The Drive with Josh Graham - That's a Tasty Burger - 08/8/19

Attention, please. This is The Drive with Josh Tram Podcast. Tune into The Drive 3 until 6 p.m. weekdays on the Sports Hub. I love it. It's brilliant. Before the preseason kicks off tonight, I think we need to establish some ground rules.

Obviously, no touching of the hair or face. That's a given. But aside from that, here's my preseason viewing guide. I believe viewing of preseason games should operate similarly as youth soccer parent policy. Stay composed.

If your kid scores, it's more than likely he scored at the expense of some other parent that's sitting there in the stands. Don't lose your mind. Don't be a jerk.

Don't lose it. Don't talk trash to other fans. It's preseason football, okay? Now, all those rules go out the window if you're gambling on these games. But that said, is there anything that's more degenerate gambler than betting preseason football? Maybe Little League World Series. But aside from, and I actually know a guy who gambles Little League World Series, he'll actually look at some of the lineups and say, yeah, I actually went back into some of the regional numbers for Johnny over here.

I don't think he could come up in the big time. So betting Little League World Series, you might go to hell if you do that. Same thing for preseason football.

Maybe not go to hell, but you are a degenerate gambler. Follow youth soccer parent policy. Don't be a jerk. Don't overreact.

Stay composed. Number two, the moment fourth stringers check in, that's when you need to stop. Stop watching preseason football when fourth stringers are in the game.

It's very simple. Nothing good happens in the fourth quarter of preseason games. The fourth quarter tonight, you should not be watching.

When Taylor Heineke comes into the game, that's when you know, okay, this is a bit too much. It's kind of like, what's your threshold? If you're hanging out with the lovely Jennifer Dez and you're at a restaurant or a bar, how many drinks until you say, yeah, no more for me.

I need to stop or else things could get rough here. If I'm drinking liquor, like rum and Coke is my drink of choice when I'm not at home. Oh, me too, man. Probably. I'm a rum and Coke guy. Yeah, I don't mess with anything else. Once you get to a certain point, you know what you like and you get what you get every single time. No Henny? Now Henny is a weakness, but I don't usually order it myself.

Only if it's free. How many drinks? Probably three, maybe four. Beers? Beers, I can get to about seven or eight before I start telling you funny. That's where I'm at too. Yeah.

Six or seven, I'm calling an Uber, but when I get to eight, nine or ten, it's bad news. Nothing good happens after that seventh brewski. Or that you remember. Right. Preseason football, the same way.

When Taylor Heinecky's playing quarterback, nothing good is coming out of that. At least from a viewpoint standpoint. And lastly, don't overreact to the results. I'm talking about stats. I'm talking about scores. They don't matter.

They don't. At least negatively. There are some positive things you could take away, but I just don't want to hear all the negative nonsense tomorrow if, say, Brian Burns misses a sack or Will Greer throws a pick. Let's not leap to conclusions after a couple of snaps in a preseason game. Don't overreact to the results. So the three preseason viewing guidelines that I have for you. Follow the youth soccer parent policy of not being a jerk, not talking trash. And if you're gambling, you have bigger problems that are bigger than preseason football. Number two, stop watching when the fourth quarter gets here or when fourth stringers check into the game. Don't overreact to the results.

It's pretty simple. On Twitter at Sports Hub Triad 336-777-1600, the phone number, Zach tweets in, Hey, Josh Graham, what's your take on grown men wearing football jerseys? When's the last time you wore a jersey outfit?

I don't. I've never owned a real. You've never had a jersey jersey. I mean, things were like $200.

I couldn't afford that back in the day. I have two in my closet. I have a Stephen Davis jersey. Old Panthers jersey. And also, I have a Steve Smith Ravens jersey that my cousins in Baltimore said they'd get me if Steve Smith left to join the Ravens back when that was just a rumor. They kept picking at me. Hey, man, it looks like you guys might let Steve Smith go.

If you do, the Ravens might take him. No, no, that's not going to happen. Then when it did, a few weeks later, a package shows up at my house that just has Chinese stuff written all over it. You open up the box and there's a Steve Smith jersey, probably some illegal Chinese labor that helped bring that to my doorstep.

Thanks, Bezos. Yeah, I didn't have that in the 90s. We couldn't order those that way. You had to go straight through NFL.com or didn't even have NFL.com.

You had to go into the footlocker. Speaking of tweets coming in, we're taking Joe Weil movie lines right now. Joe Weil going to join the show in about 30 to 40 minutes. The voice of the Winston-Salem Dash. You could listen to Dash baseball, 7 o'clock on Thursdays. Just give me a sample of something that Joe Weil did last week, a movie line that the audience sent in.

Then Joe, just professionally and as polished as it gets, finagled it into his play-by-play. There are some dark clouds above us here at BB&T ballpark. There were some pop-up storms around the area. 1-1. Outside, counted 2-1. But it's hard to predict if rain will come through this area with the forecast. Listen, I didn't invent the rainy day, man.

I just own the best umbrella. Excellent work. Here are the two players who draw me in the most for tonight. It is an 8 o'clock kickoff tonight.

Panthers-Bears. It's always strange hearing Mick Mixon do TV since he's been the longtime voice of the Carolina Panthers now. Been doing those games for about 15 years and then for the previous 15 years to that, the 15 years that preceded that, he was sitting next to Woody Durham for all those years for football and basketball.

It's weird to hear him on television, but what draws me into this game, it's really two players. It starts with Curtis Samuel. We all thought the biggest story in camp was going to be Cam Newton.

And nationally, that's been the case. Anytime the Panthers are discussed, it's Cam Newton that's driving that conversation. But regionally, locally, the name that keeps coming up almost as much, maybe even more than Cam's name is Curtis Samuel.

