Today, my Billy Cunningham, the Great America.
Welcome this Friday afternoon, after another glorious parade in festivities involving Reds Opening Day and doing it since about eighteen sixty nine.
And doing it for quite a while.
Of course, the game did not turn out as who anticipated, six to four.
It was a loss.
But nonetheless, Brian Hamrica, when I was at the Holy Grail yesterday, for it seemed like five minutes, but it was like three hours. Channel five was everywhere, and I'm looking at you going nuts on the parade route with all the festivities going on. And of course you have some perspective having been a professional comedian. I like to think of myself as a funny man myself and traveling tether and fro. But when I met Michael Waltrip for the first time, he said, man, I knew this thing was big.
I had no idea it was like this.
In fact, if you take the NBA, the NFL, Major League baseball, college basketball, college football, take them all together, there's not one city in America, maybe the world, that is an opening for their team like we do in Cincinnati. It's unpresident. And I told you this off the air and you said, really, and my life is a great American. I've never seen the Philly Market parade, never been in it, of course because I'm working doing other stuff. But tell
me your remembrances of yesterday. Let's not talk about the game.
Well, it's a yeah, no, it's an unbelievable spectacle here in the city. I always start the thing. Every year. They come to me. I'm up at Flint Finley Market and they come to me as we start the parade, And every year I say the same thing. I always say. If it's New Year's Eve, you want to be in New York. If it's Mardi Gras, you want to be in New Orleans. But if it's Opening Day, you have to be in Cincinnati, because that is the city of
Opening Day. This city does it like nobody else. We talked to a couple who came here from Oregon and they came all the way to Cincinnati to see Opening Day. They said they were in a city I can't remember which one last year and they said they were completely disappointed. They said it was like another game, and that's not what we do around here. You know, we have this, uh, this parade that I call a strand of Cincinnati DNA that runs from Finilely Market to Fountain Square. It's just
unlike what anybody else does, you know it is. It is just uh, you know, it's just an incredible celebration
and it's not you know, just baseball. I mean that's the theme of it, but it's really kind of you know, having gone to these now for almost thirty years, Uh, it's it's like spring is here, baseball is here, and it's sort of like we're renewing our commitment in the city and and it's like, yeah, we might not like something that that the mayor does, or we might not like something that the County Commission does, or we we might be have or whatever, but we're all together in
this thing. And it's almost like, you know, Fourth of July waving the flag. That's when we waved the Cincinnati flag and everybody comes together and they're just glad they're part of the city.
And I Brian Hemrick that there's no color, there's no race, there's no gender, there's no class. I see little children, I see old guys. I see those that have been there thirty to forty years, having not been to one, which is unbelievable because I'm working before it. But nonetheless, going back in memory banks thirty or thirty five, forty years ago, was it that big in the nineteen nineties.
Yeah, you know, I think everybody's always had a sense. But we get these years like when we have really nice weather and you'll have like even more people come out, and I think then that just kind of like amps up this whole you know, sort of atmosphere, and then people go, we got to go next year, and then everybody would so up, you know when it's the night. But then we get a really one, really rainy, crappy
year and everybody go, ahh, I don't know. That wasn't like as nice as it was a couple of years ago. But this one was a great one. Last year was a really good one. The weather was great. It was sunny, a little bit cool, but it was it was nice, and so you know, everybody was able to be out there. We saw we'd see these families that were just like intent on carrying on this tradition, you know, so they came when they were a kid, and now they're bringing
their little kid. I talked to a grandmother who had her tiny little grandson in her arms, sit right on the front brow, you know. So yeah, I mean you see that we went one year. They had decided, like I was supposed to be covering something else, and at the last minute they're like, no, no, we need to go down to and to turn you know, turn a story. On opening day, I'm like, it's all almost over, you know, and they said, no, run down there really quick and
get something. So I run down with my photographer and we get down there and there's like I don't know ten floats left, but there's this old fella sitting there and he's like a mouns in the whole thing. He's sitting there. Now there goes out there. Know that's Marty made Man that down Marty Brennaman Hays as great as ant and he just he was talking like on his own, like like he was, you know, had a radio show or something. And we're like, let's mike that guy up
and we might him up. And it turned out to be a really good story, uh with this guy, And so yeah, that's what uh, but that's what it's about. You know. You get down there and you get all this uh, all these people in that atmosphere, and uh yeah, I think people just a lot of people just go and you know, sit in one spot and it's like
a conveyor belt of entertainment. It just goes by, you know, one after another after another, and you see everybody, you know, you know, Anthony Munnos, I saw David Schultzer down there, Heper Frinch was there, you know, just all the Cincinnati names. Of course, Marty was there, the baseball players, and you see former baseball players, current baseball players that are there. Tyler Stevenson was there, and Brady Singer was there, and I mean, uh, you know, so you just you know
who was there. Darryl Pace. Now I don't have to think back for a name. Daryl pa He is the greatest archer to ever walked the face of the earth. This guy, and he's from Cincinnati, won like two gold medals, won seven World champions was was named the greatest athlete of the century, and and he was there. Warren was there. I mean, unbelievable. All the people that you see, you know, down there.
