If NBA stars were Disney characters

It is a Monday drive. We're the big news of the day, and it's very rare I could say this. Local breaking news in Major League Baseball. The AAA Charlotte Knights put out a statement revealing they were in touch with the Toronto Blue Jays early last week to potentially play Toronto's home games in the Queen City.

This is because the Canadian federal government ruled the Blue Jays were not welcome to do so at their normal home. And obviously that'd be terrific for the city if they were picked over Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and the team's spring training home in Florida. But what about Charlotte as a full-time home for a big league team? A few years ago I was chatting with a few leaders in Charlotte and they figured in terms of sports, pursuing a sports franchise to come to the Queen City, they could go after pro soccer or Major League Baseball, but not both. And when David Tepper arrived on the scene, he obviously prioritized soccer. Charlotte MLS will announce its official team name on Wednesday. Last week we learned its inaugural season that was originally set for 2021 will be pushed back to 2022. And as much as I love my Orioles and the majors, from a strictly business perspective, pursuing MLS is a smarter investment than Major League Baseball. I asked this question on social media.

It's the same one I'll ask you right now at Josh Graham Radio. You can follow me there at SportsSubTriad. What would you rather have in Charlotte, an MLS franchise or a Major League franchise? 79% of the audience says a Major League franchise. And if I'm being honest, I'm emotionally attached to baseball in a way I'm not soccer, even though I grew up playing both sports and I'm somebody who likes watching soccer. Not a big fan of watching club soccer overseas, but I'll watch some MLS and I'll certainly watch American international soccer.

But I want you to put a business hat on here. I want you to remove your emotional attachment to the sports and think about these sports as assets, as stocks, if you will. Pursuing MLS is a smarter investment.

It's a lower risk for one, far cheaper. Like the average value of a Major League team is $1.8 billion. The average value, this is, I think, according to Forbes last November, of an MLS team, $346 billion. So Major League teams are worth five times as much as an MLS team. David Tepper paid $325 million to get his expansion team.

That is $125 million more than the other two expansion cities, what they had to pay last year. So it's cheaper to get into the game. Baseball, it's trending downward. To younger people, they're not interested sitting around for three and a half hours for a game with very little action.

It's too long. Younger people particularly have lessening attention span. In 2017, Gallup, which has been charting things for the last 50, 60 years, sports fandom in America, found that Major League Baseball has become the third most popular sport among Americans. What was seen to be the pastime, third most popular sport just passed by basketball. Less than 10% of Americans, this is something that's never happened before since Gallup's been charting this, less than 10% of Americans say it's their favorite sport. It's at 9%.

Conversely, there's a higher reward with MLS. It's trending upward. While we're talking about that Gallup poll, how baseball is going downward, MLS just passed, or I should say soccer, just passed, hockey is the fourth most popular sport. So it's gaining on baseball. Baseball fans, there are 9% in America that say that that's their favorite sport. Now there's 7% for soccer.

That's how close it is. There are more kids in America that play soccer than play baseball. It passed hockey, now it's gaining on baseball, so it's going in another direction.

It's cheaper and there's a higher potential for what it might be in the future. Think about the attention span for younger people, as we've been noting. It's two hours long, there's minimal stoppages. How can you not get behind that? FIFA, very popular video, I'm not going to go into that, how can you not get behind that? FIFA, very popular video game.

As a youth sport, soccer, as I mentioned, very popular. So this was bound to happen, we're seeing it happen a lot slower than we thought it would, but soccer is continuing its upward trend. Then there's the international opportunity.

This is the reason why I think Tepper has FC on every single one of these names that's put out there. Even though I'm not a fan of it, I can understand this line of thinking. You got a digital product that says between two pints, you want things to appeal to the same people who are watching English Premier League soccer. Once the MLS becomes respectable to those overseas in Spain and the EPL, dare I say Robert, in Italy, in Syria, there will be global marketing opportunities, just not possible for baseball, maybe outside of Japan or China. I'm still waiting for an American star to take the World Cup by storm.

Maybe it's Christian Polistic who's been great for Chelsea. When that happens, if he's playing for an American club, MLS, there's a chance for growth there. There's a chance for global marketing that you just don't have with baseball. So while I would probably answer that question, like most of the audience, I'd prefer to have a major league team because one of the few teams I root for is a major league team, it's the Orioles.

