they could have come out with, remember in Dodgeball, the average Joes?

Wait a minute, wait a minute, you want to see, what are they called, the City connection uniforms tonight?

No, no, no, they need to come out with the yellow tank top that looks like Hulk Hogan, average Joes with the red sweatbands,

The Savannah Bananas outfit? Or?

Yeah, they got to come out with that. These guys are average Joes, man.

My hunch is the Dodgers take the next two.

Wow.

I’m a Dodger fan.

Hey Fred, let me ask you a question.

Does Yamamoto go the complete game? Does Yamamoto throw a complete game?

Yes. I’ll retract that he’ll go at least eight.

Yeah, that’s what I think.

Yeah. If the Dodgers win this Series, I’ll put Yamamoto as the Dodgers’ MVP in the World Series.

Certainly.

100%.

Well, two weeks from today’s my birthday, next week I’ll come on, and I don’t know, I’ll probably bring the Toronto hat on.

Do they have, like a chicken, like a mascot in Toronto of some sort? Like a Blue Jay running around?

Yeah, a Blue Jay mascot.

Put the Blue Jay in behind you by the bus.

Let me just say this before we go to break. Baseball is not football, in my mind, from the perspective, you know, the fans in a football game can be loud. You can’t hear the signals if you’re a quarterback. I don’t think the Dodgers are looking up and saying, Oh, 80% of Canada is, you know, favoring Toronto, and 50% are watching it on TV. I don’t think the Dodger players are actually thinking that. Maybe the young, 20-year-old kids,

Focused on the spinning of the baseball. Fred.

Yeah, I mean, come on. We’re going to take a break and come back with more on Fred and the Fantastics right after this.

Hey, welcome back everybody, Fred and the Fantastics on BLEAV and PodClips. And during the break, Mark brought up an interesting point, and Artie brought up a point, and Matthew did too. Laura is the attorney. Eric Kay, of course, worked for the Angels, and apparently, he was feeding Skaggs, the pitcher, of course, drugs, and he dies in 2019. And there’s a case going on now. Laura, what do you think? From the point of view of the family, Mark doesn’t believe that the Angels have any responsibility, and that their guy knew about it because they didn’t know about it. Laura, what do you think as an attorney?

I think it’s shared responsibility. That’s the way the law works in California, at least. You’re not supposed to, it’s illegal to distribute illegal drugs, so there’s clearly a civil penalty there for the Angels. The Angels are responsible for their employee under a principle of the law called Respondeat Superior. So if they’re going to have some liability, of course, the player has some liability also. Because, like Mark said, he’s got responsibility for taking the drugs in the first place. So it’s up to the jury to determine what the percentages are between liability between the Angels and the player. As far as, I mean, I haven’t heard all the evidence, of course, you’d need to hear all the evidence to be on the jury to determine it. But, at this point, the jury will probably decide what percentage, whether it’s 50-50, 60-40.

And they actually called Mike Trout in to testify. A lot of the Angel people, they’re going to try to get Artie Moreno to testify. I mean, this is huge, you guys, because I go back to, like, the late ’70s and ’80s. In the clubhouse, there was plenty of beer in there, they had cross tabs in there and you can look that up if you’d like. But the reality of it is, it’s a whole different era now. Matter of fact, I listened to a broadcast once when Enberg was going to NBC and Drysdale was going to ABC. Last game of the year, Lyman Bostock gets murdered in Gary, Indiana.

Yeah, I remember that.

These two did a broadcast, and if you can find the tapes of this someday, they talked about the Major League Baseball and the drug abuse that was going on amidst the whole league, and they called it out the way it was. It was unbelievable, you guys. And I happened to skip school in 8th grade and listened to this thing, and I got to tell you, it blew my mind completely.

He got killed on a Saturday night in Indiana. But you know what, you go back to with Pittsburgh. There’s a book called The Pittsburgh Cocaine Seven.

Curtis Strong, the guy that was the,

Yeah, yeah,

Well, they were trying to bring Stargell and all these guys taking it, it’s like, Dale Berra. I remember that.

Yeah. It was a huge era in baseball, and I got to tell you, this is why it’s going to be very interesting to see the way this jury deliberates and comes up with a judgment.

Matt and Fred, what do you think?

