7-5-23 After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in there. Weren't you ever afraid of getting caught at doing this?

No. Who's gonna catch us? We're the police. It was the early 1990s, the height of the crack era, and instead of locking up drug dealers, some New York City cops had become them. I would suit up in my uniform and we're gonna rob some drug dealers. And I know how to do it really well. This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the investigation that uncovered it all. Did you consider yourself a rat? A hundred percent. I saved my soul just like everybody else does.

Listen to and follow The Set, an Odyssey Originals documentary podcast series available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your shows. I'm not a bad guy, man, but I loved being that dirty motherf***er. It may not be your home show. It may not be the middle night of the work week for you. It is the middle show and the middle night of the work week for us. And we recognize it's not the majority, but there are people out there who are working all the way through the week. If you're like me, well, you can trade working a holiday for a day off later in the month. And so when I was asking Bob about his July 4th plans and saying that I was a little bit jealous that he would not be working on Tuesday and that he needed to be sweet and kind to me because I was going to be working, he said it's not my fault. Well, duh, that's not the point I was making. The point was, hey, Bob, why do you think I'm working on July 4th and that it dawned on him? Oh, because you're taking a couple days off later in the month so you can visit Houston. Yes, yes, exactly.

So you can be kind and you can be sweet. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Happy Independence Day. Happy July 4th to you. We still got some of you who are awake on your Tuesday night. I love that. I'm still awake on my Tuesday night and I'm milking as much as I possibly can.

Though I did not wear red, white and blue for a third night in a row. But we're still talking about the happenings of Tuesday, July 4th and it was a tough Independence Day for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. They get the tough news about Mike Trout going on the IL. Shohei Ohtani leaves the game early.

They right now need all hands on deck, not the opposite. So a challenge for Phil Nevin and his Angels. And after they lose against the Padres in San Diego. It's After Hours on CBS Sports Radio.

What are the surprises of the first half of the baseball season? And please send your questions for Ask Amy Anything. You can do this in one fell swoop on Twitter, After Hours, CBS or on our Facebook page.

And our phone number is 855-212-4227. But right now we're pleased to welcome Jeff Fletcher from San Diego. Covers the Angels for SoCal News Group. Jeff, the Mike Trout injury news. Finding out he'll be out of the lineup for a significant amount of time.

What's your reaction? Well, it's been a really bad break for the Angels. They were actually playing pretty good baseball up until mid-June. And then they've just lost everybody to injuries all at once.

And now losing Mike Trout who is just starting to hit like Mike Trout again. It's a pretty tough break for them. It looks like the very best case scenario is he misses a month. And more likely it's closer to six weeks or two months. And that takes a big chunk out of the season. And they really need to play well to finally get into the playoffs.

And they definitely have a challenge in front of them now. In the game, we saw Otani leave with, I guess it's a blister now, that middle finger. Is the same middle finger that he had the cracked fingernail? Yeah, it is. I think what happened is they put some kind of an acrylic thing on his fingernail to keep that together.

And I think that sort of caused a blister around the area. So, you know, it's not a super serious thing. And now with the All-Star break, he's got about 10 days before he's got to pitch again. So, I don't think anybody's really worried about it.

But, you know, it's just another thing piled on that they have to deal with. And then Anthony Rendon as well. Any news about him after he left the game? Well, he fouled the ball off his shin and then nothing was broken, which is good. But it was pretty badly bruised and he was in a lot of pain.

And he was walking on crutches after the game. So, I would expect him to go on the IL tomorrow. And, you know, still because they've just got the three games left for the All-Star break. Best case scenario, just miss the 10 days on the IL and be back right after the break.

But I think that's, you know, I would not expect him to play, you know, the rest of the last three games. Sounds like this break couldn't come any quicker for the Angels. That they desperately need it.

Yeah, they definitely do. And they also, Zach Natto, their shortstop has been out since mid-June. They're hoping to get in after the break. And Brandon Drury, their second baseman, who really should be on the All-Star team. He's probably, you know, had one of the best seasons of any second baseman in the league. He's had a shoulder injury, so he's out till after the All-Star break.

