It is the JR Sportbrief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you to everybody tuned in and locked in all over North America. I hope you're great. I hope you're well.
I hope you're amazing. I hope you had a terrific weekend. I hope you watched the basketball. I hope you watched baseball. Man, there was spring football going on. Did you notice?
Maybe you did and it didn't matter to me. Anyway, we got a lot to get into here over the next four hours. This is when the show gets started every single weekday, 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific. I'm in Atlanta, Georgia, super producer and host Ryan Hickey.
He is in New York City. The final four is set. We got some old, we got some new. We got Duke versus Houston. We got Auburn versus Florida. We got four coaches here who have an opportunity to win their first championship ever. We got a coach who left. Kevin Willett said, I'm gone. We got Andrew Luck reunited with Frank Reich. We had a fight with the Pistons last night shades of 21 years ago.
People are saying the New York Yankees are cheating at baseball with these fancy new bats. Saquon Barkley soaking up more adulation. He shows up with the commissioner's trophy at the Phillies game today. NFL meetings, a lot of coaches talking. The New York Jets like the quiet without Aaron Rodgers. Mike Tomlin talks about his time meeting Aaron Rodgers.
Apparently, Aaron Rodgers is throwing the ball to DK Metcalf in Los Angeles. There's a lot to get into. Cleveland Brown said they made a mistake by bringing in Deshaun Watson.
Took him long enough, right? There's a lot to discuss. And we're going to talk about it all. Final four, basketball, football, everything in between. And with the NFL meetings and such going on later on in the show, we're going to have a chat with Mark Ross.
This man is a former New York Giants executive and consultant with the NFL, a scout. We'll get his thoughts, a professional's thoughts on everything going on this weekend or this week as well with the NFL. Of course, we're going to talk a lot of college basketball. It's just been a busy weekend.
Final four is all set. We got a lot to discuss. You can always listen to this show on the free Odyssey app, your local Infinity Sports Network affiliate. You got Sirius XM, it's channel 375. And if you got a smart speaker, you ask that speaker, you talk to the machine, you demand that it play the Infinity Sports Network. You want to call? You can do that too. Phone number here is 888-710-4ISN. That's 888-710-4ISN. You can find me online at JR Sport Brief.
It's on X slash Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and all of the things. I'm all over the place. Hey, Hickey, how are you on this Monday afternoon, this Monday evening? I'm doing great, JR, in part because I'm shocked you didn't mention the Open, the biggest news of the weekend. What happened? Penn State made the Frozen Four in hockey. Come on.
Oh my God. I know you're locked in yesterday. Forget the Elite Eight games.
No, no. Overtime taking down UConn. You weren't watching, what is that, UFL football on Saturday? Did you see that? Did you see that? Well, I saw it was being played and now I watch a second of it. I didn't see a second either. I think I was just flipping through channels.
I was like, oh, there's spring football. There it is. And then what? Oh, next channel. There we go. Oh yeah. I was there for like three seconds. I was like, oh, this still exists.
Yeah, let's see. UFL scores 2025 season. I actually saw a slide as well that confirmed some of the former NFL players that are actually in the UFL right now. Marquette King, I think his name, the former punter. Matt Corral. Yeah.
Matt Corral is, yeah, he's here. I think he's the Birmingham quarterback. What do they call the Stallions, right?
Birmingham Stallions. Yes. Yes. You got to get that one right for sure. Yeah.
All the people from Birmingham, Alabama we'll call. Yeah. Yeah. So there you have it.
There is spring football. We wondered about this openly a couple of weeks ago and there it is for me not to watch. Somebody will watch it, not me. Anyway, I did watch the final four. No frozen four for me.
No, thank you. I heard the cost of hockey equipment is going up, Hickey. So what are we going to do here? Huh?
Is it real? Well, so is everything else. So I guess that's part of the course. Yeah.
We can thank the Terrace for that one. So less hockey for me. I'll be waiting for June for the Stanley Cup finals to roll around, but I only have to wait. We only have to wait about a week until we get the final four.
