Ja Morant in Las Vegas, Grizzlies Summer League Rolls On | Gary Parrish Show
The boy is mine. You ready? I’ve been ready. What are we waiting for? Are you ready? Creed. By overwhelming demand, the summer of 99 tour returns. July 27th, FedEx 4 with very special guest Dree and Mammoth. Tickets on sale now with liveation.com. Don’t miss Creed with Dorree and Mammoth. The summer of 99 tour. 1 2 3. Ready, go. Shine down. Dance kid dance tour. Dance kid dance live in Memphis. FedEx Forum Saturday, August 30th with special guests Bush and Morgan Wade. Get tickets now at livenation.com. Shineown live in concert. For more, visit shindown.com. Live from the Built Ford Tough Studio and FedEx Forum, it’s the Gary Paris Show presented by Ortho South on YouTube at Grind City Media and the official Grind City Media app. Now, here’s your host, Gary Parish. All right, I’m here. My name is Gary Parish. I’m speaking to you from the studio beside the built for tough studio FedEx forum downtown Memphis. We move for the week. Bennett Doyle’s right there producing the program. Glad he’s with me. Glad you’re with me. Hope you’re getting through the day best you can. Her daddy lost everything. And I hope you didn’t expect your Memphis Grizzlies to go undefeated out in the Las Vegas summer league because uh if that were the goal that got messed up on Friday afternoon. The Grizzlies lost the opener. That was on Friday, but they bounced back in game two, Las Vegas summer league. That was late Saturday night. John Mor made an appearance. He talked on TV. Also, answered an interesting question from Mike Wallace, senior editor, Grime City Media. We’ll talk about all of it momentarily. First though, quickly, let me set today’s schedule for you. In the next segment in about 20 minutes, I’m going to be joined by Michael Lees. He of course hosts Sports Center for ESPN. Michael E is going to join me in the next segment. I’ll talk to him about a number of things, including a report that the Los Angeles Lakers made Luca Donuch aware of an ownership change, but never actually gave LeBron James, the King, the NBA’s all-time scoring leader, a heads up. Interesting development, I guess. Michael E will be here in about 20 minutes. I’ll talk to him about that and a number of other things. But Michael Ees, get out of here. We’re going to take a break, come back, do five more things you need to know. at which point we’re going to discuss five previously undiscussed stories. Among them, the Indiana Fever improved to two and one since Caitlyn Clark returned from injury with a 10283 victory over Paige Beckers and the Dallas Wings and a high-profile showdown on ABC this weekend. We’ll get you caught up on all the WNBA action. We’ll do it in about 40 minutes. Auburn football coach Hugh Fes has defended his golf hobby. He likes to play golf. Among criticisms from some fans, fans don’t like him playing so much golf. I’ll tell you what he said. We’ll do that in just a bit. Naomi is your new WWE Women’s World Champion after cashing in last night. Money in the bank cash in over Eio Sky and Ria Ripley. I love it when people cash in. There ain’t much I like more in wrestling than a good cash in. Meanwhile, Goldberg’s career came to an end down in Atlanta and Seth Rollins might have uh suffered a serious knee injury. We’ll show you that. A lot of big wrestling developments this weekend. We’ll spend some time on that a little later on in the show. Amanda Ana Samova, the 23-year-old tennis player from New Jersey we talked about on Friday. She had a chance this weekend, as I told you, to become the first American woman since Serena Williams in 2016 to win a singles title at Wimbledon. Big moment, huge opportunity. Oh, buddy, it did not go well. I’ll share the numbers with you in the second hour. And the home run derby is set for tonight down at Truis Park in Cobb County. ECS graduate Brent Rooker, he’s going to be in it. I’ll run you through the odds for each competitor. We’ll do that during a segment we call five more things you need to know. Then we’ll eventually do GP’s carry out and we’ll call it a day. So that’s the rundown. We got a a whole bunch to get to, but I did want to start with the Las Vegas Summer League and not necessarily because the Grizzlies went one and one this weekend out in the desert because uh you know, whatever. Look bad and if you want the summary, here it is. look bad in game one, look better in game two, whatever. To me, the most notable thing that happened out in Las Vegas as it pertains to this franchise is that John Morant was there and he spoke publicly for the first time, I believe, since exit interviews. He was asked about a number of things, including the Desmond Bane trade. He’s the face of the franchise. He had interesting things to say. We’ll get into that in just a second. But before we do, Bennett, I know you sat in studio like right there for game one and game two, Las Vegas Summer League. So, you’ve had your eyes on this more than most. If you’d like to share any thoughts you have on the first two games, this would be a perfect opportunity for you to do it. And it’s good to see you. It’s good to see you, too. Um, in this uh weird setting, I’m not used to this. Uh, but what are you comfortable? You look uncomfortable over there. Well, I I was a couple things started going ary. I think part of the reason you look uncomfortable over there is my fault. I apologize. And we don’t need to let the audience know how I might have screwed you up. If it looks If Barry looks like he’s confused, trust that it’s it’s got something to do with me, but I think we’ve settled in. We’re in a good place now. We’re good now. I want you to get comfort. Do you feel comfortable? I feel comfortable. Yes, I’m good. I’m here. Um, okay. So, yeah. I mean, I thought that game one was disappointing. Uh, I think we all did. Uh, the the guys that are the second, third year guys on the team didn’t play great. Um and the just the offense didn’t move well on night one. So whatever. Um I thought on Saturday night they looked way better. Uh obviously Gigi didn’t play, but you know Jaylen Wells was struggling through a game and a half going, you know, in at the start of Vegas summer league and he just busted through in the second half of that game against Portland on Saturday night. I thought that was super positive. When he made his first basket, he even stood there for a second and like shook his head cuz he was just like, “Are you kidding me?” Like what is going on? I should be dominating here. And he did just that in the second half of that game. So, I thought that was super positive. Um, again, it’s it’s hard to make a lot out of summer league like you just said, but that would probably be my biggest takeaway. Gi Jackson missed game too with a quote illness illness. And I saw some people having fun with that. I just say this, let he who has never had an illness in Las Vegas in your 20s. Let anybody who in their 20s didn’t have an illness in Las Vegas, let he cast the first stone. Isn’t that the Aren’t those the people who are supposed to cast the first stone? I think so. Let he who has never he or she, if we’re being honest, let he or she who has never been ill in Las Vegas in your 20s, let he or she cast the first stone. Yeah. Can’t be me. Can’t be me. I’ve been sick in Vegas so many times, I don’t even know how many I can’t keep count. Now, it’ll be interesting to see tomorrow night if he even plays. Um when I if I’m just being honest with you when I saw that my first thought was they they may not even play him again in summer league. They probably see what they need to see. He’s a thirdyear guy. Like who cares? I’m going to leave that. That’s kind of where I I stood on it. You know, I’m going to leave that up to the franchise. I don’t ever have real strong feelings about who should or should not play in the summer league, right? I just I don’t care that much. Um I think you can benefit from it. um confidence, um getting comfortable with uh people you might find yourself on a court with down the road, all of these types of things. Obviously, there can be uh not so great things that come along with it, injuries, but my experience is that basketball players are going to play basketball, you know, whether it’s on TV in Las Vegas or in a closed gym at UCLA, like Jiren Jackson Jr. is recovering right now from surgery and it happened reportedly in a basketball game. It wasn’t in the Las Vegas summer league. It wasn’t on television, but just because he wasn’t playing in the summer league or on television doesn’t mean that he wasn’t playing basketball. Basketball players play basketball. The big social media post that got all the attention with LeBron at the Cleveland Cavaliers practice facility a few weeks ago, everybody going crazy about that. You know what he was doing there? You know, playing basketball. Yes. In some form, he was playing basketball. So, basketball players play basketball. If if the organization I always sort of land on this side of things, the the people who are making these decisions about whether Gigi Jackson plays in Las Vegas or Cedric Coward plays in Las Vegas or Javon Smart, Jamaek or Cam Spencer or Jaylen Wells or anybody else. Um they got way more invested in it than I do. All right. So I just I don’t think it’s a big decision one way or another. So I’ll I’ll let them make it. But if you care the Grizzlies next summer league game, it won’t be today. Yesterday off, today off, back in action tomorrow night, 9:30 central tip. Warriors, summer warriors and summer Grizzlies. And we’ll have it right here on the Grind City Media app with the pregame show starting at 9:15. And uh on the Gigi Jackson illness thing, I’m just having fun with it. He could have like had food poisoning. I have no idea. We wish Gigi well. We wish him well. Get well soon. I think that’s what you’re supposed to say. Get well soon. But buddy, Vegas can make you ill. That’s the point I was trying to make as somebody who’s my favorite thing. Like we used to go to Vegas every summer for AA stuff and it would somehow coincide with like NBA free agency and or USA basketball. So in addition to all the college basketball reporters who would be out there just covering grassroots stuff and all the best recruits in the country because all the college coaches were out there, you would also have like legitimate NBA reporters who just cover that league, you know, doing live shots for Sports Center outside of the arena from USA basketball or on LeBron’s free agency or whatever. M. And so I can just remember these like these times where it’s like people have to do a 8 a.m. hit on Sports Center. 8 a.m. central hit. That’s 6 a.m. I would have something to do for C somebody and we would all be standing like outside of arenas or in the lobbies or the forums of arenas at an absurdly early time in Las Vegas and everybody just looking like hell. Like you could just tell people like, “Man, if I can get through this hit without getting sick, that’ll be a victory.” I’ll never say names. I mean, you know, turn the mics off. I probably will. But I can tell you somebody who had to do a live hit on television in Las Vegas one morning and it was like, “Okay, you’ve got a you’ve got a 9:00 hit, a 10:00 hit, an 11:00 hit, one of those types of things.” And like in between those hits was having to go to the bathroom and get Oh, nice. and then jump and then like, you know, wipe your face off, get back on. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me, but I’ve witnessed it. I’ve seen that type of thing go down. So, uh, who knows what was going on. And there’s a lot of illnesses running around Vegas. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. And the most obvious thing we could say in this moment is it’s just get well soon. It’s just get well soon. Now, to John Mor. He made an appearance out in Las Vegas. He jumped on the broadcast and and uh talked to an ESPN reporter there. Also met with various local uh media members, among them Mike Wallace. Michael Wallace, senior editor, Grind City Media, who is with us, of course, every week, uh, on Thursdays in the second segment. Mike Wallace is out in Las Vegas right now. You’ve seen him uh, on our broadcast on the Grind City Media app, and he was able to talk to John Moran and ask him specifically about the importance of showing up in Las Vegas as the leader of this franchise, the leader of this team. Kyri, we got it. Let’s see that interaction between Michael Wallace and John Mor. job. Busy summer for you obviously, but you made the time to come here and check these guys out in Las Vegas. How important is that from a leadership standpoint uh to be around these guys and just to see what’s going on? Uh I mean it’s different from on TV. Obviously um I know you know me being you know here in person means a lot you know not only to you know these guys but you know to the organization as well. for me, you know, to be the leader, uh, you know, of this team. Um, I feel like, you know, very important. I do think it’s important. I think it’s important for him to be there. I don’t know that you have to stipulate you must go. I don’t think there has to be orders from the top of the franchise, but if he understands and he seemed to, that’s what his word suggested, that he understands that he’s the face of this franchise. he’s the leader of this thing and that as those as those responsibilities fall on his shoulders, it’s important for him to be in Vegas and just show his face and and be there um in in a in a supportive way. I don’t ever want to overstate it. But I’d rather him be there and have that answer to that question than us be sitting here and when we get to a point to where we’ve run out of things to talk about, me or you ask the other one? So, you’re surprised Jaw hadn’t been there yet? What do you make of that? You know, he’s going on this world tour for Nike. Are you surprised he couldn’t even pop into Vegas and, you know, show support for the new guys connected to this franchise or even the young guys that are out there? I’ve seen Scottie Pippen Jr. there. I’ve seen Zack Edy there. Are you surprised John Morant hasn’t showed up at all? I’d rather have him there answering that question that way than the alternative. So, maybe it doesn’t mean everything in the world, but I do think it means something. What do you think it means? Yeah, I mean, I think he looks thrilled to be there. Um, I uh yeah, it does mean something. He can be thrilled cuz I get that. And the interview he did live on television like was Yeah. Right. Here’s the here’s the here’s these things. I I do not I I would be willing to bet he was hoping he’d show up to summer league and chill with his teammates and maybe not have to do interviews. There you go. I bet you both of these things can be true. thrilled to be there or at least happy to be there or at least understanding of the importance of him being there as the face of the franchise leader of the thing. I think he can be happy to be doing all those things, but also would rather just not have to answer these questions. Yeah. All right. Um I mean, shoot, LeBron had a hundred cameras in his face and said, “I ain’t got [ __ ] to say.” That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. At least he gave an interview. At least John gave an interview. LeBron just sort of said, “No, I got nothing to talk about.” All right. And that’s really just him throwing a little fit. That’s LeBron throwing a fit. You’re right. He’s just LeBron’s in his fit throwing stage right now. I believe he’s throwing fits. That’s the passive aggressive. Show up to a place I know you’re going to want to talk to me, but then say, “I’m not going to talk about it.” Right? Like, you you know what you could do? You could just, you know, if you’re LeBron James, you walk into that building, somebody with a microphone is going to want to put you on a camera. So, you know that going in. No, I ain’t got nothing to talk. Oh, you got you have a mill. And that’s the other thing. I ain’t got nothing to talk about. You have a million things to talk about. People have a million questions about you. Yeah. The Lakers just sold for a gajillion dollars. Yeah. At any point, we could sit down and do an hourlong interview with you and never run out of questions, right? You have plenty of stuff to talk about. You just don’t want to talk because you’re because you’re mad because you’re frustrated for a variety of reasons. One of which we might get to Michael Leaves with in the in the next segment. So LeBron was just like, “No, I’m not.” At least at least J was like, “Sure. Yeah, I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. You want to ask me about Dez, you want to ask me about Yuki, you want to ask me about drafting Cedric Coward, I’m here. So, was he the most enthusiastic? Was that the most enthusiastic interview or even most enthusiastic John Morant interview I’ve ever seen? No. But he did it and he said the right things. If the question is about why are you in Vegas and he says because Vegas is amazing and did you hear Kelly Clarkson just started her new residency and I didn’t want to miss that. Well, those aren’t necessarily the type of things I want to hear. they wouldn’t bother me too much. But I like hearing what he said better than that, which is I feel like I needed to be here. Yes. I feel like I needed to be here. That is the next step or at least a step in establishing yourself as the type of leader people want you to be. Again, I don’t want to overstate it, but can you interpret that as progress? Perhaps. Mhm. Here’s a a young man who has obviously um had ups and downs throughout the the early part of his NBA career. It’s all well documented. Um and I think when you have been banged on the way he’s been banged on on social media and by NBA analyst and fans and it can be very easy to just shut down and be like I ain’t my job is to play basketball. I’ll be there when it’s time to show up. I But I don’t I’m not They don’t pay me to go to summer league and what I’m gonna walk in there and everybody’s gonna get their their memes out and start making like it’s I I imagine maybe I’m just projecting, but if I got banged on the way he gets banged on on social media over the past few years, it’d be very easy to just shut down and just be like, I you just just shut it down. And I’m sure he’s gone through that. But in that moment, he’s not shutting it down. He’s showing up. He’s showing up. And he’s showing up there for his teammates. He’s showing up there for his franchise. You ready for this? showing up there for his front office to show them I’m here. This is where I feel like I need to be. I know it’s where you think I need to be. So, I’m here. I’m here. And if anybody’s got questions, maybe I won’t answer them as enthusiastically as you’d like, but I’ll answer them. I won’t just show you shove you aside the way LeBron did. I don’t know. It doesn’t have to be the biggest thing in the world, but it was more positive than than not. I thought it was good. Thought it was good that he was there. I thought it was good that he talked about it the way he did. Michael Ees is up next. Have you talked to Norville since the game? Yeah, but we’re we’re close friends, so it’s not one of those like I think it’s a little bit How long before you said haha Texas score? You said the box score. You want to see the picture of me in the locker room afterwards? How close? How close are you? Because it would have taken me literally 30 seconds. The Chris Vernon Show live on weekdays at noon on YouTube at Grind City Media and the official Grind City Media app. Have you always dreamed of entertaining on the biggest stage in Memphis? The Claw Crew is looking for members to join their team for the 2025 2026 season. Claw Crew members are hardworking, high energy entertainers who assist Grizzlies home games by hyping up the crowd and much more. 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Fans can sign up by texting Grizz 2636479 or visit your local Kroger store in the Delta division and scan the QR code. By signing up, you agree to receive recurring automated promotional and personalized marketing text messages from the Memphis Grizzlies. Consent is not a condition of any purchase. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. These are the uh the Jordan one the crystals. Uh these are the shoe that retails for $1,000. Oh, extra crystals. So, if your crystals fall off, your crystal if your crystals fall off. Uh, actually, these these are the black crystals cuz they have So, the shoe has black crystal on there as well, too. So, you get an extra uh package of black crystals. The Sneakfest Show live Tuesdays at 2 p.m. on Grind City Media on X, YouTube, and the official Grind City Media mobile app. Welcome back to Gary Paris show presented by Ortho South. On Mondays in the second segment, I’m joined by Michael Le. He of course among other things host sports center for ESPN. They’re in the middle of 50 days on the road. He was in his home state of Kentucky uh last week. I watched some of that. It uh it looked amazing. Michael Le, I’m glad you got to have that experience. And I appreciate you being with me right now. How you doing on this Monday morning? Not too bad, man. It was pretty cool to uh to go back home and, you know, showcase a little bit of Kentucky that maybe some people don’t know or just, you know, maybe have a a little bit of knowledge about. So, that was really cool. Uh right now though, I’m actually in Los Angeles. Um, it’s ESP’s week and for the last few years, as you know, Gary, I’ve held a fundraiser uh for Stuart Scott’s Memorial Cancer Fund through the V Foundation. So, we’re having that uh party tonight here in Los Angeles. I’m trying to raise uh $60,000 between now and Stuart’s birthday, which is July 19th, cuz he would have been 60 years old this year, and 2015 was the year he died. So, it’s been 10 years since he passed. So, uh, looking forward to kicking off a pretty cool event here in Los Angeles tonight. And I hope his family and I I know that they do appreciate you uh helping keep his legacy alive. There’s a a lot of us, you know, we lose friends and colleagues along the way and we like to say things to ourselves like, you know, I’ll never forget or we’ll never forget and then the world just moves on and you look up and you haven’t thought about somebody in a while. I feel personally guilty about that, you know, here and there in different aspects of my life. And I’ve always really respected, and by respected, I mean admired the way um the way you have helped keep Stuart’s legacy alive. I’ve told this story before, so I won’t bore people with it again, but like uh I spent the night hanging out with Stuart Scott one night in New York City, and it was because you brought me into that circle and um put me in a in a room where I I didn’t belong at the time as a probably 23-year-old commercial appeal reporter. But I just remember um you just sort of being around him and the energy that he had and and all these years later watching you still do what you do in his memory is like uh just really admirable. I mean that from my heart and I hope his family understands that as well. I appreciate you saying that and his his daughters Taylor and Sydney are phenomenal young women. I see them regularly. Uh Sydney’s going to be at the event tonight here in Los Angeles. And it is, you know, it’s twopronged though, Gary. Quite honestly, it is keeping people reminded of the person that Stuart Scott was, not just in terms of his professional uh career, but he was just a really good person, right? Um