This guy every single day is doing something. The Panthers on their website have this big landscape spread graphic that has the summer of Samuel as the headline. And it starts with James Bradbury, who was a guest on this show last week and described how great Curtis Samuel was, saying, quote, man, he's been whooping my ass lately, end quote.

There wasn't that much of that last year. Samuel had his moments. He was great in the Ravens game. He had a long touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, against the Detroit Lions.

I remember he was very good on the road in Detroit, but he was never seen to be the number one wide receiver or even a dominant wide receiver. That's the narrative in training camp right now. So I want to see when you line them up. First teams out there, it's not going to be Cam Newton playing quarterback, but Kyle Allen instead.

First teams out there. Does Curtis Samuel look different than he was last year? Is he going to be the go to target? Is he going to stand out in his few series that he plays?

Is he going to play more than a few series? Curtis Samuel, he's been the story of training camp. I want to see what all the hype's about later on tonight at Soldier Field. Secondly, there's Will Greer. If Will Greer is great tonight and next week, it won't matter what Kyle Allen or Taylor Heinecky do.

It won't matter what those two do. Will Greer is going to have a spot on the team. You don't just spend a third round draft pick to cut them. The question is, is Carolina going to keep two quarterbacks or three quarterbacks? If Will Greer plays great, Kyle Allen will end up somewhere else as a backup, but it just won't be in Carolina. So it's all on Will Greer. Even if he doesn't start tonight, Will Greer is going to be one of the bigger drawing points as well.

To see just how good he is, how far along he is, how much he's able to pick up an NFL offense. Because you have to imagine what Norv Turner is installing looks a lot different than what Dana Holgerson was bringing to the table over there in Morgantown. Last night was very depressing. I'm a Baltimore Orioles fan. So the Orioles, they're dreadful. The only team in the American League that has a worst record than the Baltimore Orioles, the Detroit Tigers. But it's worse being an Orioles fan because there's no hope. You let Manny Machado go for essentially nothing because you wait till last summer to trade him away. And the team's awful.

You get rid of Buck Showalter. Brandon Hyde is the manager. I'm an Orioles fan.

I learned last night what Brandon Hyde looks like. I'm not going to make the Chris Davis joke that everybody makes to get into a fight. He started swinging at him. Why are you worried about a fight with Chris Davis? If he's going to swing, you know he's going to miss.

I saw a lot of that. The real joke is I'm a Baltimore Orioles fan and I just learned what my manager looks like last night. And where are we at right now? It's August the 8th. We've got a month and a half left in the season. Orioles baseball. I'm glad I kind of stayed away from baseball since April. They've been so bad in how much home runs they've been giving up. There's been stretches.

They broke major league records with how many runs they scored in two or three consecutive games. But don't let that mask just how bad things are. So I'm a little upset with that. Just talking about the Orioles gets me fired up. The drive is broadcast live in the law offices of Timothy D. Wellborn Studios.

Learn about all the ways Tim Wellborn can help you online at Tim Wellborn dot com. You'll know when you need us. We're going to be sharing with Darren Vaught in addition to taking your movie lines for Joe Weil on Twitter at Sports Hub Triad. Coming up. Why USA basketball has become joy mongers. This is the drive.

Oh, look who's back. This is the sports hub at AM 600 AM 920. Now back to the drive with Josh Graham.

We're sharing with Darren Vaught from the David Glenn show big headline from today. The New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox are going to play a game at the famed Field of Dreams field in Dyersville, Iowa, next summer. It's going to be 20, make it 31 years after the movie was released that this is going to be hosting a major league game. It's going to be a temporary eight thousand seat park, a lot like what they did at Fort Bragg a couple of years ago. They're going to build a ballpark or build stands around the field and then tear it down after the fact. Since the Winston-Salem dash is affiliated with the Chicago White Sox, we welcome in the voice of the dash, Joe Weil.

And we'll get to the movie lines in just a bit that you can tweet in at Sports Hub Triad. Joe, how neat is this for you? People will come, Josh.

People will come. No, it's awesome. This is so cool. And it's actually kind of neat for myself personally, the fact that you have two things that I care about a lot. The Yankees, my childhood team, and now the White Sox, who I'm affiliated with meeting in one spot in Iowa, one of my favorite movies ever, Field of Dreams as well.

So this is this is really cool. And I and I really like that Major League Baseball came up with this idea. Hey, Darren, what do you think about the layout, though, where you have the Yankees White Sox Field of Dreams field? The fans can walk from the constructed field through the actual cornfield to the movie site.

Darren, what do you think about that? I love that Major League Baseball is starting to do more games like this, like the Fort Bragg situation, sort of a pop up game. I have a recent issue that they don't do that with with Cooperstown, with the Hall of Fame induction every year. So like, although it's cool, don't get me wrong, doing it at the Field of Dreams is really, really awesome. But I'm just confounded at the idea that they haven't found a way to do one at Cooperstown for the weekend of the Hall of Fame induction.

Which is very strange, too, isn't it? Because you have they played Major League game, like we mentioned at Fort Bragg, but they also did it at the Little League World Series as well. They've made this happen. And actually, the O's and Sox or your Orioles and my Red Sox will be in the Little League game not this coming August. Not or not this month, but next year.

That was announced as well. But it just seems odd to me. I mean, there were afternoon baseball games on TV during the Hall of Fame ceremony this past year. And if you're the sport of baseball, if you're Major League Baseball, why you wouldn't give the day or at least the afternoon to the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies is beyond me. When East Carolina and Elon make it to Williamsport next year or make it Omaha. See, they did it at also they did it at Williamsport, too. I think that me and you should go.

