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Welcome to the Nightcap on this Tuesday night, December ninth, somewhere between here and Washington, d C.
As our opening guests.
Tonight, we have the Congressman from the House of Representatives of the fourth District in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, my representative in Washington, d C. Thomas Massey, for a few minutes to start off tonight. We'll have some other stuff, but right now this is the important thing. Congressman Massey, Thomas, how are you, sir?
I'm doing great, Cary, Jeff. Good to hear from you. I'm not tired of winning yet, but I did have a big win here recently. I got the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed in the House by a vote of four hundred and twenty seven to one, and it passed the Senate unanimously, which means one hundred to zero, and the President signed it immediately. And just today the second judge has ruled that they will release grand jury material
that they had previously not released. There was a judge in Florida with the old Epstein case who ruled that he would release all the grand jury material. And then today to a judge who's over the Maxwell case, the recent Maxwell Gallaine Maxwell case, ruled that he will release the material. And it's all because this bill passed and then the deal. There's a third judge of the recent
Epstein case in New York. We're waiting to hear what he's going to do, but we suspect since two federal judges have already said, look, Massey got the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed, This changes everything. We're going to release our materials. So we're waiting on that third judge what he will do. But in reality, the bulk of the material is at the DOJ, not in and the FBI not in this grand jury material.
All right, So here here's my question.
What about protections from some of the victims who don't want their names or their stories released.
I mean, that is that still redacted. Is that still blocked out.
Thomas, Yeah, that's written into our bill. We have a provision to allow for reactions of victims. Now, you can't redefine victim as some you know, man who's going to be embarrassed because he went to the Epstein Island. That's not a victim, but any woman who was sex trafficked or or girl for that man, or some of these females we're fourteen years old. All of those names will
be redacted. And the judge who announced today he's going to release the grand jury material in the Glenne Maxwell case said that he's taking extra care to keep the victims' names redacted.
President Trump today or this evening, spoke in Pennsylvania at one of those campaign style rallies that he likes to do when he's running, to tout the plans that and the things this administration has done to make life more affordable. The new a word in Washington, his affordability. You know, it started with the zoh Ranmandani promise of everything for free to every New Yorker that voted for him, which we know is illogical and can't happen unless it's some
communist country. But what should the government role be in affordability in the first place?
Thomas?
How should the government be able to help people afford things that they need in their lives? Well, well, you know what you broke up there, Thomas.
Oh, I'm sorry, can you hear me?
Yeah? So, so answer affordability.
Ye, let me start with what they shouldn't do. They should not do price fixing. You can't go in and say the price is going to be this, No, because the government doesn't know. The free market knows what the price should be. The government can make sure that the rules are written so that there's competition. We don't have affordability in the supermarket right now for meat because there's four meat packers that control eighty five percent of the
meat that you can buy there. So one thing we could do for affordability is Past My Prime Act, which would allow farmers to use local processors, mom and pop processors, and sell their beef and port locally directly and bypass that oligarchy of meat processors. Okay, so one thing, that's one thing we can do, and you do that by lowering regulations, not no regulations, but right size the regulations.
Right now, we've got scale prejudicial regulations, which means the big guys love the regulation because it keeps the little guys out. But the main thing we can do for affordability, Gary Jeff, is to quit spending so much frickin money we don't have and printing it. Inflation is insane. And then you've got that, you know, the US government is competing for capital because we're borrowing so much money, and
they're the ones driving up interest rates. So affordability means how much interest are you paying on your mortgage and your car. And it also means is what's your real wage after inflation every year? So that's what we should be doing, spending less money so that we're not causing so much inflation.
So the FED should lower the interest rates, right.
I don't think the FED should exist.
I agree with and we've had that conversation before. But as long as they do exist, they should lower the interest rates.
They can lower interest rates. But here's what's happened. The foreign sovereign wealth funds that typically buy US debt have decided that four percent is not enough interest because we monetize too much of our debt and diluted, we're promising to pay back anybody who buys Treasury bonds with US dollars fifteen years from now, and they're saying, well, we don't think four percent is a good deal because we think you're going to inflate your dollar more than that
year over year, and in fifteen years we will have not made any returns. So the FED could lower rates, but will the market follow those rates? Not really the Fed's ability to control interest. It's like a control stick that's connected with a rubber band and they've got that band stretched. You could stretch it some more and try to bring the rates down, but they're not in total control.
Talking to Thomas Massey, Congressman Thomas Massey, my congressman, the guy vote for every two years, planning on doing it again unless he really really steems me in the next few minutes. No, Thomas here. So here's the thing. What about the so called double tap? These boats, these drug boats, according to the Administration narco terrorism vehicles in international waters
they are unflagged. Does the President have the right to do what he is doing and the Department of Defense or Department of War have the right to do what they are doing in open international waters if they've got the intel and they know these people are transporting drugs to the United States because it's a threat to our country, a security threat. Do you believe that the President and the Department of Defense have the right to do what they're doing.
Well, sorry for the bad pun, but the water is a little murky here.
It's all the cocaine in the water that's the problem.
Yeah, the sharks are really listen. When when we go after terraces in the Middle East or elsewhere, there's an AUMF that authorizes authorization to use the military force. It's called the Global War on Terror and it was done long before I got to Congress, and it's still in effect. And so it's for al Qaeda and associates. But Congress authorized that and declared those to be terrorists and that the president could do those things. There's actually no such
authorization for what's going on in Venezuela. And the concern that I have and Senator Ran Paul has too, is that this is more than about the cocaine. It's certainly not about fentanyl. Fentanyl doesn't come from Venezuela. You know, why aren't we under the same rules you could attack boats from Mexico or boats from China to Mexico delivering
the precursors for fentanyl. If that, if you're allowed to bomb any boat that's got drugs on it, yeah, it gets and it gets murky because and I'm not taking up for anybody who's running drugs in the Caribbean at all, but the double tap gets murky because this is somewhere
between a military exercise and a police exercise. I talked to veterans who said, you know, in Afghanistan or Iraq, if you blew up a convoy and there were some survivors, you know, let's say a military convoy with machine guns and tanks and whatever, you go back and you take them all out. You don't go in and arrest them. I think what's what leaves a bad taste in people's mouths, and mine included here is that this is somewhere between
a military action and a police action. And if you were a police and you were pulling over a drug you say you were doing a drug bust, and you had disabled the drug dealer's ability to distribute the drugs, maybe destroyed all the drugs, and they were still the car driver or the boat driver or whatever. I'm not saying they're innocent, but there are different degrees of culpability. The police wouldn't go back and put double taps in everybody. So this is that's why this is murky. Okay, there's
a there's not a congressional authorization. The premise here that I think is a little bit disingenuous. I do think that the president is trying to and the State Department is trying to exact regime change in vent and this is somewhat of a police action that's been categorized as a military action and it's being carried out by the military.