but his his real legacy moving on the 10 years since his death is really what his cancer fund is is really trying to do and that’s get rid of some of the uh disparities that that fall upon racial lines as it relates to cancer treatment um and cancer diagnosis. Um black men uh are prostate cancer rate way higher than white men. Black women their breast cancer rate way higher than white women. And also just getting treatment for those individuals is also really skewed on racial lines. And so this fund deals directly with those disparities, trying to find out why those disparities are that way. Is is it biological? Is it chemical? Things of that nature or is it just access? And also it funds um uh black and brown researchers who are in the field of cancer research. Sometimes it’s hard to get the grants for them to do their research. Um and this fund does that as well. So again, it’s it is about Stuart specifically, but his legacy of how we treat and uh and hopefully end cancer in the future. Well, uh, again on behalf of everybody who like we all have family members and loved ones who have been hit with this incredibly just tragic disease and for you to be out there just continuing to spread the word. Again, thank you and I I know Stuart’s family feels the same way. Uh, let’s talk sports. Um, I I guess we’ll start in Las Vegas summer league because we were talking about that in the opening segment. I guess the big national headline is after an incredible per performance in game two with the summer Mavericks, Dallas has reportedly decided to set set Cooper flag down for the rest of the summer. Uh this is not unusual with elite prospects like this. We’ve seen what we need to see. We don’t need to see Cooper flag again till the preseason, right? I’m not sure we even need to see those two games in in Las Vegas. quite honestly actually for the Mavericks and for the league. It probably really uh set up more as a as a PR campaign, a marketing campaign to get ready for the opening of the season because this kid has been the number one prospect in his age group for quite some time. His his freshman year at Duke solidified that as well. So, we’ve seen all we needed to see about this young man. So, after these two games, you’re like, “Yeah, he’s got what we thought, so let’s set him down and get ready for the season.” But he is a remarkable talent and it will be interesting once Kyrie Irving comes back from his knee injury. You have hope healthy Anthony Davis and maybe even a rejuvenated uh Klay Thompson, maybe Megan the Stallion can put some new energy into him as well. And you put those four together if you’re Dallas. Tell me tell me if this is probably not a better combination of what you had prior to Luca leaving. I’m just saying I think if all things fall together the way they hopefully do, I think you’re in a better position. So, I if you’re a Dallas fan, I think you have every reason in the world to be optimistic for this upcoming season. I am fascinated by the Maverick story because obviously nobody took more of a public beating among front office executives in American professional sports over the past year than Nico Harrison down in Dallas. But then they luck into the Cooper flag thing. And don’t ever forget they lucked into it. It was just luck, but they did luck into it. And you know, ACL’s are not Achilles. Kyrie Irving will be back and throw out a lineup of Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis. A wow, here he comes. Cooper Flag, and Klay Thompson either re-energized or totally worn out by Megan the Stallion. One or the other. We We’ll see. We’ll see. But that’s an interesting lineup that it’s not hard for me to imagine, you know, maybe making some noise in the playoffs. And here’s the funny part. All those people that were yelling fire Nico and still doing it, they they’ll be the first one trying to get tickets to that first game of the year, right? So fans are funny, but to your point, yes, if if everything comes together and you look at the teams in the West, why would they not be in the mix? Why would they not be? I’m not saying they’re going to beat the Thunder and win the championship, but but they should be definitely be in the mix. Uh 100%. Again, sometimes things just sometimes things do fall in your lap, Gary. I mean, Shaq fell in the lap of the Orlando Magic. Um, Maggie Johnson fell on the lap of the Lakers back in 1980, so 79. So that stuff happens and it’s just about how you once you get that break, once you get that opportunity, what do you do with it as an organization? And that’s going to be a real test for not only Nico Harrison, but everyone with that organization. Now you have Cooper Flag with these other, you know, future Hall of Fame vets. And all three of those guys will be in the Hall of Fame. We mentioned um what do you do with it going forward? So there’s um every few days it feels like a new headline connected to the Lakers and LeBron James. And the latest is that they did give Luca Donuch a heads up like, “Hey, let me tell you this thing’s about to go down and this thing is an ownership change.” They gave Luca Donuch a hang a heads up on that. Did not reportedly give LeBron James a heads up on that. What if anything are we to make of that? It tells you that the the future of this organization is Luca Donic and not LeBron James. But who the hell didn’t know that? I mean, that is that is completely obvious to anyone who is tied to that organization, including LeBron. Now, if his feelings are hurt and maybe the feelings of Rich Paul may be hurt based on the relationship they’ve had with Jeannie Bus and um Rob Pelinka, you know, up to this moment, I I can understand that. But if you’re going to check with one person and to give them a heads up, it would have to be the most important person going forward and that is Luka Donic. I mean, that’s just the nature of it. But again, humans have emotions and that’s where, you know, maybe LeBron is feeling some type of way because, hey, I am still LeBron James. like my name matters not just with this organization with Quinn the league I should have been given a heads up as well out of courtesy but you give it to the guy who’s only been here for half a year so that’s where the emotions come in but if you only had one or two to say something to it would be Luca Dodic switching gears uh I spent yesterday morning watching the Wimbledon final on the men’s side over Carlos Alcarez of course it was a rematch from the incredible five plus hour final at the French Open I know it will not work this way. But it feels like four Sundays for the next decade, I’m going to watch these two men play tennis each other against each other for three or four or five hours. This is it. Like we’re here. One of them’s 23, one of them’s 22. This is our Chris Ever, Martina Naverova, uh Federer, Nadal, Jookovic. Like this is it and it’s not going away. This is really good stuff we’re watching. Every time the sport of tennis specifically has had, you know, those peaks in popularity, it’s it’s been when you’ve had two people that dominate the sport meeting in the slams on a consistent basis. It just is every generation of that is has sort of had that when it comes to its growth. Now, obviously, you probably won’t get those two guys playing uh every major over the next couple years, but you expect one of them to be in that final o every at least one of them every single year for the next four or five for sure. Um, but they are so good and they are so talented and every time they play, regardless of who wins, they give us tremendous theater, right? And that’s what you want as a sports fan. You want the best in the game meeting consistently. And when they do play, you want them to be great. And they’ve been giving us that for quite some time. And here’s the thing, for center to beat Alcarez on grass, that’s a big deal. I mean, Alcarez is phenomenal on grass. Uh, probably better than center headtohead. But center stepped up his game. Give him credit to that. He went out there and beat Alcarez on maybe his best surface. So now you set up for the US Open. Also another fast surface. What’s that going to look like by the time we get to New York? So if you are a tennis fan or even not a tennis fan, you just want to see the greats of the great go at it. Yeah, you got to be looking forward to the US Open and those two meeting one more time. In baseball, uh the All-Star game is this weekend and there’s some controversy connected to it. Um I guess it’s twofold. Let’s start with uh Jacob Mizeri who is a a phenomenal young pitcher in Milwaukee. Um nobody debates whether this guy is special or one of perhaps the most overwhelming pitchers in the world right now, but he was controversially named to the National League All-Star team. After only five starts at the big league level, there were people arguing that simply is not enough to call somebody an all-star. Do you have any issue with that? I do not. Okay. It’s an exhibition game. I’m sorry. Like I I think sometimes we we make too much out of certain things, right? It’s an exhibition game. And if you’re baseball, you’re trying to always cultivate your newer uh viewers, your newer audiences, your newer fans. And this kid so far has been special. There’s no other way to highlight him. He can’t be in the he can’t be in the home run derby, right? So, if you’re going to you would try to highlight your young talent, um it’s got to be in the All-Star game. He’s not going to start the All-Star game. So, like it’s not he’s taking a a spot away from someone like that. And here here also my point. If it wasn’t him, who was it going to be? And it and would that person have moved the needle the way this selection has? Probably not, right? So again, it it’s it’s an exhibition game first and foremost. But secondly, you want to highlight your your new talent. And this kid so far has been great. Now, if he fails at the end of the year, you know what? No one’s going to even be talking about by time it gets October because you were talking about the playoffs. So it’s not that big of a deal. We just try to make things too big uh for whatever reason now just to have a conversation. I’m with you. This is a big stage for Major League Baseball. You should be trying to highlight and it’s not it’s not ridiculous to put him in the game. I get that it’s controversial, but it’s not ridiculous. It’s controversial, but not ridiculous. And um like as a kid, Gary, it’s Gary, it’s only controversial because it hasn’t happened before. There you go. Okay. Right. So, let’s say next year there’s this other kid and let’s say he’s a he’s a position player and in well, five start, so it’s multiple weeks. So let’s say in 40 games, 30 games, he hits 25 home runs or 20 home runs. You don’t want him at the All-Star game. Of course you would. So again, it’s just because it hadn’t happened before makes it controversial. But to your point, it is far from ridiculous. It’s far from ridiculous. I think Paul Ske starting the All-Star game as a rookie was a big deal, like a good thing. And I go back to my childhood. Like Dwight Gooden becoming the youngest person to ever appear in an All-Star game and then striking out the side. That is a childhood memory of mine and that is something I still like show my kids on YouTube sometimes. And so anytime you can create a moment with an All-Star game, I’m for that and this is a moment. What I’m less enthused about is is this aspect of it because for everybody who makes an all-star team, there’s somebody who doesn’t. And in Philadelphia, there’s Ranger Suarez who is having an all-star level season. And reportedly MLB reached out to him or his people and said, “If we name you an all-star, can you pitch on Tuesday?” and he said, “I’m not going to be able to pitch on Tuesday.” And they said, “Okay, well