Well, damn it. Not even the, we'll have the championship game in a week. We only have to wait until Saturday before we see Duke versus Houston, offense versus defense and Houston shooting threes.
And in Auburn, Auburn out there taking on Florida. These matchups are pretty awesome. These matchups are pretty amazing because when I think about the coaches here, all four coaches have never won a national championship.
Whoever wins a title, whoever wins a championship, this is going to be their first one. And then when you think about the ages of the coaches that are involved, it's like old versus new. You got guys who've been sticking around past all the changes at NIL versus basically newly minted head coaches. We got John Shire and Duke taking over for Coach K. We got Kelvin Sampson from Houston with the Cougars on the other end. We got Bruce Pearl and Todd Golden. Todd Golden, obviously in his first couple of years here with Florida. And then we got Bruce Pearl who's been coaching Auburn for the better part now of a decade. Old versus new. And then sitting around and watching these basketball matchups over the weekend. Oh my goodness. Auburn beating Michigan State was just like that.
I don't want to call it a waste of time. I mean, after Auburn went on that early run, like 17 or nothing at that point, I'm like, man, this is just a whooping. And Jenai Broom went out there 25 points, 14 rebounds. Auburn beat Michigan State. Michigan State, Tom Izzo, another year with no title. 27 years of making it into the tournament, but another year for Tom Izzo without a championship.
It stinks. Bruce Pearl moves on. And you know what? He never had a shadow of a doubt about what his team could go out there and accomplish.
Listen to this. I told our guys right now, we haven't beaten a team yet that I thought was better than us. And that's why we're the overall number one seed. And now we're going to the final four where there are four one seats. And I think the four teams that are advanced, I think there are four best teams in the country that doesn't obviously always happen. Yeah, he's right about that. These are the four best teams.
This is the first time since 2008 where we had all four number one seats advanced to the final four. Who cares about Cinderella? Cinderella is nothing but a fairytale. Who cares about her?
Because she's not real. Do you care about that lady? I do not.
No, sir. Yeah, I don't care about it. Does she even have a last name? Great question. I guess we never know. Nobody knows.
Nobody cares. Forget Cinderella. We got the best four teams here in the tournament. Who wants to watch, you know, somebody sneaking up on somebody?
I don't want that. Yeah, get the upsets at every other part. I was fine with McNeese and Amir Khan. And that was the biggest funny story of the entire tournament. And even that crashed for them at McNeese. And now their coach and Khan, you know, hanging up now in North Carolina State. Good for them. We got the best of the best. Hopefully this leads to some good games. By the time we pull up on Saturday down in San Antonio, Texas, we had another one.
This is all yesterday. Houston going out there and smoking Tennessee 69-50. Houston suffocated them. 15 points at halftime. I decided to clean my house while this game was going on in the background. I said, I'm not sitting down wasting my time to watch this.
I said, let me at least, at least be productive. And Tennessee was missing everything. They couldn't hit the broad side of a barn yesterday. Houston, all things considered, from the regular season into the tournament, into the NCAA tournament, has 17 straight victories. Calvin Sampson, he hopes, well, then Baylor isn't here to beat him like a couple of years ago. Calvin Sampson is going to another Final Four. His team is suffocating people on defense and knocking down threes on offense. He loves his guys.
This is what he told Fox 26 in Houston. I learned a long time ago, Will, if you don't want problems, don't recruit them. I don't recruit entitlement kids. There's no way that I recruit a kid unless I know that he'll buy in to the way we do things here. But because of the success of this program, this program, every kid that we're recruiting knows exactly what it is he's getting into.
You know, they research us as much as we research them. Hickey, I told you, he's warm and cuddly, right? Come on. He's a warm and cuddly fellow. Very. Oh, yeah. Very nice.
Very warm. Caring. Caring.
Yeah. He sounds like he wants to bring in caring individuals into his program. No entitlement. We'll see if Calvin Sampson can actually walk away with his first national championship. Now, we had games on Saturday, Florida beating Texas Tech. I was rooting for my man, Christian Anderson. They could not hold on. The Gators came back.