I got you.
I don't think that anybody, I don't think that Pete Hegseth should be drummed out of office or arrested for international war crimes for what they're doing. I understand that you, as you well stated, it's a murky situation without the authorization of Congress, but they do have some power.
To do it.
The Supreme Court is deciding whether these tariffs can be kept in place that the Trump administration. I know you've been an anti tariff guy for the most part so far.
What do you think think we should I think we should vote on them, by the way, if we could go back to the first one hundred and fifty years of this country, where we didn't have an income tax. We didn't have an income tax until the sixteenth Amendment was passed.
Nineteen thirteen or something like that.
And yes, very bad years FED came into existence, the income tax came into existence, and they began direct electing senators and senators and quit working for the states. They became basically a house of representatives that run every six years. Anyways, those were three bad things that happened in nineteen thirteen. But if we can go back prior to nineteen thirteen, over ninety percent of our revenue came from tariffs and there was no income tax, and I would be okay
with going back to that. It's not that I'm against tariffs. You'll get Honestly, you're going to get less of whatever you tax. So if you tax a person's labor, you probably do less labor or they're less inclined to do the labor. If you tax consumption of foreign goods, there'll be less consumption of foreign goods. And I think trade is good, but I'm not like a religious zealot about free trade. You got to collect the money somewhere, all right.
But here's the thing Congress has in specifically, the House of Representatives has the taxing authority. That's in the Constitution. It says that the Congress shall set the taxes, an any bill dealing with taxes has to originate in the House. Even well, if you think about the context in which that was written, the founding fathers anticipated that taxes would be tariffs and exercise taxes on products, and so they
always intended for Congress to weigh in. So the question is can the president using authority delegated to him in the seventies nineteen seventies by Congress. Was Congress allowed to delegate that to him? And is he using that appropriately? Here's what I think they might say. They might say that, yes, the power resides in Congress, but Congress is sitting there doing nothing. They haven't taken a vote on it in the House, hm, and so Congress has abdicated their role
in this. They might the Supreme Court might say that and leave that authority to the president. I don't know what they're going to say, but I know that the Constitution says that we should be voting on these things in the House. And if they would give me a vote that says, Okay, for every dollar of tariff we collect, we're going to reduce the income tax on individuals.
I vote for that, and I would be happy that you were voting for that.
Thomas Massey, thank you so much for your time, and get back on your trip to Washington, d C.
Do some good work.
All right, We're headed there, Thanks Garry, Jeff.
Thank you.
Ah.
Yes, Thomas Massey running again for the fourth district seat in the House of Representatives, and I am going to vote for him again. I just can't stop news on the way in a few.
As a confidence killer.
You can have the best outfit, the sharpest resume, the funniest jokes, but if your breath smells like the food you just date, that's all people remember.
Yes, it is once again sports were they out of sorts? Although in these segments with this guy, we sometimes we dripped off away from sports, which I think is fine for me and fine for you and fine for him. Let's find out if that is the case. Tonight we welcome into the night Cap Layer, the one and only four ball Andy Furman and Andy I had a question to start.
If you don't mind, you might just doo.
Okay, you are supposed to interview me in a sense, right or conversation whatever? Right?
Well, yeah, I thought that's what we were doing. Anyway, I wanted to ask you what kind of shape are you in? Because I don't think that I'm in the best shape in the world. But yesterday or over the weekend, we had the Health Secretary, Robert Kennedyjunior, and the Transportation Secretary in the airport doing pull ups and I can't remember the last time I did a pull up?
Do you do pull ups? Offten? Andy? And in your regiment of workout and fitness, I.
Still pay about it. No, I tell you what, I have to commend you for admitting that you're in really bad shape. No, I'm not in really mentally and physically mentally physics, not.
In really bad shape. Andy. I forgot my phone two days in a row. But that's it.
That's the mental part of it. In the physical part, I I am not you, And they say wow.
I am Wow. I'm not obesely overweight.
You don't have to be obviously have a wait to be in physically bad shape. You could be like underweight too. You just you just don't look put together. Well, okay, And I can tell you that as a friend, and then I never would have said that to you except that you brought it up, so you know, friends, of honestly, we.
Were talking about me, you idiot, We were talking about you.
What kind of shape for you?
Now? Are I piggy stop it? All right? Really?
So what kind of shape were you in? That's what I want to know.
I would have to say that I made a commitment to myself New Year's last year, last year that I would not miss because I used to do the deal. I used to run. I at least a love running, and I ran in a couple of flying pigs and you know ten k's and everything, the whole deal. But I've did a lot of them. I used to run
every single day at the Cincinnati Athletic Club indoors. And then I had some problems with my hip, and then I had some problems with my other hip, and I had two hip surgeries, and I asked the doctor can I continue running? And he already says to me, yeah, of course you can, but if you do, you'd be coming back to see me again. So I was kind of at a loss for like what to do, and summertime. I love to swim, so swimming was great, and even
said swimming was good. But I got myself one of those bikes, and at the beginning of the year I started, and I honestly, I don't think I've missed ten days. Really, I don't think I missed ten days since the first of the year. I do an hour and fifteen minutes every single day, and most of the days I try to do it at four o'clock in the afternoon, so I do it well. I watch Judge Judy. I enjoy Judge Judy.
Whoa you watch Judge Judy?
I was, I was following.
Along with you. Well depending on where you're at Channel twenty. That the numbers change all depending on what service you have or anything else. That's not the point. The point is you're watching. You're a grown man and you're watching Judge Judy every day.
What do you love about? What are you like?
She's just she's straightforward, she isn't taking a guff and you know she said this guy, I don't believe you. I don't believe you, I mean.
And she's just andy And you know none of that's real.
Yes it is.
It's on TV it's not real.
And dare you, how dare you challenge Judge Judy.
I can't believe you.
You're probably going to probably going to give full respect to John Cena's laugh wrestling about that he's about.
To just Judy is a different because professional for forty freaking years.
Come on now, really, Judge Judy is professional wrestling for for old people who.
Profession I am writing her, and I've written to her before. I'm going to write her and tell her you said that. And I want a letter from her to say the whole deal that it's true, and then after that and show it to you. I want you to apologize to her. I want you to apologize. Matter of fact, you want to get her on as a guest, you should get her on your show as a guest. And if you can't do it, I'm going to try to do.
It to make fun of her.
No, no, I would. I would not be assuming you know what they say, all people that assume you're assuming that she's a fraud, And I can't handle you saying that. Now. Maybe she is, but I doubt it.
No, no, no, no, you don't understand she's not a fraud. But the show is the premises.
The real life days.
There is no.
Such thing as reality TV. If you hear reality TV in any court, their appearances, it's all the same andy from Jerry Springer to Judge Judy.
