[speaker001:] Okay, um, so, um, do you have any favorite teams?
[speaker002:] Well, I kind of like them all. I played for about eighteen years, all the way through college, and then, uh, kind of hung them up after college, but, [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] Oh, I was going to say, you played pro ball, right?
[speaker002:] No, not quite.
[speaker001:] Not quite, huh.
[speaker002:] Made it, yeah, made it all the way through four years of college playing ball, but,
[speaker001:] Oh.
[speaker002:] Anyway. Uh, being in Rochester, you probably like the Mets.
[speaker001:] Yes, I'm actually a Met, I'm, I'm one of these people who's actually a die hard Mets fan,
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] and an avid Yankee hater.
[speaker002:] Oh, boy, it, I think it's like one or the other, isn't it. I mean,
[speaker001:] Yeah, it's, it's, I, I, I find it very strange. Um, more people, you know, real Met fans don't like the Yankees and real Yankee fans don't like the Mets for some reason.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] I never fou-, I never quite found a New York fan.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] I always found a fan, you know, of either one or the other, and so, that of course means that when it comes to the American League my favorite team is the Red Sox
[speaker002:] Oh, okay,
[speaker001:] by default, because I went to college also in Boston.
[speaker002:] I see, yeah, I like the, uh, huh, I guess if I had to pick a favorite team, any more, as well as, I kind of grew up rooting for Philadelphia.
[speaker001:] Oh.
[speaker002:] I'm from New Jersey originally.
[speaker001:] Yeah, so that, so that's sort of close enough.
[speaker002:] Yeah, well, we were thirty miles south of them, so.
[speaker001:] Oh, so you were pretty close.
[speaker002:] Yeah, right down the river, but, uh, so what are the Mets going to do this year without Strawberry?
[speaker001:] Well, I don't know. Um, there's, there's a part of me that says that, you know, um, I'm sort of glad Strawberry went away.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] You know, when, when he sort of went away, I started thinking, yeah, well, he was performing fairly well, but he really wasn't worth the baggage, you know.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Um, I think they're okay, I think they're, you know, I think they have enough people who are, who are, who are still in their prime, you know.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] Um, I mean, certainly if you look at them compared to, let's say, you know, um, eight years ago or something, they're
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] they're, they're, they're, you know, they're sort of in, in good standing, whereas, you know, um, [NOISE] [knocking sound] I think, I certainly don't think they're the eighty-six team any more.
[speaker002:] Well, I was going to talk to you about that eighty-six team [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] Yeah, I,
[speaker002:] That was, that was the year they beat Houston in extra innings, right.
[speaker001:] Right, they beat Houston in extra innings, and then they actually won the series bye-bye sort of a sneaky route, um, against Boston
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] when there was the ball that was sort of hit to Buckner.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] I felt real bad about that, but hey, what can you do.
[speaker002:] Hey, the guy's making millions, he ought to be able to perform, right.
[speaker001:] That's right, well, actually, he, he, he was supposedly, um, there was, there was something wrong with him at the time, and I,
[speaker002:] Well, his knees were bothering him, yeah.
[speaker001:] Right, and I, and I understand that, and I say, Hey if the guy can't play, you don't blame that, uh, hit it to him, you blame the team, you know, for putting him in,
[speaker002:] Yeah, for having him out there.
[speaker001:] That's right, so.
[speaker002:] Sure.
[speaker001:] So, I, I, I was, uh, I was also, I was in school at Boston at the time.
[speaker002:] Oh, boy.
[speaker001:] So, I, it was actually wonderful because where I was they were half Met fans and, um, half Sox fans.
[speaker002:] Yeah, I think we were all pretty much, uh, Astros fans, in the National League Championship Series
[speaker001:] Oh.
[speaker002:] but there's like two fellows from, uh, Brooklyn,
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] and they, they were, you know, they were pretty much without having to say, they were pretty much Mets fans [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] Yeah, yeah, well I guess they were, uh, I guess they must have been scared [LAUGHTER] after the, uh,
[speaker002:] No, not really, they were pretty much thugs, they weren't scared very much, you know [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] Well, that's good, well, they're Brooklyn boys, I guess.
[speaker002:] Yeah [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] You don't expect them to be, uh, much of anything but thugs. I know. I was born there. Um.
[speaker002:] Really.
[speaker001:] Yeah, I, I was, I was also born in Brooklyn, so I can call myself a Brooklyn thug, although I'm really not.