People looking at Walter Clayton Jr. They're getting memories of Steph Curry out here. That man had 30 points. And Florida came back and won against Texas Tech. Again, shout out to my main man, Christian Anderson and his dad.
It didn't work out for them. Gators coming back from nine points down. And now we got another young guy in Todd Golden, who's going to have an opportunity to win a championship.
He didn't even win a tournament game heading into this year. This is what he had to say about that wild comeback win after being down nine points at the end. At the end of the day, great teams are as good as their players lead them. And Walter's done a great job all year that way.
Tommy's played his tail off for us across every game this season. And I'm really proud of these guys for the way they stepped up and made two big threes each down the stretch. I think we finished the game on a 17 to 4 run that allowed us to win and would not have happened without these guys next to me. Yeah, we got Florida. Yeah, the Gators, man.
They rolling. And then we got the team that was pretty much expected to just steamroll everybody all through the regular season, all the way here through the March madness. Not a shock to anybody that they've made it to San Antonio. The Duke Blue Devils.
People hate their guts. Coach K isn't even around anymore. I don't know what he does. I think he's sitting around doing a podcast now because what else is Coach K going to do? But the fact is Duke went out there and smoked Alabama. OK, then no more three point shooting, no more record breaking threes.
Duke put the stop to that. Mark C has had six points after burning 30 points from three in the last game. This past game, he shot two or twelve.
He had no more gas left in the tank. Cooper Flagg had 16 points. This guy's going to get selected number one overall in the draft. Didn't have the best shooting game. Kyle Knipple went out there, had 21 points. John Shire, who took over for Coach K. Well.
Welcome to the big leagues. John Shire is just like, yeah, we made it to the final four with Duke. What do you want from us? Couldn't be more excited and happy for these guys to my left.
You know, I think Tyrese and I, you know, the feeling of losing last year at this point, you know, every decision we made, everything we did was to get back here and then have the team have the opportunity to advance to the promised land, you know, to go to San Antonio, to go to the final four. Man, when you're good and you're the best, there's nothing to say. There's no emotions. There's no explanations.
There's nothing long. It's like, listen, we're here. Just where's the hotel at? OK, where can I get something good to eat?
Where are my guys going to practice? Like there was a full expectation that Duke was going to go all the damn way. I mean, there was an expectation if you're like me or if you were like me, I didn't fill out no bracket. I wanted to see the best of the best. If I would have filled out a bracket.
I want to run all the way down with these one seeds. I'm not trying to be slick. I'm not trying to be innovative.
I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm not putting an upset with the number ones. And so for the first time since 2008, as I mentioned, we got all number one seeds. We got four teams here who are top 10 in offense and defense. We got basketball that hopefully comes Saturday. I can actually sit down and watch and tolerate and not just go, man, what is this crap?
This is a mismatch. We are basketball that's going to. It's going to keep my attention, I hope. And by the time we pull up to Monday. We're going to have two teams with two coaches that are looking for their first ever national championship.
Sign me up for that. Only problem is that game on Monday. I know it's going to start late. Is that game going to start? You believe in the eight o'clock hour or the nine o'clock hour? I I forget if they moved it recently. I my guess.
I feel like it's always like 906. Oh my God. Eastern. Oh man. We're going to be with one foot out the door by the time that game tips off, man.
What are we doing? Which I'm not that upset about. I mean, I kind of like being able to sit down and watch most of it. Well, that's that's you for selfish reasons. I want to.
Why are you being so selfish? You know, that's a good point. I got to look inward. I should be thinking about the people. Yeah, think about 9 o'clock is late Eastern.
Well, yeah, it is. Come on. What time's the game when they're going to have long ass halftime and then they're going to introduce the Hall of Fame folks and.
When by the time they play that that terrible song, I hate one shining moment. It will have been what, like. 11 Eastern time, 1130. Probably, yeah, probably 1130, maybe close to midnight. I hope it's a good basketball game, Mickey. I hope so.
I hope you're right. I think we have the four best teams. I think we will get three great games.
