Home Run Derby // Duke vs. Arizona // All-Star Game Preview

This is the best of the Adam Gold Show Podcast brought to you by Coach Pete at Capital Financial Advisory Group.

Visit us at capitalfinancialusa.com. This is the Adam Gold Show. I am Adam Gold. Graham, the new guys here. Graham with G-R-A-H-A-M, not G-R-A-E-M-E. Correct.

Correct. We went over that last time. So you're sitting in for Dennis. Dennis is on his way to Charlotte to get everybody set up for ACC Football Media Days, which starts tomorrow. We will be there tomorrow. And I think everything will stay the same. You can even watch us on TV, I believe is the plan.

Right? So we'll be on W-R-A-L Sports Plus. And you can watch us right now at, if you're local to the Raleigh Market, you can watch us in Spectrum Channel 1257, Over the Air 34.1, Android, Apple, Roku, and Fire TV. I think all of those. I think you can get us on all of those platforms.

Also, WRALSportsFan.com. We've got a lot of stuff going on today. We're going to talk a little baseball, we're going to talk a little, because Home Run Derby last night was amazing, again. And it was amazing for a lot of reasons. I mean, great that Juan Soto wins, but it was amazing for other reasons. Did you watch Home Run Derby last night at all, Graham?

I didn't get, I was at work last night, so I was kind of going back and forth between TVs. I just know that at one point Juan Soto hit the home run and it landed in the hammock in the apartment building on the other side of the stadium. And all the fans were looking because nobody came out there initially. And then all of a sudden this little kid just runs out there and the crowd just goes crazy. I guess he was watching on TV and realized like, hey, that's my apartment building, that's my hammock.

So he ran out there, grabbed the baseball. Good feel, good moment. All right, very good. You weren't watching Bachelorette or whatever. Is it Bachelor or Bachelor?

No, no, no, no. I was not watching the Bachelorette. I was watching the other scripted format a little bit, the Monday Night Raw. Remember Dennis kind of saying you guys had a discussion on that yesterday.

Did we? I don't remember it. Look, wrestling's not my thing. When I was a child, wrestling was my thing. So I'll just leave it at that. I know when Dennis is not here, you try to steer clear of WWE conversations.

That's the only thing I'm going to get into today about that. Okay. Yeah, wrestling was not my thing.

But that's fine. I think we should occasionally watch cartoons and wrestling. And Star Wars.

Yeah, Star Wars is a cinematic epic. We'll do that. All right, so we've got a lot of things to do. We'll do a lot of football as well because SEC Media Days has also kind of triggered some news, some comments from Nick Saban, Greg Sankey, and others. Let's start this. Alright, it's been a week for Juan Soto of the Washington Nationals. It's only Tuesday. I mean, it really has been incredible. One of the best players in Major League Baseball.

He is 23 years old. His organization has publicly embarrassed him with a contract offer that he has to turn down. I don't know why teams do this.

Mention this yesterday. All you're doing by offering him a lowball contract, which is what they did. All you're doing is getting the general public to think, man, this greedy SOB is turning down $440 million.

I'd play for free, which you wouldn't. But I get it. This is the way people process it.

How do you turn down $440 million? Because it's anywhere from $60 to $100 million below market value. That's why. That's why. Anyway, and the Nationals knew this.

They know what the market is now, and they know what the market's going to be in five years. Juan Soto is a great player. Glad that he got a chance to win, and now the Nationals have also let it known that they're going to trade him. I don't think they'll be able to trade him.

They could if they wanted to trade in before the trade deadline, which is coming up in August, like the first or second of August. But I think they could give it a go, and then he goes out last night, and he wins home run derby. This one might hit the scoreboard in right center. Huge blast by Soto. Your derby champion as he chucks the bat high into the air. Juan Soto, the Washington Nationals, wins the 2022 T-Mobile home run derby in L.A. It was a pretty good bat flip, as bat flips go, man. I don't know that the bat ever came down.