No, it's not. I didn't want to continue this conversation. You're making me want to gag. Really, Jerry Springer, may he rest in peace. I love them to death.
Wheel Buddies and the show was completely fraud it's.
Right, but don't put in the same league's Judge Judy. Please. That was a comedy of errors. That show. Really come on, But this is a real live court cases, you know, and there's stupid cases and I enjoy them like a dog poops on someone's lawn and they take them to court. Okay, well, my tree was growing over on your side of the lawn, on the side of the fence. I cut it off, and you're suing me because I cut you a tree. But it was on my side of the road or
my sart of the fence. Those are real cases. They're not they're not frauds. I mean, you know, I got you. I'm pregnant when she was drunk. I mean, come on, really, with the fights, there's no fights watch it one day and you'll see and you'll wake up. Come on, really, give me a break. And I don't want to get into this discussion. When you were talking about body shape, now that's what we were doing.
Yeah, we were, and you still.
I'm a pretty good Yeah. I wave myself this morning. I was one seventy three, which I think is pretty good. All right.
Yeah, and you're you're a tad shorter than I am and I am about one seven.
What's your height?
Well, it used to be about five eleven, but I've been shrinking apparently over the last twenty years.
I'm about five nine and a half. I used to be five to ten. I'm shrinking too a little bit.
Yeah, are you Are you shrinking? Are you shrinking in other places? Other areas?
I shrunk two years ago, being below the waist.
Yes, I won't say that. You said that, but okay.
I never had anything much there.
Anyway, Furman and the field mouse and what the parrots saw, we.
Get off this topic. I'm about this because is aggravating me. I'm beginning to smids right now. Let's move on.
I tell you what, Why don't you take a couple of minutes to towel off and we'll come back more with Andy Furman in just a moment on the ninth cap on seven hundred WLW.
So, Andy, you.
At a request, and I don't know that it's fitting or appropriate yet, because the Bengals are not eliminated mathematically from the playoffs. If they finish eight and nine and Pittsburgh and Baltimore also finish eight and nine or worse, and you never know what the Ravens, they have totally collapsed. Andy, the Bengals could, by virtue of their in division record, win the AFC North and then they're in the playoffs. But you thought that maybe we should go ahead and have the funeral.
Now.
You know what, though, I really enjoy what you have to say. It's not that you're positive and upbeat. I want to know what you're smoking because I want some of it, really, I really do. There are many people out there who say that the Bengals were eliminated in August. Really, so forget it. Because to make the playoffs, the Bengals go now four and nine, they obviously have to win
out the remaining four games to get help. Help by the Pittsburgh Steelers losing most of their final games, as winning the AFC one is not only the realistic path with wild card Hope's nearly gone after the Week fourteen loss. Okay, they got to win their final four games, and they're playing Baltimore at Miami Arizona, which is a possibility in Cleveland's Arizona and Cleveland. I think it is a possibility, But this team, the way I saw them play the
other day, I don't see it happening. Ravens is possibil They could win three, they could win three of the four, but they need such help down the road, and three of the four is not going to make it for him anyway. So and look, I'm not rooting against them. I want to be realistic. I just want to see them win. And I'll tell you why not because I'm a great fan and a tailgate and go crazy with them when they when they lose like some people do. No,
I think it's great for the city. The city is more upbeat on a Monday after they win on Sunday. That's all I'm saying. It's great economically, it's great for restaurants, bars, everything to do with the city. It's great. Everybody's in a happier mood, and that's why I want them to win. Economically, it is better. I look at the money aspect, and that's that's what it's all about. When they lose his finger pointing, it's negativity. It's fired this guy. I never
want to see people get fired. I don't think it's great to have you know what I call beer muscles, sit behind the microphone and say Zach Taylor should be fired. I know. I don't want to see anybody get fired. No, it's not it's not right. It's justally this time of the year. So winning is good and winning is healthy. I want to see it happen here. And I'll tell you this much. Zach Taylor is a good guy. He is. He's got some bad luck he's got.
I don't I don't think there's any question of the man's character as a person, as a human being. He's probably a wonderful man. But a lot of a lot of wonderful men aren't cut out to be head coaches in the NFL, and Zach Taylor happens to be one of those men who are.
And it's funny you say that because I look at Kevin Stefanski and I think he's a heck of a coach. Heck of a coach. You know what, you don't have a quarterback in the National Football League, you ain't gonna win. They have nothing. They have nothing in Cleveland. Stefanski is a pretty damn good coach. What about John Harbor not a good coach? In Baltimore? I mean, Lamar Jackson's got like one leg. I mean, if you don't have a quarterback,
you're not gonna win. And I will tell you this much the outstanding coaches right now, and I see Ben Johnson's wan hell of a coach. What he has done in Chicago.
He lost, He lost this weekend too.
No no doubt about it. But look good. They won nine games and coming into the season, his quarterback said, Chicago is a place for this unused quarterbacks, the quarterback haven for for death. All right, look what he's done. He's turned that program around. Him and Mike Vrabel probably the two best coaches in the National Football League, and one of those two is going to be Coach of the Year this year, most likely Rabel. I think, well maybe Johnson, because Rabel had a truck regular doing well
prior to coming to New England. Where Ben Johnson. This is his first year as a head coach.
Okay, you say all that, and you mentioned John Harball and Mike Tomlin. Damn good coach, just not having a great year.
And you've got to have a quarter his quarterback.
You gotta have quarterback. Really, I mean, if you don't have a quarterback, that position is so.
Old I'm talking about.
I'm talking about over the extended period of time they have been had coaches. Zach Taylor still as a losing record. He didn't win a super Bowl. He got he rode the coat tails of Joe Burrow to a seatout.
He didn't win a super Bowl. He made it to the super Bowl.
John Harball won a super Bowl and Cleveland and they never win.
Doesn't matter who the coach is or the quarterback.
It's Cleveland quarterback since they moved.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who the quarterback is.
It doesn't matter. I can't find the correct quarterback. That's the problem.
They can't find their behind with two hands, a flashlight and a full length mirror.
And I'm about to Pittsburgh for a second. I love Mike Tomlin and he's a Hall of Fame coach.
He's coached, won a Super Bowl, won a super Bowl.
To get about super bowls out talk about winning records and going to the playoffs. Super Bowls is a very difficult thing to obtain. You know, the fans in Cincinnati after the Bengals made it to the Super Bowl, they thought they were going to go on a run. It doesn't work that way. Injuries are a factor, and the competition is just too tough. It's very tough to repeat. And the more they see that, the more they realize what a great coach Bill Belichick was, what a great coach he was.
You're right, You're right about one thing, Andy, Well, you're right about several things. But the one thing you were right about is that competition is tough in the NFL.
It is the league set up like that?
Because if you you get the first trag.
And Zach Taylor, and Zach Taylor gets out coached in almost every.