I have emotional attachment to that sport. I do believe the MLS, it's a smarter business option, it's a smarter business option, it's a smarter business investment wherever you are, especially by David Tepper in Charlotte. 336-777-1600, the number on Twitter, at sportsubtribe, if you would like to chime in. Let's go to Wayne in Greensboro. Wayne, what do you prefer? City of Charlotte, baseball or soccer?

What do you think makes more sense from a business perspective? I think baseball does, but I'm going to throw out there that the triangle would be a better spot than Charlotte. Charlotte already has a lot of, you've just got so much discretionary income.

And I think Raleigh would be perfect. You could build a brand new stadium out near where the fairgrounds are and PNC is. And from what I understand, the AAA park in Charlotte is not expandable to major league specs.

It's just not something you can do. So that, it just doesn't make sense in Charlotte. But I think in Raleigh or in the triangle somewhere, you can build it out there where people from Greensboro and surrounding areas could take the many interstate to go in there and get to a weekday game a little better.

Well, let me ask you this, Wayne. Let me, what do you object to that I'm saying though? I agree it would be great to have more pro sports in the state of North Carolina, but why baseball over major league soccer? I just think, you know, as far as the youth, they've embraced soccer for a long while now, not just recently.

It's been like 30 years and it's grown and it's grown very little nationally. I'm biased. I'm one of those who would rather go out and watch my graphs grow before I'd watch a soccer.

And I'm right along with you, except I like soccer, but I would prefer baseball over soccer. Thanks for the phone call, Wayne. It's appreciated. Thank you. 336-777-1600 is the phone number. We're on Twitter at Sports Hub Tryon.

A good point that he brings up there. Truest Ballpark, that's what it's called now, just like there's name changes in Winston-Salem for Wakes Football Stadium and also the Winston-Salem Dashes Ballpark. It holds 10,200 fans with 22 suites. That's way too small for a major league park. Most major league stadiums, for those who don't know, it's between probably 40 and 50,000.

I've seen some that are probably around 35, though. You want to compact it with a lot of suite space between 60, 70, maybe 80 suites available. It's possible to expand that ballpark just not to the degree where it would meet most minimums at other major league stadiums. So there's probably going to have to be a lot of work done, but it's a tremendous location that they have there. I think Charlotte, actually I know that Charlotte is a bigger city than Raleigh.

Charlotte is a pro sports town, so I think it would be a better fit in Charlotte than in Raleigh, but I'm willing to hear both arguments to that. Stand by as we continue our dig for the truth and the toy at the bottom of the cereal box. Oh, got it. You're on the drive with Josh Graham on Sports Hub Triad. Robert, wasn't it Toby Keith you told me ended one of your relationships? Yeah, she did not like Toby, so she had got to go. I'm interested on Twitter at Sports Hub Triad, has that ever happened to you with any other artist? Like I imagine if Sarah Bradford says she didn't like Coldplay, that might be a deal breaker.

Get out of here. It just might be. I don't know, I didn't prep Ryan McGee for this, but maybe we'll get to this in a second. Ryan McGee made news headlines this weekend talking to Ed Orgeron on the Marty and McGee radio show, and Coach O's I think general sentiment was he has no doubt they're going to be playing the season this year. He says his team will be ready whenever that is, but before we get to that, if let's say hypothetically the woman you're now married to said early on in the infancy stages of Ryan McGee's relationship, country music singer X cannot be a fan of yours. I can't hear that in the house. Would that be a deal breaker for Ryan McGee? No, no, no, no. If you've ever seen a picture of my wife then you know that I'm so far out of my league anyway. There was no, there wasn't going to be any, so I was obsessed with Tiffany Amber Thiessen, like back in the Saved by the Bell days, and all my friends that I worked with way back when, when I got married, they all just started laughing, because I basically married her, and because my wife looks just like her, and so yeah, but no, I 100% listen to music that I don't like, and I'm pretty sure she does too, but I will say this though, the girl I dated through most of college, the greatest concert experience I ever had and ever will have, I went to see Bruce Springsteen at Rupp Arena my senior year of college, and our seats were awful, like top row all the way across the arena, and we got there too early.