I think that's the plan for next year. Watch the Red Sox and Orioles, watch Elon and watch the Pirates play in Omaha as well. Hey, Joe, we need to get to the movie lines very quickly. We have Dash baseball later on tonight.

So you'll hear Joe's voice starting at seven o'clock right here on the sports hub. This is the line that you worked in last week amid weather condition. There are some dark clouds above us here at BB&T Ballpark. There were some pop up storms around the area. One one outside.

Counted two and one. But it's hard to predict if rain will come through this area with the forecast. And listen, I didn't invent the rainy day, man. I just don't the best umbrella. I've missed out on these the past few weeks, Joe.

I'm going to take great pleasure in hearing these. It's just one bad weather was last week. Yeah, it was a shame the weather was so bad. I would have gotten in the rest of them. But that was a fun one to get to.

And at least that worked for the current situation last Thursday. Almost famous. That's what that's from. We were just talking about Nick Cage. So I have to go with the Nick Cage line this week. Put the bunny back in the box. You just took mine, Josh.

That was mine. Put the money back in the box. Put the bunny back in the box, Joe. Why don't you just put the bunny back in the box?

Just I mean, you just had to put the bunny back in the box. I'm going to let Darren try to come up with something else. We just learned in recent weeks that intern Nick has never seen really any of the Quentin Tarantino movies. He saw bits and pieces of Django Unchained, I believe he said. So we made him watch Pulp Fiction and he's going to give us a review through a 20 year old's eyes. Nice fiction.

Do you have a line from Pulp Fiction you'd like to throw at Joe, Nick? That is a tasty burger. Well done. All right.

That is a tasty burger. OK, I'm all for that. Darren, what are you going to throw Joe's way?

All right. I'm sticking with Nicholas Cage. This was on my big board of Nick Cage quotes. It's from The Rock. I love pressure.

I eat it for breakfast. The ones that were getting from the audience. No good today. No good. So next week, send in better ones.

On Twitter at sportsubtriad. You're set for those three, Joe. I'm all set. And your intern did a fantastic job. And also the way he enunciated the line, too. It's great enunciation on your part. That's very well done. Thank you, Joe. Have a good call tonight. Thanks, guys.

That's the voice of the dash, Joe Weil. It's funny that we both had the same word for word. When you said you were going to go with Nick Cage, I'm like, man, he's going to he's going to pick mine. We got to steal the Declaration of Independence. Would be a lot harder to work that one in. Nick, speaking of Nick Cage, we forgot to go to you about some of the methods Nick Cage has and picking what he eats.

What do you have on that? This is the oddest thing I've ever read in my entire life. Someone's diet, like there are a lot of weird diets out there.

This is very weird. Yeah. He will only eat meat from animals that mate in a dignified way. That's right.

What is dignified? So I don't know. But there's some cloudy definition work here. So basically, date first.

Oh, no, it's about how they have sex. Yeah. So basically, he will only eat birds and fish. He will not eat pigs.

He says pigs are nasty. Yeah. How do birds and fish? YouTube. Planet Earth. Yeah. Come on. You can figure out.

We don't have time for this today. The stuff that you can't teach you about the birds and the bees. We're analyzing Nick Cage quote. How come that's the weirdest thing Nick has ever read? Intern Nick, that is.

How come that's the weirdest thing he's ever read and not in the top five of the weirdest things about Nicolas Cage? I don't know how that's possible. But speaking of the idea of having a Field of Dreams game, the Yankees and the White Sox playing at the Field of Dreams Field next year, can we do this with other sports? Like, are there sports movies, sports locations that are popular enough that you could pull it off? Like the Redskins, for example, playing a preseason game at the spot that Remember the Titans was held from that town? I'm not mistaken. The Hornets have played preseason games at the Dean Dome before.

Well, I'm talking about from movies. Well, maybe like what's the place in Hoosiers? Well, Butler plays in that gym, don't they? Yeah. The championship game, they play there. Yeah. So maybe you could do like the Pacers versus the whoever in there. And the Pacers have had the retro uniforms that pay homage to the Hickory team, but they don't play that game in the same arena. So, yeah, that would be a good one if that's the case. Is there anything in football, I guess, with Rudy? They could have a Rudy game, but Notre Dame just, you know, they still play in that stadium. Yeah.

No, that's just it with with most. If it's if it's based on a non-fictional stadium or venue, it's either been torn down or is still in use. Right.

A good one. If, see, the Tampa Bay Rays say they they're flirting with the idea of playing half their season in Montreal. How about for one weekend during the year you play at the Old Durham Bulls Park?

Yeah, I love that. Right. It's still up and the park still runs. In fact, I think North Carolina Central plays its baseball games there. NC Central plays here. Yeah.

So you could still do that for one weekend. You play at the Old Durham Bulls Park. You get Kossner to come back. Oh, how big would that be? Oh, man.

Put the Rays in old school Bulls uniform. Yes. Yes. You'd have to do that. That would be the coolest thing you could possibly do. Even cooler than, I think, playing at the Field of Dreams.

Granted, I'm biased. Yes, Nick? Oh, I was thinking you could do for NASCAR the old North Wilkesboro track. It's in cars.

Half the state wants that to happen anyway. It's the track they used in cars. Yeah, it's in cars, but cars is a cartoon. Says you. Well, it is.

Thrilled me. It's a little different. I don't think. Now we're playing a different game. We're playing a different game now. Are there places you'd like to see sporting events played in the fictional, like, cartoon universe? Like, we hear stories about games being scheduled in 2030 and 2031. By all means, you could schedule ahead that far in college football, but we might actually be playing football on the moon by then.