Very good. Look, he's not the first Dominican player to win the derby, and I think there was a great Dominican influence last night. There have been several Dominicans to win, one of them including David Ortiz, but it is a big deal to a baseball mad country. And what will this night mean for back in the Dominican, just with all three of you guys having such a huge night? In Dominican, I know all the people are really proud. They've been paying attention to all these, and they've been prying a lot for all these. Since we all three were in the finals, three Dominicans, it just showed you it was a win for the DR, so we feel pretty proud about it.

Yeah, no question. Albert Pujols was in the semifinals, and this is where I get to the point which we never do, I never do, because there are so few reasons to do it. Major League Baseball doesn't do a lot of things correctly.

They don't. But starting the tradition, hopefully it continues, of bringing legends to the All-Star Game for one last hurrah is a great way to connect the past to the present to the future, and we sort of had that in home run derby last night. The future, we'll just say Julio Rodriguez from Seattle is a show. Seattle has another rookie Rodriguez who is off the charts. Remember Alex Rodriguez broke into the big leagues with Seattle.

So you've got that. The present could be our champion, Juan Soto, or Ronald Acuna Jr., or I mean Pete Alonso, right? And then the past, Albert Pujols, who actually won a round. I mean, he didn't kill it, but he won the round, and that gave everybody another chance to see Albert Pujols, and here is essentially the winning home run. Pujols will knock off Schwerber, and look at Kyle, deference to the legend. Yeah, 13 home runs in basically four minutes of hitting.

It's not a lot. It wouldn't have won any other round. Corey Seeger hit 24 home runs and lost because I believe in that round, the first round, Julio Rodriguez hit like 36.

It was just insane. Julio Rodriguez is a show. Like, I know Juan Soto won, and in many cases, you know, the guy who wins home run derby isn't the show.

I thought Julio Rodriguez was the show last night. Juan Soto won home run derby. Gets a million bucks. Gets a million bucks. Pete Alonso won home run derby two years in a row and won a million dollars each time, and each time it represented essentially a doubling of his salary. When you're in your first year in the big leagues and you're making between like $560,000, again, we'd all accept that to play baseball.

Well, not really, but pretty good chunk of change. Doubling your salary, but it was cool to see all the players just paying their respects to a guy like Pujols, and I don't want to leave out Miguel Cabrera, who is the American League's Honorary All-Star. He's also going to go into the Hall of Fame, but Pujols is as great as Miggy was. Pujols is in a different category of superstar.

Just to me is a separate entity, but Miggy is also going to the Hall of Fame, one of the greats, maybe the greatest Venezuelan player of all time. But here's the thing with Pujols that I liked, and I don't know that this was the plan all along, but because he's with the Cardinals, he wears a Cardinals jersey. It would have been a lot different if Pujols was still with the Angels, or he played with the Dodgers last year. But he's with the Cardinals, so you get a chance to see one of the greatest ever Birds on Bats uniform, which is still, everybody understands who's listened to this program before. I hate the Cardinals, the only team I hate other than the Yankees, but they have one of the best jerseys in the sport.

The Birds on Bats, just awesome. It's good to see Pujols in that uniform, in an All-Star game, because he's done after this year. Cabrera is going to be done too, and he didn't participate in home run derby last night, but it was cool to see Pujols get through to the next round.

There was such a Dominican flair, such a Latin flair to what was home run derby. It was awesome. It was fun to watch. It's the most intriguing skills competition, even though it's one skill.

Just mashing the ball, one skill. Good for them, and good for Albert Pujols. Alright, let's get back to college football. The king has spoken. Greg Sankey, Grand Poobah of the SEC, gave his state of the SEC address.

State of their kingdom is strong, according to Greg Sankey. So he was asked by CBS Sports, has the SEC and Big Ten separated themselves? And he responded that there are others that will comment on that. I don't want to talk about ourselves. I don't want to talk about us. Let's let you talk about us.

That's very funny. First of all, those two leagues have separated themselves financially, significantly so, over the last five to ten years. The gap has already been wide financially. The SEC has been the best football league by a substantial margin for 15 years.