I didn't know at the time Bruce always comes on like 90 minutes late, and this guy walked up, and he wasn't doing this for me, he was doing it for the girl I was dating because she was cute, and he said can I see those tickets, and I said, and I was like sure, he goes these tickets are terrible, he goes here I'll trade you the ones you have for the ones I have, and they put us on the front row, and we were front row and center for Springsteen, and not only that, he gave me his harmonica, like before the last encore, like it was the most incredible night of my life, and on the way home driving back from Lexington to Knoxville Tennessee, you would have thought I had taken her to an accounting convention, like she could have carried, oh he was so loud, and I didn't really like that, and all this other, I'm like well you know what I don't think this is gonna work, and it didn't. Shoot him a follow on Twitter at ESPN McGee, also keep an eye on the book Sidelines and Bloodlines, a book you wrote about your dad, long time college football official, I want to talk about that in a bit, it's set to be released on September 15th, do you agree with Coach O that it's a matter of when, not if, when it comes to college football? Yeah, I mean I've said all along, I said all the way back in April, that when, even back when we thought the numbers would be so much better than they are, I thought just to be safe as we flatten the curve, which clearly we haven't, I said all along, I thought the season would start later, I didn't think there was any chance the season was gonna start all day every weekend, I thought it would start probably in October, and I thought, I said all along, I didn't know if we'd have a 12-game regular season, I thought it would be shorter than that, and so a lot of those things that I've kind of theorized way back when have, is where I still think we are, you know it's, we had Greg Sankey on Marty McGee two weekends ago, and what Sankey said, and I honestly think that Coach Odran wanted to come on the show to react to what Sankey said, because what Sankey, Sankey was not as optimistic as Odran was, or as a lot of the coaches have been, but he said the reason that, particularly the ACC and the SEC, who are, who are talking all the time by the way, there's a back channel communication between Greensboro and Birmingham, there's no question about it, and what they're doing is, as Greg Sankey said, was he was giving the advice of a professor at University of South Carolina, medical professor, who said, take all the time you can possibly take to make a decision, because everything changes so dramatically day to day, and so that's what they're doing. So I still think there'll be some football played, I just don't think it'll be played in every Power Five conference, and also think that, you know, I don't think it's going to look the same, depending on what region of the country that you're living in, and people are like, well how does that affect the college football playoffs?

I don't care. As long as some sort of football is played in the fall, I think that'll, it will help everyone, and that's kind of where Coach Odran was going. He qualified it by saying, he didn't know how long the season was going to be, he didn't know when it was going to start, he didn't know if fans were going to be there, but he just said he believes football is going to be played in some way, shape, or form.

The book, Sidelines of Bloodlines, it's going to be released on September 15th. It's about Ryan McGee and his dad, and his dad's experiences as being a college football referee, and I think anybody has kind of the experience, or I'd say most people who are lucky enough have the experience where their dad tells stories all the time that become repetitive. With me, my dad always loves telling old stories about how he got behind the scenes access to the Iron Sheik, Hulk Hogan, and stuff like that, because he was close friends. I didn't learn this until the middle of life, that my dad was close family friends with Macho Man Randy Savage. Actual, actual thing that I looked through photos and I saw a picture of Macho Man Randy Savage in our foyer, and I said, dad is this Photoshop? He said no, him and Miss Elizabeth, when they came into Baltimore, I would pick him up from the airport, and I wasn't allowed to tell anybody that he was at my house, and he'd take me behind the scenes and take me to matches, and I didn't realize that my dad was kind of underselling it until I had Lanny Potho in the radio, and he ended our conversation saying, your dad did the impossible, he befriended the Macho Man.

