Hey everybody, it’s that time again. Fred and the Fantastics on BLEAV and PodClips. We’ll discuss this, that, and anything in sports, and sometimes even more, with Art, Laura, and Mark. And you can email us at [email protected], [email protected]. Laura, you’re a big-time Laker fan. You got your Laker jersey on tonight. We’re taping this at one o’clock on Friday. Do they have any chance on Saturday against the best team, probably, in the National Basketball Association? Your comments, Laura.

You know, they played, the Lakers, I watched both games so far. They played them pretty tight for the first three quarters or so. I think they kind of just ran out of gas a little bit. They’re a little shorthanded. Of course, they lost their best player.

Is Luka completely out for Game Three?

I think so, yeah. And then they lost Vanderbilt, who dislocated his finger. So, you know, they’re really shorthanded. I don’t, I mean, they’re coming home, you know, they’re going to get the boost from the hometown fans, of course, and all the celebrities who will be there. So they might win a game or two, but I don’t see them coming back and winning the series, unfortunately. If they had Luka, I think they’d have a chance. But boy, those, Oklahoma City looks really good. Plus, they’re a little bit of a dirty team, I think.

Ooh. Ooh. I do. I do, too.

They commit fouls that they don’t get called on. so. And I say, the other thing I’ll say, and I said this last night while I was watching the game before I read about it today in the papers, that the officiating last night was atrocious.

Well, they can’t win on the road in the NBA for some reason.

They cannot, LeBron cannot catch, nobody ever fouls LeBron. And the fouls that they called against the Lakers, some of them were so ticky-tack, and the ones they didn’t call against Oklahoma City, it was just, it was outrageous. And everybody sort of kind of agrees this morning, apparently, from what I read. At least J.J. Reddick agrees.

Art, in my opinion, Lakers have absolutely no shot of beating Oklahoma City even once.

Break out the broom, right, Fred?

And, as Laura said, they’re pretty good. For 36 minutes. Unfortunately, the game is 48.

So my question to you is, are there going to be any Philadelphia, excuse me, New York Knicks fans at the Philly game tonight?

Well, you’d find a way to get there, if that’d be the case. I mean, you know, there’s ways around it.

I’m trying to think of the worst, I’m trying to think of the worst trades in L.A. history. The Clippers giving up Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, or the Dodgers giving up Pedro Martinez. Which one would be worse in this scenario, guys?

They gave up S.A.G. in five first-round picks.

Crazy.

That’s a lot of picks. So did any of them pan out at all?

Well, Fresno State, all pro. Many times over. Plays for Philadelphia now, 76ers. Okay.

Yeah. What’s his name? Yeah.

Fine player. Okay, so we can discuss the Lakers.

You know what, Fred? They’ve got depth. Oklahoma has depth. But I think when this whole thing is down, I like to see the Pistons take this whole thing. If the Lakers don’t get there, watch out, the Pistons, man, are dangerous.

Hey, let me state this. This week, earlier this week, my wife Sandy watched it, the Met Gala, and a lot of superstars were there, but a lot of them were not. Meryl Streep and other people trying to make a point because Jeff Bezos was the guy that paid for it through our money. And three WNBA players were there. Read an article today, a commentary today, and I agree with the article. Laura, three WNBA players were there after what they’ve gone through to get any kind of respect from the major world of sports. Your thoughts about the three WNBA players that did show up for Jeff Bezos’ Met Gala? Your comments?

I mean, I thought the Met Gala was just an unbelievable exhibition of disgusting decadence. At a time when kids are starving all around the world because of these cuts that we’ve made to our foreign aid. And then you have these, Beyoncé wearing a costume full of diamonds to look like a skeleton, which I thought was so offensive. And I mean, I have to say, I looked at it, I looked at the pictures, because I like fashion. But they are making let them eat cake look like a quaint phrase. More it’s like, let them eat, you know, let them eat a billion dollar plane ride or something, because there’s no. I mean, the Gilded Age doesn’t even look like the Gilded Age anymore, compared to what’s happening now with these uber-rich. I mean, it’s just, it’s really, personally,

And to put that in the masses’ faces like they did. I mean, it makes it, makes everybody kind of like, look around. And, and this is also the biggest problem in sports, like greed in sports, Fred. We’ve talked about it on Sports Overnight America a million times. And now that we’re on the Fantastics, I mean, at what point in time is sports going to realize that? The rank-and-file people have a little bit of trouble when a guy wins $4 million in a golf tournament for four days?

True. I mean, it’s, it’s an unbelievable thing, or the magic word is greed.

You know, I read another article about tennis, the French Open. Art, they’re apparently only paying the players 15%, where most of the tournaments are at 20 or 22%. Art, do you have any comments about that as a former Ram and USC Trojan?