Well, look at the Mets in the ’86, the late ’80s, man, you talk about cocaine there, man. Doc and Darryl, man.

Keith Hernandez.

You can’t hold a team responsible if you know the outcome of what this thing is going to do to you.

Especially when they were the Championship team.

Yeah, if a guy on your team is drunk, is a team responsible?

Well, I mean, look at Babe Ruth used to show up and have a couple of beers before the game. And Mickey and Whitey would go out drinking on the town, you know, and they’d be playing the next day. It’s a completely different era. We can go back to Bobby Lane playing football,

I was going to say that, Bobby Lane.

Steve Howell. Steve Howell.

Hey, let me throw you a question. Folks, we do Sports Overnight America across America every weekend, and we play Baron Sports Trivia. And Artie just brought up the Yankees, and I want to just ask a question here. You guys ready? We’ll play Baron Sports Trivia right here on BLEAV and PodClips on Fred and the Fantastics. Are you ready?

Yeah.

Yep.

How many Yankees from the World Series loss to Pittsburgh in 1960 are still alive? How many members of the Yankees, the losers to Pittsburgh in the 19th Mazeroski home run? How many Yankees are still alive from the Yankee club in 1960? Any thoughts?

Three?

Why do you say three? Who are they, who are they?

I was gonna say Berra,

No, no, Yogi is dead. I say Kubek and Richardson, I think they’re still alive.

I say Tony Kubek, only.

Laura, do you have any thoughts?

I was going to say two, but I guess one.

I don’t know who the hell was on the Yankees, but I know the Pirates.

I think it’s Kubek, I think probably just Kubek.

Mark, you said three, right?

Yeah,

Who are they?

I don’t know who the hell the Yankees were, but I know my Pirates.

I think there are five Pirates that are still alive, but OK, there’s actually three.

Wow,

Wow.

OK, I’m going to tell you. Richardson, Kubek.

Yeah,

And who’s the eldest still alive?

Oh, wait a minute.

Ralph Branca. Maybe.

Left-handed pitcher, 99 years of age.

Oh shoot.

Left-handed pitcher, 99 years of age, from the ’60s,

Luis Arroyo?

Yankees.

God heard around the world.

Luis Arroyo?

Bobby Shantz, still alive.

Oh, that’s right.

He was a Yankee,

Bobby Shantz, he was in the game seven.

He was a tight little left-hander, too. Yeah, I liked him, you know what, didn’t he play for the Phillies for a while also?

No, Yankees.

I could be wrong on this, and you guys might know the answer to it. But it just seems like every time the Pirates have got in the World Series, they have won, haven’t they?

No, they lost, they lost in ’03, they lost in ’27.

Wait a minute. ’03, ’03. They weren’t, what 2003, they weren’t even in it.

No, 1903,

Oh, 1903.

My time, back in my days.

They lost in ’03, they lost in ’27. Uh, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. I think, yeah.

Wow.

What else? No, I think that’s it. Yeah, yeah, those are the only ones they lost, ’03 and 1927.

So they go every 25 years and win, that’s it.

There was a question on a show, and maybe I can help you present this. Would you rather have a team that wins a championship every 10 years, or just be second best every 10 years?

I’ll take it. Okay, well, obviously, that’s an easy question to answer. I thought you were going to say, or a team that’s in the HUD every year and never wins.

Give me the team that wins the series every 10 years. At least each generation gets a thrill, you know?

Let’s switch to the NFL this weekend. And the one o’clock Pacific game, Pacific Time game, four o’clock in the East, the Jaguars four and three, the Raiders two and five. Laura, my first thought would be, there’s only two markets that are going to carry this game, Las Vegas and Jacksonville. Maybe there’s another small couple of cities in Florida. But this is remarkable because usually, you know, you got 30 markets and 25 markets and this and that. But Jacksonville with the Raiders, Laura, you’ve got the Sunday Ticket, so you can watch it. Raiders against Jacksonville. Who do you like?