Wow, that's the best. Well, and that's what, so this book, and I appreciate you mentioning it, Sidelines of Bloodlines, is co-author with my dad and my brother, and my brother's an attorney here in Charlotte, he's way smarter than me, he went to Yale Law School, and went to Wake Forest, undergrad, and then my dad of course, he was a college football official for 40 years, and was in the ACC for most of his career, big time college football, he went to the Big East for a little bit when they started that, but then came back, and so man, it is a tobacco road book, I mean there's so much about the ACC in there, and almost all of dad's stories, you know, and not only that, but like his first college football game was at Guilford, and him, what was amazing to me is I'd heard all the stories, and had lived a lot of the stories in the ACC, and the Big East, and the Rose Bowl, and the Orange Bowl, and Army Navy game, and all that stuff, but his best stories were for like working high school games in Wadesboro, or you know, for working small college games, you know, Emory & Henry in Guilford, or going to Carson Newman, and they had to change clothes in the hotel, in the motel rather, in Tennessee, and they forgot to reserve a room, and so the motel manager said, well y'all can go in here and change clothes, and it was the room where they stored all the mattresses, and it was full of feathers, so when they walked out onto the field to officiate the game at Carson Newman, they were just covered, look they've been tarred and feathered before they walked out there, so the stories are just off the chart, and if anybody's ever wondered, you know, my dad was a field judge, he was on the sideline his whole career, so if you've ever wondered what the what the head coach was saying to the referee, and what the official was saying back to the head coach, and did they ever have a big fight, those are the stories that dad tells, and the answer to is yes to all the above. We'll have to get some more of those on the next visit, but you're the biggest, Ryan McGee's with us from ESPN, you're one of the biggest Charlotte Knights baseball fans, and just fans of minor league baseball that I know out there, you're a season ticket holder for the Knights, and the big news today, the Knights put out a statement saying they've been in touch with the Toronto Blue Jays to temporarily have potentially the Knights ballpark be the home for the Blue Jays, because the federal government in Canada ruled that they can't play games there, they can't have American teams fly in when baseball restarts later on this week. I'm less interested in the temporary of what could happen, and more interested in this state as a baseball market, because the MLS is coming in 2022, David Tepper really pushing heavily for that since he was hired, or since he bought the Carolina Panthers a few years ago, it doesn't seem like to me, with the college sports priorities that we have that makes our state unique, how many ACC teams we have, and of course ECU and App involved in that as well, and also the minor league baseball footprint too, that Major League Baseball would have a lot of success here, nor would this state really pursue heavily Major League Baseball.

What do you think? Well, I'm torn, because just as a baseball fan, and as you say, you're talking about my dad, my family, we have had season tickets for the Charlotte Knights since the mid-90s, and the ballpark where the Knights used to play was down in Fort Mill, just south of Charlotte, just over on the South Carolina border, and George Shin owned the team back then, and the old Knights' castle, if you looked at it, that thing, it looked like Arlington Stadium, where the Rangers used to play before they put an upper deck on it, and when you walked into the ballpark, it was so overbuilt, and it sat down in this hole, and the reason was because George Shin's plan was to eventually bring a minor league team to Charlotte, and he tried to make a run at the Expos, and I know Don Beaver tried to do the same in the Greensboro area, and so I'm torn because, in fact, the Charlotte Knights, the only reason it took them so long to build their ballpark in Uptown Charlotte, the great ballpark they have now, is because a local businessman sued and had it blocked because he believed Charlotte should be pursuing a major league team instead of a minor league team, and everyone in Charlotte thought that was a terrible idea, because, I mean, it's 81 games, and, you know, you look and see that, I mean, major cities way larger than Charlotte, and with a much more baseball-centric population, you know, they have a hard time selling tickets during the week, and so I'm torn, because I don't know that it's the right move, I don't know that the state of North Carolina or the Carolinas at all needed, but at the same time, man, it'd be worth a shot, right? And so this might be the perfect compromise if they were to work that out, and they were very early on very aggressive about it, because I think a lot of people in baseball had a feeling this might be coming, and the Charlotte Knights got out ahead of it, so we'll see. I mean, you know, I'm telling you right now, I will absolutely I'll suddenly become a baseball beat writer if the Blue Jays are playing, you know, five miles from my house, but I'm torn, because I would love for it to work, but I don't know that it would. What's the latest minor league baseball story you can tell us, either as a longtime season ticket holder for the Knights, but what we found a lot of interest in was your summer interning with the Asheville Tourists? Yeah, well, and you know, we keep talking about the sidelines and bloodlines book, you know, available for pre-order now, by the way, and but the next one I want to write, I'm already telling my book agent, is I want to write this Asheville Tourist book, and it's the summer I work for the Tourists, and if that happens, then I'll be calling you, because I absolutely 100% am going to need all those stories that you've recorded. Hopefully you guys still have them. We'll write you a foreword or something of the sort.