For 15 years. The SEC, when the BCS had two teams, the last time the SEC didn't have a team in the BCS, in the championship game, because BCS, we just got it down to two, was the year Auburn went undefeated. But Oklahoma and USC were also undefeated. We had an unbeaten SEC team, not in the championship game. That was the last time the SEC was not included in the playoff, essentially. So, this is not new. The SEC has been the dominant league since 2004.

And probably dominant before then. But it's cool that everybody is just turning out their pockets and you see all the dollar signs. That's really what this is. Sankey went on to say this, the reality is there will be two conferences at the FBS level with 16 teams that have competed consistently at the highest level. That's a new dynamic. That's half true.

Half true. Because, like I said about the SEC, yeah, they compete at a higher level than the rest of college football. They have more teams who have recently been either national champions or legitimately kicked at that door. So, just in recent memory, you have Alabama, LSU, and Georgia, right? But you don't have to go back that far where Florida was a national champion year in and year out. You know, national championship contender year in and year out. Back in the early days of the BCS, Tennessee.

Tennessee won the first BCS championship. So, nobody is disputing that. The Big Ten, on the other hand, isn't any different than any other league except at the bottom line. When you get to the bottom of the ledger, accounts receivable by the Big Ten is actually better than the SEC.

But they're not necessarily better on the field. I mean, that's just intellectually dishonest. Here's Peter Burns of the SEC Network kind of thinking ahead about the potential for the SEC to get bigger. I thought it was a little eye-opening, especially early in the morning when he came on and made it a point to say, listen, last couple of weeks there's been a lot of phone calls. He's like, you know, we receive a lot of phone calls. But he was very quick to point out that they're in no hurry right now, right?

They are in the catbird seat. I mean, they've won three straight national championships with three different teams. They've won 12 out of the last 16 titles. And it's almost as if he feels, and I think rightfully so, y'all, that everyone is making moves to try to get to the point to where the SEC is at.

While they are a leader in ways on the field, they don't feel like they need to get out of their comfort zone to make a change. Adam Gold in studio with my man, Coach Pete DeRuder with the Capital Financial Advisory Group. We are talking retirement. Coach, let's say I have more than a million dollar balance in my 401k. Congratulations.

Thank you very much. How can that actually come back and bite me? Well, because, and this is a thing that we, it's a mirage.

You see mirages, I've written in the desert before, you see what's water ahead, but it's not there. Well, your financial mirage is thinking that that total balance in your 401k or your IRA is yours. We have two people that want to get ahold of it, two uncles, Uncle North Carolina and Uncle Sam.

Right. Both of them are going to do some damage to that balance, depending on what kind of other income you have, you could lose 40% of your value. So if you're looking at a million dollar IRA, maybe it's only worth $600,000 to you. So how do we get around this? Well, you don't get around it because you end up in jail if you try to do that, but you can do tax planning to minimize the effect of taxation into the future. The tax train is coming, Adam. We need to make sure to minimize the effect of the derailment of our financial accounts. And for the next 10 people, we'll do it at no cost or obligation. Put together your very own tax and retirement plan.

800-661-7383 or text ADAM to 21000 for coach Pete DeRuta. Yeah, and they're not going to because it's only about money and there are so few schools they can add that add to the money. I mean, Notre Dame is not going to join the SEC anytime if Notre Dame joins a league.

And I mean, they might not for a significant period of time. If Notre Dame joins a league, I know what the contract says. Contractually obligated for that league to be the ACC.

So possible. Everybody just ignores that part of the contract with Notre Dame, which I guess you can since we have decided that we were not going to pay attention to any contracts when we're when we're discussing these things. But most people think that if Notre Dame is interested in joining a league down the road, that it will be the Big Ten for proximity. Okay, that's fine.

I don't really care. But there's nobody for the SEC to add unless there's those schools are coming from the ACC. And there's that grant of rights thing that gets in the way. I read, I thought a pretty good piece by Pete Thamel on ESPN.com today that quotes an administrator in the ACC that says not a lot of wiggle room with the grant of rights. So if that holds up legally, and again, I'm sure somebody will challenge it. But if it holds up legally, ain't nobody going anywhere until 2036. Or at least until we get closer to 2036 when you can't go eight years without media revenue. Because remember, that's what grant of rights says, grant of rights doesn't give what the ACC would pan out, leave to the ACC, it takes what you would earn in your new home and grants that to the ACC. Well, that's cost prohibitive. If you're moving to the Big Ten or the SEC, and you're going to make $100 million a year.