then you’re not an all-star.” And that that actually like affects somebody’s legacy, the way their Wikipedia page looks, like the way they’re talked about forever. For instance, if I ever had Ranger Suarez on this show, and I’m confident I won’t, but like I will introduce him someday as is he a two-time all-star, a five-time all-star, like these are the things, these matter. and to particularly in baseball not get that honor simply because you might have pitched on Saturday or Sunday and not going to be available to pitch on Tuesday. That seems fundamentally wrong to me. Do you have a any thoughts on that? Oh, it’s absolutely wrong. If people want to complain about something and selection to the All-Star game, this is it. Not only does it affect, you know, his his career numbers and potential legacy, it also affects his pocketbook. Yeah. You know, because if you are named an all-star, there’s a bonus that goes with that. And and if you are worthy of that bonus, then you should get it even if you can’t participate because they’ve been doing that for decades. There have been all kind of guys made all-star games and then um weren’t able to actually participate, mostly pitchers, but they still get the designation. So then they get their bonus and deservedly so. Like for me, that speaks more to, you know, corruption may be a strong word, but like what is baseball really doing here by not acknowledging this person based on how well he’s performed? If if you’re putting in Mizeroski there because of how well he’s performed, how is Suarez not getting that same uh treatment? And then plus, you’re doing it only you’re taking that away from him only because he can’t participate when there’s other guys who get named and can’t participate either. Yeah, I feel like the solution is pretty simple here. You you name the best people, the most deserving people, all star, and then if they can’t perform in the All-Star game, you can remove them, but they still get the honor and then you can replace them with somebody else. I don’t know why that didn’t happen this year, but it clearly didn’t. And um I’m I’m I’m a Mets fan, so I don’t spend a lot of time uh you know, feeling sorry for the Phillies, but um I I think they’re right here to be upset by how this was handled by Major League Baseball. What if you named Suarez, he couldn’t pitch, and then you bring Mizerki behind him to replace him? It it would it would look different. Yes. Right. Yes. It would totally look different. So again, baseball either not having enough forward thinking or just, you know, continue to screw things up sometimes just didn’t look at the overall landscape of what they were trying to do and make it better for both parties. That’s exactly how they do it the way you just said it and then everybody celebrates it. Instead, it’s become the controversy on this Monday heading into the All-Star game. Last thing before we let you go, uh the Open Championship, it is the Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It’s in Northern Ireland. That of course is the home of Roy Moy. Um, just for those of us who don’t know, because I I asked this from an honest place. I assume he’s the biggest deal in the world in Northern Ireland, but you tell me like, do they love him? Like, he’s their guy and there’s nobody even close to it. Yeah. And here’s the thing, though. So, it’s not just Northern Ireland. It is it is Ireland as a whole. And if people don’t know much about the history of the area, um, it has a lot to do with Great Britain and England and all the history. And that’s why there’s Northern Ireland and Ireland are two different places, but they are Irish people, right? Um, and he is a big deal throughout that entire area. Um, and you will see all of that this week. They are really pulling for him to win. And I would assume, I mean, it probably wasn’t the same amount of pressure he was feeling to win the Masters and finally complete the career grand slam. But he wants to win this uh event again and he wants to win it obviously uh in his homeland and that he doesn’t get that opportunity every year, right? So that that’s actually harder to do than win the Masters when you go there every single year. So it will be a lot of pressure on him. He obviously played really well over the weekend at the Scottish Open and he says his games in a good place, but trying to make that happen uh where you grew up, that’s a lot of pressure for him. U and that obviously that is by far the number one story line going into this tournament this year. Just one more thing on him specifically, then I’ll let you go because he wins the Masters. It’s this massive like all of that weight off of his shoulders. And he even sort of acknowledged that. And despite how he played this past weekend, he has not played well really since Augusta and has even sort of suggested it’s because I reached the mountaintop, so to speak, and I haven’t handled it well since then. Are you surprised that he kind of did go through a little monthslong thing of not really being that competitive after putting on that green jacket? Yeah, I am personally because I thought it would go the other way. Like when something happens, there’s two ways that can go. Uh you can go the way where he has and sort of fall off a little bit or it would free you from all of that stress and then you just your game just takes off and you play with reckless abandon because you’ve accomplished everything. So now you can go out there and accomplish anything, right? So I was I was really thinking it was going to be that as opposed to what we’ve seen. And maybe maybe for Rory, he had to go through whatever this is to get a better better understanding of who he’s going to be going forward, right? And if if he plays well here and wins this championship, then I think you will see uh an inspired Roy Moy for the remainder of his career because his motivation will be different now. It will be just about winning those slams and uh bettering his his legacy and resume for all time. But it I think a lot will depend on how well he plays. I’m not saying he necessarily has to win, but he has to be in the mix. like he has to be, you know, in contention on Sunday for him to really feel that uh he’s in a spot where he can go out next year for the next four majors and try to win one or two of those. That is Michael Leaves from ESPN. Make sure you’re watching him on ESPN hosting Sports Center and of course following him on X Michael Leaves. That’s Michael Leaves. Thanks so much for your time, buddy. Enjoy Los Angeles. We’ll watch the SBS and I’ll talk to you next Monday. All right, sounds good, brother. We’ll see you. Bye-bye. That’s Michael Eaves from ESPN. If you’re interested in the betting market, Scotty Sheffler, world number one, is the favorite at Royal Port Bush in Northern Ireland to win the Open Championship on Sunday, but the second best odds in the entire field. That is the home favorite Roy Moy. When we come back, Indiana Fever played the Dallas Wings yesterday, high-profile game, ABC. It was the first regular season matchup between former number one overall pick Caitlyn Clark and the most recent number one overall pick, Paige Beckers. It wasn’t a competitive game, but there was a big audience for it. Fever win. Caitlyn Clark still not shooting it well since coming back from injury. We’ll run you through all the numbers. Next, Gary Parish Show presented by Orthos South. What can the Memphis Grizzlies learn from the Thunder Pacers NBA Final Series? Your style of play is not something that you really have to change. Both these teams love to play fast. Both these teams love to play uh really aggressively on the defensive side of the ball. Hey Grizzlies fans, be sure to tune in to Grisby where the panel and I break down all things Grizzlies and take a look at the rest of the NBA as well. The show is live every Wednesday 2 p.m. on YouTube at Grind City Media and the official Grind City Media app. Grizzlies fans know it’s the team that gives you the edge. 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By signing up, you agree to receive recurring automated promotional and personalized marketing text messages from the Memphis Grizzlies. Consent is not a condition of any purchase. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Sonic Radio. Welcome back to Sonic Rio. That spells radio with me, the CIO. This just in. The new Sonic $1.99 menu lets you build a craveworthy meal for just $1.99 an item. Whether that’s a creamy shake, crispy tots, or a quarter pound double cheeseburger. This just out. Ostriches. They’re mean, not very cute, and in my opinion, way too big for a bird. Don’t miss the Sonic Fun 999 menu. Five items, always $1.99. Live free, eat Sonic. Text included menu for details. Orthopedic injuries can be unpredictable, unforeseen, and unscheduled. And Ortho South understands this better than anyone. Since your injuries don’t make appointments, you don’t need to either. And that’s because Ortho South welcomes walk-ins during the weekdays, in the evenings, and even on Saturdays. So next time an unforeseen injury makes an unscheduled appearance in your life. Visit orthosouth.org to find your nearest urgent care location. Just walk in and Ortho South will take care of everything, especially you. Learn more at orthosouth.org. That’s orthosouth at orthosouth.org. Now I got five more things you need to know. Number one high-profile game, Gambridge Fieldhouse downtown Indianapolis. Yesterday it was the Dallas Wings and the Indiana Fever live on ABC. They got that nice window on Sunday afternoon. It was Caitlyn Clark, the number one pick of the 2024 WNBA draft. And Paige Becker is the number one pick of the 2025 WNBA draft. Final score 10283. Fever over Wings. So, it wasn’t a competitive game, but it was a big stage. And this is the main thing is every few days now in the WNBA schedule, they have one of these high-profile matchups because the stardom is starting to spread a little bit. And this is the latest example. Like this is something where just 5 years ago, these events in that league did not happen. They did not exist. They had great players and whatever, but these types of events did not exist. Now they’re here. You’re getting a lot of eyeballs on it. And um Caitlyn Clark, it was her third game back from injury and still did not shoot it well. Do you have real concerns, Bennett? Do you have real concerns about Caitlyn Clark’s shooting percentages since returning from injury? Because I can tell you they’re they’re not good and people are starting to whisper. I think she just got to get back in a rhythm, GP. I think she just got to get back in a rhythm, GP. Three games since coming back from injury. In those three games, she is two of five from three against uh Golden State. Back that with a one of seven effort against Atlanta. our Atlanta Dream and then uh yesterday two of seven from beyond the arc against the Dallas Wings. Would it surprise you to know what do you think Caitlyn Clark’s shooting from three this season? Guess trivia time. Trivia time. She has a percentage just like everybody else who launches from beyond the ark. What do you think hers is right now? 32%. Mm. She wishes. Really? Oh, she she wishes. 