We'll be in there somewhere. Yeah, well, my memory's not as good as anyone I'm telling the stories of you guys, but no, it's, well, I remember that summer of 94 was the first year of the Hickory Crawdads, and they had the brand new LP Frond Stadium there on the river, and it's still a great little ballpark, and the Crawdads were a national phenomenon. They thought they were going to get Michael Jordan. In fact, I have a 1994 Hickory Crawdads media guide, and Michael Jordan's bio is in there, because they thought there was a chance they might have Jordan. That's the summer that Jordan played baseball, and of course, we all saw, I just saw that in The Last Dance, and I remember we sold out all of our home games against the Crawdads preseason, because there was a chance that Jordan might be there, and of course, he never played Class A ball. I remember we had the All-Star game in Hickory, and I think I've told you before about the big fight with all the mascots. Oh yeah.

Or the game. Well, it was also later that night, like after the game, you know, they brought in like former South Atlantic League legends in there, and it was like Mudcat Grant, and I think one of the Negroes was there, and they're signing autographs. Well, we, after the game, we load up in the back of some van, and some guy that worked for the Crawdads, like, I'm going to take you guys to this road house, and we went to a really, really dicey cinder block bar, like two o'clock in the morning, somewhere out on the interstate, and I mean, it was, everything about it was questionable, and there's no way it was up to code, but we walk in there, and I don't want to be there.

Like, these guys are drunk, and I want to go home, and I want to get back to Asheville, and then as we're sitting there, and I'm thinking, well, I guess I'm going to be the designated driver, because none of these guys can walk, let alone get in the van and drive. I look over at the bar, and Minnie Minoso is sitting at the bar, and I guess he was one of the South Atlantic League legends, and so I walked over to the bar, and I said, are you Minnie Minoso? And he turned around and said, I'm bleeping, bleeping, bleeping, bleeping Minnie Minoso. And I said, well, could you sign my ticket? And I have my ticket from the game, and I swear to you, it's Minnie Minoso's signature, but you wouldn't know it, because I don't know how much rum they were trying to sell in Hickory, North Carolina that night, but Minnie Minoso drank all of it.

And there you go. And before the night was over, and I'm like, all right boys, let's get in the van. I got to take y'all back to the motel.

Minnie Minoso was asleep. He had his face was down on the bar, and I have no idea whatever happened there that night. It always delivers. It always does. Oh man, I can't wait to read the book. I really, I just, I'm about, I started the Malcolm Gladwell book recently, the newest, and after I'm done that, I need something else, and I think it's going to be Sidelines and Bloodlines, and excited to pick up that book. And we got to get Dad on the show, because he's a better storyteller than I am, and it's his book, and I'm just excited to be able to give him that platform.

But yeah, we need to get him on the show, because there are great stories in the book, and then there's some that weren't in the book, because in the words of my father, we need a couple key people to die first before we can tell those stories. We look forward to it, Ryan. Thanks for doing this. Thanks, boys. There you go.

That's Ryan McGee on Twitter at ESPN McGee. That segment went way too long, Robert, but I don't care. Not one bit. I don't care at all. Minnie Minoso. Every single time it delivers.

In honor of the NBA getting set the restart, I'll list off my top 10 NBA players of the decade next. Join B. Dot and I on Instagram Live later on tonight.

We're trying something new. Eight o'clock. I do not know what we're going to be talking about for the extent of those 30 minutes, but every time B. Dot's in studio with us for an hour, the hour just blows by, and we feel like we could probably do six or seven hours. So I feel like the 30 minutes is going to fly as well.

It's going to be a lot of fun. We'll talk sports, maybe some other stuff as well. So we last night asked listeners in the audience to send us some potential topics to cover, and there was one cent that just had me thinking too much today not to include into the radio show. So the question, if NBA players, NBA stars were Disney characters, which ones would they be?

Of course, all the players are in Disney. So this became like a really just short, fun exercise where I immediately listed off people. But the moment I got Robert involved in the proceedings, that's when it became really serious. Where Robert took exception to some of my characterizations, and then he threw out better examples. So I have about a dozen here that I like, and Robert has a handful too that he's going to throw in here. NBA players, if they were Disney characters, I think you gotta go LeBron James being Simba.

I think that's the easiest connection to make. Leader of the pack, king of the jungle, King James. He's the Lion King. It's Lion King James, if you will.

JR Smith, same team. Let's hear it. Dory from Finding Nemo. This is one of my favorite ones you did. He's not going to remember the score. He's not going to remember how many shots of Hennessy he's taken in his bedroom. JR Smith, Dory from Finding Nemo.

Just keep shooting, just keep shooting, just keep shooting. So 3-3-6-7-7-7, 1-600 if you want to play along with us here. Do you want to pitch one that you came up with?

Yes, I do. Dwight Howard, also on the Lakers, we're very Laker-centric right now. I compared him to Forky from Toy Story 4. Because he's trash.

Keep it together, you gotta deliver the jokes well. Sorry, he's trash. Yes, he's trash. Forky is made out of a bunch of different parts. I feel like Dwight doesn't understand what part of his game he should isolate and use the best. So yeah, Dwight Howard is Forky from Toy Story.

Kawhi Leonard is goofy. Very distinguishable laugh, we can agree. Can you do a goofy laugh? I guess something like that.

Yeah, there you go. If you have a good goofy laugh, 7-7-7-1-600. Kawhi Leonard is goofy. He's a bit of a lazy type. I've never seen goofy lazy. I feel like they make him do everything.

Goofy, I think he's kind of like the kickback, laid-back type. Kawhi is the load management type. So I think there's a good marriage there. This might be the biggest layup of the bunch. LeBron is Simba. Pretty easy to come up with. Giannis as Hercules.

Oh yeah, for sure. Built Greek godlike, if you will, the Greek freak. Giannis is Hercules.

Give me another one that you have on your list. I'm just thinking about this now, but Mike Budholzer and then his team. Mike Budenholzer. Budenholzer, he's his Phil. He is the character that Danny DeVito plays.

Mike Budenholzer, he's the horse. No, no, no. He's the guy who's like a centaur.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another one for you here. Russell Westbrook as Gaston.

Wait, you're going to have to explain this one to me. Gaston from Beauty and the Beast? Yes, he is a large... He's like a villain type, isn't he?

Yes, but see, okay, most people's problem with Russell Westbrook is that he just wants to come in and shoot. He just wants to come in and take the game over. That's all Gaston wants to do. Gaston wants to storm the castle. He wants to kill the beast.

He wants to get Belle's hand in marriage and he's going to do everything in his power to do that. Was Gaston a good leader? No.

Is Russell Westbrook a good leader? No. Are they both jacked and athletic freaks who would probably eat five dozen eggs and now they're roughly the size of a barge? Yes.

Are their truthers always truth-ing it up? Yes. James Harden is Rapunzel just because it's not... The fact that you have long hair can't be the most interesting thing about you. Right.

You're not very interesting just because your hair is long Rapunzel and your hair, your beard being massive, having a massive flow, it's not really that compelling. Yeah. No one's coming to Houston to rescue you. It's Gaston who's going to show up and just blow the lights out. There you go.

Kevin Durant. I spent a lot of time thinking about this one. I think he's Scar from Lion King. I can see it. Because he's mischievous. He's trying to stir things up.

He's going to disseminate misinformation via a burner account. I.e. the hyenas. Yeah. The way that Scar's telling Simba that he's the reason that Mufasa got killed. You better get out of here Simba. Right. KD is Scar from Lion King.

I like it. Joel Embiid. Who's? Genie from Aladdin. Oh connect the dots.

Compare for me. All powerful but incredibly limited too because he is shackled by having a point guard that cannot shoot a three and a bad coach. Joel Embiid. Also he's very good at throwing out zingers just like Genie did. The one-liners. I would love to see Joel Embiid as Genie.

And I mean I've seen a number of pictures of him shirtless. All right. Give me give me another real quick.

Give me another dis. NBA Disney character. I feel like this was a layup based on physical appearance. I've got Boban Bogdanovic the large seven foot player who has also a large face. I have him as the hunchback of Notre Dame. Are you a Notre Dame? Notre Dame person.

Notre Dame I think the movie but Notre Dame is the name of the football team or the name of the school. So they're both physical freaks whether it comes to their looks or what they can do on the court. And at one point Boban I think was the most efficient basketball player in the NBA based off minutes because he was getting like rebounds, assists, points, steals, blocks, the whole nine yards. And Quasimodo does a lot of that too with ringing the bells, making sure the gypsies aren't too close to the tower.

He had he also had a lot of things that wouldn't show up on his stat sheet. Three more I have here to knock out. Andrew calls at 777-1600.

I don't want to forget about those. Steph Curry's Peter Pan because he still has a lot of little boy in him. He doesn't really want to grow up.

You know I don't know when Steph Curry's gonna look like a man, act like a man, play like a man. I don't know. He's Peter Pan. Let's go to the phones really quickly. Who has a nomination here? You have got Doug right now. Oh Doug. Doug has one for Zion Williamson. What do you got Doug?