Like, I don't know what football on the moon looks like. The passing game might be a little bit more difficult. Might be a little harder, yeah. It's going to be easier, dude. Air it out. All day.

All day. 100-yard passes. Field goal kicking might be a touch easier than what it is today. So that's something we can think about, too, now that you opened the door with animated movies being factored into this. I mean, they did literally use the North Wilkesboro track. Well, I understand that. But it's an animated movie.

What does that matter? I think they used it as their guide for the CGI, right? It's like when people wear the full body suits with the dots on them. If you watch it and you look like the sand. Those people didn't act in that film, you know what I mean?

They just animated over top of it using the body form as a guide. The Drive is brought to you in part by our friends at Twin Peaks. Find them Haynes Ball Boulevard in Winston-Salem, a great sponsor of the program. A great place to watch football, too. Even preseason ball later on tonight.

Just a pro tip. You can visit them Haynes Ball Boulevard in Winston-Salem. It is your local sports lot. Twin Peaks eats, drinks, scenic views.

Here with Darren Vaught, however, and wherever you're listening, we appreciate that. It's WSGS Winston-Salem, WCOG Greensboro, WPCM Burlington, WMFR High Point. All of those signals making up the Triad Sports Hop. Get ready for action. This is the Sports Hop. Okay, it's on.

At AM 600, AM 920. Now back to The Drive with Josh Graham. Before we have a conversation about who the Nickelbacks of the New York Mets are, I actually want to talk about what the Mets have done. 13 of the last 14 they've won.

We are sharing with Darren Vaught from The David Glenn Show as we do on Thursdays. When you look at the trade that they made, Marcus Stroman, former Blue Devil, at the trade deadline, they got greeted with nothing more than laughs. People saying, that's why you're the Mets.

What are you doing here? There's no way that you guys are going to be competitive. And since then, 13 of the last 14, and I really think there's an argument to be made that the NL East is the best division in baseball when you factor in that it's the only division that has four teams with a winning record. Yeah, and you talk about the pushback when they initially made that Marcus Stroman move. I didn't quite understand it. I mean, yeah, they're an easy punching bag, the Mets, typically, let's be honest. But none of us understood it, but clearly they knew something.

Yeah, and I'm saying I didn't quite understand the people making fun of the deal. Look, I'm a big Marcus Stroman guy. I'm a huge believer in Marcus Stroman. He's a USA Baseball alum, a Duke alum, was a two-way guy at Duke and was fantastic as a college player, and I've believed in him ever since. He made his first All-Star game, so it's A, it's just a big pickup for them.

It's a great pickup. At the time of that trade, they had won six in a row, which was the start of this 13 out of 14 run that they're on. And if you add him to Jake DeGrom and Noah Sindegard, it's very much like what the Astros did in acquiring Zach Greinke. Now, the Astros have been frontrunners all season, so you have to catch up to the rest of the field, unlike the Astros.

But man, they're one game, I think it's in the win column, they are one game out of the wildcard spot currently. And if that team makes it to the postseason, DeGrom, Sindegard, and Stroman is dangerous in a postseason series. And then they've got Edwin Diaz, who hasn't been great this year as they took him from the Seattle Mariners, but if Diaz can capture anything that he was as a closer for the Mariners last year, I mean, he was the best closer in baseball a year ago.

I mean, that's a mean setup. And you've got a lot of young good bats in the lineup. When they were struggling, I just thought, you know, they've got good talent, they're young, but they're too good to be this bad. And they've turned it around in a way that, I mean, I didn't know 13 of 14 was going to be possible, but it's a really heady move, especially considering Sindegard was on the edge of the trading block for much of that week, probably, leading up to the trade deadline.

So they very much could have acquired Stroman, dealt Sindegard, and essentially just swapped those, you know, in a sort of horizontal move to keep their roster where it is. Paul LaDuca. On Twitter at SportsHub Triad, going back to the actual division, though, four of the five teams have a winning record, but the fifth team just so happens to be the worst team in the National League with the Miami Marlins.

Paul LaDuca. Maybe not the AL East. And there's some bias there.

Oh, come on. Toronto? I mean, even if you include Toronto. Toronto is awful. No, they are.

They are. But even if you include them, I'll take the Yankees, Rays, and Sox against just about anybody as a combo. The top three? Top three in the division? I'll go with the AL East all day. It's only a tougher question because you're including the fourth from the NL East.

But, I mean, it's been very good. It's been a very, very good division, and I think that was sort of expected, right? The Nats addition by subtraction in some ways, not retaining Bryce Harper. The Phillies made a number of good pickups even before the Bryce Harper signing.

J.T. Rael Muto is one of the best catchers in the league to me. Gene Segura up the middle, another acquisition to another team from the Mariners.

They just haven't quite been able to put it all together yet. And you mentioned the Mets. I mean, they've got a lot of good young talent and could be good for a while. We're on Twitter at sportsubtriad3367771600. I'll also nominate Carlos Delgado.

All right. We normally use a few names to qualify this thing before we get into a team. The Mets are tricky. I got to thinking about people I had seen frequently in Mets caps. And you start thinking about it and it's like, man, okay, but that's a really good player that maybe caught on with them toward the end of his career. I don't think of Carlos Delgado as a Met.

Oh, I do. And he's probably too good. Delgado's not too good. Delgado is too good. Carlos Beltran is too good. And also Beltran, I think, is still playing. I mean, right.

So it's hard for me to say you're a throwback when you're still playing. Let's go through the disqualified names. I'm going to start with Julio Franco. One, I love him. Two, he played in the 80s, the entire 80s and 90s. Like, he might be the lamb as well of the of the Mets. He might be. He's an indie ball somewhere, right? Is he a high point rocker? He's still playing football somewhere else or baseball somewhere else. If he played football, that would be fascinating. I don't know who the 90s band would be. Oh, he's the Dave Matthews band of the Atlanta Braves.