I think that’s, that could be a positive situation. I mean, you know, look at it this way: today, this weekend at the LIV event in DC, outside of Washington, DC, the winner is going to make $4 million. And in Sam Snead’s career as the all-time leading money winner, tied with Tiger Woods, 81 victories, he made over $800,000. Seventh place will exceed that this week in this, this event, no different for the PGA Tour at the Truist Championships this week. And at a certain point in time, they’re wondering why the ratings are going down. Well, how does the average fan relate to that? You know, another thing I noticed this weekend, you guys, in the old days, Trevino and Fuzzy Zoeller, and, and Arnold Palmer were champions of the people. They would go into the crowd and, and high five with people and talk to people and look them in the eye. And when they signed their autographs, you could read their real signature. I just don’t see that interaction between the fans and the players anymore in sports. And I think that’s a real problem in terms of the charismatics that bring people to the actual sort of sporting.

Mark, you’re a religious guy. Do we have enough athletes making hands and shaking hands with the fans?

No, I think that’s what’s lost. It’s lost across the great and even in the everyday world, the customer service. I mean, I can remember when I would do, you know, bartending or, you know, assisted living. I would, they would have to pull me in the office every time they said, Mark, you can’t act like a nut. But I figured these people are paying $10,000, $11,000, $12,000. This place is like a prison without bars. You go, you know? I think that’s what’s lost in today’s society. I really do. As we get older, we’re not dinosaurs. It just, we just see the trend where it’s going. And it’s, you know, it’s kind of frustrating, but I think sports is really going to look at themselves and really digest this. I like Laura’s take on the $5 Angel tickets. That means I can get my foul ball off the bucket list.

Hey, we used to do that years ago at Anaheim Stadium, when they used to draw like flies. We’d have three of my buddies on all three decks and we’d, we’d hang out at the very edge down the lines. And when the fly balls would go into the upper deck, we’d come home with 12, 15 brand new Major League balls so we could play for the next week out on the field, you know?

And yeah, I don’t like paying the $105. I don’t really want to pay that.

I wonder what an NFL football costs now at Dick’s. $185.

It well, it depends what you buy.

It’s $25. A real Major League baseball is $25 at the store.

Yeah. We’re going to come back and talk more.

Art. When I go to a baseball game, I look around, and I find the young guys, and I say, You are the designated catcher of a fly ball.

Save me.

Oh, I don’t want anything to do with it.

Screaming line drive.

I still look damn good at 64.

We’re going to talk more, talk more greed when we come back on Fred and the Fantastics straight away.

Hey, welcome back, Fred and the Fantastics, with Laura, with Mark, Art, Mario, of course, producing the show. You can email us: [email protected], [email protected]. We talked in the first segment about greed and how much money for the fan and everything else, and that, then you read Gillette Stadium in Boston, outside of Boston, of course, will have a couple of the World Cup games. And it’s usually from downtown Boston to Gillette Stadium, it usually costs three or four dollars to take the bus. It’s now ninety-five dollars for the bus and eighty dollars for the train, or vice versa. I’m not sure which one is ninety-five and which one is eighty. Art, eighty dollars or ninety-five dollars to go from one part of Boston to another part of Boston. Any thoughts?

Well, I’ve heard nothing but nightmares regarding this, this whole thing. The amount of money that they’re charging, people in the hotels are gouging. And, you know, we’ve got this unrest in the world. And is the are the Iranians going to play in the World Cup? They qualified. If they qualified, they should be able to play. But, I mean, it seems like it’s a big money grab, Fred. And I mean, you’re bringing in, you’re bringing into artificial turf stadiums, you know, sodded fields, which soccer players, they like to play on grass. I’d like to play football on real grass, too. But the point I’m trying to make was, you know, it’s, it’s just at a point where, you know, how much is too much? I mean, you know, are people really going to fly to this country and spend that kind of money to, to watch soccer? And I know worldwide it’s huge. I mean, it is. It’s a billion people watching it on TV worldwide.

Laura, somebody comes in from a brown country; they perhaps end up under ICE’s auspices. Any comments, Laura Snoke?

I, you know, it’s going to be very interesting to see what the turnout is. I mean, that, that’s just gouging, as far as I can tell, with charging that kind of money for taking a train. I mean, I took the L.A., we are finally, we finally have a subway in L.A. I took the L.A. train from Santa Monica to Downtown. It was like two dollars, I think.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, and it was great. I mean, it was, it was great. I mean, it was a little grungy, but, you know, so what? And, but that, that’s just price gouging. I mean, if they can get, this is, it seems to me that the ethos is, if you can get it, charge it. And there’s really no regard for everyday fans who are not going to be able to go to these games. I mean, they’re just not going to be able to. I mean, if you have to pay $100 for a train ride, for what, two miles or something?

No, it’s 30. It’s 30 miles.

It’s still price gouging.