Josh he's your boy. I mean it's a natural buzz light eater. Yeah I like that.

Do you want to explain why it fits? Yeah he doesn't need wings. He just fights to infinity and beyond.

He just has his own jet built in. There you go Doug. Thanks for the phone call. Brent writes in. Does this deserve a bell or an X? Nicole Jokic is Sully from Monsters Inc. A hundred percent.

We talked about this earlier. A large man who's doing his best to support this team, to keep this scream industry up. I love it. How do you feel about this one? Kyrie Irving is Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Only if you do the voice.

The earth is flat. I'm not happy being on a team with LeBron. I know we won a title and I hit a really big shot but I want to go to Boston and now I want to make an Uncle Drew movie and go to Brooklyn. Is that movie not out yet? I thought it was already. That movie's been out for a long time.

Has he? Have you seen it? It didn't really have good ratings. The box office wasn't that good. He's definitely Eeyore.

I don't think we should play in the bubble. Last one I have here. Jimmy Butler is Hades from Hercules. I can see it. He can get hot from time to time. And on top of that, he works the mouth out quite a bit.

Yeah. He can dish it out. He gets really hot. Streaky shooter. Plays for the heat. He's also always got something to say.

Like you said, running his mouth. Hades is Jimmy Butler. I like that. I think we knocked this out of the park.

Let me see some of these other ones on Twitter. Roy Hibbert is Eeyore, not Kyrie. Roy Hibbert isn't it? Is Roy Hibbert still in the league?

I don't think so. Last I saw Roy Hibbert, he was on the Kobe Lakers team that last year. That's the last I remember seeing Roy Hibbert in the NBA. He played for the Lakers. He never played for Golden State. Yeah, you're right. It was the Nuggets. Oh, he was also a Hornet too. How could I forget about that?

He's a coach on the 76ers in charge of player development currently. Yeah, that's the guy I want teaching Joe LMB. All right, Ben. Way to go. Just take it up from the three. Nope, don't take a three, Ben.

You're not gonna make it. Larry Sorenson was a Major League Baseball All-Star. I thought you were going to compare him to a Disney character. Mickey Mouse. There you go. That's Larry Sorenson.

That's how I feel about that guy. I'm not going to do this, read Mickey Mouse's voice. Why not?

Why would you not do it? I don't think that's what people want. Actually, I know that's what people want. You don't know what we want, Josh. Just read it. How about I just give you room to do what you just did there at the end in between this tease here? How about I do that?

In a 60-game season, what kind of big league teams are going to benefit? When are you going to tell me, Josh? Now you're improvising. Great. We'll discuss that with Wake Forest Football color analyst Wake Forest Football color analyst Larry Sorenson and talk a lot of balls.

Well, next on the drive. We are now being joined by Wake Forest color commentator, former Major League Baseball All-Star Larry Sorenson. I want to get more stories out of you from particularly minor league baseball days because I think those stories are best. You told us how you got a Bull Durham style rain out once upon a time. Ryan McGee really brought it earlier in the show where he told us about the time where he was dragged to a bar late at night when they were honoring a bunch of all-stars from I think the Atlantic League way back when and Minnie Minoso was sitting there at the bar and he had way too many drinks. Robert, I don't know what kind of drink he was going for but I think the way Ryan McGee put it was I don't know how much rum the town of Hickory was looking to sell that night but the contents of all of the rum in the city was in Minnie Minoso's stomach that night.

He was like passed out at the bar. That was a fun story so maybe we can visit that in just a bit but I just want some baseball analysis now that we know the season's going to start this week. Thursday night Dr. Anthony Fauci going to throw the first ball out for the world champion nationals. What teams, given the fact that it's only 60 games, given that a lot of it's going to be condensed to fit it all in before the playoffs in October, what types of teams do you think will benefit most from the way this season looks? I think the teams that kept their, and how you doing Josh?

Good to talk to you. I think the teams whose pitchers prepared themselves ready to have the season start immediately are going to be the ones that get hot because it always takes the hitters a little bit to catch up and I think and I think that since it was a shortened time the guys that are going to have the pitching staff that are a little bit further ahead and this is nothing new but they'll be the ones that'll hit the chute. The interesting thing is is everybody believes they've got a shot. I was talking with the major league pitcher from the Pirates the other day and he said hey we come out hot we're right there and it ends you know so there and I see some of the things the Tigers are saying and so everybody believes that in with only two months to play anything can happen. Do you think with the way that pitchers are generally ahead of hitters this nightmare scenario that baseball purists are bringing up hey in 60 games what if somebody hits 400 will they even acknowledge it? Is that something you think is even possible? I do think it's possible and that's a that's a number that is a you know very revered record for stats guys and it would be I think you got to put an asterisk by that if it happens just because it's not over the usual period of time and it's just it's just an abnormal situation with everything we do and I don't think that you can generalize and classify everything under one umbrella.

I think you've got to take things individually. All right I'm interested if the rainout story is one of the best you got give me another example of a good minor league baseball story Larry Sorenson with us by the way I'm sure you're stocked full of them. Well you know what minor league stuff not really because I was less than a year in the minor leagues I was six weeks in rookie ball and then about a month in double a at the end of the same season and then about 12 starts in triple a and I was in the big leagues. Wow. But I do remember I'll tell you at the end of my career when I was on the way down you know it was a year on the way up and a year on the way down just about the same way but we were in Albuquerque and we had a rain out and there was a big sports bar and I was with the Giants organization in triple a and there was the Phoenix Firebirds so we were in a bar in Albuquerque about 10 or 12 of us and we got the bar owner to turn there was nobody else in the place we got the bar owner to turn the turn the satellite dish onto the Giants game and we're watching the Giants and a pitcher got hurt and everybody turned and looked at me and this is you know this is 12 30 at night right so it's been a long night if you catch my drift.

Yeah. And I was kind of mini minoso everybody was kind of mini minoso like at that point so so a pitcher gets hurt and goes down and everybody turns and looks at me and says you're going to the big leagues tomorrow and I said yeah right and sure enough about 15 minutes later the telephone rings and it's Wendell Kim our manager and they and the bartender says is there a Larry Sorensen in here and then and everybody pushed me to the phone. Hey Wendell how you doing? You know you're going to the big leagues tomorrow morning you got a seven o'clock flight. What do you remember about that flight? It wasn't pretty it wasn't pretty because all my stuff was in a condo in Phoenix and you know you got to make arrangements to get all that stuff shipped to you and the way that I joined the Giants was a little bit odd I was out of baseball for about three months or so I'd had a quick stint in AA with the with the Reds and decided to retire in in May and went home and in July they called me and the Giants called and said have you been throwing are you ready to go I said oh I've been throwing every day I didn't even know where my equipment was I hadn't touched it we were moving to Detroit all my stuff was on the was on a van on a moving van and I'd have Mike Krukow mail overnight me a glove and some shoes and stuff so that I could play when I got to Phoenix.

That's tremendous he's on Twitter at Larry with one R Sorensen. Since we are supposed to be playing football in a little less than a month and a half I'm just interested in your general confidence level based on what you're reading that football is going to start on time. Ed Orgeron he said over the weekend too Ryan McGee that he is absolutely confident there's going to be football but he doesn't know how many games or when that's going to be. There it seems to be a lot of smart people I rely on in football believing that they're going to either shorten the season or push things back.

Where are you at right now? Well you know with some of the smaller conferences already having said that they're not going to play it takes games off the schedule so just my own personal opinion I'd be pretty surprised if they got those early non-conference games in against the old dominions and schools like that because I just think that there's too many variables still to be found out in the next two months about what exactly is going to happen with the with the schools and students themselves. I don't see how they can not have students on campus and still expect the student athletes to participate in games on the weekend if you're not going to have students taking classes in the buildings that doesn't seem to make sense just again my personal opinion but I think there's just so many variables about what's going to happen in all parts of the country to really make a prediction.

What I'm hearing is that the end of this month is when they want to try to make some kind of a decision about the ACC. Yeah and it looks like that's going to happen in the next week or so so the next time we chat the next time we chat we'll we'll know more and hopefully we're talking about football sometime soon. Thanks for the stories thanks for the time Larry it's good to hear your voice appreciate you doing that. Always a pleasure Josh anytime. There you go that's Larry Sorenson from the Wake Forest... got to figure out the right way to say this. Wake Forest Learfield IMG Sports Network, Wake Forest Football Color Commentator, Wake Forest Football Color Commentator, and Major League Baseball All-Star way back when.