Wow. We need a different sounder. It doesn't qualify. Julio Franco, off. David Wright, not. David Wright. I'm going to get mad if someone nominates David Wright. Too good. Johan Santana.

I will throw my chair. See, and Johan's one of those two. He's too good. That's right. But also, I don't think of him, I mean, right, he threw his no hitter as a Met, but he's a twin to me. He played, what, five years with the Mets? Yeah, he did. He did. Jose Reyes.

Too good. Jose Reyes is too good. He was the best shortstop in baseball for about a five year stretch, or at least in the National League. Beltran we mentioned, Glavin, of course. Right. Pedro and Piazza.

I think that I think that rounds it out. Now, there are a lot of guys who would qualify, but I just don't I don't think of them as Mets because of their prominence with other teams. Like, for instance, Luis Castillo. Oh, yeah, I don't think of him as a Met.

But he was for a few years. He did, but so was Carlos Delgado. And if you can't include Delgado, I'm going to push against Castillo.

Let's see, I think Delgado is just good. Cliff Floyd. Yes. That one qualifies.

That's a done deal. Andy Chavez. Andy? Andy? Andy Chavez. The only reason he's relevant enough to be on this list was the catch he had in the NLCS against the Cardinals, even though they didn't win that series. That was the best play of the 2006 NLCS.

That catch that he made. I'm serious. I'm in serious danger of getting too obscure in these. I know.

And I'll let you know when you're too obscure. Pedro Feliciano. That's yes. I had Pedro Feliciano written down. Excellent.

Paula Duka written down. You didn't like Delgado, so I only have two more names left written down here. How about Chad Bradford? I mean, he qualifies, but he's an A to me. He's an athletic. He also played for the Orioles in the Mets. No, I know.

Hit it, Des. The way that he throws. It's a good point you bring up some guys you can't bring up for multiple teams. Like, if you're going to come with Minkiewicz, I'm going to say, well, he played for, like, 38 other teams. Or a pirate. I mean, he played with the Pirates, but I wouldn't count that.

Okay, what else do you got? Armando Benitez. Too obscure.

What? He was their closer. I don't know who that is. Their closer is a guy that we need to have a discussion about, Billy Wagner. No.

Too good. He's a Hall of Famer. Billy Wagner's too good? Should be in the Hall of Famer.

Okay. He was their closer. No, Billy Wagner was their closer.

Yes, Des. Prior to that. I always try to contribute one name to this segment because it amazes me that you guys know these names from 15 years ago that were, like, in the middle of the bench.

We're so nostalgic about baseball, man. It's only this sport. What about Mike Cameron? Who? Mike Cameron. Mike Cameron, yeah, he qualifies.

I think he's more of a mariner, but he, that fits here. Yeah. I used to, uh.

Yes. I reached a point in Little League where I would tilt my cap and wear it a little off kilter because of Mike Cameron. All right, so I didn't normally do that, but we made All Stars one year, and our caps were, like, particularly too much room in the head. You know, like, a tall cap, and it's kind of got the pointy thing at the top.

Sure. So in order for it to properly fit my head, I had to tilt the bill, and so it was, like, slightly askew to the right of my face. So I've got a photo in particular that is, like, the cheese-ing with the bat on my shoulder, and I look like Mike Cameron because of the way I'm wearing my cap. I have one more name. That's my association with him. I have one more name written down.

I have several, but none of them qualify, I'm sure. John Main. Yeah, he's on my list. I was so worried that he was going to be deemed too obscure, but I love John Main.

John Main. That's great. So I'm batting four of five here. You didn't accept Delgado. Just run through him.

Run through what you have. All right, I got a handful that I don't typically associate with Mets. In addition to Luis Castillo, Mike Hampton. Yeah, he's not a Met. Jeremy Bernitz.

Nope. Fernando Tatis. Oh, that one should count.

But then again, we've done that. Fernando Tatis with a handful of other teams. Right, because he's been with other teams, right?

Yeah, that's a good one. And then Jay Bell, a guy who won a World Series with the Diamondbacks. I think Jay Bell still applies to the Mets. And then I've got two Japanese names that I know no one knows because they came on later in their careers. Then why are you going to say those names? Because I just want to because I love Japanese baseball, and I love both of these players. Kazuo Matsui and Tsuyoshi Shinjo.

I love Darren using this show as a platform for him to just say the names of obscure Japanese baseball players from the 2000s who played for the Mets. Where else would he be able to? Twitter. I got nowhere else.

Their wall. Should I take to Twitter? I'm going to put them on Twitter. Yeah, just tweet that without any contacts. On Twitter, at Darren Vaught. Those two names, just to see what people will think. Hey, why? Why? On Twitter, at Sports Hub Triad, you can reach this very radio show.

I'm still bummed out looking at Orioles stats. Shinjo. Sorry, I'm on Twitter here. I got you. What's autocorrect Tsuyoshi Shinjo's name?

Tshinzo. Sorry, go ahead. Your show.

It's your show. Go ahead. The Baltimore Orioles are 0-10 against the Yankees this year. 0-10!

I mean, the Yankees are good. Okay, this is going to be fun. Shane and Winston Salem, you're on the Sports Hub.

Really quickly, Shane, give me a name. Uh, okay, here we go. Don't know what he just said, but let's hit it. Count it. No idea. Appreciate that.

We'll close on that note. Any idea what he just said? No clue.

I just know that the FCC is cool with it. Whatever came out of his mouth. Darren, this was fun. Time blows by.