Game, what does that mean?
You know what? I hear that term all the time. I won't know what does that mean? Out coached? Is a coach playing this the other coach? Tell me what that mean? Was he out coached? When when Joe Burrow through two interceptions? Is that being out coached. Tell me I want to know, because I think it's a term that's thrown out there verbatim by many people, sports people and nonsports people. The thing is a cool thing to say, Well, yeah it is.
It is clock, It is clock management. It is the use of timeouts. It is decisions that are made. It is whether there are halftime adjustments made. And the Bengals hardly ever make good halftime adjustments going into the second half. I mean, they were clearly a leader in the first half, But who made the adjustments. The Buffalo Bills made the adjustments.
Plus they were at an adjustments that they made.
Plus they don't have much. Plus they have a better coach than Zach Taylor. Sean McDermott.
I'll tell you this much. I'll give you this. There was a problem the coaching stide of the Bengals. They played Manton man defense and the secondary against a great quarterback and Josh Allen, okay, gotta play. Don't you'll play man man out, coach, It's not out coach. It was a philosophy they used, and they wanted to play Manton man.
Out, philosophized out, philotsified whatever you want to call it Andy.
It didn't work. It didn't work.
Zack Taylor is a night Let's just go back to the beginning and let's finish this on a positive note.
Zach Taylor. Zach Taylor is a nice man. And and that's where all ended. Right there. He's a nice I.
Will tell you that. No, no, don't end it right there. Because man teams in the National Football League. I don't think there's much of a difference in football knowledge beatween coach one and coach thirty two. There isn't. It's all about personnel and talented quarterbacks. That's where it's at. And you know what, I know, that's what it's all about. You got a quarterback, you got a chance to win.
Bengals couldn't win. They got Joe Borrow, they won. He got hurt and there's some problems on the defensive side of the ball. Boom, that's what's going on. It's not the coaching. It isn't believe me, it's not the coach. I promise you.
Well, let's you know.
And since we already played tabs, which I was really against, let's not dance on their grave now.
Okay, Andy, I feel sorry for him.
Let's not whistle past the graveyard. Let's not whistle past the graveyard. Let's just move on God all right for a ball? Thanks, It's the Nightcap and there's much more ahead on seven underd W l w Our hour of Sports for the out of Sorts continues now with the original sports commando, the guy on the Billboard. When's he going back? A big, big gang member and the guy
that people knew it Annie's as the wild Man. In fact, we all knew him as a wild Man because that's his name, wild Man Walker is back on the Nightcap. How you doing, man?
I'm doing good. Gary, Jeff? How about you Pal?
You know, hanging in there as best I can. Got a lot to do with Christmas coming up and everything, and it's just I love this time of year, but I hate it at the same time because there's so much stuff that gets crammed into a little bit of amount of time. And I don't do a lot of Christmas shopping because I don't have a lot of money
and it's just me and my wife. Basically, what do you get my parents they're eighty nine and eighty eight, and they have everything that they could possibly want or need, so we're gonna we're gonna try and visit them overnight on Christmas.
But other than that, But I mean, it's just.
Don't you feel like it's really hurried and harried for a lot of people this time and you're just trying to squeeze things in before the beginning of the year.
I think it's been that way since the birth of the internet for some reason. Yeah, people people shopping online and then going to the stores also, But it is just the way everybody wants something. They want everything. Everybody wants everything real quick. Everything, I gotta have it now, I gotta have it now. It's like everybody just, you know, take it, take a deep breath, man, and relax, you know, especially during the Christmas season.
Yeah, like when there's a new iPhone or something and people lined up around the block.
It's like it's a phone.
You gotta have it, you gotta have it now, and you got to have it first before anybody else. And then you're standing in line like a bunch of dorks.
Or sheep sheep.
Out in the cold.
The only difference between the only difference between them and sheep sheep actually have a fur coat that they can wear when it's this cold when it's as cold, all right, So let's get to the meat of the matter here, the crux of the conversation. As we like to say, the Bengals are done, except they're not.
Exactly. There's still a slight chance for the Bengals to make the playoffs, but it's gonna take almost a couple of teams to cooperate and the Bengals to win out. I mean, they've got to beat the Ravens this Sunday. Then they gotta go down to Miami, who's playing a little bit better, and beat the Dolphins.
By the way that that game has now been flexed, the Miami game, it's gonna be probably a one o'clock game now it has.
Been changed back to one o'clock. Then they've got to beat Arizona, who stings, and also the Browns with Tradura sanders Uh at the at pay Horse Stadium.
No, it's it's entirely possible.
The Bengals could run the table with the teams they've got left, win four in a row. They're eight and nine, Okay, Baltimore takes another loss. If Baltimore is also eight and nine, were God forbid and Ravens country seven and ten and the Steelers are eight and nine. The Bengals have a better division record, so they would be the representative from the AFC North in the playoffs.
Right, they would win a tiebreaker. And then when I'm looking at the Ravens schedule of who they got to play and also the Steelers, I think the Ravens still.
Have to play the Patriots. Oh, and the Steelers have.
To play the Lions. I mean, so that I could work in favor for the Bengals. And of course the final game of the year, the Ravens play the Steelers in Pittsburgh, which could determine the bengals fate. You know, Pittsburgh is not unbeatable. I mean, they're okay, and I would think the Ravens would want to go out on the winning note to knock them off, which would help the Bengals.
Well, what I think would be good is the Bengals run the table these final four games Baltimore. One of the losses is Baltimore's tagged on their end. Pittsburgh loses and uh, and then the Steelers and Ravens play to a tie.
Well play to a tie. That's now that that's reaching. That that's reaching, that's reaching. But there's still there's still a slight chance. And you know, the guys have you know, I know there's there's there's a couple of talking heads I'm not going to say who they are that that went on the air Sunday night and said, what do the Bengals have to play for?
Now?
Why would you make a dumb comment like that? What do the Bengals have to play for? Well, number one, they're professionals, and number two, they don't want to lose. They're not going out there just want to lose.
They want to win.
I don't care if you're fifteen, you want you're gonna go out there and try to win. The BIGA comment, what do the Bengals have to play for? Well, obviously they don't really know what the hell they're talking about.
What did Hey, what did the Tennessee Titans have to play for on Sunday? It's a game on the schedule. That's why you play the game because it's on the schedule and you're obligated to do it.
And as a man, an.
Athlete, someone who was proud, you want to win every time you go out no matter what your record is I mean right right, and if.
You half assid you might be unemployed next year?
You should be if you're half assn't it at those salary ranges? Uh so, Yeah, I think that's an extremely, uh nonsensical comment for someone to make.
I considered idiotic when I heard them say that.
Yeah, no, nonsensical, idiotic. Okay, I'll go with that, no kidd. So what about the college football playoffs setup? I'm still I understand and yet I don't. They couldn't let a fifth SEC team in. But Vanderbilt Commodores deserve to be there as as much as anybody else outside of maybe the top four, don't you think?