I think even if it's a late tip here, we're still talking about a great basketball game. Yeah, look, I think we're going to have a think we're going to have. I think we're going to have Duke think Duke is going to be Houston.
And I think we're going to have a Florida go out there and beat Auburn. What do you think? I agree. I agree with both, actually. And you said it before, I'm with you. I think this is Duke's how to lose.
Come on now. Duke is just they're bigger than I feel like they're bigger than everybody. They got the killer on the team that's over here competing against it.
He plays a complete game of basketball, which I appreciate about Cooper Flag. And we got John Shire here, who's I think him and the Blue Devils. They're going to give everybody another reason to hate Duke in 2025. Let's see what John Shire and crew what they do. We're going to get more into the coaches at the top of the hour.
I told you we got a lot to get into. Got the NFL coaches and owners speaking over the weekend. And today, Mike Tomlin on Rogers, the Jets on their quarterback situation. Kevin O'Connell is talking about what's going on with the Vikings in a couple hours.
We'll have a guest who will join us. Mark Ross, a former New York Giant executive will come through also played wide receiver at Princeton. We're going to get into the comments made about Deshaun Watson. The Browns say they made a mistake. How many times do you hear an owner actually say that?
It's very rare. The NFL might get rid of the tush push. Lamar Jackson and Brock Purdy.
They might get paid with new deals. We got a lot to do. You want to be a part of the show?
Knock yourself out. 888-710-4ISN. That's 888-710-4ISN. That's right. The final four is set. And when we come back, you know what? Speaking of all these NFL meetings, the New York Jets said they are set with Justin Fields at quarterback. And the Minnesota Vikings, eh, they said they're set with JJ McCarthy, I think. We'll hear from Coach Kevin O'Connell and Mike Tomlin.
We got so much more to do. It's the JR Sport Brief Show Coast to Coast, the Infinity Sports Network. You're listening to the JR Sport Brief.
It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you Coast to Coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Hey, I just told you. We got the final four.
It's all set. We got Florida. We got Auburn. We got Duke.
We got Houston. And next hour. Yeah, exactly an hour from now. Joe Rexroad is going to join us to talk all things college basketball. Looking forward to that conversation.
It's going to take place exactly an hour from now. I did tell you down in Florida, the NFL is holding its annual meetings, an opportunity for all of these head coaches and owners to either A, sit in the air conditioning and, you know, answer questions from reporters, or they can sit outside and sweat like Mike Tomlin. That man looked like he needed, he needed water. That man needed a lot of water sitting there, answering questions. We'll get to Mike Tomlin and some of his comments surrounding Aaron Rodgers.
He admitted what we already knew. The Pittsburgh Steelers, they sat down with Aaron Rodgers, and they're just going to, they're going to take their time with it. They're perfectly okay.
They're perfectly fine. But there's another team that had some interest in Aaron Rodgers. They also have a quarterback who has yet to throw an NFL, a pass in the NFL, let alone take a snap in the league. And that's the Minnesota Vikings and the quarterback that they selected at 10th overall in the draft last year. That's JJ McCarthy.
The man tore his meniscus. We saw Sam Donald take over. Sam Donald was great. A candidate for comeback player of the year. I guess you can come back from being a bum, which he did.
And then he played so well. He signed a new contract with the Seattle Seahawks, leaving the Minnesota Vikings with a starting quarterback who has yet to start an NFL game. So their head coach, Kevin O'Connell, who in his day was a backup in the NFL, then was an assistant, worked with Sean McVay, has done an amazing job here with the Minnesota Vikings. Kevin O'Connell wanted to kind of kick the tires on Aaron Rodgers.
Now we've seen this story before. Former Packers quarterback leaves the Green Bay Packers, plays for the New York Jets, is involved in plenty of controversy, and then ends up on the Minnesota Vikings. This could be Aaron Rodgers the same way it was Brett Favre. And so there was a whole conversation about whether or not the Vikings were going to bring in Aaron Rodgers or whether they were going to stick with J.J. McCarthy. We heard their general manager speak last week of the Minnesota Vikings, Quasi-Mensah Adolfo. He's just like, listen, we got who we got. Kevin O'Connell, is he as diplomatic? Was he going to utter the name of Aaron Rodgers or is he like Beetlejuice? You know, if you say the name a couple of times, do bad things happen?