Hmm. Nobody wants to give that up. Nobody wants to get nothing. So the grant of rights, if it stands up, if it holds up, and it does appear that it has a good chance of holding up, then that will keep the ACC together for, my guess is, at least another five, six, seven years, at least. And then maybe schools will try to challenge it or buy their way out of it.

Who knows? The exit fee is also cost prohibitive at $120 million. That's a big exit fee. That's the number I read from Pete Thamel.

I think it might be a little lower, but if you just use that, that's a pretty big number. There's just nobody to add for the SEC. Oregon and Washington don't move the needle enough, so why add anybody at that point? Yeah, the SEC should just stay where they are. They don't have to get stronger.

They're already the strongest. Just ask Greg Sankey. We're the greatest football conference man has ever created, and I ain't arguing, because it is. There's so many good teams in there.

Also, this was pointed out on Twitter, and we keep talking about it. Somebody's got to lose. I am interested in the dynamic when Texas plays a handful of years in the SEC.

I mean, 4-4, 3-5, 5-3, and those people lose their minds. Lose their minds. It'll be fun.

It'll be fun to watch how all of that plays out. By the way, Notre Dame is trying to hammer out a new contract with NBC that will guarantee it's $75 million annually, and the plan is to rake in that kind of cash so there is not an economic reason to join a conference. Now, this is where I would point out that Notre Dame has been leaving money on the table for years. They could always have made more money. They would make more money today if they called Jim Phillips and said, we want in. Notre Dame would make more money.

Significantly so. But they have consistently left that money on the table for their culture, which I'll respect that. But if they get a $75 million annual hit from NBC, then they'll probably end up being very close to whatever the Big Ten and the SEC money ultimately ends up at. And there will be zero reason financially for them to join a league. Then, and this is what I've always said, competitively speaking, I think a league is in their future. Competitively speaking. One thing Greg Sankey did talk about was the expanding to 12 playoff teams, and he talked about it from a standpoint of having no automatic qualifiers. Isn't that interesting?

And can I just say, I think that's the best way to do it? I do. I don't believe there should be automatic qualifiers in a college football playoff. No matter how many teams are in it, because I think 12 is probably the max, even if it is 16. I just want the best teams, if that's the case. I said this when the playoff expanded to four. I don't care if all four teams are from the SEC. Don't care.

Do not care at all. First, if we're having a playoff and we have this few teams in it, and it is four is few for playoff purposes, then we should do everything we can to have the four best teams. That's it. It's what we should have, the four best teams. We shouldn't have blank automatic qualifiers because that ain't getting us the best teams. If the ACC, let's say you expand to eight, and we still have five conferences when we expand to eight.

We won't, but let's just say we do. If you guarantee five teams in, what if the Pac-12 or ACC or Big 12 champions have three losses? That ain't good for a playoff.

Oh, it's fair. Who cares about, what is college football? What has college sports been fair?

Come on, let's get over it. Best teams. I don't care how many teams make the playoff.

We don't need automatic qualifiers. We all know who's good, and we all know who's not. I will liken this to Little League Baseball. The biggest misconception for Little League Baseball is that the players will feel bad if they are not selected for, let's say, an All-Star team.

Guess what? The players know better than the parents. The players don't have a problem with it. They think the best players should go. If they think they're one of the best players, they'll probably get selected. The kids know. They all know if they're good or not.

We got to stop protecting them. All right, one final thing, and we are going to probably speak about this a little bit later on. Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported yesterday that David Farity is leaving NBC and going to work for Live Golf. This is actually a bigger deal than 85% of the players who are playing the Live series. I think it's a way bigger deal than most of the players who are playing on that tour. Because if we could play a game of Spot the Live Tour Player, I think most of you would get it wrong. If I gave you two players, if I gave you a player and then a tennis player or a ping pong player or a cricketer, you would like, I don't even know.