Well, I, as a diehard Raider fan, we’re always optimistic, even though we’re all depressed this season because we have such high hopes, but I think the Raiders are going to win. They had a bye last week. I think they’re, I have, I hope that the Raiders don’t change their coaching staff. I hope they give this staff a few years because,

Two or three years to build this thing,

I think that is the biggest problem with the Raiders. I mean, they just keep every year, they keep throwing up a new system with all new coaches, and it’s just not a recipe for success. So I hope they give this team a chance,

So, Fred, at CBS headquarters, the big decision was, should we put the Chiefs and the Bills on, or should we put the Jaguars and the Raiders on?

That took about a millisecond.

Well, I mean,

So, I’m going to take, I’m going to take the home team and hope the Raiders can actually win the game. The Raiders are getting three-and-a-half. Maybe, maybe the Jaguars will win by a field goal or something like that. I’d like to see that.

You know, the Bills are my second-favorite team out. I think I’m probably going to watch the Bills today.

I can’t believe they’re getting points, getting points in Buffalo, two points.

I have a friend going to this game, and the first thing I asked him, when you go through the turnstiles, do they give you a bag so nobody notices you’re at the game?

No, you have to jump on the table.

But I will tell you, the coach of the year by far, and they should have got him a year earlier, is Vrabel. Vrabel is definitely the coach of the year.

Yeah, I mean,

That’s a revival, man.

Yeah.

That’s a revival, absolutely.

Let me ask you a question. When you looked up a coach in Wikipedia and they said, This is an NFL coach. Do you see a picture of Mike Vrabel or McDaniels?

I think Mike Vrabel.

You know, that’s interesting, too. Let’s talk about McDaniels, Thursday night in the loss to Baltimore, 28 to 6. There were a couple of officials’ calls, referee calls, I had. No, I didn’t even bet Fantasy on this game; I didn’t care about it. But there were a couple of calls there, and there was a tripping call that could have cost McDaniels his job.

Yeah, two calls.

Because I’m presuming he’s going to be fired, he’s going to be fired any moment now. But I’m just saying that I don’t know if Art, you agree, but that tripping call was ridiculous. There were a couple of others, and I’m saying to myself, What are these guys watching? Art, take it away.

Well, I got to tell you, it was early in the second quarter when that happened, and it changed the whole course of the game. It absolutely did. And people don’t understand that there’s usually two or three seminal plays in an NFL football game, like the other day when the one guy for Detroit picked up, or somebody picked up a fumble, ran it in for the end zone. They took those points off the board, and then the other team went wild and blew the other team out. So this happens a lot in the NFL, so you got to be worried about that. But yes, Fred, that was bad. But here’s the stat of the week. All right, you’re going to like this. The two coaches that wear the capri pants, you know, the ones that kind of come up above your ankle.

Capri pants?

Capris. Yeah, yeah, they’re like a style now they have for men. The coaches who wear those are McDaniel and Aaron Glenn, and they’ve only won one game all year, two games all year between the two of them.

What’s the other stat, with Aaron Rodgers talking to the players on Green Bay about buying his house in Green Bay?

Laura, do you have capri pants? Laura, do you have capris?

I don’t.

Capris,

All right. The second afternoon game on Sunday, Saints, one and seven, Rams, five and two. Rams off last week, Rams about a 12-point favorite in that one. Matt, do you have any comments about the game? Stafford’s playing well.

Yeah, and he’ll continue to play well again. I figure it’s going to be a nice little slaughter of the Saints and all that the Saints will be martyred, you know, on Sunday. So, all the way with the Rams.

Rattler’s not starting for the Saints in that game. All right, the other game, the big one, of course. Chiefs, four and three; Bills, five and two, I think with Worthy and Rice, I think the Chiefs are back. The Chiefs have a slight favorite on the road, I think,

Yeah, no, the Chiefs are two-point favorites.

How many points?

Two-point favorites on the road, that’s amazing, and they’ve had three losses this year.

I like KC and barring, I don’t know rain,

You know what I,

By the way, by the way, by the way, I got to tell you this, Mark. The pick of the week is Indianapolis to blow Pittsburgh off the Allegheny River.

What are you smoking?

By 17 or more. No, really.

What are you smoking?

I’m just telling you, Danny Dimes.

A victory is essential for the Chiefs. If they’re going to get back in that AFC conference race, they’ve got to beat Buffalo. That helps with conference tiebreakers. They’ve got to stay close to the Chargers and all that.