Oh?
I think they deserved it. I think Notre Dame deserved it, even though they lost to Miami. But you know, and I you know, I see James Madison in there. But that's the way the conferences are. I just like James Madison, what the hell do you know?
What?
Like they have no chance?
Might as might as well be Dolly Madison.
Yeah, yeah, a Notre Dame. To me, they really did a disservice to their to their players and their alumni. But not playing in some kind of bowl game, I mean, I mean, that's a big deal. I'm not going to understand they're upset, okay, whatever, but just just to say no, no, And then and they made a big stink about how you know, how they may not how they may ever men ever play another bowl game again, I think that's
the sour grapes. And then they should be playing a bowl game somewhere because those fans would show up, They would make the school would make money, the players would get another chance to win a game and be showcase where scouts to possibly playing on the National Football League.
On their parts, the wild man, it's it's the same old thing with the Irish. When are they going to get off of their butts and go ahead and join one of these.
Huge conference they have exactly.
You know what, and this is a positive thing, is that finally Notre Dame may be forced if they want to be considered for the college football playoff system, to join a conference and have to play the same level of competition that the people in the SEC do on a week to week basis during the conference schedule Big Ten, all of the the Big twelve, they have to play the teams that matter, so they will in fact matter in the ultimate analysis.
You think that's right?
The bright side, yeah, well, but on the bright side, you see is going to a bowl game, woo the Liberty Bowl and of all places one of the worst cities of the Memphis. Have fun people going to Memphis. And why didn't you see a Navy play? Now, Miami of Ohio is playing the Fredsno State. They're playing in the Snoop Dog Bowl, which is kind of a goofy, goofy name, and I'm going to get to that in
a minute. But they're playing in Arizona. But you see in the Liberty Bowl against Navy, I got big word for you.
Well well, and and the and the real downside to this, wild man is that they may very well get beat by Navy because Navy had a really good year.
Yeah, but how about some of the you know, we grew up Gary, Jeff, me, you and I with the Orange Bowl, the Rose Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, the Gator Bowl.
The Peach Bowl.
Yeah, it's it's it's out of control. I mean, here's some names. You're gonna just crack up. Here's some of the names I found that they've got bowl games. Now, okay, buckled up, l a Bowl, the Xbox Bowl, Sign of the times?
What else? Oh, wild Man disappeared? I tell you what we will. We will get him back on the line in just a moment. He was on a roll too, So wild Man's back on the line. Now. You were giving me some of the new fangled bowl game names.
I think you stopped. You dropped out of the X Bowl.
What what else can we look forward to this college football bowl season?
Wild Man?
The Rate Bowl, r A D, the Rate Bowl, the Pop Tarts Ball where the Snoop dogg Arizona Ball? Come on, Man, Tony, the Tiger Suck Bowl, the Cheese its Citrus Bawl. I mean, it just never ends, It just never ends. Well, college football is a mess.
They ought to find a sponsor that more readily matches up to citrus than cheese. It's cheese. It's and citrus sound awful together. I mean, I don't. I don't want my fresh squeeze orange juice with cheese. It's I'm sorry, it just doesn't sound like my cup of tea.
Pardon the pun. The Pop Tarts Bowl, of course, that's classic.
Yeah, the college football is a complete mess. I mean the playoffs system. I don't think they'll ever have. That will never be perfect, but it is what it is with the twelve teams. And maybe they don't hear they'll expanded the sixteen. But you can't have you.
Can't have you can't have computers deciding who's number one and number two. You've got to play it on the field, I think. And maybe they should just open it up. And the entire month of December is nothing but play in games for the for the actual playoff.
I'm not sure.
Well, it's all it's all about the money. It's all about the money. And then maybe they're thinking down the road and they'll do that because it's all about the money in college football. Like I said, college football is a mess with the nil signings and them and whatnot, and it's just a mess, it really is.
So were the Reds mess?
Well, the Reds aren't a mess, but they still need a power hitter. And I knew, damn well they weren't going to go out and signed Carl Schwarb or let us Man was not going to add thirty million dollars to the payroll. And I just laughed. I just laughed at these these know it all writers posting stuff up and something would stick that the Reds were interested. Kyle
Swarber was never leaving Philadelphia. GM Dave Dombrowski said from day one that they wanted him to stay, that he was important to the team, that he loved Philadelphia, and they went out and took care and signed and signed him to a five year, one hundred and thirty million dollars deal. The Reds weren't going down that road. The Pirates, supposedly, if you could believe these know it all writers, offered
him one hundred million dollars over four years. Maybe they did, I don't know, But the Reds they weren't gonna they weren't gonna add thirty million dollars to the payroll. Come on, that's not gonna happen. I'm not going to do it.
Well, think about the Reds experience of the last thirty years of big time contracts and how those have wound up working out for the Reds.
Absolutely, And I don't blame the Reds. Yeah, newskis Homer Bailey, I mean just down the line.
Oh yeah, I mean, and I understand Jeremy came, Jeremy Candelario.
They still gotta pay.
Yeah, I understand them.
With the history and the sentiment and the playing of Ken Griffy Junior.
But junior.
I mean, really, for the money that they had to pay kN Griffy Junior, was he really worth that? I mean, you love kN Griffy Junior, great player, all well, all star, you know, Hall of Famer, but still, I mean you pay that kind of money just on the back.
Yeah, well they deferred that money. Gary Jeff and Ken Griffor J's offense. The guy hit two hundred and ten home runs here, not like that. You know, he didn't produced. He did produce, But the Reds had no pitching. The Reds had they had Steve Paris and a couple other bums. They had no pitching. It wasn't Ken Grippy's fault that they weren't winning games. They had no pitching when they brought Ken Griffy Jr.
In.
And that's on the Reds of not being able to make trades or develop pitchers. Ken Grippy Jr. Did his job, not to the extent that when he was in in Seattle, but you know, he had a pretty damn good career with the Cincinnati Reds.
The last two minutes wild Man back to the Bengals. Just for a moment, I heard someone, I think it was a caller blaming Joe Burrow for the loss to the Bills on Sunday, and.
Well, he needs he needs to put down and stopped smoking those math blunts, because.
I think that was aine comment.
Well, I mean, the thing that really still burns me to this threat now, Gary jeff with the with the Bengals is when Josh Allen was able to run not once but twice, once for a touchdown on scathed and the other time for a first down in the game. Why they did not have a so called spy on Josh Allen. You know what he's gonna do. It's it just wasn't the first time that he'll try to do this. And here's here's Zach Taylor, the head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals. What is he doing when the defense is
on the field. Is he coaching? Is he looking at things? Does he see anything? Does he talk to Al Golden and say, hey, we got to have it a spy on? Uh on Josh Allen. I don't get that at all. I mean I blame a lot of that on the head coach of not having these guys you know, prepared or you know, you gotta be thinking outside the box and not to have a spy, not to have a spinal Josh Allen was just so dumb, just.
Dumb, wild man.
I agree, But at that point, we gotta go, We gotta go, We got to go.
We got to go, man, we got to go.
Well.
Always good talking with.
You, man, you two merry Christmas. Will probably have another bi bite at the Apple next week. Here on the Nightcap on seven hundred w A into another hour of the night Tap. You're on seven hundred WLW and it's another edition of great American history on the radio, and we have another living piece of that American radio history with us for this hour, and it's somebody that you may not have ever heard of in Cincinnati. I don't
know if you're listening here in the Tri State. If you're listening in Middle Tennessee, no doubt, and you're a sports fan, you've heard this guy or heard of him
at least. But he was one of the voices that kept me entertained when I lived in the Nashville area, worked there on the radio, and lived there, and he was also on the radio there for many years as the play by play guy for Vanderbilt Sports primarily I guess basketball, but football too, Georgia correct me, he needs to and and then a sports talk host at several stations.
He went on to do games for Memphis State at at a later date, and he is still active today doing podcast and such, and tonight he's doing mine.
George Plaster, the master.
Plaster Blaster is back if he if he spoke French, he'd be Plaster of Paris, I'm certain.
But the puns. But the puns out of the way, George Plaster.
Welcome to the nightcap, Gary Chef Walker, the pleasure is totally mine. First of all, you're sitting there on one of the great radio stations in this country. I'm one of those radio junkies just like you were. And as a kid I grew up listening to w l W Marty Brenneman show, nusall. I even am old enough to remember al Michaels. You all had or and probably still have, some of the best imaging that I have ever heard
in radio. Whoever the guy is that does the big one, that is one of the best imaging.
Going in radio period, Well, sounds like you were auditioning there for a second, Georgia, maybe there's a slot open for you.
The Big One, No, you know what, Big One.
That is part and parcel of the fact the WLW, as you may or may not know, actually broadcast with five hundred thousand watts at one time back in the nineteen thirties, we had the first and only experimental half million WAT transmitter. So that's part of the Big Big One mystique. But another large component of that was when Andy, when Randy Michaels came here in the nineteen eighties, and shape at that time WLW was kind of drifting. It
was playing music. It was kind of middle of the road, top forty music, and they still had the farm reports in the morning and all these other things were going on, but it wasn't the block formatted talk station that it is today. And Randy Michaels kind of changed all that in the mid nineteen eighties, and he wanted that bravado emphasized, and he wanted that the Big One to you know,
shout across the valleys into the hamlets. And because the signal just goes everywhere, it's a monster signal, as you know, and you're right about the voices that have graced these airwaves over the years. I mean, I am completely humbled
and going what am I doing here? Almost on a daily basis, George, But you mentioned Marty Brenneman, the old left handed Joe Nuxell, al Michaels, who you can still hear on Sunday Night Football on NBC, the late Bob Trumpy, probably one of the deepest voices ever to grace the big one. He was called, he was called, he was
called Darth Vader. You know, Chris, Chris Collinsworth got his radio start here, and on tonight's show earlier, I spoke with my buddy Andy Furman, who was a long time I don't know if you've ever met or heard.
Any Oh sure, oh absolutely, Andy's great. That name another one, Cunningham.
Here, Bill Cunningham.
Those are yeah, it's a little bit like KMOX and Saint Louis where radio junkies who know anything about fifty thousand lock clear channel on the AM dial are These are the great legends, and.
Many of them are in trouble.
I mean WLW has survived and actually thrived. I mean in the market, listenership, advertising, all of those things. We're still right there, thank God. But there are a lot of those fifty thousand watt stations that have gone for one reason or another, not just technological, but other reasons. They've gone by the boards, and they're not the monsters that they used to be.
Used to be.
On one of Nashville's fifty thousand waters on fifteen to ten WLAC, I think that's where I probably heard you calling Vanderbilt basketball games and occasionally doing some sports talk there. Tell me about WLAC back in the day and your work for Vandy. Of course, you know from my twenty years in Middleton to see, I'm still a Vandy fan and I've been just loving what's digging, what's been going on this season. Tell me about your day's calling play
by play for Vanderbilt. Who's who is the best Vandy basketball player you ever called a game for?
When you were there? While you were doing.
It, Will Purdue, it was at a time where Vanderbilt basketball had sort of taken a little bit of a dive and the legendary C. M. Newton was the coach. Sam Newton became for me like a second father, finest man I've ever met in athletics, just a very decent human being, and he had the foresight to sort of fight through letting Will Purdue develop, and by Will Purdue's junior year, you know, here's a seven footer that ultimately
gets drafted. I think it was ninth in the in the I guess it was the eighty nine NBA draft. He and Rick Smith's were the two big centers. And Will lives in Louisville right now. We've stayed really good friends over all these years. But I would say I would say Will Purdue. Barry Goheen was another one who I know you've had on your show before.
We called him.
We called him me and my friends who were Vandy staunch Vandy basketball, called him Barry go In because it seemed like a crucial situations if he had the ball in his hands, it was going in.
He hit about six buzzer beaters in his career, one of those being a three pointer at the buzzer in the NCAA tournament. While that was going on, I was at what at the time was Memphis State and we
roll into Cincinnati in the old Cincinnati Garden. This would have been in January of nineteen eighty eight, and there are two people in the arena two and a half hours before the game, me and a guy named Marty Brenneman, and I spent about fifteen minutes getting up the nerve to go up and speak to him and just say, Hey, I'm a huge fan, I've been listening to you for years, and he could not have been more gracious. This sort
of spawned a friendship over the years. And you know, you talk about the great signal at WLW, my buddy Eli Gold, who was the longtime play by play voice of the Alabama Crimson Tide, calls me in the summer of two thousand and six. I was having some really serious voice issues. That was basically a pull up on a vocal cord, and he goes, get to a radio, get in your car. Marty is about to say hello to you and wish you a speedy recovery. And that
was so cool. You know, Marty didn't have to do that, but not only a Hall of Fame broadcaster, but a guy whose friendship, boy, I have really enjoyed over the years.
One of the first things that I heard as a young adolescent and teenager when our family moved to Nashville in nineteen seventy three, seventy four, dating myself. Here was Vandy basketball in the radio, and you know, I was a dx er. I was a radio geek like you reference being as a kid, I wanted to tune into far away stations. I found this local station and I love basketball. I was just starting to play and I heard Vandy basketball, and for some reason I was just
captivated and became a fan. And this was the days of Terry Compton and you know later on Butch Fear and Jeff Fosness and all these great names in Vandy basketball or and I got hooked into listening to the broadcast and that's how you know, years later I got to hear George Plaster doing play by play on the air.
And so wow.
But that being said, you and I were talking about tuning in d x ing. And by the way, the things that you said about C. M. Newton, everyone that I have known, including our mutual friend Scott Droud, has said the same thing about CM. He just had that kind of effect on people where you felt like he was he was a wise and soul. He was like a second father. He was just that guy you could go to if you had something going on. And Marty Brenneman has never been anything but absolutely generous with his
time and nice to be around. And you're right, Marty will say or do anything, especially if it's for you and he knows you. He was my first guest when I started doing this night show on seven hundred wup, my very first one.
YEP.
I said, I want Marty as my first guest, and he agreed to come on for a few minutes. But so, I mean, talk a little bit, or let's talk a little bit, George about what is going on with the Vandy football program. Since you're still there in Nashville, you're still close to the action. I mean, what are your thoughts on the season that Clark Lee and Vandy just
concluded what kind of bowl game they'll be playing. And it's a damn travesty that they couldn't pull that game out against Texas or they'd be one of the twelve. I know they would, Yeah, but the whole mystiq of Diego Pavia, who I said reminded me a lot the way he played and the success he had of a Johnny Manzel, and I find out later on that they're kind of hanging out as buddies.
But anyway, your thoughts.
George, Yeah, let's start with Pavia. I don't know that Pavia is gonna win the Heisman Trophy. My gut feeling is it's going to be Fernando Mendoza at Indiana, but I think it's going to be very, very close. It royally hacked me off Saturday night. Two announcers that I really like, Us Johnson and Joel Kladd on Fox were total shills for the Big Ten in that telecast, which was a Big Ten title game. But this hole, the Heisman Trophy has come down to Fernando Mendoza and Julian saying,
give me a break, Diego. Pavia has earned the right to be put in that conversation, and for those two to have the platform that they did Saturday night and act like he didn't exist. I don't want to be ugly about it because Joel saying the kid at Ohio State is a fine quarterback. Do I believe that he could get under center at Vandy and lead them to a ten and two record. Absolutely not. I'm not trying to be a homer, but Bandy football has never been
an easy deal. So go back a couple of years ago, Clark Lee, who's their head football coach, hired Jerry Kill, who had been the head coach at New Mexico State, and I don't really know why he was willing to leave there, but Clark Lee talked him into coming Andy. They also brought their offensive coordinator, Tim Beck, and then
they started talking about this kid, Diego Pavia. And Vandy had already signed a kid, Nate Johnson out of Utah who couldn't throw a lick, and Jerry Kill kept on them about need to see this kid, Diego Pavia, and finally Clark Lee said, Okay, you know, let's bring him in here. Well, I had seen Diego Pavia in the Conference USA ESPN Tuesday and Wednesday night games, and I
knew he was for real. Now, I didn't know he would have this kind of impact because he has walked in there, and I think there are a couple of things he's done. The obvious is what you see when you watch his games, which is he's elevated Vandy to a level nobody ever saw.
You want to talk about a quarterback carrying a team on his back, absolutely, that's the definition.
George.
I tell you what I need to break up, come back and join me in the next half hour and we'll do more of this. George Plaster fantastic sports guy out of Nashville, Tennessee, where I first heard him, and he's been gracious enough to stick around for another segment on the Nightcap on seven hundred WLW. Time for part two of our conversation with George Plaster. It's American History
on the radio, and hopefully we're making some tonight. I don't know if this broadcast is going to go in any Hall of Fame, but we were talking about Diego Pavia carrying Vanderbilt literally on his back this year to a ten and two record, and he really really should have been the Heisman front runner of everybody I watched. You're referencing Julian Sands, the freshman at Ohio State, and I got a lot of buddies who are Buckeye fans, but I'm sorry, he has done nothing to deserve to
be striking that pose on a trophy. And I mean, Fernando Mendoza, I'll give it, you know, kind of had the same effect on Indiana along with that whole team. But Diego Pavia is a one man wrecking ball. Any other thoughts, real quickly on that and we'll move on.
Yeah, I think the contribution he made that never gets talked about. I'm convinced he walked in there a year and a half ago to a program that was used to losing, and when that happens in a locker room, losing doesn't hurt. Losing's okay, losings acceptable. And I think he walked in there and said screw that. I didn't come here to lose. And I think he's done more to change the attitude around their football program. And I think it's almost as big a contribution as what he's done on the field.
H Yeah, I didn't think about it in that terms. In those terms, but yeah, you make it. You make an excellent case for the intangibles that a player like that brings into a program that, again, as you mentioned, is parenally moribund.
If not to be more.
Diplomatic, I guess, George, I wanted to ask you too about and you said you were a radio geek as a kid growing up like I was. What was your favorite DX moment You reached out and you heard a far away station and you just were kind of.
Entranced by it.
For me, it was a station like WLS in Chicago because we used to live in suburban Chicago when I was very young, and I got hooked into Ready. In fact, that's where I got built with the bug. At seven years old, I said, I want to be one of those guys. But was there a classic station that you heard or a personality that you heard and it just kind of sparked your imagination to an extent that you wanted to be like that guy.
Yeah, it was two of them. It was the one you're broadcasting on right now because it's easily you know, you can easily pick it up in Nashville if you're in the car in the winter by probably five o'clock. Same thing with KMOX. Camox had this young guy who was like twenty two years old, and he used to do this midnight sports report and I thought he was the best I had ever heard, but at the time, nobody had ever seen it. His name was Bob Costas. So fast forward all these years later. I put a
call into Bob Costas last year. I wanted to talk to him about where he thought Nashville is as far as expansion in Major League Baseball, which supposedly is coming, and I left him a message, I said, I grew up listening to you. I actually called your talk show one night, and so he sent me a message back saying give me a and I said, oh yeah, I said, I remember the number four, three, six, seven, nine hundred. He said, do you remember the enterprise number? I said absolutely,
nine eight o eight. He goes, you're legit. Talk to me.
The first time I ever heard Bob Costas, he was doing play by play for the Spirit of Saint Louis in the old Aba.
Oh yeah, Marvin Barnes, Ernie d. Gregario, bad News, Barness, Gerard.
Freddie Caledwell, oh my god.
You know the famous story that Costas always tells about Marvin Barnes getting back on the plane in Louisville after playing the Kentucky Colonels but wouldn't get on the plane.
You know that story?