[speaker002:] Okay, okay. Well, I'm not to say that all folks from Brooklyn are thugs, but these two were definitely thugs, and they were from Brooklyn [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] So I'm kind of hoping, I, I, I guess, uh, any more I pretty much pull for the Rangers though. They're, uh, they're, they're they, they have, I think they have the best facilities in the major leagues.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] I love going to watch a game in Arlington stadium. It's great.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER] Well, that, that's actually, I think I make something, because I think, and, and, and in as much as sort of fan support helps.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] You know, it's good to have, um,
[speaker002:] The only problem is it's not large enough. It only holds about, I think they, when Ryan struck out his five thousandth player, they squeezed about forty thousand people in there.
[speaker001:] Yes, it is kind of small.
[speaker002:] Yeah, so they're, they, they have plans, I mean, the owner tried to move them to Florida
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] but, uh, they ended up sticking around in Arlington, and they're going to build a new stadium in Arlington, as a matter of fact, not even in Dallas,
[speaker001:] Oh, that's great. So,
[speaker002:] So that's, that's something that we're looking forward to.
[speaker001:] Yeah, that'll be nice, I mean, that, that, I think, tends to keep, I think stadiums work tend to keep people happy.
[speaker002:] Oh, case in point, Toronto.
[speaker001:] Yeah, exactly.
[speaker002:] Yeah, have you seen a game up there?
[speaker001:] Uh, I haven't been to any Toronto games yet. But, um,
[speaker002:] Oh, boy, I saw it, I was up there on business, uh, last June and watched a game in the sky dome. It was just phenomenal. That's, that's probably the pattern for the future of stadiums, I think.
[speaker001:] Of stadiums, yeah, well, I, I mean to get up there. I mean, the, the best I've been up here so far, you know, up, in up state New York
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] is, uh, is, um, Rochester Red Wings game.
[speaker002:] Now is Rochester, where, where is Cornell University.
[speaker001:] Oh, Cornell is in Ithaca.
[speaker002:] Ithaca.
[speaker001:] Uh, yeah, so Cornell is about, um, somewhere, uh, about two and a half hours south of, south and east of us.
[speaker002:] Okay.
[speaker001:] So if you know where Lake Ontario is sort of.
[speaker002:] Yeah, well Rochester is like right on the shores, isn't it?
[speaker001:] Yeah, we're about ten miles south of Lake Ontario.
[speaker002:] Yeah, okay.
[speaker001:] Actually whoever built the city was an idiot, in my opinion,
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] because they built it, they built it far enough from the city that it actually couldn't be a port city.
[speaker002:] Oh,
[speaker001:] Um, but they,
[speaker002:] Well, they say that from that space needle up in Toronto you can see the lights of Rochester on a clear night.
[speaker001:] Oh, really, I ne-, I hadn't actually known that.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Well, um, but we have our own, um, our own triple A team here
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] the Redwings, which are
[speaker002:] Yeah, okay.
[speaker001:] they're a farm team for the Orioles.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] So everybody hopes that, uh, they go all the way around here. There's the, they're the big team in Rochester.
[speaker002:] Those games are fun to watch. You, you, you watch those games?
[speaker001:] Oh, yeah, I actually, we, we, we make a point of going to a bunch of them every year because they're fun.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Lots of really big, you know, lots of local fans, you know, small stadium, you know, um, and they'll get a crowd of less than ten thousand sometimes, you know
[speaker002:] Uh-huh, uh-huh.
[speaker001:] um, especially, you know, I'll make a day game or something.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] But they really seem to, uh, people really get into it. I mean, I can't, I, I, again, I can't make any predictions about them, but I suspect they'll go, uh, they'll go fly.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER] Yeah, we used to like watching, my, my folks lived down in Beaumont, and, uh, on the campus of Lamar University they used to house the Beaumont Golden Gators who were a double A team for the Padres, I think, but, uh, they, they were fun games to watch.
[speaker001:] Yeah. Those are, those are, uh, I think those are more fun than major league games sometimes.
[speaker002:] Someti-, well, there's definitely a lot more hitting [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] Yes, it's true.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] One of the advantages of not having pitchers who are
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] uh, uh, you know, I guess, I guess when you start pitching real well, well, move them up. Bam.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Yeah, but um.
[speaker002:] So as far as the major league teams, [barking] I don't know, the Rangers have been, you know, every year they always knock on the door early, and then just go into their skid about, you know, the end of June.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] But they, they've got so much young, raw talent, it's just amazing, and then they just haven't been able to put anything together.
[speaker001:] Well, the way I, the way I see it, is, I mean, um, you know, I can use a Met analogy here.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] If you'll think back a few years to when the Mets were just all this sort of young bunch of guys who really were raw talent but weren't very sort of, well trained
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] you know, back to, you know, maybe eighty, eighty-four or eighty-three
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] or eighty-five, you know, when they were first, when they weren't quite the eighty-six team that, that, that they were.
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] I, I, that probably gives the readers a good shot for you this year or next year, I think, if, I think, the young talent really just has to build itself up.
[speaker002:] Yeah, I mean, they've been, they've been young for a while, and they're almo-, almost starting to age a little bit here, I just, um.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] Yeah, yeah, they, they really hurting pitching wise. I mean, they've got Ryan, but, you know, who knows what he'll be able to do. He's been, last year he started having some nagging injuries, and
[speaker001:] Right, but.
[speaker002:] but, it'll, it'll be interesting to watch. I hope to get up there. We, we usually try to get to opening day game. There's several guys from our church try to go up there.
[speaker001:] Oh, that must be nice.
[speaker002:] Yeah, well, I, I guess we're probably, oh, maybe a hundred fifty miles south of Dallas.
[speaker001:] Well, that isn't too bad. Just a couple of hours.
[speaker002:] No, not too bad, but it takes about two hours, two and a half hours to get there.
[speaker001:] Yeah, well it takes me a good seven hours to get to Shay Stadium.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] So, I don't know.
[speaker002:] That's probably because of the roads. You just don't have, we, we've just got a freeway. We just get right on the freeway and just go north.
[speaker001:] Yeah, well, actually, we can, we can, I can take a highway the whole way down, but it's still, it's some
[speaker002:] Well, it's so crowded up there.
[speaker001:] it's, it's almost four hundred hou-, I mean, I mean, it's almost four hundred, you know, barring traffic, it's four hundred hours, I mean, four hundred mil-, four hundred hours, right, [LAUGHTER] four hundred miles
[speaker002:] Golly.
[speaker001:] barring traffic, so, it's, um, it's, it's, you know, it's a heck of a drive. We are substantially north of New York enough that, uh
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] we don't get to go play
[speaker002:] Um.
[speaker001:] too often.
[speaker002:] Well, yeah, you're, you're like a boat ride from, how far is it across the lake to Canada?
[speaker001:] Toronto.
[speaker002:] Toronto?
[speaker001:] Oh Toronto's only about two hours, yeah.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Toronto, I mean, I want to go see.
[speaker002:] Do, do you drive there, or do you take the ferry, or what?
[speaker001:] Um, I can, I've actually I've driven, but I've heard about the ferry as well.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Haven't taken it yet, though. Have you taken it?
[speaker002:] Yeah, it's a, it's a beautiful city.
[speaker001:] Yeah, um, I, I really love, I think that's one of the most, uh, enjoyable things about being up here. I'm only up here for school.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. So, and then, I mean, you go back to New York after school?
[speaker001:] Uh, no, probably south, maybe Texas [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] Oh, really.
[speaker001:] Some place south, and warm, I don't, I'm not a big, uh, I'm not a big, uh, cold fan.
[speaker002:] Well, what kind of weather are you having right now?
[speaker001:] Uh, right now we're actually having, uh, it's getting nice. I mean, it was in the high fifties today, but three and a half weeks ago, we had an ice storm [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] Oh, boy, yeah, we've been up in the, oh, seventies, eighties, even up in the nineties a couple of weeks ago.
[speaker001:] Oh, that's great. You know, about that same time branches were falling off everywhere, and we were actually in a state of emergency for two weeks.
[speaker002:] Golly. Because of the ice?
[speaker001:] Because it, didn't make the nat-, national news too much, which I find really weird
[speaker002:] Um.
[speaker001:] but, um, we were, I mean, um, you know, all schools were closed for almost, for over, for a week.
[speaker002:] Golly.
[speaker001:] There were certain parts of town where it was illegal to drive.
[speaker002:] Huh, illegal,
[speaker001:] Yeah, because they had so many power lines down
[speaker002:] Oh, yeah.
[speaker001:] and so many, uh, things like that, so they were...