Well, it's only getting I say, this is only getting bigger and better. It can't get any bigger and it can't get any better. Oh I can't imagine. Tony Bender told me that his police forces told him there was a million people.
I said, no, wait a minute, a million people. There's one point six million to live in the metro.
I don't think there was a million people there, but look at the thirty seven thousand in my ballparked the Great American. That was a drop in the bucket to the people that were there. Yeah, maybe there were five hundred thousand.
I don't know.
You know, we asked the chief day before yesterday, just before the day before the parade, and we said, hey, how many people? What are your estimates? And and she said, you know, I don't know, but she said it would not surprise me if we got a million people. You know, so that's a lot. You know. I kept saying hundreds of thousands because it would be it seemed like a lot, But you know, a million people maybe, well, you know.
Other Major League came Pittsburgh, Milwaukee. The White Sox just picked the team Saint Louis. They have an opening day and they have little attendance because the weather is bad and so yeah, people.
Won't show up.
But this weekend it's gonna be The Yankee says, it's like, hey, well it was full and the Yankees of course, but mainly it's not like it's not like a million and a half million people come to little Cincinnati, Ohio, and they have people from Oregon, the home of the Ducks and the Beavers, fly to Cincinnati and say I want to be part of the Findly Market Parade. I mean, it's like it's like the EBN fireworks, you know, Western and Southern fireworks. It's one of those events that Cincinnati
we're so blessed and so unique. Something Marty Brennaman said during our broadcast yesterday said, don't put too much on Terry Francona.
And I'm looking at him. Maybe you pump somebody up to tear him down.
So I'm watching listening to Sports Talk on fifteen thirty this morning and also the National guys, and they're talking about Terry Francona ripped off his mask and it was David Bell, and I'm thinking, this guy's got two World Series rings, he's one, uh, he's one, he's one, three pennants, he's uh, the number one manager.
And already people are jumping off the bad Way game one game and they're saying, we're done.
It's it's it's like, ah, this season is over. Yeah, well, I think we got a lot of baseball. You know. I'm expecting, uh, really good things out of this team, you know. Uh, and they had a great, you know first half. I mean their starting pitcher really did really well getting through that. Yeah, and I think, uh, you know, I think there's a lot of lights. So we'll see what happens. You know. I'm I'm never one to you know, jumped. I'm always kind of pessimistic, you know, to begin with west,
but I certainly wouldn't judge it on one game. No.
No, In fact, how about this fact, this fact from Lance mcallis, so he's kind of a nerd when it comes to this. The last eleven Red's opening days, and if you take the games the last eleven seasons on May first of each year, the Reds have had one winning record in the last eleven years as of May first.
I said, that's so, it's all.
I said, it's kind of incumbent to get off to a good start, which it's kind of important that to get off to good goes. You don't want to be behind the thirty games into the season after May first, maybe thirty five. You don't want to be like you know, ten and twenty. You don't want to be there. But that's where the Reds have been. And it was anticipated
that Terry fan Conne would bring a new attitude. Then he brings this great Britain guy, this bread out of the ball, Bann Gerow, and he just coughs it up terribly. Couldn't have made a worse decision. I would have brought in Sam Mall, brought an Ashcraft. How the Reds have a reliever who played for the Giants last year. Bring that guy in instead of this Dureau character.
But it's his call.
But I would encourage you, Brian Hamrick, to keep hope alive. That's what I'm saying, Keep hope alive.