So, they're missing. It's going to be five of their everyday players all have gotten hurt in the last month. And actually, Gio Arcela is out for the year now, too. He's been kind of an everyday player. And Logan Ohapi, their starting catcher, got hurt back in April.

And he's still out. It's a pretty patchwork lineup they've got going out there. But most of the guys look like they're going to come back at some point here in the first month or six weeks after the break. So, they just need to kind of find a way to play well until they get the cavalry back. Jeff Fletcher is with us from San Diego, where the Angels are taking on the Padres. Lost on Tuesday night on July 4th. And he covers the team for the SoCal News Group.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. The injuries notwithstanding, they've managed to stay part of that A.L. West race for most of the first half of the season. What do the Angels look like when they're playing their best baseball? You know, on paper, they look like a pretty solid team that's pretty good at everything. Like, their starting rotation, they've got, you know, Patrick Sandoval, Reed Detmers were both very good last year.

And they're both still young. And then you add Otani on top of that. That's a pretty good top three. This year, Sandoval has not been so good.

But still, that's the core that should be there. And then Griffin Canning, who missed the year and a half of the back injury, he's come back and he's been pretty good. And Tyler Anderson, who's actually been not very good for most of the year, he was an All-Star last year. So, that's a lot of pieces for a good rotation. Their bullpen, you know, Carlos Estevez has been one of the best closers in the league this year.

He also should have been an All-Star. Matt Moore has come back and been pretty good, but he's been hurt. Some young guys like Jose Soriano have come back and been pretty good. So, they have the pieces for a pretty good bullpen, too. And the lineup, you know, with Otani, Trout, Brandon Drury's been good. Hunter Renfro was good for most of the first half, kind of slumped in the last month or so. Mickey Moniac, the former number one overall pick, who was kind of slumped with the Phillies.

They got him last year in a trade. And he's come up and been really good. So, you add all this stuff up, and on paper they look like they really should be better than they are. And they still could be, you know, if they get guys healthy. You know, all the stuff has gone wrong we've talked about, and they're two games over.500 right now. So, they're within range, but they definitely need to get some guys healthy and get a good run of keeping them healthy and playing some good baseball. For the sake of argument, Jeff, if they drop a little bit or lose a little more ground because of the injuries, how does this impact what they do at the trade deadline?

Well, I mean, the first question is a Shohei Otani question. And I think that they really do not want to trade him because they feel like they want to try to win this year, no matter what. And if they're in striking distance, they want to hang on to him. And they also want to try to re-sign him after the season. And so, obviously, it's a lot easier to do that if you keep them until the end of the season. If they do fall back like seven games out of a playoff spot or so, then it starts to get kind of dicey to take that risk.

So, we'll definitely see what happens. As for going the other direction and adding, I mean, I think that's what they would like to do. They would like to probably add a starting pitcher and a reliever maybe. And, you know, who knows, depending which of these position players are hurt, when they get to the deadline, that could affect what they need in that sense. They do have a lot of position players that can play multiple positions. So, they could sort of take anybody who's available and fit them in.

So, that's definitely something that they would look to do, I think, if they can play a little better and really show some reason to believe that they have the guys there to make a good run. How much does this hang over the heads of the organization, do you think? This looming decision about Ohtani, you mentioned the risk involved, but also this idea that they may lose him if they don't make the playoffs or if they don't finish strong and remain part of the equation in the AL? Well, I think it certainly is a thing that was talked about all the time around the organization. I don't know how much actually within the organization because I think that if you're general manager Perry Menazian, you're just thinking we're keeping him. And it's not really something that they probably talk about, trading him or any of that kind of thing, and they hope to be able to re-sign him. But certainly everybody else in the baseball world talks about it all the time, and it's certainly a big subject surrounding the Angels, even if they're not actually talking about it themselves. It's definitely a story that is not going to go away.

What do you think? Does it come up every day, every other day? Pretty much every day, especially every time they lose a game. People go crazy like, oh, that's it, season's over, great Ohtani. And then they win a couple games and it's like, oh, you know, maybe we got a chance, maybe he's going to re-sign, you know, whatever. It's quite a roller coaster. Jeff Fletcher is the Angels beat writer for SoCal News Group.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. You wrote a book about Shohei Ohtani. It's the inside story of him and the greatest baseball season ever played. I think that a lot of American baseball fans want to know more about him because of the language barrier, maybe a little more of the culture barrier. What was it like to write a book about him?