I don't know who either of those players are. Most of the Live Tour players are anonymous if they're not aged, like, you know, Graham McDowell. But Farity gives them a name, a legit name to sell to potential TV execs. Remember, they're still not on television. You're still watching it on your computer, on your phone, on YouTube.

You're still doing that, which some people did. They've averaged about 80,000 streams per round. They've had six rounds. 80,000 streams they've averaged.

I guess that's good for something that really has no TV recognition, but even the bad PGA Tour events get a million viewers a day. June 19th, 2006. But it all started May 6th, 1997, with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina.

It's a story of transition, of heartbreak, of figuring it out on the fly. The Canes Corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move, presented by the Aluminum Company of North Carolina. Listen now.

Find Canes' 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcasts. So that's, it's not a lot, but I mean, it's not insignificant. But Farity gives them credibility in that regard. So to me, that was a significant thing. It'd be way more significant than if Henrik Stenson eventually joins Liv. We'll talk about this later in the program. And I would just ask this, is Charles Barkley next?

Ah, wait, wait, what? Yes, is Charles Barkley next? All right, when we come back, Stephen Wiseman of the News & Observer, he covers Duke. We might talk a little football because we'll see him tomorrow in Charlotte, but Duke basketball is agreeing to do something they have not done in a long time.

See Adam Goldshaw and Adam Gold? Graham, the new guy, sitting in for Dennis Cox today. He's on the road.

He got a late start. I wonder if he will be in place by 1.45 to place our bets. You might be asked to place bets for Dennis, Graham. Think you're capable of that? I have a bookie that I've contacted. Excellent.

Excellent work. All right, yesterday, I got the email, I think it was yesterday, that Duke is going to do something that they have not done in a long time. I don't think it's as long as people think, but I know how the narrative, you know, sounds from certain segments of the, we'll just say, fan base. Stephen Wiseman covers Duke for the News & Observer. We're going to talk football at some point, maybe today, certainly this weekend or this week.

He joins us on the Adam Gold show. I teased it as much as I could, Stephen. Tell the people what Duke is going to do under John Shire that they are popularly accused of never doing. They're going to play a non-conference game on an opponent's home court, and they're going to bring that team to Cameron to beef up the home schedule, which is usually filled with, you know, lesser end of Division I for the home fans to see.

So it's a change in two ways. It's something that Coach K kind of gotten away from, particularly playing on an opponent's home court. You mentioned, we don't know how long it's been since they did this. I mean, they used to do it regularly in the 80s and 90s. Remember, you know, Christian Laitner and those guys going out and playing Shaq on a Sunday in Baton Rouge, right, in February. But, you know, the last time that I found they did it was when they played, I mean, let's exclude, obviously, the ACC Big Ten Challenge. And the St. John's Series, right? They used to play St. John's, and that game was at the Garden. So Duke likes to play in the Garden every year, so we're going to remove that. It's a home game. They played at Georgetown.

Yeah, it's the second Cameron, right? But they played Georgetown in 2010 up in D.C., and they lost that game, if you remember. And that was the championship team's year, but that's the last time I found that they played like another, you know, name brand, power level, you know, Big East team, Big Ten, whatever, on the road in that situation. So John Shire is one of the first things he and John Jackson, the sport administrator, talked about was this is something he was interested in doing, and they got their deal with Arizona this week. Very cool.

Home and home. Of course, it doesn't start, it doesn't take place this year, and the home or the road game is in the second year of the two-year deal, so we have to wait until November of 2024 before that happens. I guess we're not counting the game at UNLV in, what, November of 2016, because UNLV, it wasn't vintage UNLV, so that's just, I don't even know why they played that game. They must have been doing it. It was the first college event played at T-Mobile Arena. Oh, you were there, probably.

I was there, yes. Yeah, Duke won handily, so yeah, that was obviously not a very good UNLV team at all. Yeah, that wasn't played at Thomas and Mack, it was played at T-Mobile Arena. Is it just me, Stephen Wiseman, who covers Duke, is it just me, or has that been more for the fact that Duke hasn't played true road non-conference games that are not Big Ten, ACC, Challenger affiliated?