You know what I noticed,

They’ve got to stay close.

They’re not going to. Buffalo’s,

You know what? I noticed, and it could just be me. But I didn’t hear a peep out of these broadcasters when Kansas City was 0-2 and the Ravens were dying. Now, all of a sudden, everybody’s buying the Kool-Aid that they’re selling.

You could see those two teams in the AFC Championship.

Well, now, you know, if you listen to these guys, they go, Oh, the Chiefs now are the team to beat in the whole AFC and the Ravens are going to win the AFC North. Really?

All right. Let’s talk about Sunday night’s game. Seahawks, five and two; Commanders, three and four. I don’t think Daniels will be playing. Seahawks certainly have the home-field advantage. Seahawks, what are they? I’m not sure, six and a half, I think. Art, who do you like?

Well, according to The New York Post, it’s at Washington, in Landover.

Oh, excuse me, you’re right.

I can’t lay the Commanders and lay the three points, so there’s no way I could go that way. So, I would have to take Seattle. I love their defense, I love their new head coach, I think he’s a real good defensive disciple. Yeah, I’d take the Seahawks there. But again, I’m going to go back and tell you that if you want to make some money, go with the Patriots and the Colts this weekend.

You know, I was going to ask you guys a question, and I think we’ve talked about this before. Daniel Jones has run out of New York. And I don’t know if it was just the system, the outside distractions in the city where you can’t really concentrate on football, but boy, you find a city like small-market where you can concentrate on the game, there’s nothing to worry about. Look how that guy has transformed himself.

He had an injury almost every year, Mark, in New York.

Yeah, but if you look at the history of guys going to big cities like Ed Whitson and Hideki Irabu,

Sure, sure,

And some of those guys can get lost in the shuffle.

I agree with you.

There are cases like that.

He’s a kid from North Carolina that’s, you know, kind of a low-key guy. And that New York media, you know, who’s perfectly suited for that? So far, Jaxson Dart,

Yeah,

He seems to just thrive in that entire,

Yeah, well, Cody Bellinger’s grasping it.

Yeah, it’s a different personality.

All right, finally, on Monday night, let’s go to Laura. Cardinals, two and five; at the Cowboys, three, four, and one. The Cowboys look horribly defensively all season long, actually, but certainly last week. Laura, who do you like? Cardinals aren’t playing well at all. The Cowboys aren’t playing well at all, but they can score a lot of points. Who do you like, Laura?

Where are they playing?

Dallas.

In Dallas?

At AT&T.

Yeah, I don’t know. I think maybe Dallas could pull it off, but who cares?

I’m like you, Laura.

It’s really hard to bet the Cardinals on the road. What do you think, Matthew?

I don’t know, man. Actually, it’s a comedy of errors for both teams. I mean, I think,

How about if you took the over and just hoped, like hell, that nobody can stop anybody?

I’m going to take the Cardinals just for the halibut because I’m in Philadelphia. I’m supposed to hate Dallas, so I’ll take the Cardinals, they’ll make Dallas look like rotten,

I love Laura; I wish I could come through the screen and give her a hug. I like the setting. Larry Hagman, Victoria Principal. Oh, I like Linda Gray, I’m going Dallas.

All right. Final question. Right now, halfway through the season, MVP, NFL. Art, who is it, quick?

I’m going to go with Baker Mayfield.

Baker Mayfield. Matthew, most valuable player?

Jalen Hurts, Eagles.

Okay, Laura, most valuable player?

Yeah, I was going to say Jalen Hurts.

All right, Mark, most valuable player?

I’m going to say, the guy they ran out of L.A.

Goff.

It wasn’t, you know, Pedro Martinez and the line of the shields, but I think Jared Goff is the MVP.

All right, that’s it for this rendition of Fred and the Fantastics.

Fred, what about you?

Yes, yeah, Fred, what about you bro?

I think either Mayfield or Indiana Jones, one or the other.

I like those two,

One or the other, depending on how the rest of the season goes.

I’m going to take the 17 that Artie’s given me in the Steelers.

All right, that’s it for Fred and the Fantastics, for Laura, for Art, with Mark, for Mario, and for Matthew. Thank you guys and gals for listening, and we’ll be back with more around the corner. Bye, everybody.