Does a gremlin pop up? Kevin O'Connell spoke to the media today. The NFL Network got the audio, they got the footage. Kevin O'Connell actually explained why they decided to kind of sniff around Aaron Rodgers. Listen, Aaron and I have known each other for a long time.
Four time MVP. I got a, you know, I can't even put into words the amount of respect I have for Aaron. So when it became a possibility that Aaron may have interest in playing for the Minnesota Vikings, our job, Quasi, myself, amongst many others is to evaluate what that looks like. You have to take the time to visit those topics and have that kind of dialogue as an organization.
And where we ended up is after some personal dialogue with Aaron, we wanted to make sure J.J. feels that he's in a position to hit the ground running this spring, have a great spring and put himself in position to have a great 2025, which has kind of been the plan all along. Man, what he didn't say is I don't want the drama. I don't want the circus. Man, if you want a circus, go buy a ticket. Like, go see Ringling Brothers and Barnum Belly Circus. Go see my friends at the Universal Circus. Aaron Rodgers just brings a circus with him. Hey, when was the last time you've been to a circus?
Anytime recently? I know it's different with no animals now, huh? Right. I went to Cirque, Circus Olay once.
That's a nice one. In Vegas? No, no. Oh, wow. OK. Other than that, never been since. Did you enjoy the circus? Yeah, from what I can remember, it's pretty cool. You know, they got like the rings and stuff like that. They do some cool moves.
I can't remember too much since it was now 20 years ago. Wow. But yeah, no, it's not been any time recently. That's for sure.
Aaron Rodgers, let me, Hickey, I went to the circus a couple, maybe about last month, maybe. Really? Yeah. Ringling Brothers is back and it is terrible.
Let me tell you that. My apologies. OK, my apologies to Ringling Brothers.
One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to go see Ringling Brothers Circus in Madison Square Garden in New York. Hickey, I wouldn't take my kid to this thing for nothing. Oh, my God. Oh, is that bad?
It's terrible. You know, circus is supposed to have an atmosphere. You know, you want to see lights and the kids are happy and smiling.
And I want to smell popcorn and hot dogs and face painting and clowns. Hickey, there were no clowns. No clowns? Maybe I was too far to see one. I did not see a clown.
Huh? There was no smell in the arena. And of course, there's no animals. So it wasn't going to smell like horse ass or elephant ass. But it was terrible, man.
It was just bad. It was very neutered for circus. Pardon the phrase, the animals. But I'm going to get an email from PETA. My friends at PETA, now they're going to email me negativity. It just it didn't feel like a circus.
It felt terrible. Did they do any cool tricks, at least some some like high wire? A couple of acts, you know, par for the course. Bunch of guys come out, spin on a giant wheel. If the guy falls off, he falls into a net.
You know, just, you know, come on. Lady got shot out of a cannon later on in the show at the end. But cannon didn't look all cannon. He had looked like something out of a cartoon is just not fun. I didn't have fun. All the thousands of kids in the arena didn't have fun. There weren't a lot of kids in the arena.
They weren't a lot of people in there at all. So actually, yeah, it was it was terrible. Aaron Rodgers brings a better circus to town in Ringling Brothers.
Sorry. Ringling Brothers is going to be pissed at me. Shout out to the wonderful people at Ringling Brothers and Barnabale Circus. Anyway, nobody wants no Aaron Rodgers Circus.
And so the Minnesota Vikings. Yeah. Kevin O'Connell gave you a diplomatic answer. He's like, I don't want Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, I know the guy.
I had to check in with him, but not willing to go that damn far. The New York Jets, on the other hand, with their new head coach, their first time head coach, Aaron Glenn, he basically said, I don't want no circus. Aaron Glenn spoke to the media and he said he appreciates the fact that things are currently quiet with the New York Jets, that the New York Jets are actually under the radar. No bold proclamations of a Super Bowl.