I think I think I'm gonna wait and see, you know, somewhere around July or August, we'll have a better idea. You know. I mean, there's so many games it's it's unbelievable, like they all mean something. And you know, because when you get toward the end of the year, you know, and you're like two games out of first place, You're like, oh, I wish we would have won that, you know, one that we dropped. That was you know, we should have won.
But but there's so many games that anyone you know, you it's just like you've just got to have an entire file of these things to see how good this seems gonna be.
Now, one thing you've covered on playing and on the second page here you cover the incident of the Roman Catholic priest Jeffrey Drew, and he certainly he went back into court, and uh, there's a special place in hell for priests and religious who engage in four sex with boys. A special place in hell's got to be for them. But explain your coverage of the reverend Jeffrey Drew and his alarming behavior and what happened with a Connie Village to county prosecutor.
Well, he got he you know, he got a sentenced and you know they found this out after a long you know, a long investigation, a lot of complaints over the years. Uh, they finally you know, make the arrest, they get the conviction. He's serving his time and he'll get out. You know, he's going to get out. But the latest thing is that he that he did not want to register as a sex offender when he did get out and so like all sex offenders have to register.
But I suppose the judge they can expunge ther record if they want to. So I get the judge can make that decision and say, no, you don't have to register as a sex offender. Well that's what he wanted, but apparently that was denied, and even the prosecutor was against this. I mean, there are organizations that have come together over this whole issue, with the priests and and some of this kind of behavior. They were all against that, you know. I think the only one in favor of it,
I think was this guy. I mean, because nobody wants to have somebody who was thinking of a crime like this no living in their neighborhood and not have to tell anybody, because I think a lot of people think, you know, you might have served your time, but that might not change you as a person. And so that's the concern, and that's why they have these goals where
you still have to register. And and so he's going to have to register, and he's not going to be able to live somewhere and not let the people know, you know, who he is.
No, he got a deal. He got seven years in jail, he got out a little bit early.
Obviously he's got no previous record, but this guy had committed seemingly dozens and dozens of serious rapes against Ultra boys and others, and special place in hell for him. But once again, Brian Hemrick, thanks for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show. You're chasing on the story right now about snowplows. You go from Father Drew to Red's opening day to snowplows. Give me a minute or two on the snowplows that the city doesn't have snowplows.
I you know, I never know what's gonna happen. It's like spend the wheel. People ask me what I do. You know, what do you do every day? I say, here, here's what I do every day. I get up, I put on my white jumpsuit with the stars and the and the in the banner, and I crawl into the cannon and then I wait for him to light the fuse. There's a lot of screaming and yelling, and I just hope to hit the net at the end of the day.
You have no idea, no idea, no idea, Yeah, no idea.
Oh yeah, today we're looking we're talking about that. So they had the city had, uh, you know, I had some leftover money from some leftover funds or some money that they generated, and they're trying to figure out what to do with it. There's certain things they can do,
the certain things they can't do with it. One of the things they could do was buy snowplows, race snowplow and and that's what they decided to do with this money because uh, you know, as you recall, wasn't that long ago that we had that day when there was so much issue. But we've never heard the report back of what these guys were gonna do with uh, because you remember, they had all these problems. They they had the GPS that didn't get put in the trucks properly
or they couldn't figure out how to work it. They had snowplowd drivers who were using big books instead of a GPS to know the route. There were a lot of issues. They were supposed to get a report back. Well we've never heard that, Repett.
They don't want the report.
Get this snow wow anyway, so they're going to be able to use this. They got one more snow wow, so we'll see, all right.
Brian hemry Good luck. And that's another great day yesterday. And I always say brighter days lay ahead. Last year they won the first game opening day, then had a bad season, finished fourth, and this year they lost them.
Maybe the opposite will take place, but.
Maybe the opposite will happen, maybe the opposite.
Keep hope alive, Keep hope alive. Brian Hamrick, thank you for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show.
Thanks again, mister Cunningham.
God bless you. Brian Hamric, the best there is. Let's continue with more. Your comments are next that you're home of the Reds and keep hope alive. We have a good manager, the team looks to be better. Don't jump off the vandwagon yet. As Tony Bender encourages people to do all on news radio seven hundred, WU all of you