No, No, okay, Bob Costas tells a story of Marvin Barnes, who again had been drafted early. And I think he was a freshman at Providence or sophomore and then he came out whatever the deal was. He wasn't exactly a Rhodes scholar, Marvin. Anyway, they get done with the game against the Kentucky colonels in Louisville, and they're getting ready to get on the plane to go back to Saint
Louis and Marvin's nowhere to be found. And Freddie Caldwell, point guard, is running around the airport frantic, trying to find Marvin to get him to get on the plane because it's getting ready to take off. He said, Marvin. He finds him in the concourse. He said, Marvin, the plane's taken off. He said, no, I'm gonna find my own way home. I ain't getting on a plane. He said,
why aren't you getting on the plane, Marvin. And Marvin pulled out his plane ticket, but it said very specifically, departure eleven fifty five pm, arrival eleven fifty pm.
I ain't getting on No damn time machine.
That's beautiful. That's hilarious, But that's there's a.
That's a that's a classic costas there.
There's a book out there for people that are old ABA lovers. Terry Pluto wrote it. It's called Loose Balls. And I had Julia serving on one time. It's one of the best interviews that I've probably ever done, because I got into the old Aba stuff and Doctor J.
Loved it.
Oh, Doctor J was my hero when I was a playground warrior George growing up. You know this, this is the mid seventies. I'm watching Doctor J. In fact, I had an afro the size of In fact, my afro, my white afro, may have been the size of Darnel Hillman's afro if you remember him. Oh my, that just tall, tall Tall picked out afro and I you know, I
tried to mimic all their moves. Of course, I didn't quite have a vertical jump of forty inches, especially as a fourteen year old, but I kind of imagined I did and was doing all these whirling dervishes in the lane and scoring occasionally when I didn't hit the bottom of the rim. But I thought I was Doctor J, or aspired to be Doctor J. So he was always When he finally got that NBA ring, I was like, I was cheering him on.
Man, Yeah, so I love Doctor J. What was he like? What was Julius irving like?
Well, I've only I've had him on the show one time, and I would describe it as one of the coolest interviews because he really seemed to get into the fact that I knew a lot of the ABA stuff, And the truth of it is, I just read that book that I was referencing earlier, and so it was all
top of mind. He really seemed to appreciate that. It's funny, you know how it is when you do interviews and you know you're not sure whether it's gonna go right, or whether the person really is getting into what you're asking, and then all of a sudden, you throw some magic question out there and the thing just takes off. It's the beauty of interviewing.
Yep, I agree.
You know.
I had the chance to interview Will Purdue, your favorite ever Vandy basketball player that you watched and called, and it was a fantastic I've interviewed the guy I call shooter, Scott Droud, who when he graduated from Vanderbilt and for many years afterward, was the NCAA leader in three point field goal percentage of over fifty percent. Yeah, you know he had because Scott came in right as the three point shot was implemented in college basketball, and he lives
locally here. He told me some stories about you coming to visit here, George, and some some I don't know if we can tell. In the air, but apparently you have you have an affinity for going to the casinos.
I've been known to uh to enjoy it, and Scott seemed to enjoy it with me. It was a couple of years ago. I try about once a year to come to Cincinnati. I am a huge baseball fan. Yeah, I'm a big Atlanta Braves fan, but I love I love the Cincinnati baseball vibe. Two years ago, I guess two three years ago, the Reds were in the middle of a ten or eleven game winning streak and they beat the Braves that night in a classic slugfest. It
was like eleven to ten. And we went over to the casino, the Jack Casino, right after that, and the place was absolutely packed, and I was like, this is what happens when your team is winning. Downtown's buzzing. You know, all the merchants are happy. Cincinnati is a great baseball city.
And I saw earlier today.
The rumor was that Kyle Schwarber might be coming to Cincinnati, and it didn't work out that way and he instead resigned with the Phillies, which is too bad because I would love You've got a great manager in Terry Francona no doubt, a class act, one of the three or four best managers in the game. And I'm telling you, in the next year or to something really good's gonna happen with the Reds.
Hum well, I mean, remember you heard that it as long as The one thing I noticed this season, as opposed to last season with home games is that while the ultimate final result wasn't good enough to be in the playoffs, they were still challenging the last week, but there were more fans in the seats than there had been previously. And I think part of that was. Part of that was Tito and his presence and his influence
on the ball club and the fans. I think they'd grown a little bit weary of the losses under David Bell, and when Terry Francona was named manager, that made a difference in ticket sales and butts in the seats man can translate to wins on the field and vice versa.
Obviously, I don't pretend to know him real well. The Baseball Winter meetings had been in Nashville several times, and they've been at the opry Land Hotel, and as you know, that's a hard place to get around. Oh yeah, So we have him on and he ends up showing up about five minutes late and just profusely apologizing. And I said, Terry, I said, nobody who doesn't live here can find anything in this place. I said, the fact that you made the effort to be here, I said, man, I so
appreciate it. I'm a huge fan of his. There's a credibility that he brings to the Reds. Right now, I'm telling you the next year to some pretty good things are going to start happening with the Reds.
What are the chances that Nashville does get that MOLB franchise? Because that was all was something that was percolating under the service and Larry Schmid how he got God bless him. He tried so hard to get Major League Baseball to pay attention. He built that new stadium for the sounds, and you know, every year he's like knocking on MLB's doors,
come on, consider us. But for the reasons of proximity Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Atlanta, I guess there was a hesitancy by Major League Baseball to even consider a franchise in Nashville. But it's I mean, it's a major sports town now. George Plaster. Will Nashville get an expansion franchise in baseball?
Yes, I believe we are number one on MLB's list. I think what they want to do is go one team on the East coast, Nashville, and right now I think the team out west. The leader in the clubhouse right now is Salt Lake City and Dale Murphy, the former Atlanta Braves star, is sort of the face of the Salt Lake City situation, and so I pay a lot of attention to it. By the way, when you brought up Larry Schmidow, he's eighty five years old, still working.
He has a bunch of us every Monday morning for breakfast at a cracker barrel.
How about that.
We have more fun just throwing darts at each other and talking sports. And he's an incredible human being. I had loved getting to know him better. I worked for him when I was in college. I was one of the Sounds radio announcers. But getting to know him now, it's just been a total delight.
Well, I remember seeing a lot of up and or rehabbing National League and Baseball professional baseball stars play for a week or two in Nashville with the Sounds and then players that you never forget, like Steve Bye Bye Balboni, who played for the Sounds for how many years? Just incredible minor league player who either struck out or hit a home run. George Plaster, you always hit home runs, man, and I'm so glad that you took the time to
talk with us. Next time we'll have to dish some dirt on Scott Drowd because I know he listens.
Let's do it.
Let's absolutely do it. Look, it is an honor to be on with you on this great radio station. And anytime you want me to come on, if you hit the bottom of the barrel and you're desperate, call me.
I'm in.
Well, actually actually droughts on the bottom of the barrel, so you could be next.
Yeah, yeah, we're right there. We're twenty ninth and thirtieth.
George. Have a great night. Thank you, God, bless.
Hey, Merry Christmas to yours Mary christ.
Thank you George Plaster with us tonight on the Nightcap. Back to wrap up,