29%. She wishes stop 28.9%. So you can round it up to 29% but it’s 28.9%. Caitlyn Clark is shooting 28.9% from three-point range. Does that concern you? Do you have real concerns? People are starting to whisper. Are they? You know, I mean, you know how these injury riddled seasons go, man. How do they go? Yeah, you just never get back in a rhythm. You just never get GI Jackson last season. That’s why we’re writing off last season. Gi’s trajectory was halted because of the injury that he was coming back from last season. Same thing here with Caitlyn Clark. People don’t talk about it enough. We should have picked up on this better than most given where we work and what we do, but we’ve seen this happen to elite talents in their second season. Mhm. We’ve seen this happen. Exactly. We’ve seen this happen. I think we’ll I think well look at what Gigi had to go through and now look at what Caitlyn’s going through. We’ve seen this and we expect a massive year three out of Gigi. So I think I think Kaitlin we can assume she’ll get back on track uh during year two but I think year three is where we’re looking I think year three is where we’re looking to get that way above 30%. I’m not willing to punt on year two. Not quite yet. We’re not willing to punt on year two. We’re still in the playoffs right now. People are But people are starting to whisper. I hear those whispers. You know where the whispers are coming from? They’re coming from the part of the internet that wants to know, “Hold up. All y’all do is tell me this is I hate that part of the internet.” Oh, that part of the internet’s why. But they’re coming from the part of the internet that says, “Hold up. Y’all keep telling me this is the greatest thing basketball’s ever seen.” But why is why is she shooting from three like she DeAndre Jordan? People are starting to whisper. Okay, he there’s no way he ever shot 28% from three. Did he even shoot like 2% from three? Let me be clear, Luke Darnell, whoever. Do not clip this and put this anywhere. I ain’t trying to go on Tik Tok comparing Caitlyn Clark to DeAndre Jordan. All right, I know how I know ain’t going to work well for me on Tik Tok. All right, so don’t clip this. I’m clearly just playing around. But she is shooting 28.9% from three. Yeah, she is having statistically an inferior season than she had last season. Still early, I know. And she’s only uh you know, she’s only appeared in 12 games so far this season. Small sample size, I know. But her numbers are down. That’s a fact. Yeah, I’m just speaking facts. Sorry for speaking facts, but her numbers are down. I think we’ll be all right. I think she’s going to be all right. But stay tuned. Stay tuned. Okay, number two. Hugh Fes has decided to come out and defend his golf game. What’s Hugh Freeze up to? Oh man, you never know if we’re being honest. I hadn’t heard from him in a while, man. Once upon a time, he was ruling the summer news cycle. Don’t ask me what what Hugh Free’s been up to. Don’t Don’t ask such open-ended questions. I won’t. Don’t put me on the spot like that. Okay. All right. Sorry. Don’t ever put me on the spot like that again. It’s Monday morning. All right. We barely getting comfortable in this big studio over here. And for people who don’t know, by the way, they’re doing construction on the other side of the building. Yeah. And for people who don’t know, that would be literally everybody except the people who work here. Cuz why else would you know, they’re doing construction on that side of the building. And on that side of the building is where the studio we use is located. So, they thought it might be too loud on that side of the building. Although I can tell you as somebody who has stood on that side of the building all morning, it’s not loud at all. I ain’t heard a thing. Oh, this nothing going on yet. Oh, it’s total silence over there. I don’t think they’ve started just yet this morning. So, all right. But that’s why we’re over here in the big studio. All right. And we’re just now getting we’re just now getting comfortable over here. And you want to hit me with something as crazy as, so what’s Hugh Freeze been up to, buddy? I ain’t ready to answer a question like that. Okay. All right. I don’t think it’s my place to answer a question like that. But what I can tell you is that Hughes has decided to go public and defend his golf game. He’s been criticized. His golf game, not his golf game. Nobody’s really criticizing his golf game. Although he could probably stand to get a little better around the greens, but that goes for all of us. Okay. Okay. Auburn fans are upset because they have been monitoring. There’s an app all of us golfers and I I’m not acting. There’s an app all of us who spend more time than we should playing golf have on our phone and it’s a USGA handicap app and like I can go right now and look up Chris Vernon’s handicap or you know the Q Freeza’s handicap. Mhm. So Auburn fans, while they’re missing out on recruits and, you know, losing more than they win or more than they would like, are starting to try to figure out, okay, this Hugh Freeze thing used to work, you know, but why ain’t it working here? Why ain’t it going so well here? And you know what they figured out? According to the app where Hugh Fes logs his scores so that he can keep his handicap updated like like anybody who takes golf that seriously does. Auburn fans have gone in and started comparing how often he logs scores in his app to how often other SEC coaches log scores in their app. And what they have found is Hugh Fes is logging golf scores way more often than other SEC football coaches. And what they have deduced from that is that the reason Auburn football is in a bad place right now is because the Auburn football coach, Hugh Fes, plays too much golf. Interesting. I Yeah, I thought that this was just reserved for presidents that we we monitored their how much time they’re playing golf. So, I guess it’s gone to SEC coaches now. Oh, yeah. These guys and and when it comes to presidents, it only matters how much they play golf depending on who it is. Fair enough. You have to understand. Okay. It only matters depending on what ch it only matters who which president is playing golf in which channel you’re watching, right? Okay. Some presidents can play golf and on this channel it will not matter, but then another president can play golf and on this channel it will be the biggest thing in the world and then vice versa. And so that’s sort of the way that worked. But to answer your question, yes, we have now reached a point where we are monitoring the golf outings of SEC football coaches and um criticizing them for it. Fair or unfair? What do you think? I’m going to go with unfair, but you know, holler at me three games into the season. This is the type of thing that happens when your job isn’t going well. Yeah. And there are I’m just always fascinated by when somebody’s job doesn’t go well. Very public job like that job running an SEC football program because that’s a very public job. Most most people have jobs and they’re just behind the scenes jobs. Like your bosses know if you do your job well or your co-workers might know if you do your job well, but the general public does not know whether you’re good at your job or not. For instance, I go to a baseball game, my kids’ baseball game, and let’s just say there’s like 12 sets of parents there. And let’s just say for the sake of the conversation, all 12 of them have like out of home jobs. They all have careers. They don’t, by the way, but let’s for the sake of the conversation say that they do. So now I got, let’s say, 24 adults that I’m surrounded by every weekend, and they all have jobs. And I can ask all of them, so what do you do? So what is your job? Mhm. And this person is like, “Well, I own a pest control business.” And this person can be like, “Well, I’m in medical sales.” And this person can be like, “Well, I run a restaurant or whatever.” And here’s the truth. I don’t have any idea whether they’re good at their job or not. Right? How would I know? Are you the best medical salesperson or the worst? I have no context for that. I just know what you do if I bothered to listen when you said, “But I don’t know whether you’re good at your job.” Most of us don’t know whether the people we associate with on a daily basis, we don’t know whether they’re good at their jobs. But when you are a SEC football coach or anybody who has a very public job, there is like a scoreboard. The scoreboard is in recruiting rankings during the offseasons and then it transitions to the, you know, conference standings during the season. But there is always a way to tell whether this is going well or not. Your neighbor has a job, Bennett. I assume you don’t know whether it’s going well or not. Hugh Fes has a job. You know whether that one’s going well or not. Penny Hardaway has a job. You know whether that one’s going well or not, right? These are very public jobs. We can tell. Oh, yeah. It’s going How’s it going for How’s it going for Chris Beard at Old Miss? Oh, it looks like it’s going pretty well. Well, how’s it going for Johnny Dawkins down at UCF? Oh, buddy, it’s not going so well these days. Like, there’s a way to keep score. And when it comes to coaches, here’s what we do. Not me necessarily, but just people. This is happening to Hugh Freeze right now. When suddenly the scoreboard, the way we determine whether or not you’re doing well at your job, when it is indicating that things aren’t going well, we automatically have to look for reasons for they’re not. And often it just will come down to he’s not working hard enough. And that’s what this is. Except do you really think Hugh Free started playing golf when he got to Auburn? Because I can tell you he’s had a membership at a not club here locally for a long long time. I don’t know how much you know about Hugh Fes, but you can Google it. It seems like he’s always had a lot of in and I’m not even trying to be funny. I I I shouldn’t do that. Like this is a man who he took his public beatings and uh and you know was humbled and his family had to go through that. Like I don’t even feel comfortable making jokes about it. I know I did earlier and I shouldn’t have. It’s not funny. Like that’s a real family that had to go through something very hard in a very public way. That’s I imagine that’s difficult. And if um they’ve you know he paid a price for for all of that. My my point is a a more is a simpler point. The idea that you got to be focused on football 24 hours a day or else you’re not a great football coach just runs counter to reality. Because Hugh Fes, I promise you, is just I would assume at least is just as focused on his job today as he was in his final two years at Miss and perhaps given everything we know. And again, I’m not trying to make jokes. I’m just speaking he might be more focused on like his job today than he was in his last years at Miss. We all know the miss stuff was amazing on the field. this one isn’t going as well. But is it because he he spends three and a half hours twice a week on a golf course? Or is it possible there’s just some other factors that are in play? The most obvious one being that these are very hard jobs and not everybody can win and some guys who are making $5 million a year are going to lose. Recruiting battles first and then football games after that. I just think it’s kind of a fool’s errand to always assume when somebody’s job isn’t going well that it’s because of things that probably have very little to do with it. If you want to know why Hugh Fes hasn’t just hit a home run at Auburn, it is probably because the job’s more difficult than you realize. The profession is constantly changing. And in a league like that, yeah, somebody’s got to win, somebody’s got to lose. But everybody, with few exceptions, expects to be at least decent and respectable. And every school in that league is paying millions and millions of dollars to their football staff. And by definition, they can’t all be successful. Somebody’s got to be on the wrong end of things. It’s been Auburn a little more than it should be probably in recent years. But is it because Hugh Fes plays golf a lot? I doubt it. I doubt that’s it. But it has gotten to a point. This is the part that’s interesting. The why this is a headline right now. It’s gotten to a point where he felt compelled to talk about it publicly. He’s feeling that pressure. So imagine what that’s like. I want to just go because he even talked about this. Sometimes me and my wife after work go get the golf cart and we go out and we hit balls around for a couple of hours. So think about this for a second. If the story was every day when Hugh Fes leaves the office, he goes and sits down with his family and has a dinner as a family, we’d be like, “Well, that’s sweet. That’s good life balance, work life balance.” But because it’s he might go with his wife and play nine holes of golf, it’s this guy doesn’t work hard enough. What I think you need stuff outside of your work. I think if you’re actually and you talk to most people who had those types of professions, they’ll tell you they need you need to escape. You need to break away. And a golf course is an excellent place to just break away. Get out there with your friends or your wife, anybody, your kids, and you’re outside. It’s just birds. Beautiful. I like detaching on a golf course. I won’t blame other people for doing it, but I I do know this. So, I played a golf course where, you know, the tea times are online. So I can go to make a tea time and I can see everybody who’s playing who gets on the t- sheet, right? So if I have a 10:15 tea time, I can see everybody that’s got a 7:45 tea time, 8:15 tea time, it’s all on a screen. I’m looking at it. There are people who are members at this golf course and they will not jump on that T- sheet like that on a weekday because they know people will like co-workers and people will see that or it’ll get screenshot and passed around. Oh, did you see what so- and so was doing Thursday morning? He was out at the golf course. I saw him on the T- sheet. It’s like, well, I don’t want people thinking I’m not working hard enough. So, just they’ll stay off of the T- sheet and like call it in and be like, hey, I’m just going to put me down for 8:15, but but they don’t want to get on the computer. They don’t want to be on the online thing because they don’t want people to think they’re not working hard enough. And Hugh Freeze on some level is reached that point. He’s gonna go play golf at some point in the next week and he’ll debate with himself and then probably lean toward I’m not even going to post this score to to keep up with my handicap because I know it’ll be used against me, my own fan base if we lose a game early. That’s the point Q Freeze has reached. Paychecks are good though. I guess that’s what the paychecks are for though, right? I guess that’s what the paychecks are for. Number three, it was a big week for W weekend for WWE. We had a Saturday night’s main event in prime time on NBC on Saturday night. Yeah. Goldberg had his final match for like the hundth time. That was nice. I I You didn’t get No, they said this was the last one. Okay. I’ve heard that a thousand times. He had more than 100 family and friends there in attendance. Awesome. They said this is the end. Yeah. Oh, I was moved. You didn’t think you were You were moved. You were moved by Goldberg at the end. I I’m not Somebody said I’m not the biggest fan. Somebody said somebody somebody said uh can you believe he lost? If it was his final match, why didn’t he go out a winner? You never go out a winner. That’s the WWE rule, man. You don’t you don’t get to go out with a win. And in fact, you you lose and then you ride off into the sunset because you’re now a loser. That’s that’s always been their motto. But that’s the rule of sports. I actually think that lines up perfectly with sports. Like, so I guess on some hand you t you turn into NBC on Saturday night if you were a wrestling fan of a certain age. It’s like I want to see Goldberg got on top, but that’s not how it works. We just watched Mike Tyson lose to Jake Paul. That’s probably the last time we see Mike Tyson in a boxing ring. Yep. The last time we see Goldberg in a wrestling ring, theoretically, he loses to Gunther. Mhm. in the last similarly the last time we see Mike Tyson in a boxing ring theoretically he loses to Jake Paul think about the last time you see Muhammad Ali in a boxing ring the last time you see most people in individual sports the last time you see them it is not good right Serena I mean no it’s true yeah I’m trying to think of like a a instance when somebody went out on top and then I Technically Floyd Mayweather, I guess, finished his career undefeated, but you can manipulate that stuff for your opponents and all that stuff. Yeah. And he did. Floyd was the master at like he would go get you a year later than you should have been in the ring with him or he’ll go get you two years earlier. Like he got P he waited Pacquiao out and let him get old and become a diminished version. And then he rec he recognized Canelo Alvarez was becoming a star. He was like, I don’t want to get in the ring with this guy in two years, but I’ll get him now. I’ll go get him right now. He’s good at that. UFC is the one where the guys retire on like Kabib, one of the greatest ever, retired on top. Like he was at the peak of his powers and he retires, you know, who’s the most famous UFC guy of the past decade, 15 years, whatever. Famous, not best. McGregor and he didn’t. That’s true. Think about it. Think about when’s the last time you saw him in the octagon? Did it go well? That’s true. I mean those kind of you know the injuries but yeah no that’s true I guess I I actually like that wrestling sort of emulates sport actual sports other individual sports doesn’t go out on top she limps off the court as a diminished version of herself Mike Tyson doesn’t go out on top Muhammad Ali doesn’t go out on time most of our greats we watch them walk away in defeat so that made sense to me that Goldberg would and it I realize we’re talking about this. I realize how stupid this must sound. He’s a legend. I realize how stupid this sounds. It’s not stupid to me. Damn it. Real to me. I realize how stupid it sounds. It’s not lost on me. But I I kind of like that that happened. And then even before that happened. So it was it was just sort of interesting to watch live because you get an LA night Seth Rollins match that clearly gets cut short. Yeah. Because of what appears to be a legitimate Seth Rollins injury. And I was like, “Buddy, there’s 35 minutes left in this television show.” Because that’s what it is. It’s a television show and you got a 54 year old coming out of retirement. Is he going to be able to fill this time? Are they going to have to stall it out? But they didn’t really stall it out. And then they did fill the time and it was fine. But that was the other interesting thing that happened on Saturday night. Seth Rollins, who has sort of become the centerpiece of the storyline while Roman Reigns is away at least, um, suffers what we now know. It looked in real time like it was a legitimate injury and we they have now confirmed. We’re trying to figure out MRI I believe is scheduled for today. They’re trying to figure out how big of a deal it is. But if we have it lined up and we can show it like you can see the knee buckle. If you watch basketball, you see stuff like this all the time. It happened to Seth Rollins on Saturday night. Let’s see. I think we got it. I don’t know. Um so I don’t know if we have it or not. Uh, but he’s had a ton of knee injuries in the past. Like, uh, that’s Yeah, that’s bad. Well, I heard some other people, and I guess we don’t have it, but I heard some other people say like, “Yo, you have a history of knee injuries. Why you jumping and trying to land like that?” I don’t know. That’s not He’s a wrestler. That’s not for me to say. Look, watch this buckle. Boom. And immediately grabs it. Yeah, it didn’t look like anything, but you could tell. Then he goes to the corner. They bring the doctors out. And I thought this was interesting. You got to be more of a wrestling nerd than even I am to understand this, but like they could have just like said he can’t continue and just But he like took the loss. They say a clean a clean win for LA Knight. They let like he took the loss. He like went out there and like ended it, but he didn’t have to do that. So I don’t know what the idea was behind that. But either way, that was Saturday night. He’s a pros pro. He’s a pros pro, I guess. And then on Sunday we get a all women’s card high-profile and I guess the title match is Ria Ripley Eio Sky but then Naomi cashes in Money in the Bank. I love a Money in the Bank cash in I love a good cash. It’s good. I love a good cash in Rollins probably had the best one ever at WrestleMania. The one was the one in Phoenix I think. Um I mean because he cashes in and wins the title. Uh but yeah man, there’s nothing like a cash in. So Naomi comes out. She’s got the money in the bank thing. She can cash in whatever. What that means, if you’re not a complete nerd like the rest of us, uh, you could just decide you’re going to be in a title match immediately. You just get to jump in it and just fight for the title. So, she jumps in. She hits somebody with a thing and hits somebody else and then pin one, two, three. Naomi’s a world champion now. I love it. I love it. Come up for her. I like the women’s division now. Oh, Evolution was. And I know Saturday at Main Event, it’s it’s network TV and not like a premium live event like Evolution was. evolution was way better, way more compelling than that. Am I right about this? Tell me if I’m right about this. Are there more compelling women superstars right now than men? Okay, cuz like here here’s all the people here’s all the people I like. Let me tell you who I like on the women’s side. I love Becky Lynch. I love Becky Lynch. I love the man. Okay, I love Becky Lynch. I love Naomi. I love Bianca. I love Jay Cargle. Mhm. I love Li Morgan. I love Tiffany Stratus. I love uh You’re taking a long time to get to the greatest. I love Tiffany Stratton. Mhm. I don’t mind Charlotte. I like Charlotte Flair, dude. She carries it. All right. I I love Charlotte Flair. People hate on her. She carries every match that she’s in. She was destroying people in that match. I like I like Bailey. I like her. I like Bailey, too. I like more I am more interested in the women’s superstars than the men’s superstars. What does that say? What does that tell you? Tell me what that tells you. Uh well, I mean that’s why they got their own premium live event, man. Uh I think um I I thought it was really good. Uh I think Naomi is a worthy champion. I’m not sure I like her new gimmick, though. I I liked the glow. feel the glow when she comes out and the the lights all cut down and she’s got on like the the suit that like has like the glow sticks on it and stuff. She gets in the ring and does like the glow dance and stuff. She’s evolving as a character. Yeah, but I like the glow gimmick. I thought it was better. What’s this new one with the caution tape? I don’t get that. I’m not She’s evolving as a character. I’m not loving that. I’m not loving that. Go back to the glow. I’m off. Give me the glow. Get rid of the man as far as I’m concerned. Just give me the one. I don’t need the men. The men like to go off and make movies and do all that nonsense. I would like to see um I would like to see a Charlotte Ripley. I see somebody in the chat re. I didn’t even mention her and Charlotte are the ghosts. Like she’s be the best, right? They’re just there’s a lot of interesting women and not as many interesting men. That’s what I say. That’s what I’m saying. We need the OTC back. We We need the OTC back bad. Uh-huh. Don’t retire goat. Please don’t retire goat. Or don’t do that halfretired thing. Don’t do that. We need you. We need you weekly. Woo, man. All right. We miss him. Number four. Okay, we already talked men’s Wimbledon final. That was center in Alcarez. That was the headliner. But I wanted to circle back to this one because uh I actually spent time on it on Friday. Yeah, I tried to get you fired up. Oh man, it didn’t go well. Like at all. I told you about Amanda Anna Samova, 23 years old from New Jersey. had surprisingly advanced all the way to the Wimbledon final. Was she gonna be an underdog? Yeah, crazier things have happened though, Bennett. Yeah, that’s what I was trying to tell you. And if you can beat the world number one in a semi-final, why can’t you beat anybody in a final? So, Amanda Anisova, she ends up in this Wimbledon final. It’s her first Grand Slam final. She has the opportunity to become the first woman American woman since Serena to win the Wimbledon’s individual since 2016 and the first American woman besides Venus or Serena to win the individual title at Wimbledon since Lindsay Davenport in 1999. So I said, “Okay.” Started to get a little USA chant going. USA was the opponent. Yeah. Oh, I was locked in. I sprinkled a little bit. I was locked in. 606. Yeah. 57 minutes. 606. That’s about as bad as it gets. It’s literally as bad as it gets. As bad as it gets. Yeah. It is only the second time this has ever happened. Mhm. In a Wimbledon final, Grand Slam final. And I She’s on She’s in tears on the court afterwards. I don’t like that. Okay. The one thing that I don’t like about Wimbledon, and maybe they do it at all these big tennis tournaments, but I I notice it at Wimbledon because I watch the final every year. Um, I don’t think we need to see the loser talk after the match. Well, see, I thought Alcarez was great yesterday. I thought he was great, too. But like, come on. I thought the Alz center thing yesterday was just sweet. It was like two elite young talents. And I think I think it’s helpful not to be too American for you, but I do think it’s helpful that like the greatest young tennis player from Italy and the greatest young tennis player from Spain, they both speak English. I think that’s helpful if you’re trying to not create but grow an audience in America. It’s just helpful when people are speaking English. I apologize. It’s just helpful. and they they both speak English and they both in that interview setting showed like incredible respect for each other and I thought Alcarez was just like I I man yeah I thought he was great bummed he lost I’m a big fan and that’s that’s actually going to be fun. I heard um uh I can’t think of who was on the broadcast but um but he was saying uh you know we’re gonna we’re gonna see those dudes face off in big tennis finals for like the next 15 years. Well, like I said to Michael Ees, um I it will not go this way, but the way it feels right now is that four Sundays a year I will watch those two men play against each other. Yeah. US Open, Australian Open, uh Wimbledon and French Open. It won’t go that way. Somebody will get upset. Somebody will pull a hamstring. Life will get in the way. But that’s it. These are the two next great things. And I thought their post-match interviews on the court were terrific, both of them. So, I didn’t mind seeing Alcares, the loser, as you say, uh, speak in that setting. Um, but for Amanda, it was just rough. It’s just that’s I I can’t imagine what that’s like. Think about this. You go to bed on Friday night thinking, tomorrow morning, I have an opportunity to achieve and something I’ve dreamed about since I was a little girl. I’m gonna be center court at Wimbledon with a chance to become the first American woman since Serena to bring this home trophy back home to the United States. And you go to bed with those thoughts and then what actually happens is it becomes the worst experience of your professional life. You go to bed assuming it could be not assuming it could be knowing it could be theoretically the greatest professional experience of your life. And it actually becomes the worst professional experience of your life. You feel humiliated on the court. You feel like you don’t belong. 6060. That’s now how you’ll be remembered. You’re a trivia question now. You’ll show up on Jeopardy someday. You’ll show up on Jeopardy someday. That’s That’s rough. Yeah, it was tough to watch. It was tough to watch. What happened? By the way, this this is how much of a novice I am. What happened to Koko? I thought she was like because she got upset in this thing early, really early. And she was supposed to be the next big star, American star, and it’s just not Well, I don’t think any Here’s the thing. We think of stars like, well, I thought she was supposed to be a star like Serena. Well, like Serena. No one Serena. No one Serena. That’s a good point. Like Serena Serena. Tiger’s Tiger. And they die. There’s not a next. Like Scotty Sheffller’s getting like he’s not Tiger, but he’s like gotten he’s he’s he’s at least gotten close to the conversation. But there’s just nobody like that, right? Good point. Serena really had no rival. Like you you talk about and I don’t want to get the years mixed up but it’s like Chris Everett Martina Naverallova if it’s Agassi Sampress or Mike throw Jim Courier in there once upon a time Nadal Federer Jookovic Serena never really Serena was more like Tiger in the sense that yeah there were other good accomplished tennis players in her era but she was just so clearly better than everybody else. Like Tiger was so clearly better than everybody else. Phil Mickelson, top 10 golfer of all time, Tiger Woods clearly better than him in his prime and everybody else. Serena was that. So now I think and I’m a little bit over my skis here. I’m not a tennis expert, but I think sometimes when Coco Golf wins a major or grand slam and then like doesn’t win one for a year or two, it’s like, well, what’s wrong with her? She’s just normal. She’s not Serena. She’s she’s great, but she’s not Serena. So like that’s that’s to be held to the Serena standard is is ridiculous. But back to this woman, I just felt sick for her. I can’t because I just I think about it strictly from that perspective. You go to bed going, “This is amazing. I have just put myself in this incredible opportunity and then it becomes the worst professional experience of your life.” You know what it oddly made me think of? You remember a few years ago, this is several years ago now, but there was a a double header week one Monday Night Football and there was a sideline reporter and they went to him for his opening hit of the game and he just go, what was his name? I remember that. But you know exactly who I’m talking about. Yeah. And he just he just he just threw up on himself. Not literally, but he just couldn’t get his words out and he just really struggled to and it was bad. It looked like they had just thrown Monday Night Football down to a high school sideline reporter and they just were struggling with their words. Um that that guy become goes viral and he gets ridiculed and I don’t know that we’ve ever heard from him again in a meaningful way. They did not go back to him that game if you remember that. Wildly unusual. They just gave up on the sideline reporter. I mean that’s you never seen that before. No, they just gave up on the sideline reporter. People tried to rally behind him because they were like, “Come on, give him another chance.” And they just they wouldn’t put him back on TV. They tried to put him on TV once and it went so badly they just did not put I want to say he landed on his feet cuz I want to say that he popped up somewhere not too long ago. People were like, “Hey, he might have landed on his feet, but he ain’t never done another hit on Monday Night Football.” And it was like I remember thinking about that. You must it must be a dream. It’s like, “Hey, yeah, hey, we got you on opening night Monday Night Football. You’re going to be our sideline reporter on ESPN.” Holy God, what an incredible opportunity. And then it quickly becomes the worst professional experience of your life. That’s tough. And that’s what Amanda went through this weekend. Hopefully, it’s nowhere but up from here. Yeah. But that was uh that was tough to watch. Six love, six love on that stage. You never you never hope it’s going to go that way. Unless, of course, you’re on the right side of it, then congratulations. But nowhere to go but but up from here, right? Yeah. Yeah. Number five. Home run derby is tonight. Big B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B Bennett. Oh, I didn’t know it was tonight. Is it tonight? Home run derbyy’s tonight. Okay. Home run derby is tonight. This is what we’re doing tonight. All right. You ready to You ready to pick a winner? Uh yeah, I think so. Let me get my list pulled up. Hang on. Did Ronald Akuna pull out of it? because I’m looking at updated odds and they’re he’s not listed Bennett. Hang on. I’m pulling up my home run derby people. Dude, are you sure? I do not see Ronald Akunia listed here. You do some research over there and see if Ronald Akuna pulled out of this thing. Either way, I don’t see him on here. Kyra’s telling us that Matt Olsen has replaced Ronald Akuna. Why did Ronald Auna pull out? All right, so I got my list. This man, this is someone I I kind of like this one because you can really just go anywhere. Um H sore back Rod Akuna out of the home run derby with a sore back. Sore back from carrying the Braves. Sore back from carrying the Braves since he returned from injury. So that means tonight, Big Bennett, just let me run you through it. I feel like we’ve already wasted too much time on this nonsense. Cal Raleigh is going to be your favorite at plus 300, followed by O’Neil Cruz at plus 310. For our purposes, it’s all about Brent Rooker from the Athletics, ECS graduate. He is at plus 1,000. He’s got the second to worst odds to win the whole thing ahead of only Jazz Chisum from the New York Yankees. But whatever, crazier things have happened. Big Bet Bennett. Brent Rooker local. Hey, Brent Rooker who’s set in the studio with Chris Vernon show. Yeah. Um he will be in the home run derby tonight at plus 10,000. I think we’re gonna have to play it. Bennett, you gonna play it? There’s no question uh that I think you got to play it at plus 10,000. Yeah, there’s no question that I’m going with him. Uh because I I’m not going to sit here and act like I’m familiar with like a lot of these guys like what they’ve been doing this season. Um so yeah. Well, most of the stars just aren’t in this. That’s right. This is This is one of the least star-studded home run derbies we’ve had in a long time. I really think that’s true. This is one of the least years. Oh yeah. Because we have had Pete Alonzo in this. Aaron Judge has done this. But tonight we will have no Aaron Judge, no Pete Alonzo, no Juan Sodto, no show Otani, no Ellie de la Cruz. There really aren’t. It’s It looks more like a slam dunk competition than a home run derby. We don’t have the stars here. It’s also like no Kyle Schwarber. Well, none of the guys are on teams that are leading their division, right? I don’t think. No. Has the home run derby gone the way of the slam dunk competition where the stars are sitting it out more than we would like? Interesting. It is interesting, Bennett. Okay, I’m going to go I think I’m going to go with Brent like everybody else because I think we have to. We have to uh Darkhorse. Let’s go with Let’s go with Byron Buckton. Bennett wants to go with Byron Buckton. I got no I was gonna I was gonna try to give you something. I got nothing. My heart is with B with Brent Brooker. I think Jazz Chisa might be the most fun because he’s fun. Um Yeah, but he ain’t gonna have the stamina for it. He’s not a big guy. He’s not a big enough guy. Little guy. You need like the the big burly dudes win the home run derby because Yes. You got to be You know what you have to do to win home run derby? You have to be able to miss balls and still get them out of the park. Yeah, that’s right. Peter Lonzo can miss balls and get them out of the park because he’s big and strong. That’s how he’s won two home run derbies. Jazz Chisum on the on the smaller side. We’ll see. Dark horse pick Matt Olsen. I’ll take Matt Olsson. Home hometown hometown hero. Okay. Matt Olsen. Okay. Home run derby tonight. Go Brent Brooker. We’re rooting for Brent Rooker. We’re rooting for Brent. Let’s go. Plus 10,000. You can make your plays. We’ll be back with GP’s carry out. We are drafting our best movies of the 21st century. Arguably the greatest superhero movie of all time. I’ll go with Dark Knight. That was going to be my Give it to me. Give it to me. Dark Knight. Like you I’m sorry. I already hate the strap. Yeah. Tune in to the Jessica Benson Show with CJ Hurt live every weekday at 8:00 a.m. on YouTube at Grind City Media and the official Grind City Media app. Are you ready? Creed. By overwhelming demand, the summer of 99 tour returns. July 27th, FedEx for with very special guest and Mammoth. Tickets on sale now at livenation.com. Don’t miss Creed with Dree and Mammoth. The summer of 99 tour. 1 2 3. Ready, go. We get to the main event and you hear the crowd. There’s some rumblings in the crowd. Here we go. They say, “We want truth.” I love how John Cena said when they were chanting, “We want truth.” You can’t handle the truth. There you go. I loved it. He takes the knee off. Boom. Takes the mask on. Boom. And it’s our freaking truth. God, man. He cost John Cena of the match. Tune in to Grind City Wrestling weekly on the Grind City Media app and on the Grind City Media YouTube channel. Shine down. Dance Kid dance tour. Dance live in Memphis. FedEx Forum Saturday, August 30th with special guests Bush and Morgan Wade. Get tickets now at livenation.com. Shineown live in concert. For more, visit shindown.com. Welcome back to Gary Paris show presented by Ortho South. Let’s wrap this up with GP’s carry out. It’s time for GP’s Carry out. One final segment filled with stuff to take with you. It’s not everything you need to know, but it’s most of it. What did we learn today? Whole bunch of stuff, but we mostly focused on your Memphis Grizzlies because Las Vegas Summer League continues to unfold out in Nevada. And the Grizzlies are now 1 and one after losing on Friday afternoon and then bouncing back on Saturday night uh with a victory. So, game three is set for tomorrow. That’s going to be Summer Warriors and Summer Grizzlies. 9:30 p.m. tip, Central time. That’s a 9:15 pregame. You in studio for that one, Bennett? I’m not in studio for that one, man. The one the other night, we didn’t start till about an hour later than originally planned. What time did you get out of here? Did you close the door? It was well after midnight. I think it was before 1:00 a.m., but it was well Yeah, it was it was a it was a long one. Um, but we had a great time. Meet Jarvo and Lang. We had a great time. They had fireworks at the uh at AutoZone Park. We got to see fireworks as we went. We went on air as the fireworks show was going on. It felt magical almost. It was amazing. And then we got a win and a win. So, a magical fireworks uh experience and then a victory. That’s a wonderful Saturday night. Hey, can I say one thing real quick? Say you can say two things real quick. Well, you asked me in in the uh first segment just like any takeaways or anything like that. Uh, one other thing I wanted to mention, Jamai Mhack, like he didn’t have a huge game offensively and we’ve talked about how that’s something that he’s just going to have to, you know, add to his game if he wants to be able to play real NBA minutes. Dude, I will say we talk a lot about the defense just watching the game. Like, I guess the best way I could describe him watching him play is there’s no hesitation in his game. He is very, very sure about what he’s doing out there like with the passes. um you know getting in lanes uh you know getting steals stuff like he just he knows where to be and he knows where to put the ball and I think that’s something that is really really going to benefit him in this team. You know what they say. Yeah, he has that dog in him. Yeah, man. I just watching him I’m like man that dude just like he just knows how to play. He has the dog in him. Yeah, he has that dog in him and it’s showing up in summer league. Perhaps you get to see him again tomorrow night. 9:15 pregame 9:30 tip on the Grind City Media app. What’s today’s biggest game? I’m gonna take you to Winrust Arena in Chicago. It’s the Minnesota Links against the Chicago Sky. Oh, let’s go. That’s Angel Reese in the Chicago Sky. Hey Bennett, if you don’t mind, credit where credit is due. Because while Caitlyn Clark’s out there missing every shot she takes just about, guess who ain’t? Angel Reese. That’s why she’s the 2K cover athlete. I guess so. That’s That’s why I guess so. They knew. In all seriousness, this weekend, eight of 14 from the field, 19 points, 11 rebounds, four assists in an 8781 victory over the Lynx. It was her sixth straight double double. Yeah, she had six turnovers as well. Uh that’s that’s not great, but she finished plus seven in the game. six straight double doubles and she got 19 points, 11 rebounds, four assists in a victory over the links. So tonight they’re doing it again, Bennett. Oh, they’re doing it again. The betting markets expect the links to bounce back. Minnesotaus 2 1/2. Total’s 161.5. 10 and 1/2. I said 10 and a half. Oh, I thought you said 2 and 1/2. 10 and 1/2. Lynx – 10 and 1/2. The total’s 161.5. How you going to act? How you going to act? Uh, I’ll still take the links at minus 10 and a half. How many times is Angel Reese going to have to make you look like Well, you know, I’m a huge fan. Uh, how many times is Angel Reese going to have to make you look silly? I just feel like uh, you know, they got him the other night. And, you know, the Sky, they’re not very good. The Lyns are the best team in the league. The Lyns are 18 and four. The Sky are seven and 13. But that’s what makes it even more impressive. Angel Reese and the Sky, they upset him on Saturday, but you’re saying it won’t happen again. No, no. I think it’s a bounceback effort from the It says the links are bouncing back tonight. He’s laying the 10 and a half. Tip is at 7:00. It’s a WNBA showdown. What are we watching on TV? Can I interest you in Jim Abbott Southpaw? Sure. DVR it. It debuted last night on ESPN at 8:00. We were doing other things, so we didn’t have time to watch it, but I did DVR it. Are you too young to remember Jim Abbott? Do you have a recollection? No, you don’t know Jim Abbott. It’s fine. You’re just You’re young. Southpole. He’s a pitcher. Okay. He’s a pitcher. He was born with one hand. He’s the one-handed pitcher. You don’t know Jim Abbott? Uh-uh. What era was this? Mid90s, late ‘ 80s, mid ’90s. I don’t really remember him. Mm- um Jim Abbott. Okay. Oh, let me educate you then. Jim Abbott um is now 57 years old. He came up with the Angels in 1989. And famously, he’s born with one hand. He has a left hand and a right. I don’t know how to say it. I’m not trying to be cute, but it’s like a nub. Yeah, I got you. Okay. And he would like just sort of drape a glove over his nub, throw the ball, and then as he released the ball, slide his hand into the glove, and now he’s ready to field. He was a one-handed pitcher in the major leagues. He threw a no hitter with the New York Yankees. They threw a no hitter one. How did I not know this? Well, you’re just too young. I feel like we didn’t I feel like we didn’t properly appreciate this as a country. We might not have properly appreciated this as a Now, now he’s got a documentary. Now he has a documentary. True story. I’ll let you decide whether it’s interesting or not. True story. Okay. I’m an intern Birmingham Post Herald after my junior year of college. And so I’m living down in Birmingham, Alabama, just doing whatever it is they tell me to do. And I got to do some like really cool things. I went and played golf or at least rode around on a golf court while he was playing golf with Bart Star. I just I just spent 18 holes riding around with Bart Star watching him play golf while I interviewed him cuz I was working on some Bart Star story. That’s awesome. Yeah. So that was like neat. And uh so at some point Jim Abbott signs with the Chicago White Socks. He’s like this is after he’s become a star and after he’s thrown his no hitter and now he’s trying to get back in the game. Yeah, I got you. He signed with the Chicago White Sox. They assign him, I believe, I guess it must have been to the Birmingham Barren and they’re playing the Chattanooga Lookouts in Chattanooga. All right. So, my assignment was drive up to Chattanooga and I had carved out, you know, I’m going to spend an hour pregame with Jim Abbott. And it was, as I remember it, the first cool thing I did as a quote reporter, I like Jim Abbott is I had his rookie card. I like watched this guy as a kid and now I’m sitting in front of him as a junior in college in the clubhouse doing an entire interview with Jim Abbott and the whole time I’ll never forget this. He had fingernail clippers and he was clipping his little nub like he had fingernails in that nub. You wouldn’t assume that. I don’t guess. I don’t know. You wouldn’t assume that. No, I got to confirm too if you can say nub or not. I don’t know if that’s a if that’s Well, that’s what it I’m sorry. I don’t know if that’s appropriate. I don’t know. What would you say? Uh, if I showed you a picture of it, that’s what you would call it. Perhaps it’s not okay anymore. But if I showed you a picture of it, it was just me and you. Like if you were over my house and I said, “Look at this. What do you think that is?” That’s what you would say. You would say the same thing. I would say his um No, I might say no. Yeah. You know what? I don’t know what else you would say. Hey, listen. If if you tell me I can’t say it, I’ll never say it again. But that’s what you would call I’ll check on you. Check on it. Let me know. I’ll remove it from my vocabulary if I need to. You know, I’ll remove it if I need to. But that’s what you would call it. I think you’re good. That was my memory. All right. I think you’re good. Anyway, I got to spend time with Jim Abbott and I found him to be pleasant and awesome and I I remember it as a great experience. I love Jim Abbott. I love Jim Abbott. Where can I watch this? I on the ESPN app right now. I DVR it. But I’m going to sit down and watch it with my boys. Like I want them to I want them to know the story of Jim Abbott. I don’t want them going through life like you not knowing the story of Jim Abbott. I know, man. So I’m going to sit down with my boys to watch this. I want my boys to watch the docu the Jim Abbott documentary and then I’ll tell them that same story and perhaps I’ll come up with a better word for that part of his body. Sounds good. All right. All right. What’s the best thing we’ve read? Right now over at CBSports.com they got NFL coach rankings. Who do you think is ranked as the number one coach in the NFL by CBSports.com? Andy Reid. Andy Reid is number one. Ding ding ding from the Kansas City Chiefs. Number two Shawn McVey. Number three John Harbaugh from the Baltimore Ravens. If you want to see their coaching rankings, you can find it on the homepage right now. What’s on tap for tomorrow? Well, tomorrow’s Tuesday, so we’ll be getting ready for Grizz Warriors uh summer league. And I’m sure we’ll have a new LeBron James Lakers story. So, that’ll be fun. My god, I hope so. That’ll be a blast. That’ll be a blast. Should be a fun show. Should be a fun day. I’m looking forward to it already. Enjoy the rest of your day. I’m going to enjoy mine. We’re going to meet back here tomorrow at 10. Till then, be careful. Be kind. Be good. Rip your hood.
#garyparrishshow
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