Well, I mean, it's a great story. It's something that none of us alive have ever seen anybody do this. I mean, it's just so incredibly difficult to be a pitcher and a hitter at the level he's at, not just doing it as like kind of a sideshow where, you know, these guys like Michael Lorenzen, it's like, oh, it's kind of neat. Look, he can play a little bit of outfield and he's a pitcher.

It's not like that. He's an elite at both. And it's so impossible to comprehend how he does it. The book really gives people a look at like what kind of person he is to be able to achieve that and what he had to do, you know, growing up in Japan to get there. And I think one of the most interesting parts is about how he went from Japan to the Angels. It's a really great story and I feel lucky that he basically showed up on my doorstep as I was already covering the Angels to give me the story to write. How much did you have access to him or did you talk to him about the book? I interviewed him, you know, hundreds of times during my daily coverage of the Angels and a lot of that is the content from him for the book.

And then, you know, I talked to a lot of other people around him to kind of fill in the gaps. On a day-to-day basis when he's not on the mound, what's his personality like? He's a pretty fun-loving guy. I mean, you really see the way he hangs out with his teammates in the clubhouse and you can even see it on the field the way he interacts with even players on other teams. He's just having a really good time being Shoei Ohtani and playing baseball. He's got a great sense of humor. One of my favorite scenes was he was in a little bit of a hitting slump last year and so he was doing CPR on his bat in the dugout.

And that's just kind of a classic, you know, stress breaker sort of thing that he does. And, you know, he just really tries to have a good time as much as possible. How much does he communicate with his team or even with you reporters in English? Well, he doesn't really talk to the reporters in English, but he can communicate pretty well, I think, with just about everybody in English.

He's been in the U.S. long enough now. And I've had sort of some brief casual conversations with him just in the clubhouse, you know, passing by in English. So I know that he understands, but I think a lot of guys still prefer to use the interpreter when they're doing formal interviews just because you don't want to be misquoted or misunderstand a question. And, you know, that's perfectly understandable that you can, you know, you can speak the language when you're just chit-chatting or talking to your teammates. But when you're going to be quoted, you want to make sure you have an interpreter. Are you ever still surprised by the reaction to him, the way that people are so excited to see him and to watch him play?

Yeah, I mean, people really do. It's like appointment viewing. So I became kind of a popular thing on my Twitter feed as I took a little angel's schedule and I circled all the days that he's pitching. And just from sort of counting in advance, you know, for a month or six weeks in advance.

And people are always asking me for it. Like, where's the Otani calendar? I want to go plan this trip to St. Louis and I want to know which day he's going to pitch. And that's just something that you don't hear with other players. It's a big deal. I guess then when he has a start pushback because of the cracked fingernail that throws everybody off. Oh yeah, people get very upset if they sort of plan trips around, you know, are you going to pitch this certain game and then something changes or there's a rain out or something and it changes the schedule. And whenever I do the schedule, I'd be sure to put a little asterisk like, don't blame me if it changes. But this is what it is right now.

One more question. I wouldn't expect that he would be tipping his hands at all. But as best you can tell, how does he like playing for the Angels and being in L.A.? I think he loves everything about playing for the Angels except the fact that they haven't won. And I think if his perfect scenario would be that the Angels would be a better team and he would just stay there because he's very comfortable with the people. He's comfortable with his teammates. You know, he has kind of a different schedule that other players don't have in terms of the way he pitches and the way he's used in the lineup. And it all kind of works together seamlessly, even the way he deals with the media. It's all it's very different and he knows how it all works.

It's comfortable. So I think his best case would be to stay. But he also really wants to win. And so the Angels really need to show him that they can win. And I think making the playoffs this year would be a very important step towards doing that. If they don't make the playoffs, but at least show some encouraging signs and get close. I think they still might have a chance to re-sign him. But if the second half goes terribly and they're not even in it, then I think that that probably would be the end of his time and hour. Jeff Fletcher is with us from San Diego now covering the Angels for SoCal News Group.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. The Angels have not been to the playoffs since 2014. I don't know how long you've covered the team, but that's way too long to not see Mike Trout on the October stage.