Oh, no, no question. Talk about, let’s talk about,

That’s the problem. I mean, when you look at where that stadium is, it’s pretty much in Rhode Island because I’ve been there. Foxborough. Yeah, it really is.

Sports is supposed to be a common ground where we all get together. It was a great equalizer.

Right. And FIFA’s like the NCAA. They’re both crooks.

So what about the 76-team NCAA tournament in basketball, Fred? This is ridiculous.

Well, there’s more money for extra games each year. And again, I started off; there were 16 teams, the Oregon Firs, of course, in 1939. They won the whole thing. My Bruins of UCLA had a streak of, what, 38 consecutive wins in the tournament, which may be the great, in my opinion, might be the greatest streak in sports. Because you couldn’t lose. It was. It was basically,

One of their best teams never even qualified because there were so many teams, and they had one loss.

They had to win the conference title to be invited to the tournament in those days. Nineteen, you know, a year. UCLA finished second in the conference, and they couldn’t go to the tournament.

Are you telling me that was better than the 23-to-one horse at the Kentucky Derby?

Hold on, Mark, we’ll talk about that in a moment.

Laura’s talking about 1966. Freddie Goss had mononucleosis. He’d have been the Bruins’ best guard. By the time he came back, Oregon State had won the conference championship. So UCLA could not go in ’66, but they won it in ’64, ’65, ’67, ’68, ’69, ’70, ’71, ’72. And ’73 and ’74. They go to double overtime against North Carolina State, David Thompson and Company. And they were up by 10, but they blew that one. So, yeah, that was UCLA. Now, Mark just brought up an interesting, the Belmont Stakes down the road, the Preakness down the road, Kentucky Derby last week. And the point is, it’s hard to get a Triple Crown winner if you’re having the Preakness only two weeks after the Kentucky Derby. People say, Well, we’ve had it that way a long time. And I’m saying, but now these, these horses are so expensive that the owners cannot afford to gamble on something like that.

So they moved it to three weeks, right?

Yeah.

But we probably should maybe go four weeks after each one, so we have a better chance for the Triple Crown. Art, what do you think?

I agree. I agree. I think safety is the most important issue in horse racing right now. We’ve seen what they’ve gone through the last five, six, seven, eight years. It’s really sad. And I love the Sport of Kings. But, you know, I also feel for these wonderful horses. And, you know, when you do see a horse euthanized, it gets you. It’s like, it’s just too much. But I will tell you this: that was one of the most exciting races I’ve ever watched.

Yeah.

When Golden Tempo came flying down the stretch. I mean, they talk about coming out of nowhere to win.

Yeah.

That was unbelievable.

Laura, did you watch it?

Yeah, and you know,

I did not like it. I don’t, I don’t believe in it, as you know. But I mean, the horses are gorgeous. There’s no question. Horses are magnificent animals. They don’t deserve to be, to be treated the way they’re being treated. I think, I, though, I think Art’s right. I think they are treating them better than they did in the past. But it’s still that they don’t have a choice. And I consider it to be animal,

Their little ankles. I mean, they’re thirteen hundred pounds. Did you see the size of the one horse? I think it was the eight horse that threw the jockey off his back when they were loading into the stalls. I mean, that was the biggest horse I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t know how big Secretariat was. I know he had a huge heart. But I mean, that horse, I was like, Oh, my God. He was like 17 hands tall.

Who was your favorite jockey? Mine was Eddie Delahoussaye.

My, mine was Laffit Pincay.

I still love Laffit Pincay, too.

Delahoussaye was good. I mean,

I also like Gary Stevens.

Yeah.

Gary Stevens was a great jockey in his day.

You know, I was at Hollywood Park the day that Secretariat won the Triple Crown in the Belmont by thirty-one lengths, in the greatest, in the greatest, I think, for a horse, the, the greatest event I’ve ever seen.

No doubt. No, I think it’s the greatest, greatest, I mean, in the history of sports, what that horse did.

Who was the last, you know, Triple Crown winner?

When they did the autopsy on Secretariat, they did the autopsy, he had a heart that was three times bigger. The ventricles were like, you know, like that wide in his heart.

Wow.

And that’s why he could run like the wind. I mean, the blood was pumping through that horse was crazy, man.

Laura, you’ve got a big heart. Wind it up right here on Friend the Fantastics in 30 seconds.

Well, I thank you. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear your question.

You have, you have a big heart. Discuss the world of sports in 30 seconds as we sign off.

Oh, well, I don’t agree with you, that, I think I think the Lakers are going to win one game here at home just because. But I don’t, I don’t think they have a chance to win the tournament. And we’ll see. I think the NBA playoffs are really exciting this year. And I’m looking forward to watching the tournament.

All right. For Laura, for Art, for Mark, and Mario. Thank you very much. We’re around the corner, more of Fred and the Fantastics. Bye, everybody.