No Pat McAfee shows and no interviews and Netflix specials. It's just football. And that's the way Aaron Glenn wants it.
I want to move in silence, man. And this is just go about our business to go win some games because you don't win an off season anyway. You know, I mean, I know everybody has these grades on for agency grade.
They have grades on draft grades. And when you go back and look at them, they don't really mean crap. You know, so the only thing that makes a difference is what you do during the season. Yeah, you want you want to move in silence. Come on, man. Come on, man. There's a there's a cliche about this, right?
You walk lightly and carry a big stick. And New York Jets been chatterbox. Well, their quarterback has been a chatterbox for the day he showed up.
It was like two and a half years of just running his mouth and getting nothing. And so good for the New York Jets. They got Justin Fields now. They're confident in Justin Fields. I mean, they gave the guy a two year deal, 40 million dollars. And the New York Jets hope that Justin Fields can advance the same way that. A Baker Mayfield did when he got his chance, his second chance in Tampa, that he can advance like a Sam Darnold did, like, well, he took about three or four chances, but like he just did in Minnesota.
If Justin Fields can advance as a passer, I do believe he can be a starting quarterback in the NFL and the New York Jets. At least they they spared themselves a circus. They got rid of Aaron Rodgers and they should probably also avoid Ringling Brothers, which is now also a a terrible circus. It's the J.R. Sportbreeze Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. 8 8 8 7 10 4 ISN.
That's 8 8 8 7 10 4 ISN. Man, the baseball season already got started and we got a we got an Atlanta Brave who's been suspended for PEDs. Damn, the season just got going. And the New York Yankees, what are they doing? People think they're putting PEDs in their bats. We're going to talk about both on the other side of the break.
We have so much to do. You're locked into the J.R. Sportbreeze Show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. You're listening to the J.R. Sportbreeze.
It is the J.R. Sportbreeze Show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. Yeah, I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Man, it's the beginning of the season and it sucks for the Atlanta Braves. They are apparently already at a crossroads.
I mean, I like that, huh? Anyway, Atlanta Braves are 0 and 4. They're getting ready to take on the Dodgers next. You just heard from Rich Ackerman, one of their big free agent signings supposed to help them out with some offense and defense. Now, Jurickson's profile has now suspended 80 games for PED use.
Like, man, you just got here to the Atlanta Braves. You already doing the stuff? You're getting in trouble already?
Like, come on. Hickey, how many does he have ACLs? Does he have them? I don't think so at this point.
I think they're both cooked. A couple of years ago, he tears one. Last year, he tears the other. I don't know. We don't know when he's coming back.
Maybe next month. Who knows? Just it is bad. Braves had to deal with everybody getting hurt last year. And here they are, 0 and 4. And the guy that they brought over from San Diego to help with some offensive pop, he is, he gone.
He's gone half the season. You can't make some of this stuff up. I hope he doesn't come up with one of these excuses like Fernando Tatis did, where he said he was using ringworm medication.
And then he ended up testing positive for drugs. So what can I say there? Yeah. Good luck to the Atlanta Braves. Good luck to just the entire damn offense.
They got enough bats. Just sucks your pay somebody. Hickey, you ever pay somebody to do a job and they did a crappy one right out the gate, screwed you up?
Thankfully, none that I can remember like bad or like right away, you're like, oh, God, this is just terrible. It's like hiring somebody to paint a house and then they start painting and you go, what the hell is this? It's almost like Dwayne Wade statue kind of sort of right. Oh, boy, that's a good one.
Yeah. Dwayne Wade. I don't know if he's lying to telling the truth.
He said he saw the statue the whole way through. Maybe Dwayne Wade needs glasses, but that guy needs some help. Speaking of help, the New York Yankees, they do not need help. The New York Yankees have started off the season hot.
Who cares? The matters what the Yankees do in October, I guess. The Yankees are 3-0. They decided to start the season by beating the living hell out of the Brewers, who you just heard from Rich Ackerman.