Has that really been, to me, it's not really a thing. It is completely immaterial, and I think it probably means more to your home schedule to have a team like that come in, so you'll have basically one of those every year, the ACC Big Ten Challenge game, or you'll have that, because they should do that for your home schedule, but I don't think it really matters playing road games within the league, or outside the league, because when you get to the NCAA tournament, none of them are road games. Correct, they're all in neutral courts, and sometimes the other team has a lot of fans there, but yeah, it's not a neutral court, so that's always been the point of that.

I've always thought, yeah, that makes sense. Why put yourself in that situation if you don't want to, particularly the way Duke has built his teams over the last 10 years or so. They're always freshman dominated, so you really want to take that group that's maybe somewhat fragile. They're talented, but they're always young, so you want to take them into McHale Center in November.

Shire thinks he wants to, so that's good for him. Coach K just wasn't up for doing that anymore, but yeah, I think, and that's why I mentioned it earlier when we talked about this, was this also helps the home fans, because there was some complaints from home fans too, right? I mean, they're paying money for these season tickets, and they're seeing all due respect to Appalachian and Gardner-Webb and people like that coming in, right?

Stetson. But you'd rather pay that money and see Arizona come in, so now they're taking care of that problem too. Yeah, look, their home schedule has left a lot to be desired. They play in a lot of exempt tournaments, and they play a very good non-conference schedule, but most of those games are on neutral courts.

And I get it if I was buying season tickets, and there's not enough high-caliber games even within your league, because the leagues are so big, and pretty much half the league is okay to worse. And so, I mean, a Pitt draw isn't such a great draw, even though we all love to see Jeff Gable. Pitt doesn't really move the needle.

Alright, Steve Wiseman, let me ask you this question. I don't know if you saw the video of a highlight cut-up of a recent scrimmage that they had. They look pretty talented, even though I recognize one player on the court in Jeremy Roach. They look like they might have some talent. Jeremy's the only guy they will recognize. That's right, everybody else is new.

He'll take a little bit of time. Can't tell the players without a scorecard, Adam. That's the way it goes, right? But yeah, no, they are tall. Derek Lively is 7'1". Kyle Philpowski is 6'11". Ryan Young, who came from Northwestern, the transfer is 6'10". I like him.

You've got a big group there. He's got some experience. Yeah, they're going to be a tall team again. I mean, like last year, they had Mark Williams and Ben Caro, 7'1", and 6'10". And then you've got a freshman, Derek Whitehead, on the perimeter. Jeremy Roach is the guy that has the experience. He's going to be the captain, right? He's not the only guy back at all. But yeah, they'll be a team that can compete for everything you want to compete for in college basketball again.

We just have to get to know who they are. Yeah, we had a new coach, an entirely new team. I was watching that. I swore that somebody called a charge, and I was appalled. I was appalled that somebody might have called a charge, but my source told me that a charge was not called, but man, I'm almost certain that I saw one. Stephen Wiseman.

I didn't see one because there is no such thing as a charge in my book. Stephen Wiseman from the News & Observer joins us. Real quick about football. What are your expectations about what's going to be discussed and come out of the next couple of days? Well, you know, there'll be some football talk, but the majority of all this is where's this conference going and what's happening. You can't ignore the elephant in the room.

It's right there. And tomorrow morning, Jim Phillips talks to us about 930, I guess, so that would be the first thing. We'll see what he has to say, and then we'll kind of take it from there. And, you know, every coach, I mean, Davos is going to be asked about it, Mike Orville at Florida State, on Thursday, Chris Duvall, the new guy at Miami. I mean, those are the schools that would be approached by other leagues, right?

And what their thoughts are. How do they deal with it when they're recruiting? Because you know, since this move happened, Southern Cal and UCLA, that these coaches are being asked about this stuff when parents want to send their kids to play football, because unlike basketball, they have to stay for three or four years, right? So things could be changing in the future. So that will be, I mean, that's going to be talked about, I would say, you know, 70, 80% of the conversations we're going to have are about that. And there'll be a little bit of who might win the league this year. Wake Forest is going to win the Atlantic again, that kind of thing. You know, it's interesting for if you're NC State, and there's a lot of expectations, this is like the perfect ACC kickoff.