It does. You guys, don't go changing. Coming up, three things to watch for in the Panthers preseason opener tonight. This is the Sports Hub, you're on the drive. I'm so excited football is back. Even if it is preseason. Panthers.

Bears. Soldier Field, 8 o'clock tonight. We're going to be chatting in just a little bit with Bill Vogue from Panthers.com getting a live report from Chicago. We'll get to Intern Nick's review of cold fiction.

Somebody who's only watched a couple of scenes of the Tarantino movies altogether in just a few minutes as well. Also tonight, you have the New York Jets and the New York Giants. Which means all eyes will be on Daniel Jones. Maybe Eli Manning will get some snaps. I wonder what that conversation sounds like. Them trying to figure out who should start tonight's game. Hey, Eli, did you hear that we're playing tonight?

Yeah. You did? What time is it?

Oh, let me check real quick. Pull out my pager. Coach Cut says it's a 7 o'clock game. Oh, Coach. Oh, OK. He wants to come.

Who's going to play? Is it me or is it you? I don't know. Do you want to start?

I do, but I kind of don't. I don't know if I'm ready. Well, since you're not ready, I've done this a few times. I'll just start tonight's game. Eli, to be honest, I'm not sure if you're ready either. Oh, I'm ready.

Sure. I don't know what I'm ready for, but I'm ready. I mean, they're telling me in practice all the time that we're not supposed to be throwing it to the other jersey. And sometimes I notice that you like to throw it to the other jersey. I'm really confused because, see, we play for New York. We play for New York.

You know that? Like it says M.Y. on our helmet. It stands for New York. Somebody told me that last week.

I was like, what? But I'm really confused. Later on tonight, we're going to be playing a New York team, too. And I'm trying to figure out who do we throw the ball to?

Well, I think Cut told me that that other New York team he was talking about. Why do we keep referencing our former coach? Well, he's magical.

He's almost like a leprechaun to me. Is it because this is a North Carolina radio segment and David Cutcliffe coaches here? Could be. He might be my dad.

I don't know. I don't know who Daniel Jones's dad is. Daniel, I know my dad's Archie and my brother's Cooper and Peyton. You know how you know who your dad is, Eli? Yeah.

Isn't there those neat heritage sites where you can go back and look? No. Well, maybe. But you know who your dad is because your mama told you so. Oh, what would your mama say? She didn't tell me anything.

That's why I think it might be Coach Cut. I don't know. Wow. We kind of look alike, but not really.

Sometimes. Well, I think we need to get ready for the game now. I guess. All right. If we're going to do a Pulp Fiction review, we need some sound to accent this, too. All right. Give me the best Pulp Fiction-like sound you can give me as a backdrop for Intern Nick, 20-year-old Intern Nick who's seen no Tarantino movie from beginning to end, watching Pulp Fiction this morning because he forgot we said he needed to watch it by today's show.

Give me something that we can do that's appropriate. I've been looking forward to this all day. Intern Nick, what did you think? Right after I watched it.

Talk into the microphone. Right after I watched it. God, I was confused.

I was so confused. I do like those kind of movies where it's not like beginning, middle, end. I kind of like it when it tells a story at different parts, but usually there's a plot.

They had no plot. You want to do it or you want me to do it? No, let him finish. Des told me that not all of his movies are like that, but all of his movies somehow connect. So now I'm a little more interested in Quentin Tarantino's movies and try to make those connections. I think my favorite scene was the whole John Travolta and Uma Thurman with the drugs and rushing her over. I thought that was really intense. Where they're dancing on the table. Where they're dancing on the table. I thought that was really funny. I actually couldn't stop laughing at that. It's a nitpick that I have with the movie. No way they win that dance competition.

It's John Travolta. They have to win the dance competition. I honestly had to think... How often does the first person on stage win that? I honestly had to think that... Last person on stage, it's a better first impression and also it wasn't great dancing. They had to be the only ones that did it. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. When I saw this, I was like, they're not really that good.

They're gone because they're the only ones that went on. He is knee deep in the Tarantino universe. That's a great point that you bring up there. Continue.

Let's see. I also noticed about an hour after I watched it that very significant scenes... Travolta is in the bathroom. Have you noticed that?

Yes. Very good observation. Right before he gets killed.

That's very good. At the restaurant, he was in the bathroom. And when Uma Thurman is coked out, he's in the bathroom. Coil alert.

It's only been 20 years. Who was your favorite character in the movie? I'm a big Bruce Willis fan, so I did like him a lot. I don't know how you can dislike Samuel L. Jackson.

He was funny. The idea of you saying there's no plot to Pulp Fiction. You'd learn how things are connected together. And it's not necessarily the plot is spelled out in a traditional sense. It's just rolled out through different stories where you figure out, okay, this is the adventure here. This guy's in trouble. Oh, these guys aren't good guys.

And now they're going after this guy. I can see how it can be confusing, but to say there's no plot, come on. At first, because I watched it with my brother and we went back and like, okay, let's try to put the movie in order. Is it kind of surrounding Bruce Willis because he escapes? Is it basically Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta? It basically was three different lives.

Yes. When he came in and he explained this to me, I told him the secret to Pulp Fiction, the sauce, which is Marcellus is the main character of the entire movie. Every story that's in Pulp Fiction comes back to Marcellus. And really the whole plot of the movie has to do with Marcellus getting his briefcase back and what's in the briefcase. I love the fact we don't know what's in the briefcase.

Right. But there's always been a rumor for 20 plus years of what it is. And I was telling Nick, do you want to know, spoiler alert?