They lost again. Yankees beat the Brewers 4-2, 20-9, 12-3. If you know how to do math, that's 36 runs against Milwaukee. The Yankees hit 15 home runs against them. I mean, in one game, Aaron Judge said he has three home runs just because I don't like you.
And we have Jazz Chisholm as well. And known for having some power given his size, power and speed to start the year. He has three home runs.
He's batting 417, six RBIs. And people started looking at his bat. Yeah, people started looking at this guy's bat because it's like, wait a minute. It's not a baseball bat. It looks like a paddle.
You could say the same thing for Anthony Volpe, who plays for the New York Yankees. You're looking around going, that's not a bat. That's a paddle. And so the Yankees, you can thank the Yes Network and Michael Kay, they actually explained the New York Yankees in these what they're calling torpedo bats, which are not paddles.
And they also happen to be very legal for use. Listen to this. Now you see the shape of Chisholm's bat.
I do. It's got a big barrel on it. Well, it's actually a little bit lower than the barrel. The Yankee front office, the analytics department did a study on Anthony Volpe. And every single ball, it seemed like he hit on the label.
He didn't hit any on the barrel. So they had bats made up where they moved a lot of the wood into the label. So the harder part of the bat is going to actually strike the ball.
Oh, Hickey, you look at that. That's science, right? They needed a guy from MIT to figure that out. I guess so. I don't know.
I couldn't figure that out. So I guess they did need a guy from MIT. You got a problem with this?
Me? No, I give them a lot of credit. I think they're innovative. I think they're creative thinking outside the box.
And I'm honestly shocked at how much analytics has been inundated with baseball for years now that this hasn't been thought about sooner. Right. That's kind of crap. I heard about it.
I go, wait a minute. How did they do? What? Like they move more of the wood into one part of the bat.
They're like, hey, let's lower the wood, less wood at the top at the barrel and more towards the label. It's kind of crazy. A lot of people are saying the New York Yankees are cheating and Major League Baseball has already responded and said, hey, there ain't no problem.
Like what they did is perfectly legal. And even Jazz Chisholm, who I don't think he went to MIT. I know he did it. He plays baseball. That's not to say, Hickey, there's no baseball player that went to MIT right now. Yeah, no, I don't think I'm being disrespectful or rude there. But Jazz Chisholm said, he said, hey, listen, OK, the explanation is the barrel is bigger and within MLB regulations for the idiots that say it's moved to the label, you're an idiot. Nobody's trying to get jammed. You just move the wood from the parts you don't use to the parts that you do. You're welcome.
No more stress for you. Hickey, I think I can attest via reading that trying to read it. He did not go to MIT. He plays baseball. I'm just saying.
He's like Cardell Jones. I don't go to school. I don't play school. I play football. I don't play school. I play football. He hits the baseball.
He does a good job at it. And so, yeah, there's no problem there with what the New York Yankees are doing. And by the way, there are other baseball players who are utilizing this torpedo bat outside of the Yankees. Adlai Rushman, a catcher from the Baltimore Orioles, is using this new torpedo bat.
Dan Z. Dansby Swanson, former Atlanta native and also brave. He's using this bat for the Chicago Cubs. Oh, this Francisco and do I have a hit yet?
I don't believe so, no. No, he's he's using this bat. What is he, 0 for 12 right now? He doesn't sack fly, so he has a run driven in.
But yeah, not good. So he is batting. What is that batting average of zero, zero, zero and one RBI. And he is on the bench for today's game. So already getting. Oh, man. Well, they trying to get him to loosen up a little bit.
What are we doing already? He play. He plays every game. Is he hurt?
I mean, they were off yesterday, too. So I don't know what this is. Oh, my God. This guy plays every. Did he miss a game last year? He had a slight back injury late last year.
Right. He missed a couple of games, right? He plays every game like every year. He plays every single game. And they've only played, what, three games already in this synonym?
Yes. When he comes back, he's going to get rid of that stupid bat. That's what they got. He's going to go back to a regular baseball bat.