So I mean, there'll be like 5% of the conversation will be can NC State do the thing, because everybody's going to be discussing other things. All right, final thing, you know, you've heard me say it, I think I've actually said it to you, there are essentially four St. Louis Cardinals fans that I like. And you're on the Mount Rushmore of St. Louis Cardinals fans that I like. And I know you, I think you liked the tweet I had last night about how cool it was to see Albert Pujols in that game wearing a Cardinals uniform.

It could have been an Angels uniform, could have been a Dodgers uniform, could have been a freaking Minnesota Twins uniform, but based on where he played out his final season. That was just cool. And I think to see the players pay homage to him because he means so much to them as a Dominican and there was such such a Dominican influence, especially in Home Run Derby last night that had to be cool for everybody.

It was really cool. I mean, you're right, it didn't matter who it was, I mean, or what uniform he was wearing, but just the fact that you know, this is an all time great player, you know, he's third in RBIs and top 10 and hits now and sixth in home runs. I mean, you know, this is a guy, no matter who he played for you, you have to appreciate that moment, his last All-Star Game week. And like, you know, after, you know, when they all gathered around home plate and they were waving towels to cool him off, you know, as he went to the next round after a short, short swarmer, that was fantastic. It was just a great sports moment. And even if you don't like baseball, I mean, it's just, you know, it's an all time great at a sport, you know, and he's going to be in the Hall of Fame in five years here.

And that's, that's what they should do for him. So it was nice to see. It was really nice. And Adam, you make me forget why I thought the Mets were pond scum when I was, you know, in the 80s when I was growing up. So I have to return that to you.

You're a Mets fan. I appreciate that. I appreciate to be on that list.

Stephen Wiseman. You're the man. I appreciate your time.

I'll see you tomorrow. Okay, very good. Thanks, Adam.

You got it. Stephen wise. When we come in, when we come back, we'll check in at the all star game with our friend Ryan Fagan from the sporting news next. Adam Gold show.

I am Adam Gold. There were times last night where Pete Alonzo was under pressure. Albert pools was under pressure. Home Run Derby creates pressure. It was, it was a show as it always is. Home Run Derby is an absolute blast. And it is the best of the other events surrounding an all star game. Baseball is also the one that most resembles an actual game. Baseball's all star game. It is always, it just doesn't mean as much to most people today because the game is, has been dominated by pitching. And I get it when you have that level of pitching talent on the field, there is no way that it won't be dominated by pitching.

I think we'll see Clayton Kershaw start the game for the Dodgers tonight. But it was, it was cool to watch. By the way, also watch the Derek Jeter documentary. The first episode of the Derek Jeter documentary. I wasn't going to watch it.

It was actually much better than I anticipated. Ryan Fagan, sporting news, baseball writer extraordinaire, my friend. I've been bothering you like crazy the last few days. I apologize. I don't know why they did the draft, the same right butted up against the all star game, but it made a, for a hell weekend for you.

Hope you're doing well. Yeah, I'm doing all right, Adam, they tried to, they've tried to like capture this is MLB's time right they throwing everything at the same time I'm not sure if it's gonna stay this way forever, but they're trying it so you know they're trying to make the draft a bigger deal than they had been for a long time which is good, and they're trying to put everything together in a showcase week, which is good. We'll see how it, how it eventually plays out but at least they're trying to amplify things that they have, you know, not in the last five years with, you know, 1520 years they, they had pretty much made it as a secondary event by the attention they gave to it so I know you're based in St. Louis, even though you're in Los Angeles right now at the all star game and I want to, I want to close with something about Albert Pualt in a second. I'm sure that the conversation has been almost entirely about Juan Soto out there. I, my view is that the Nationals really don't want to keep him that they always wanted to trade him. And that's why they offered him that contract which is not only below value but for 15 years I don't know why anybody would sign that. But what's what's your view on where the Nationals are with Juan Soto. Well, I mean look, the reality is this, if, if they can trade one photo and get back a package that's anything close to what most people expect.