What is the rumor? That it's Marcellus' soul. It's not a spoiler alert where to answer, to say something we don't know. Well, I mean, if you haven't watched the movie. No, what I'm saying is we don't learn in the movie what's in the briefcase. It's not a spoiler alert if we don't get the answer by watching the movie. All right.

All right. But the key to that is people asking Tarantino over the years and him kind of alluding that might possibly be it. You never see what's in the briefcase. And what's the first image you see of Marcellus in the movie? It's the back of his head. And what's on the back of his head? A Band-Aid. Oh, there's a Band-Aid on the back of his head? I think twice.

Twice I saw that. It's supposed to be the idea is that something previously, I think it's alluded to in Reservoir Dogs, took his soul and that's what the Band-Aid is. That's where the soul was taken out from.

And that he sends his two best hitmen to go retrieve the soul. I'd rather just have the imagination. I'd rather just have my imagination think that it's something else because it's different to everybody else. What did you think it was? I don't know.

Something gold. That's what I thought. Very good, Josh. Good job. Very good. I'm glad you got a chance to see Pulp Fiction. Yeah, it was interesting.

It was different. Oh, let's do Robert Ebert style. Four out of four stars, what do you give it? I'm going to give it three. I'll give it three.

If I keep watching it, maybe I'll keep going higher and higher. You're grudgingly giving it a three. You were wanting to give it a two. I was close.

I was really close. At first I was like... You want to give it the two. The first 15 minutes after I watched it, I wanted to give it a 1.5. He is soaked with fear right now, wanting to give this movie a two just because... And the reason he isn't, he's actually scared for his employment.

I'm just letting it sink in. I'm going to maybe watch it again. I'm going to watch a little bit more of Quentin Guarino's movies. It might go higher, but I will say as soon as I finished it, I was like, I don't understand.

It was the plot, blah, blah, blah. 1.5. He should watch Reservoir Dogs and report it next week.

1.5! Oh wow, did you go down? No, no, no, no. As soon as I finished watching it and had no idea...

Turn this microphone off. Do you remember how vulnerable you were when you walked out the theater after watching Pulp Fiction the first time? I didn't walk out of the theater watching Pulp Fiction. Or got off your couch from watching Pulp Fiction the first time? Yeah, I loved it. But did you completely understand what you loved? The first time? See, but I'm a film snob.

Yes. So, the way that it looks... I said to turn his microphone off! We'll turn it back on in a second.

I gotta react to his initial reaction being a 1.5. The way it looks, it just looks different. The opening scene where they're talking about robbing restaurants versus banks. Oh, it's great. And then, Samuel L. Jackson, Big Kahuna Burger. Big Kahuna Burger!

That is a tasty burger. I didn't give you permission to turn his microphone back on, but thank goodness you did. He reached over there.

I don't know what's going on. Thank goodness you did. That was the perfect thing to say there. Pulp Fiction got, in turn, kind of bold in here.

He is emboldened. Yeah. Very much so.

All right. Very good. I'm glad you've seen Pulp Fiction now. It's a movie that, if somebody asks, hey, what's the closest thing to a perfect movie? I show them Pulp Fiction. That's where I go first.

That and Mean Girls. On Twitter, at sportsubtriad. The drive's brought to you in part by our friends at Twin Peaks Restaurant.

You can find them Haines Mall Boulevard in Winston-Salem, a great sponsor of the program Delicious Wings, cold beer, games everywhere. And on a night like tonight, you might want to be at a spot with multiple TVs as games are splashed all across television screens with the NFL. Starting preseason play tonight. I know there was the Hall of Fame game last week, but it's the official start of preseason where you will see starters played across the board pretty much for at least a few series. No Cam Newton or Luke Kiekwe tonight, but aside from that, a lot of your favorite Carolina Panthers will be in action. I really don't know who's starting tonight. Eli Manning or Daniel Jones.

I'd imagine it's going to be Eli. But that's the number one player, I think, nationally speaking, fans are interested to see tonight. Like, odds are, most of the talking heads, they're going to spend time talking about Daniel Jones more than anybody else who plays tonight. Yes, unless there's an injury. Let me put that aside. Unless there's an injury somewhere, Daniel Jones is going to dominate the news cycle tomorrow.

But I don't even know who else would be in that discussion. I know Kyler Murray is playing against the Chargers, but that's a 10 o'clock kick. That game's going to kick at 10 o'clock. Who's staying up to watch Kyler Murray at 10 o'clock? I'm not. I don't know if you are, but I'm not.

I'll hear about it in the morning, and we'll go from there. Maybe some Nick Foles action with the Jacksonville Jaguars, but how long is he going to play in the game? Josh Rosen? He's not going to start tonight for the Dolphins. It's going to be Ryan Fitzpatrick.

But you have to think Rosen's going to get a number of the snaps after he was traded away from the Cardinals to the Dolphins. You are listening to WSJS Winston-Salem, WCOG Greensboro, WPCM Burlington, and WMFR High Point. All of those signals comprise Make the Triad Sports Hub. You're not going to stop him completely. We just have to contain him. You're on the drive with Josh Graham. The Sports Hub at AM 600, AM 920.

We're going to skate to one song, one song only. We're less than three hours away from kickoff. Panthers Bears, the Panthers kicking off the preseason tonight. I'm not big on the preseason the moment fourth stringers are coming into the game. That's my cue to probably do something else as a television viewer. Desmond Johnson will be watching every single snap of this game and all four quarters, as will our next guest, I imagine, who right now joins us from Soldier Field in Chicago.

It's Bill Vogt on Twitter, at Panthers Bill. When I'm trying to put together some guidelines for fans on how to watch the preseason, I start with following the same way you would a youth soccer game if you were a parent. You know, stay composed. Don't talk trash with fans. Maybe stop watching when the fourth string gets in there in the fourth quarter and don't overreact to the results or the stats.

Anything you care to add to that? I wouldn't say that in the regular season. People overreact to the preseason?

That's worse. A bunch of guys just went through a little pregame workout. It was pretty much most of the starters. I counted 21 guys who it looks like probably won't be playing tonight whose names you would probably recognize.

So it's going to probably feel more like a fourth preseason game here tonight. Who's the one player who has the most to gain tonight, you think? I don't know. I guess Kyle Allen, sure. Why not? I'm under the assumption that Will Greer is – first of all, we know Will Greer is not going to get cut. You don't cut a third-round quarterback right after you draft him.

So he's not getting cut. So will the Panthers keep three quarterbacks? So certainly Kyle Allen. But a guy like Greg Little, who's heading up and down spring and summer, he's very athletic, but it's still going to be a nice little learning curve for him coming into the pros. So I think someone like that will be interesting to watch.

There's a lot of other guys, but still, it's football, but it doesn't really have that really football feeling just because so many guys are going to be sitting out. Will the Panthers' decision with the quarterback be more reliant on what Kyle Allen does in preseason or where Will Greer is at? I would say, well, how about where Cam Newton is at?

I mean, that's why I've just kind of been assuming they'll keep three, but who knows? So it's really – with what we saw with Cam last year, are you 100 percent sure that Cam's going to make it through 16 games? So if you like what you see in Kyle Allen, why let him go?

So that's why I think he could potentially make sure they keep – he can make himself uncuttable if he plays really well in the preseason, I would think. Where do you think Cam Newton's at right now? I think he's – you know, it's all part of the process, right?

It's all part of the plan. I think he's impressed me, and I'm usually cynical, but he's impressed me with where he's been at in camp. There's been a couple days where his accuracy has been, eh, but I think by and large his accuracy looks better, and we've seen him throw down the field much better than he has in two years. Everyone always talks about how it was just the second half of last season, are you going to throw down the field?

The throws he's been making at camp I haven't seen in two seasons. So I think that's all good. But – what are we, August 5th, 6th, 7th, something like that? That's a long way away from being week nine and week 13 when he's facing live bullets.

Happy August 8th to you. Bill Voth with us here on the drive live from Soldier Field in Chicago. It's the preseason opener tonight. See, you've covered the Panthers for a very long time before being under the Panthers' umbrella. So your perspective on Cam, how he's approached things at practice, the way he engages with fans, the way that he has spoken to Peter King and members of the media seeming more mortal in a football sense, talking about, hey, I'm not completely through the woods yet when it comes to his shoulder. Has his approach been different to you? Yeah, I mean, I think so. I think he's been – I don't want to get into the maturity narrative, but I think there's growing up he's done.

And maybe there is some self-reflection. But, you know, Norv Turner laughed that stuff off when he was asked about it. I loved it because when they're like, so Cam told Peter King he doesn't feel like he has to be Superman anymore. And Norv's like, okay, yeah, like the first time he's got third in goals from before, he's going to jump over five guys. And that's just what Cam's going to do. So he can say all these things, but when the bullets are flying, is he actually going to feel that he doesn't have to be Superman?

I highly doubt that. So it's a good quote in the summer, but in the fall, I think he's still going to feel like he has to be Superman. What I really like about Bill Vogt, who's with us here and he's on Twitter at PanthersBill, he mentioned it. Even though he works for the Panthers, he's very cynical. And he's very honest and we like him for it. He's a straight shooter.

So with that in mind, I look at Panthers.com. I see the summer of Curtis Samuel. Peter King is on this show talking about Curtis Samuel almost as much as he's talking about Cam Newton. And he seems to be the story of Camp. Just how good has Curtis Samuel looked? Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons I have to be cynical and I have to be, eh, I don't know, like, temper-down enthusiasm because when there is reason to get excited about a guy, then when I'm like, no, really, get excited about that guy.

Hopefully, you know, there's more credibility there. And, yeah, I think most people were noticing it in the spring that Curtis just had some confidence that he never had before. But I think we also forget that he was mostly running back in college. So he's now three years into learning how to play a receiver. His hands were not all that great when he first came in.

They weren't all that great last summer. He spent a lot of time working on his hands. So he's refining, like, what you saw last year, those flashes, like, he's still not nearly a complete receiver. So that's where all the excitement, I think, comes from. But I'll temper that with there's always just one ball to go around. Cam's still going to take it a lot. There's Greg Olsen, Ian Thomas, Christian McCaffrey, D.J.

Moore. So all these, you know, if you want to get really excited for your fantasy football league with Curtis Samuel, I don't know what kind of huge numbers he's going to end up with because there's only one ball to go around. But he could provide the Panthers something they haven't had in quite some time. The Panthers preseason games are Panthers produced, which means you have Mick Mixon doing the play-by-play, which is very strange to hear somebody on TV that you normally see or hear on radio. Are we going to see Bill Voth on television? I'm doing something for WTVD. And they're pregame special, so there you go.

No, we have our new reporter, Caroline Kan. She's going to be doing the sideline for those games. She's a better fifth-court than I am. All right.

Well, that's fair enough. Before we let you go, when you think Rachel McAdams, do you think notebook, Mean Girls, or Wedding Crashers first? Wedding Crashers. Very good. Why?

Why? I've never seen the notebook. I've never seen the notebook.

And then what's the other one you said? Mean Girls. I haven't really seen that either. I haven't. All right. Wedding Crashers. Very good.

Enjoyed preseason game number one. Thanks for doing this, man. All right. See you. Have a good one. You got it. That's Bill Voth. That's Bill Voth on Twitter at Panthers built.