It's just this stinks. New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone, he spoke to. Hey, we spoke to a boom. We spoke to his brother Brett last week.
He was here on the show with us anyway. Aaron Boone said, man, we just trying to win baseball games and we not trying to cheat. You know, I say to you guys all the time, we're trying to win on the margins and trying to get and that shows up in so many different ways, whether you see, you know, bat models, you know, we saw the momentum steals that Volpe does.
You see shifts like when I say those kind of things, like we have a big organization that are invested in a lot of different things where we're trying to be better in every possible way. I feel like it was only a few years ago that people would call me on the air in New York City on WFAN and they would scream at me. Well, not at me, but to me about how the New York Yankees were too invested and too interested in analytics and that you can't play baseball with analytics. Well, damn it, the New York Yankees figured out that they got a couple of guys who could benefit from using a different bat.
And so they made them different bats and it's working. Now, I hate analytics and baseball to a certain degree, like the next guy, the tradition of not having a leadoff hitter, a traditional leadoff hitter. Some other things I hate about baseball. I hate the fact that you got to bring the pitchers in and out now.
I'm glad they changed the rules just a little bit. What else do I hate? I hate the fact that pitchers, they don't know how to go past six innings and it's like the teams don't even want. I hate a lot of things about baseball.
Analytics is a part of it, but I'll gladly take this. Man, we even had other players joking about how they, they want the new bat. Manny Machado was doing one of these stupid TV interviews and he says he wants a whole shipment of these torpedo bats. And so monkey see monkey do wait until you see the majority of major league baseball using these things.
Aaron Judge is like, listen guys, I'm six, seven, I'm six, eight. I don't need no stupid torpedo bat to hit a home run, but we got something new to pay attention to in baseball. And the minute that these bats, I don't want to say start flopping, people will abandon them. I mean, we just heard Hickey said that Francisco Andorra is not even playing today. Baseball players are so superstitious. If it's not working, they're just going to toss it to the side.
That's it. Good luck to the New York Yankees. Not that they need it. Nobody cares what they do in a regular season.
If you're a Yankees fan and good luck to the Braves and then the Mets, we haven't started the season off great. Meanwhile, you got Saquon Barkley here hanging out at a Hickey's at Citizens Bank. Did they get a new sponsorship to everybody changes every year? I don't know.
No, they're still staying true. The old CBP Citizens Bank Park. Yeah. Saquon Barkley Saquon Barkley came out and delivered the he walked around with the World Series trophy so everybody could enjoy it. Looking at that guy in a baseball jersey, Hickey is just it's like, man, why don't you wear regular clothes? You know, he's just you don't like that. Now he's if he played baseball, what would he be? A catcher? Could he squat? Can he get down? Is he too big? That's a what would he play second base?
Oh, my God. It's kind of short. Yeah, but he's built like a truck. Right. But what really does that good or good do for you in baseball? What Bo Jackson? What centerfield? Maybe centerfield?
What Saquon? Yeah. Do you want him running? You might run through the wall like he did, too. If he catches the ball, it's the issue, right? Oh, my God. How Saquon looks bigger than Brandon Graham.
Like what? What world is this? Do you see them? Have you seen them standing next to each other at this game? No.
Let me see if I can find you here quickly. He is. He is standing next to Brandon Graham and the running back makes the now retired defensive end. He makes him look small.
Somebody tell Saquon Barkley stay out the gym, OK? Oh, yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I know. Didn't you have a shoulder issue? Maybe he stopped lifted, but I mean, damn, Saquon Barkley, maybe he can go out and help out the Phillies and help them win the championship, too. What a wild world.
And people found another reason to hate the Yankees and it's because of their bats. So where we live in the J.R. Sportbreeze show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. 888 710 for ISN.
That's 888 710 for ISN. And when we come back from break, we're going to get into some college basketball. I told you, Joe Rexroad is going to join us to talk college basketball. He'll be here in about 30 minutes. And I told you, we got four head coaches who have never won a national championship and they'll get a crap this weekend. We'll talk about the J.R. Sportbreeze show. Don't move.