And considering the star power of Otani, of course we'd all love to see him playing in October. Thinking about this last almost decade now, what's been the biggest hindrance to them being able to break through and get back to that playoff? Well, my first year covering the team was 2013, so I've been there through this whole nightmare.

And it's very simple. Their farm system has been really bad. It was really bad for a lot of different reasons. It started to kind of fall apart around 2009, 2010, basically right after they drafted Mike Trout. And then they had a really terrible farm system at the same time as Mike Trout became this generational superstar. So he's no longer a guy that you can just trade away to rebuild your farm system like you would with, like, Christian Yelich or Mookie Betts or Paul Goldschmidt or these other kind of guys that get traded when their teams are out of it.

You really can't take a guy who's going to the Hall of Fame and do that. And if your farm system is also no good, then you can't really acquire players to build around them. So that sort of stuck them in this middle ground where they just needed to rely on free agents to fill in the gaps. And that doesn't work very well because free agents are usually old and on the way down.

So unless you really get lucky and hit on them, like, say, the 2007 Giants did of the 2021 Giants, it's going to be really tough. And that's basically what their problem has been. There are some signs that the farm system has gotten better lately and they've got, you know, shortstop Zach Nitto, catcher Logan Olapi, these guys look like they're going to be pretty good. Patrick Sandoval, we mentioned Reed Detmers. There's some hope, but they still have to put some more pieces together to really have a consistent core. And that's going to be even more important if they want to keep Otani, because if he's going to be eating up 50 million dollars in the payroll, you need a lot of really good players making eight hundred thousand dollars to have a good team.

I know it's not as long as what the Seattle Mariners and their fan base suffered through, but it does feel like it stretched on far too long now. Really good insight from Jeff Fletcher. You can find him on Twitter at Jeff Fletcher.

OCR covers the Angels for SoCal News Group and the book Showtime, the inside story of Shohei Otani and the greatest baseball season ever played. Sounds really intriguing. Jeff, thank you so much for a couple of minutes. I appreciate it. All right.

Thanks for having me. Love his insight on Shohei from how much he speaks English when he's not in front of a microphone to how he likes Anaheim and playing for the Angels. And also the strategy for the team. It's tough. He used the word risk. It is a risk. If the Angels are falling off and they try to, they try to wait it out with Otani and believe they have a chance at resigning him, even if they don't make the playoffs, they can end up losing him for nothing. Now, do you care? Really? Like, there's no adequate compensation for losing a talent and a draw like Otani.

There's only one Otani. So whatever you get in return is not going to be enough to replace him. But the idea that you would get nothing at all, whether draft picks or young prospects or anything like that, considering, as Jeff said, that their farm system has been a mess for so long, neither one's an appealing option. So you can understand why the Angels will wait and go to great lengths if that's what it takes. On Twitter, After Hours, CBS, our Facebook page, too, we're looking for your questions for asking me anything, as well as your surprises for the first half of the Major League Baseball season. We're just past that midway point getting set for the All-Star break, which comes up next week.

Now, we're going to take a bit of a turn here. We've done baseball for the first hour and 20 minutes of the show, which is cool. It is the boys of summer, America's pastime. I know people get annoyed when I say that, but I don't mind annoying you.

It's perfectly acceptable when we're talking about sports. The latest with Damian Lillard, though, this question still hangs in the air around the NBA, and it seems like Dame is not above pulling punches with his longtime franchise. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports.

You are smarter, safer, faster.com and start moving today. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Dame badly, badly wants to win, and he's probably being more vocal about that than ever, but I don't look at that as a negative. I think the reason you haven't seen major issues from us or the reason you still see Dame in our gym every day or still meeting with Chauncey and I constantly is because he wants us to work. He's bought in, he wants it to work here, and he's challenging us to get it done, which I think is more than fair.

He's earned that. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. We didn't have no internet, but, man, I never will forget the way the moonlight shined upon her head.

And we were trying different things, and we were smoking funny things, making love to our favorite song. That's American. We are taking advantage of every last second of July 4th, and it still is July 4th in multiple time zones in the United States of America. It's my favorite holiday outside of Thanksgiving and Christmas, so glad that you all are celebrating and enjoying and doing summer things.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. We do summer things here. We give you July 4th fun facts. We had funfetti cupcakes. We were playing patriotic music. I ran out of red, white, and blue to wear.

I'm wearing blue jeans, if that helps, but I didn't have any red to wear, so this is just to pay me no attention. I still have the July 4th spirit. And, of course, it's always smack dab in the middle of NBA free agency. And the biggest question right now, as players move and get new deals and the deck is shuffled in the NBA, what happens with Dame? It's got a little spicy because fans are turning on Damian Lillard, and I don't know if you all remember this, but we had a conversation with Aaron Fentress of The Oregonian before Dame requested a trade.

So, if I remember correctly, our conversation with Aaron was late last week, Wednesday night, maybe Thursday night. I don't remember exactly what night it was, but he joined us from Portland, and I asked him specifically about the fans. And where he felt like the fans were siding, with the Blazers or with Dame, who's been there over a decade, has given them heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears. And he felt like the majority of them would want Dame to go somewhere else, if he couldn't win with the Blazers, to go somewhere else and be successful and be part of a contender. That was his opinion, and he's covered the team for a long time. But there are now fans turning on him. As you can imagine, they're hurt.

As fans, we think, now I don't know if this is always the case, but we think since we have blind loyalty, the athletes who play for our teams and who wear the uniforms should also have blind loyalty. I encourage you, as much as I can, to remember that it's a business for them. And different from our chosen careers, professional athletes, even the best of the best, don't have more than 20 years to earn money at their craft. Now, can they earn far more in 20 years than the average American?

Sure. But keep this in mind, too. The average NBA, NFL careers, they don't even last five years. So for most NBA players, now again, Dame has been in the league for over a decade.

The best, they have longevity. But they need to take advantage of the limited window they have where they are at the top of their games, where they are still wanted and paid handsomely for their craft. Damian is in the prime of his career, or maybe slightly past his prime, only because he's a little older, just a little bit older. What did I say? It was going to be 33?

I'm going to have to check. 33? So maybe slightly past his prime, but still one of the best guards in the NBA. If you try to think of it as a business, with only so many years left, this could be the last big free agent deal he gets. And actually, he's not guaranteed a new deal, right? His new team, the Miami Heat, may not give him a new deal. But this is maybe the last stretch where he has any leverage at all because of how good he is, and because he is wanted as an addition that could make a contender better. He still has a lot to offer on the basketball court and in the locker room, so there are teams that will want him. Miami wants him.

He wants to win a ring. As Americans, in any other career or walk of life, we often change jobs. I am rare in this business that I've been in the same job on the same shift for almost 10 years.

That's rare. Most Americans don't stay in one job on one shift for 10 years. Why is it that as fans, we expect our athletes, our favorite athletes, to stay put in one place their entire careers when we don't? Goals change. Dreams change. Plans change. Families change. Employers change. Place of businesses change. Owners change. Bosses change.

Teammates change. All of that is happening around athletes just like it's happening around us in our other respective and chosen fields. And yet sometimes we get so angry at athletes when they want to go somewhere else. We feel jilted. We feel dumped. We feel like they're disloyal.

And in some cases I suppose that could be true, but not in the case of Damian Lillard. Now he tweeted, it's in my blood to take the high road. I'd love to hear what fans are turning on.

Have I misled them or anyone? Fill me in. There were even reports earlier on, I think it was Tuesday, that he's willing to play hardball. That if the Blazers try to trade him anywhere else besides Miami, or if they don't trade him, he's going to take a page out of James Harden's book. Which I think is gross. I respect Lillard.

I hope that that report is not accurate. James Harden was a jerk. In Houston when he wanted out, he was a jerk. He showed up fat, out of shape, broke COVID protocols, got suspended, didn't respect his teammates. And if you remember, John Wall had just been traded to Houston.

There was a new coach in Houston. He made himself persona non grata. He did not want to be there. He made it very clear. And in expressing his displeasure, he also went out of his way to make life uncomfortable and untenable in that locker room for everybody. He was a jerk.

He created an atmosphere where they had no choice, or the only logical choice was to boot him, was to trade him. I've seen reports out there that Damian Lillard is willing to do that. He's willing to make life miserable for the Blazers until they trade him. I hope that is not the case.

I hope that's just rampant speculation. But, Chris Broussard points out, and this comes from FS1 and First Things First, he's not in the driver's seat here with Portland. With all due respect today, it is not just about Damian Lillard. And all we keep hearing is, what do the Blazers owe Damian Lillard? Well, how about what Damian Lillard might owe the Blazers? Or how about what Damian Lillard owes Chauncey Billups? Or how about his former teammates?

Or how about the fans that he says, and I believe, loves in Portland? You want to leave them with a bad deal? You want to leave them with players they don't want? They don't want Tyler Herro. So, here's what has to happen. They have to meet, they should sit down and meet Damian Lillard with the Blazers, and they can talk it out. We don't mind trading you to Miami.

That's where you want to go. But we need to get back a package that makes us happy, that we feel good about. And Dame, without Bam and Jimmy Butler, they don't have that package. So, they need to go out and get a third or fourth team to the ball. While they try to do that, give us some other teams. Because we're only trading you in a deal that makes sense for us.

Chris Broussard on FS1. And you heard Joe Cronin, the general manager of the Blazers when we started this segment. They wanted to keep Dame. They know Dame wants to win.

They just haven't put enough around him in Dame's opinion to make them a contender in the West. And you gotta give the guy credit. He stuck it out for a long time. I would love to see him win there.

I really would. There's so much sentiment about how good he is for the league and how he's brought headlines and interest to Portland when they wouldn't have had any of that without him. I mean, for a time, he and C.J. McCollum were one of the best back courts in the NBA. But they're not a free agent destination, as we heard from our Blazers insider on the last edition of our show.

And he has every right to ask out. Now, do the Blazers have to give him what he wants? No. It's a little bit like the Seren Rogers situation with Green Bay. Did Green Bay have to give him what he wanted?

No. But at the same time, this could be a boost for the Blazers because how often are you going to trade a player the caliber of Dame? You hope never again. They need to get what they want. You know, it reminds me of the Houston Texans with Deshaun Watson. And I know Deshaun Watson at that time had had multiple suitors and there were teams out there that were willing to give up a boatload to get him. The Texans did not trade him in the first go around because they felt like they were not getting what he was worth. So they waited an entire year. They waited and they paid him to stand there to be inactive. They paid him to not play. But ultimately the Browns gave them what they wanted. And so they were willing to wait it out. Are the Blazers willing to wait it out?

It's different in basketball, right? They're not going to keep him on the roster and pay for him to sit around and not play. And if he decides he's not going to play because he wants out of Portland that badly, it could become ugly. But Portland shouldn't just tip over and take the first deal that comes along. Again, this is the only time, probably in Joe Cronin's tenure, if not the entire Blazers existence, they're going to trade a player the caliber of Damian Lillard.

You better get what you need from this deal. On Twitter, After HoursCBS, also on our Facebook page, we're looking for your questions for Ask Amy Anything. And then the surprises of the baseball season to this point about halfway through. From Wimbledon, world number one, Carlos Alcaraz moves on and he's already facing questions about a match against Novak Djokovic.

Might be a little early for that, but we'll see. So we've got the latest from across the pond. You are listening to the After Hours podcast.

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Do the Dew It Quality Mart. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. The standing ovation for Roger Federer lasted 90 seconds, and that includes spectators like Princess Kate. So he entered the royal box at center court at Wimbledon on Tuesday, and there was a brief celebration, just a brief announcement and introduction because, of course, he holds the record with eight singles championships at Wimbledon.

That's the career record as well as the men's record and one that Novak Djokovic is attempting to assault and to match. But Roger Federer is still king of grass and king of Wimbledon, and it's so good to see him. I miss him playing tennis. He is one of my all-time favorites along with John McEnroe.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Now, Andy Murray was playing in that match, and so after Andy, who's, of course, himself trying to wrap up his own career here on a positive note at Wimbledon, where he's one of the hometown favorites, he gets the win in front of Roger and is being interviewed on the court and takes a nod to the celebrity star power that's in the stands. Finally, Andy, obviously you've done some remarkable things on this court. You've played in front of some remarkable people, but today a very special occasion for you, some pretty special people watching you up in the royal box.

What was that like? Yeah, I mean, it was amazing to have some royalty here, but also some tennis royalty as well. Yeah, it's amazing to have Roger here supporting the event. Last time I was on this court and he was watching was during the Olympics, and he sat in Stan Marenka's box and was supporting against me, so it was nice to see a couple of claps today after some good shots. No, it's amazing, and yeah, hope you're doing well, Roger and Mirka and your parents as well. He makes reference to Roger's wife and the mother of his kiddos, and it's neat that he's there. I love that he's there, but it's not quite the same as when he was roaming the grass courts.

Roger himself did an interview with CNN where he was talking about what it's like to be retired and to be out and about and interacting with various tennis fans. I think because I show up in completely different random places nowadays, that some people are really surprised and very happy then to all of a sudden see me. I mean, I've had a moment when I did the Orient Express. I was in Venice and a guy chased me down and he was like, can I please take a picture? I'm like, yeah, are you who I think you are? I'm like, no, I don't know who you think I am. He was like, are you Nadal?

I'm like, I am so sorry, I'm not. So I kept on walking and the guy looked at me and goes, oh, such a pity he's not Nadal. But he kept on looking back and I thought he was going to maybe figure it out, but he didn't. He missed his moment. He missed his moment, but he clearly didn't want a picture with me. One of the pictures was Rafa.

But anyway, so I have obviously moments like these. Roger Federer on CNN. So later, after Andy Murray had advanced, and again, he's a Brit, so this is a big deal for him. This is the last major he plays. He wants to go out on a high note and yeah, really cool to be able to play and win in front of the greatest to ever compete in that tournament. It's obviously brilliant to have him around the event. And, you know, I really hope he, which I'm pretty sure he will, you know, be around the sport a lot. I know he loves, loves tennis and yeah, great to have him back here. He really was the talk of the tournament on Tuesday. World number one, Carlos Alcaraz makes quick work of his second round opponent. And he also was talking about learning from the GOAT. I wish to talk a little bit with him.

For me, it would be amazing. And I hope to, you know, to see him around more than once. So Carlos Alcaraz is still relatively young. We know he's quickly become the top challenger to everything that Novak Djokovic wants to accomplish in history. But he's got a game that is more suited to the clay and to the hard court. This is only his third Wimbledon. He's never been past the fourth round, so he's never made the quarterfinals at the All England Club. But yes, Novak Djokovic is trying to win his eighth title and match Roger Federer. It's Alcaraz who would stand in his way. So number one player in the world.

He advances. I know they've had some challenges there with the rain and the roof that they've had to put, they've had to close on center court. So it's a different atmosphere. A lot of times it changes the grass and the way the grass plays because when the sun bakes the grass, it'll play a lot faster and the ball will bounce a lot higher. Having worked at the Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island, I know how the grass works, especially when it's soggy and rainy, which seemed to happen a lot in mid-July when I would work in Newport. People are already asking Alcaraz about facing Djokovic, which would come much farther down the road. I would say the pressure that they put to everyone, you know, not only to me, to everyone, you know, to play at their best about three hours in a Grand Slam. I'm talking about the Grand Slam and, you know, I have to deal with that, but it's something that I really wanted and I hope to play a final here against him. But for me, this probably is the toughest thing facing Nouak.

Nouak. Alcaraz won his first major at the U.S. Open last year. Of course, it was Djokovic then who took the Australian and the French and had to go through Alcaraz. Remember, Alcaraz was cramping up pretty badly and so the match, highly anticipated, really didn't play out the way that they wanted. Can we get that battle of the best at Wimbledon? It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. Let's conquer running together and make it enjoyable. Visit L2R, Smarter, Safer, Faster.com and start moving today.