You almost have to do it right. This isn't a guy who's going to, you know, if you trade him bring back one young major leaguer and one top prospect and four or five also rants right. This is a guy if you trade him with two and a half years left under club control. You're going to get four to six impact guys right and we're again not talking about low level guys not talking about high school is drafted this year, talking about double A triple A superstars are young major leaguers. That's intoxicating for a franchise that quite frankly needs that level of talent influx right so I get it, you know you love Juan Soto you love what he can do.

But if he can, if he can be the guy that fuels, the type of franchise reinvigoration that quite frankly they need right now. I mean, you look I'm not saying there's there's nothing. There's nothing about an offer of reported $440 million to cheap right below market.

Sure, but not cheap. So I think they made their they did their due diligence they did their effort, they can say that they did. But yeah, if they can trade him and get a packet that's anywhere close to what some of these, these places like Baseball America is talking about. I mean, they would almost be crazy not to do it.

I mean there are look if I were the Mets, and then that's fan. I would say, all right, here's a list of our top prospects, choose three, and then we'll throw in another player. That's what I would do, but that's just that's that's essentially it. And, and you have a met your mentor in a different position because they can, they can give him the contract that you need to keep him long term. Yep, right, you know, I don't think every franchise is going to do that. That's why it's interesting because, because it's two and a half years that's not nothing that's not a year of club control, you know we're taking change or hesitant to give up top guys so, you know, but two and a half years still you're not going to give away, you're gonna be hesitant to give away for impact guys for two years, but if you feel like you can sign him to a long term deal and you know Steve Cohen obviously has the money and the desire to do that. Then yeah, that's a different conversation, they'll be the first team that hits $350 million in payroll I'm certain of that. And I think that's coming quickly Ryan Fagan of the sporting news.

We literally have two minutes left I want to get two things in here quickly. We saw past, present and future at the home run Derby last night. Yeah, the future is Julio Rodriguez.

Holy cow. Yeah, this is a kid is going to be, he's going to be a superstar I mean he's already a star. Yeah, this is the kid is, he's, he did that at the home run Derby last night. He's second in the American League of soul bases.

Right. I mean this kid's got 21 soul bases 16 home runs. He's 21 years old. Yeah, he's he's absolutely future star there's no doubt about it in my mind, and the past was Albert pools. Last night, in a Cardinals uniform.

With the adulation of basically everybody who was participating and watching that event. Yeah, and it's not it's not fake adulation it's not oh I'm the cameras are on me I better go over there and make a show and say hey to him and this is the guy that, that, that, that the current and future players, they love you know they they love what he's been, you know, and being in St. Louis and seeing him kind of take over this. Take this last final year, going through I mean, he smiled more this year than he probably did in his last five years in Anaheim.

I mean heck than his last five years the first time he was in St. Louis, and he is enjoying every minute of this last this last run in baseball and it's really been a lot of fun to see. I will talk again very soon I appreciate your time. Enjoy the rest of the all star game and the break, and we'll check in again very soon.

Sounds good. Thanks, Adam. Hey, thanks Ryan Fagan from the sporting news joined us here on the Adam Gold show one thing I didn't we didn't have time but I want to get to this with Ryan or somebody.

We'll talk to Elliot Johnson about this as well. What is the contract Shohei Ohtani is going to get. So, he's not the best hitter, but he's among them. And he's not the best pitcher, but he's among them. Saving a lot of money. If you're the angels, you get one of the best hitters, and one of the best pitchers in one roster spot.

Come on, that guy's gonna make big time bank can't wait for that contract negotiation. All right, your chance to determine what we discuss. On the other side, Graham put out a poll. I retweeted it will take your phone calls 919-860-5326 listeners choice. Next. June 19 2006, but it all started May 6 1997 with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina. It's a story of transition of heartbreak of figuring it out on the fly. The canes corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move presented by the aluminum company of North Carolina. Now find canes 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcast.