Cam New-Town

Welcome in to a Monday Drive and I want to start the week talking about Cam Newton because I believe good things are on the horizon for him. Sure, Cam remains unsigned but that hasn't stopped him from posting videos on Instagram of him shirtless looking jacked or even playing hoops with Todd Gurley or even wearing a cowboy hat or even throwing the Odell Beckham Jr. If he continues to be patient, I expect Cam is going to end up quarterbacking a playoff team sooner rather than later.

He's going to have plenty of options I think sometime soon because I expect more teams are going to field three quarterbacks this year than normal. See, much like sports radio, football is a copycat business. When Tony Sperano ran the Wildcat offense nearly a dozen years ago, we saw a number of copycats the year after that. We see how everything's going towards college football.

After the Philly Special was ran in the Super Bowl, everybody seemed to have a play like that a year later. And the same is true in sports radio. When somebody comes up with a good idea, you see a million iterations of, hey, here's Monday's headlines or here's what you have at the top of the hour, what's trending, big four, five things at five.

You know, nobody has really original thoughts anymore. After Johnny Carson started revolutionizing late night TV, he created a model, a template, if you will, for everybody else. I think the same is true in sports. And generally, the person that's followed is the most successful.

It's the one that is most respected. When I think about the best general managers in football, one of the first ones I name off is Howie Roseman with the Philadelphia Eagles. And when they drafted the Eagles, Jalen Hurts in the second round this year, some turned their noses at it.

Some criticized it. Then you had Adam Schefter reporting, what happens if your starting quarterback gets coronavirus and has to sit out for two weeks? This is the reason why I think Cam is going to have his pick of the litter almost where he might want to go. Less than a third of the league last year carried three quarterbacks on the roster.

I think this year more than half are going to. That's why I think Colin Kaepernick is going to end up somewhere this particular season. So Cam, he's been wise sitting back, not signing immediately like Andy Dalton did or Jameis Winston did.

I think there are going to be really good options available to Cam. There's precedent for a quarterback of Cam's caliber to step in where initially he is at the starter, then become the starter and lead his team to the playoffs. I look at the most recent example being Michael Vick in Philadelphia. Vick, out of prison, was signed by the Eagles in 2009.

He was a little bit out of shape. He's been out of football a bit. Less than a year later, he's succeeding Donovan McNabb, who was an all-pro quarterback in Philadelphia. Vick became the guy. He was awesome, threw a touchdown the first play of the game in that Monday nighter against the Washington Redskins.

He was a borderline MVP candidate in 2010. 2006, Baltimore Ravens. They had Kyle Buller, who was just taking over from Anthony Wright in 2005, third year quarterback, first round pick. This was the year he was scheduled to start, but then they signed Steve McNair to compete and McNair ended up being the quarterback. Vick led the Ravens from a 6-10 season to a 12-4 2006.

Go back 10 years before that. Randall Cunningham's out of football in 96. 97 signs with the Minnesota Vikings. They already have their starter in Brad Johnson. By the end of the year, Cunningham's playing in a wild card game.

They're down, I think, about a dozen points, maybe 9 or 10 points. They stage a comeback and win a playoff game. And then the Vikings are the best team in the regular season with rookie Randy Moss in 1998. I see something similar happening with Cam. Now, if you're Cam Newton and you're trying to find the perfect spot where you might not be the starter right out of the gate, but you feel like you can compete, become the starter, and play in a playoff game, what's the best location out of the NFL teams available? I think it's the Tennessee Titans. The Titans are the team I would target if I'm Cam.

You got weapons. Short of Steve Smith eight years ago, who's a better weapon at wide receiver Cam's head than AJ Brown? You got Adam Humphreys who's available to you. Stylistically speaking, it would be a fit where you have Derrick Henry and a power run game coupled with Cam Newton, the greatest red zone threat in the history of football.

That's an appealing scenario. That's an appealing thing to project if you're Mike Rabel, an appealing option. It's a playoff team that went to the AFC Championship game last year, was leading in an AFC Championship game against the Chiefs. Plus, this is the part where I think Cam would be most intrigued in Tennessee. He would be playing for a coach who clearly has no problem moving off of his starting quarterback. A year ago, Barriota, he was the guy.

They had that come-from-behind win against Kansas City in the playoffs. You bring in Ryan Tannehill, it's low risk. I think Tannehill came out of the same draft as Cam Newton, but I don't know that for sure. Robert, see if you could check that one for me when Tannehill came out if it was the same draft as Cam.

But halfway through the year, it wasn't working with Barriota. So Rabel went to Tannehill and it saved the Titans season. Now I know they just gave a bunch of money to Ryan Tannehill, but what we learned with Vic, what we learned with McNair, what we learned with Cunningham, coaches will be willing to play the better quarterback if it's clear and obvious. And I don't think you could tell Cam Newton that he isn't as good as Ryan Tannehill. In fact, if I go through all 32 starting quarterbacks, I'd take Cam in a single game situation over two-thirds of the league.

You might think I'm a pro Cam guy for that purpose, and maybe you're right, but that's the way I feel. He's a former MVP. I think if he's healthy, and he does look healthy on Instagram, this is a guy that I think is going to start a playoff game sooner rather than later. Robert, when was Tannehill drafted? Cam was 2011, Tannehill was 2012. 2012. So they were a year off. Cam was the Blaine Gabbard and Jake Locker draft from 2011. You can tweet your thoughts in at sportsubtriad, 336-777-1600 is the phone number.

I want to shift things to Major League Baseball. Long gone summer. I enjoyed it last night. A lot of people were knocking it because there wasn't enough criticism of Maguire and Sosa. Not enough steroids talk.

Too much nostalgia from 1998. Could you have, in a laboratory, placed this documentary at a better time, a more fitting time for baseball than what we had last night? The players, they're saying by the end of business today, Monday the 15th, they want to know how many games the owners are willing to play, and they want the Commissioner to set a date for the start of the season. Right now, they're still in a labor dispute.

They can't agree to much of anything it seems like. And the reason why it's fitting for that documentary to run last night, it was that 98th season with Sosa and Maguire that rescued baseball from the lockout of 94. No World Series in the 94th season. To me, a lockout this time around, no Major League Baseball in 2020 would mark the end of baseball as a national sport. It's already been trending from a national sport to more of a regional sport.

I love baseball. This saddens me to say this, but it's something I've noticed. The interest in the sport deteriorating year after year, decade after decade, and I think a primary reason for that, we no longer have the same imagination for baseball that we once did. I don't think there's anything that can happen in the sport to capture the nation's interest like Maguire and Sosa did nearly two decades ago. Those records, Maris' 61, Babe Ruth was 60, those numbers meant something then.

They don't anymore because of what we know about what Maguire, Sosa, and Bonds did to achieve those records. Now that we have a skepticism, the Astros sign-stealing scandal, it only made it worse. We're pretty much already there, Robert, where Major League Baseball is a regional sport more than a national sport.

There were two moments that crystallized this for me. When Paul Goldschmidt, one of the five best players in baseball, gets traded from Arizona to the Cardinals and nobody cared, it didn't even make it into the news cycle, I thought baseball's in trouble. It would be the equivalent in the NBA to James Harden being traded.

That would be covered for two weeks straight, maybe even longer than that. In the middle of the summer, nobody cared about Goldschmidt being moved. Ten years ago, that would be the biggest story in sports. It barely cracked the news cycle last year. Secondly, look at these World Series results that we've gotten. We had the Red Sox facing the Dodgers, we had the Cubs winning a World Series, we've had these legendary franchises playing well, history happening, and that hasn't had the national surge of interest that 98th season had for Major League Baseball. Now you mix in a labor dispute while 40 million Americans are losing their jobs, I think it would do irreparable harm to the sport.

I think it's gonna be a little bit more popular than NASCAR, but it's only gonna be talked about in regional spots. Nationally speaking, you're not gonna hear people talking about the Red Sox or really talking about the Yankees unless you're in Boston or New York. It's shifting this way, it's been shifting this way for a while, it hurts me to say it, but damage has already been done by this labor dispute because of perception. Baseball's handled this worse than the NFL, than the NBA, than next to any other sport in America. Perception often is reality and baseball can't afford after, could not afford after the Astros sign-stealing scandal to be intolerant or just tone deaf is probably the best way to put it during a time where so many Americans are losing their jobs. They split up a number of billions of dollars.

So I think the lockout, a lockout would turn baseball officially into more of a regional sport than a national sport and I think already a lot of damage has been done. Okay, Mac Brown. I'm not sure if you saw this.

Over the weekend he landed another four-star kid from the Triad. We'll get to that and the three main reasons the Tar Heels are experiencing this recruiting surge next on The Drive. Sports Talk.

Saluting a fellow sportsman. If you're talking about it. I'm talking truth. We're talking about it.

Who are you talking to? Sports fans everywhere. A really exciting weekend for the PGA Tour. I thought it was terrific at Colonial Golf Course, the Charles Schwab challenge with that congested leaderboard, the dramatic finish that required extra holes and Daniel Berger winning out. Watching that though, I couldn't help but look ahead to mid-August and the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro as we're now being joined by the tournament director of the Wyndham, Mark Brazel.

We're less than 60 days away from teeing it up at Sedgefield Country Club. And Mark, I was just wondering, watching PGA Tour golf without fans in the tour's return this weekend, what did you think of it? I think that, obviously, nobody likes to have sporting events without fans.

It just doesn't feel right. But in the world that we live in today with coronavirus, I'm just happy to get some sports on TV, to be real honest with you. I was excited that NASCAR came back a little early. I was really excited that I loved watching Mickelson and Woods and Brady and Manning play that match. I'm kind of a sports junkie.

I love watching live sports. From a viewer and a PGA Tour enthusiast, I didn't mind not having fans as I watch it. But to hear the players talk about it, they don't love it that there's no fans out there.

But it is what it is. I think they're grateful that they have the opportunity. Speaking of the players' response to things, you talk about the Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Peyton Manning match from about a month ago. What I liked about it was that they were miked up. You got a chance to see them when they were in their golf carts. It really humanized a lot of these players. I enjoyed that from a fan's perspective.

How receptive do you think players would be to microphones to try and supplement the fact that there aren't a lot of fans there? Let's see if we can reconnect with Mark Brazel as we're having a few technical issues behind the scene. Follow him on Twitter if you haven't already.

Pretty simple. He is at Wyndham TD. Wyndham TD is his handle. The Wyndham Championship is set to happen August 12th through the 15th. So we are 57 days away from hopefully getting together at Sedgefield Country Club, or I should say from the 13th through the 16th Wyndham Championship. But we'll see if we're allowed to do so when that time allows.

We have Mark Brazel back. How receptive do you think players would be to microphones the way that we all enjoyed watching it with the match about a month ago? I've definitely heard from some that they would not like it, but I've heard others that I think would be pretty good at it and wouldn't mind it. I think Phil would be probably pretty open to it. I don't think Tiger would like it.

It doesn't sound like Justin Thomas is all that eager to do it. They've got so much to think about when they're playing these tournaments, especially on a Saturday or Sunday when it's time to go. I feel like they would probably rather it not happen then.

Maybe first round or something, but still I think if it's going to take away from their focus... So NASCAR would be enjoyed by Mark Brazel, tournament director of the Wyndham Championship. At about a month ago, we had no live sports until NASCAR returned on May the 17th. So about a month ago, and yesterday they were allowing a thousand fans to homestead and they're planning to have 5,000 at Talladega Super Speedway coming up this week. So this is the PGA Tour unrolling things, getting things back out there at Colonial, and it looked like everything went well.

Your tournament's not for another two months or very close to it. So how optimistic are you that maybe potentially there'll be some fans allowed at Sedgefield come the middle of August? I would say I'm fairly optimistic. Right now, we're basically still working through the PGA Tour and the state right now in conjunction.

They're both taking a good look at it. I felt positive that the state of Ohio is going to allow the Memorial to have sponsors and fans, like 8,000. So I have a decent feeling that if our hospitalization numbers and our case numbers don't go through the roof, that we might be able to have opportunity. I tend to agree with the NASCAR call. There are these huge stands, and you could certainly social distance and separate and wear facial coverings at a NASCAR event pretty easily, it seems to me. So same with us. We've got this huge park, basically a county park as a golf course, 130 acres, and there's plenty of room to social distance. I'll be honest with you, from a scientific standpoint, I feel like I've read enough to see that social distancing is one of the cures here, one of the things that's really going to help us to flatten the curve. And also bring down cases, but also the safe masks and the facial coverings. I think those are really important.

So we'll be pushing both of those. Mark Brazel's on Twitter at WyndhamTD, the tournament director of the Wyndham Championship. I don't know if you know this, Mark, but today is the 32 year anniversary of Bull Durham coming out. Had me thinking about sports movies. When you're thinking about the best golf movies ever made, what comes to mind first? Well, it has to be Caddyshack.

Good answer. Yeah, I think it's Caddyshack and then followed by Costner's movie. Ten Cup.

Yeah, Ten Cup. It's got to be those two. Well, I appreciate the time. I just can't wait to watch more of the PGA Tour. I thought yesterday went great with all the drama and a great loaded leaderboard. And we're all circling 57 days from now, the Wyndham Championship. I know you're excited. I am. I'm actually heading down to Hilton Head tomorrow just to kind of see all the different protocols they're putting into place and not necessarily see a bunch of players, even though I will, but just to kind of go through the whole experience to see all the different things that they're doing down there. Well, we'll catch up before things get fired up in August. Thanks for doing this, Mark. All right, Josh, take care.

Got it. That's Mark Brazel, tournament director of the Wyndham Championship. To kick off what I'm calling List Week on Sports Hub Triad, I'll list off the five football coaches in college that I would want to build a program with.

That's next on the drop. Since Cam remains unsigned, I figure we haven't done this in a while. Cam Newtown, where I try to project the best fits for Cam. This is the first time we've done this, I think, since April, since really the free agency period was coming to a close and we were focusing all sites ahead on the draft.

So this is the first draft edition of this. I have three teams that I think would be great for Cam. I think the options are going to be there because teams are going to be more likely to pick up a third quarterback in the wake of the coronavirus. You had a dozen teams last year, roughly have three quarterbacks on the roster.

I think it's going to be the vast majority of teams doing that now. So Cam might have a lot of options over the next few weeks. And here are the three options I think are best in a segment we call Cam Newtown. Number one, the best option is the Tennessee Titans. I mentioned why the Titans fit earlier in the show.

They have weapons, A.J. Brown, they have Humphreys out wide, Corey Davis. But I think when Cam has played at his best, it's in a power running offense. And what team has a better power run game right now than the Titans with Derrick Henry? Thinking about Cam and Henry in the red zone is about as good as a one-two punch you're going to find in the National Football League that should be appealing to Cam.

This is also a team that went to the AFC Championship game, was leading the champion Kansas City Chiefs in arrowhead. That's obviously what you set out to do when you go to a place, also a coach who moved on from a quarterback last year. I get Tannehill got money this offseason, but it really paid off the Titans being willing and Mike Rabil being willing to move off Marcus Mariota halfway through last year and start playing Tannehill. If Cam went in there and was a lot better than Tannehill was, then I couldn't see Rabil continue to play Tannehill. Also, the Titans need a backup.

Their best option right now is former Toledo quarterback Logan Woodside. So Cam makes sense I think for both parties involved. So that's the number one team. Number two, the Denver Broncos.

Familiarity matters. That's the real reason why the Chargers decided to go with Tyrod Taylor over Cam. The head coach, he has familiarity with Taylor that he doesn't have with Cam.

That's a significant deal when you're trying to rely on people. The Buffalo Bills, a team I can't rule out, but I think Denver is better because Mike Shula has been the offensive coordinator Cam worked with when they went to the Super Bowl. The Panthers in 15.

The roster seems ready to win now. You got weapons in Courtland Sutton. You just drafted Jerry Judy. Did you see the video of Jerry Judy's workout over the weekend, Robert? Fast feet, man.

That's ridiculous, right? So I think with Melvin Gordon also added to the mix, this team wants to win now. Von Miller wants to win now.

This is a great organization with a lot of structure in it. The Broncos would make a lot of sense. That Chargers coach, Anthony Lynn, who just slipped my mind a moment ago, he was once the OC in Buffalo working with Tyrod Taylor. It's also the reason why I think the Eagles, or make it the Bears, prefer Nick Foles to Cam because that entire staff came from Philadelphia when Foles was once there. These type of things aren't coincidental.

Lastly, this one might sound crazy. The Cleveland Browns. You got Cam working out with Odell Beckham. They have the most cap space in the NFL. There's no more excuses for Baker Mayfield not to get it done this year. So if halfway through the year he's not producing and playing the way he did a year ago with Freddie Kitchens, well then it's no longer the coach. It's probably the quarterback. And they need to win right now or else they're not going to be able to pay Olivier Vernon and Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry and all these players that are only on the roster because you have a quarterback with a rookie contract. Bring in Cam.

It's going to be a discount. Halfway through the year he starts playing, it could be a really fun season for Cleveland. So there you go. Cam Newtown, Tennessee Titans, Denver Broncos, Cleveland Browns. Those are the three best options for Cam. I can't rule out a handful of other teams. The Seahawks, they don't have a backup. The Giants, the Steelers, the Bengals, the Bills. Can't rule those teams out. Did I mention the Rams, the Falcons, those two teams? They make up the 10 teams I think could sign Cam. I was like a crazy person yesterday just scratching off teams looking at situations. I eliminated 22 teams that I think might sign Cam. I'm down to 10.

And the best three options, the Titans, the Broncos, the Browns. On Twitter, at SportsUpDrive, 336-777. 1-600 is the phone number. Larry Sorenson is going to join us in less than 10 minutes.

Wake Forest, Demon Deacons, Football Color Commentator, former MLB All-Star, Major League Baseball. It seems like it's on fire right now. An update to bring to you on that at 5.30. But I want to share this. Robert, this is a game I want to call, Is This Bad? A brief edition of Is This Bad?

And I shared a lot of this on social media. So forgive me if you've already seen it. But earlier today, I was going through a drive-thru at a fast food joint, fast food chain.

And it's not far from here. Robert, you probably even know the place I'm talking about right now. Yeah, you want me to say it?

No, don't do that. And the lady recognized my voice just when I said, she said her name, and I said, yeah, yeah, well, I just want this. I hope you're doing well. Yeah, yeah, give me my chicken, lady. I don't want to talk to you. Well, they recognize, she recognizes my voice and knows my order by heart.

Is that bad? Well, there's two ways to look at this. One, maybe she's a very attentive girl and she pays attention to customers and voices and pays attention to work. She is great. I brought it up before and we brought up the restaurant before and somebody actually called in, tweeted in that they knew the exact person at the exact restaurant saying, yeah, that person's incredibly friendly, much like me, who you've seen me in these drive-thru situations. I am an incredibly friendly person. I mean, it's almost annoyingly friendly person with you.

It's like, are you having a great day? Are you? Anyway, the bad part of that is she could be in love with you.

That's the bad part? You are a public figure. I mean, you do have a girlfriend. You are a public figure and maybe she has become so infatuated with you, listening to your order, wishing she could watch you eat it, that she remembers and then she hears your voice and she's stunned. That wasn't what I was thinking of. I was thinking it's bad because that means you eat at a fast food restaurant maybe a little too often.

I think she's in love with you and you might want to refrain from going there and if you don't want her to be peeking in your window. Next up, I've mentioned this. I don't think I talked about this with you on the air, but I went to a pretty well-to-do restaurant when they were not opening up, like you're not allowed to sit indoors. And the fast food girl was there. No.

Oh. And they asked what I want to drink. And again, you can't order beer to go at this place. So I asked, do you have chocolate milk? Oh my God, no. And they said, they laughed at me and said, yeah, we can make something up for you.

Oh my God. I ordered a chocolate milk to go with my meal in a takeout set. What did you get? It was like a burger and... No. It was a burger and some fries. I ordered a chocolate milk. What is wrong with you? Okay, so this is bad. Chocolate milk.

The last one wasn't bad, but this is bad. I don't mind you drinking chocolate milk before bed. I love chocolate milk too.

I'm trying to cut it out of my diet. I've started to go on walks now more often. But aside from that, your walks, the milk needs to be like an end of the day thing.

Maybe you're hanging out at your house. Well, it's like dinner. I mean, no. No. You are not one of these Wendy's kids that like goes through, gets a chicken sandwich, some apple slices and a chocolate milk.

That's not how it works. I didn't want to like order a water. Why? Because I have water bottles. I have water.

I carry water everywhere I go. So you don't have a Brita? Well, no. I mean, yeah.

You need to get a Brita. That's the next thing. And then that way you can just say, oh, I don't need chocolate milk.

I can just get my own water at home. The chocolate milk is bad. Lastly, in this brief edition of Is This Bad, do you get those weekly reports on your phone that says how often you've spent on your phone during the week? Oh, screen time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get screen time seven to eight hours each week. OK. Is that bad?

I don't think so. I'm on my phone a lot, too, and mine average to about six to eight hours. It's probably more than the average person because much of my job is scanning for stories and Twitter and booking guests and all these things.

It's just built in that you have to be on your phone quite often. I got a weird job, but I just didn't know, buddy, if it was if it was weird. No, that is not nearly as egregious as ordering chocolate milk with dinner. Noted. Maybe get a White Russian next time.

I don't know. Drink something there. Be like, can I get a chocolate liqueur?

I don't know anything but chocolate milk. We'll talk about Major League Baseball's ongoing labor dispute, which has updates to bring to you and also a little bit of wake football with former MLB All-Star Larry Sorensen, who doubles as the color commentator for Demon Deacon Football. Larry joins the show next on The Drive. Hit it.

Let's begin. It's on. The Drive with Josh Graham on Sports Hub Triad. It seems Major League Baseball's on fire right now, as I see some of the reports in the last 30 minutes. First off, Jeff Passan has seen the taped interview between Mike Greenberg and Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred that's going to run tonight as part of ESPN's Return to Sports special, featuring interviews with every major pro sports commissioner. Apparently in that conversation, Manfred said he's not confident there's going to be a 2020 season.

He said, unfortunately, I can't tell you. I'm 100% certain that's going to happen. It should be noted that, I don't know, five days ago, right before the draft started, Carl Ravitch asked Manfred about the state of the season. And he said, quote, unequivocally, we're going to play the Major League Baseball season this year. When asked to the likelihood, he said 100%.

That was five days ago. Seeing some other reports, Bill Shaken, who's covered Major League Baseball for a long time for the LA Times, he's reported in a letter today, Major League Baseball told the PA there would be no 2020 season unless the players waived any legal claims against the league. Translation, they're not going to play games unless the players waive a potential grievance against them. So a lot of stuff is happening. What turned out to be a health crisis is now a labor crisis for Major League Baseball. As the PGA Tour returned this past weekend, NASCAR has been going for a month. The NBA is going to start up in Disney at the very end of July, and the NFL seems to be full speed ahead. We're now being joined by former Major League All-Star Larry Sorenson, who doubles as the color commentator for Wake football.

And we'll get to the football in just a bit. But Larry, as a fan of the game, as someone who gave much of his life to the game of baseball, how frustrated are you to follow this ongoing dispute? Well, tremendously frustrated, and a lot of it is because of what you just laid out, the fact that there are so many conflicting reports so many times a day as everybody tries to posture and put what appears to be their best foot forward, and it just keeps spinning around and around and around. And to change the story, you never know. I had a player tell me last week that at 10 o'clock in the morning, he received a letter from his manager saying, be ready to report to spring training on June 10th. This was a while back, and he said later that afternoon, he got another letter from the same manager saying, put that plan on hold. And so that's how quickly things are changing. I heard from a player today that said, be ready to report to your hometown city for spring training, an abbreviated spring training, beginning Friday. So who knows?

There's just a lot of different pieces of information coming out of a lot of places. It's amazing the timing of the long gone summer 30 for 30 last night, which talked about how Sosa and Maguire's home run race saved baseball or revived baseball from the 94 strike that erased the World Series that year. How much damage do you believe has already been done as a result of this dispute to this point?

And if they can't figure it out, Larry, is it irreparable harm done, you think? Well, I'm a big believer in the game of baseball, you know, and they told me at an early age when I made it to the big leagues that and I had a great year, my first full season, made the All-Star team, as you mentioned. And I had a guy say to me, he said, don't worry about it, baseball is going to go on whether you're here or not, so don't get all excited about yourself.

And it turned out to be really, really good advice because no matter what happens, the game seems to go on. You know, we worry about are we going to lose fans to the game of baseball? Will people stop coming out because they're bitter about this fight?

Well, we've been through these fights before and people have come back. What I question is how much has the health threat changed people's habits as to whether or not they're going to start going out to the big crowds and paying for the tickets when they start saying, gee, I can just sit at home and watch it on TV and be just as comfortable? Larry Sorensen with us here on Sports Hub Triad. This weekend, I was reminded it would have been the start of one of my favorite events to watch on TV, the College World Series, which I know you've covered. Omaha, I've never been.

It's a bucket list item for me. When my alma mater, East Carolina, goes for the first time, I'm there, guarantee it. But for those who haven't experienced that event, what stories or what sticks out to you the most about what that event is? Well, for anybody that has participated as a performer or as a parent of a player or an athlete that is in any kind of event, tournament type situation where you're traveling to another city, it is that event to the nth degree. Because the city of Omaha just gets behind every single bit of the tournament. They adopt teams and they have the same fans cheering for the same team. I guess one thing that really sticks out for me is the year that Creighton made it.

And of course, Creighton is based in Omaha and the city just went absolutely nuts cheering on Creighton. And it's magnificent to be out there. The people are so into it. It's amateur. It was amateurism at its best. I did it in 1990, 91 and 92 for ESPN. Without a doubt, one of the highlights of not just my broadcast career, my baseball career, but my life.

It really was a week of total enjoyment that I looked forward to every single summer that I did it. Let's get to what you're currently broadcasting, though. Wake Forest football coming up this year. I think the biggest the biggest story of this offseason regarding the Deacs, it usually centers on quarterback.

And it's been the competition the last few years. Jamie Newman and Sam Hartman. Well, Sam seems to be the guy now because Jamie transferred to Georgia. And I see a lot of Demon Deacon fans having issue with this saying, oh, man, if we would have kept Jamie Newman, that would have been great. And it really hurts the Deacs that they don't have Jamie Newman.

Ideally, you'd want to have Jamie in place and Sam. But what I've been trying to tell Deacon fans this entire offseason, Jamie only has one year left and Sam has three. Doesn't it seem like to you, even though Jamie's getting all this hype from the SEC hype machine, that the three years of eligibility and Hartman was the player that Wake would have been most damaged losing? Well, and I'm very comfortable with Sam Hartman leading this football team. He's a terrific football player. He accomplished a lot in just his freshman year, a couple of years ago, and then had the opportunity to still play some games last year.

But gained that year of redshirt. So I'm very comfortable with him leading the football team. And I wish Jamie all the best. I understand why he made the decision that he did in my estimation. And in my mind, there are no hard feelings for the young man to do what he did because he's looking at his long term future as well. But I think that Sam Hartman will be a terrific quarterback for Wake. And the longevity is certainly a factor that you look forward to a couple of years from now.

But I think he's going to be a put him in right now when he's going to produce for you type of quarterback for Wake Forest this year. It's Larry Sorenson with us. I feel like we started things on a damper with Major League Baseball where things are currently at.

So I want to close out this way. 32 years ago, a movie called Bull Durham came out 32 years ago. And that was a two year stretch where you had eight men out, Bull Durham. You had Field of Dreams, Major League. They all came out at the same time.

You were playing at around that time. I wonder from your perspective, what's the best baseball movie ever? Well, I'm a big Field of Dreams guy because I'm a Kevin Costner fan, but probably my favorite is For Love of the Game.

And I cry every time that I watch it with Kevin Costner and the feeling of him going through in his mind what he's doing and what might be his last game is a very emotional thing and stirs up a lot of passion inside of me. So I'm going with kind of an underdog, For Love of the Game, although I do have to say that I did the Bull Durham scene, You Want a Rainout, I Can Get You a Rainout, and did it in Tempe, Arizona one day in 1976, the fall of 1976. So it can be done. Okay, I need details. Tell me more about it. Why did you give him a rainout? How did you give him a rainout? I've been playing since early spring with the University of Michigan and I pitched over 100 innings for Michigan. Then I went to minor league baseball and I went from rookie ball to double A and pitched about another 100. And then they sent me to instructional ball in Arizona and I was tired. I was beat up. I didn't really want to be there and I was scheduled to pitch the last day of instructional ball. I hadn't been back to Ann Arbor. I had tickets for the homecoming football game. I wanted to see my girlfriend. I might have been a little bit of alcohol related at the time. We went and laid a hose on home plate, went back out to some great, great college bars out in Tempe, Arizona, went back to the field about 1230 or so and took the hose off. Well, the mud was about a foot deep around home plate and then it narrowed down to about two inches deep about around first base and my Adidas footprints were all around home plate.

So they knew who did it. I didn't get in trouble, but I created a rainout for my teammates so that they would change the rotation. I drove 36 hours straight from Tempe, Arizona to Ann Arbor, Michigan and made it for homecoming. That's excellent. Larry Sorenson with us.

I actually have something for you on For the Love of the Game. I learned this last year. Apparently, the people that created the movie didn't know a lot about, I guess, arm strength, how long you should be throwing somebody. So I learned last year that the scene where he's pitching at the end, they filmed that for five to six hours. Kevin Costner throwing hundreds of pitches. And apparently there was a Yankees trainer who shot Kevin Costner full of steroids so he'd be able to get through it.

Well, I believe it because he had a pretty good looking delivery. Huge baseball fan, donated a bunch of money to Cal State Fullerton. One of the years I did the College World Series was when Field of Dreams came out and we shot the open.

Jay Rothman, who does Sunday Night Football for ESPN as the producer, had Kevin Costner come in and do the voiceover and he showed kids playing in a sandlot and walking up to Rosenblatt Stadium in their little sandlot uniforms, and they walked through the fence and they turned into players in the eight uniforms of the teams that were there. And the last line was, is this Iowa? No, this is Omaha. Oh, that's fantastic. And I agree.

Yeah, Costner has a lot better delivery than Tim Robbins did as Nick Lelouch and Bill Durham. We'll set that one aside. Maybe next time we catch up, we could talk about that. Larry, thanks for the time. It's appreciated, my friend. Anytime, Josh. Take care.

You got it. That's Larry Sorenson, former MLB All-Star and the color commentator for Wake football with the Wake Forest Learfield IMG Sports Network. Robert, speaking of baseball and things that are cheery, we need to get an update on our beloved Dinos. It is time to figure out how the NC Dinos of the KBO did this weekend in a segment we call Dinos Daily. Welcome to baseball! Come on, hombre, we need mucho home run-o. Josh, I don't know how to feel about this weekend or you're dancing every time this song comes on. I don't know why. The KBO music starts playing, man, and I can't control my arms.

Well, just try to control whatever that is you're doing. Saturday was rough. Played Kaiwoon, fourth best on the standing. So, I mean, they are a tough opponent in this in this stretch of games, but I thought NC would put up a better fight than this. They go down 18 to 5. Kaiwoon was just cranking them out.

My man, Jihok Lee. Nailed it. They had no pitcher, actually. No pitcher pitched more than two innings. They could just could not get it right on Saturday. Bullpen day, baby. Sunday, they turned it around.

They ended up taking the Kaiwoon heroes down 9 to 5. Our man Myung Kee Lee smashing the ball. Three hits, two runs, two. He got walked twice. The dude was slaying and pinging. He hit everything that was thrown at him, or at least he hit two thirds of everything. So, like I said, Dinos win 9 to 5. They are 1 and 1 against the heroes in this series.

And they still stood atop the standings 26 and 9, four games ahead of the LG Twins. Crushing it. Crushing it.

And that is your Dinos Daily Update. Remember when Mike Gundy was the adorable 40-year-old coach with the, oh, he's the guy who has the mullet. I'm a man.

I'm 40. He doesn't look really adorable now as he's saying that they need to run money through the state of Oklahoma. Have to bring players back. He wanted to bring players back on May the 1st.

Yeah. I think when Lincoln Riley spoke publicly a few weeks ago saying there would be coaches that tried to push it too far too soon. I think he was looking into his own conference and looking in his same state.

I think he was talking about Gundy. And this is just a run of tone-deafness unlike anything we've seen before. He's wearing an OAN t-shirt. I don't really care much to talk about OAN.

You could do your own homework on what they're all about. But he's wearing that t-shirt and saying nice things about them, which leads to inevitably one of his players and somebody who might very well be an All-American this season speaking out publicly. And that player is Chubba Hubbard, excuse me, who says, quote, I will not stand for this.

This is completely insensitive to everything going on in society and it's unacceptable. I will not be doing anything with Oklahoma State until things all caps change. And you have other standout former Oklahoma State players who are who are backing Hubbard and agreeing with what he's saying. Coincidentally, I haven't seen anything from Mason Rudolph. I just see a lot of noteworthy alumni and I don't see anything from Mason Rudolph. Maybe it's because, oh, he is on Twitter. Yeah, I haven't seen anything from Rudolph. Are you shocked by this? Mason Rudolph hasn't said anything yet?

No, not at all. It's probably because he hasn't seen it yet. You know, he's been working out.

Probably hasn't seen the post. Surely he's going to come out and speak out against the coach and stand up for the players who are currently at Oklahoma State, right? That guy. Tomorrow, we're going to have NC State head basketball coach Kevin Keats join the show. And I'm interested if he is the coach, because apparently one ACC coach has proposed or is set to propose this week that coaches require a game against an HBCU next year on Martin Luther King Day, January 18th, 2021. He wants all ACC schools, this one coach, to make that happen. We'll see if Kevin Keats is that coach and what his thoughts on the subject are, because I think it would be a really cool deal. Whether it's a neutral site or at an HBCU to have Duke play Central and North Carolina play at A&T and Wake Forest play Winston-Salem State and NC State play Shaw, even though Shaw I think is a D2. Still, they're in Raleigh and it would be a really neat thing just conceptually to do that. But I'm interested in talking to B.

Dot about this. He adds perspective to this show that we can't possibly have. He says he's skeptical on social media. So this will be a story as the week progresses, but I think it would be a really cool nod, a really neat idea for the ACC schools to commit to playing an HBCU on Martin Luther King, which is a national holiday, Martin Luther King Day. I also asked, if you're a football AD or just an AD in general looking to make a football hire, and your hire is coming down to Lincoln Riley or Kirby Smart, who would you hire? 78% of the polls said Lincoln Riley.

I'm a little surprised by that. A lot of SEC fans around here. And Kirby Smart, he went to the national title game and he beat Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl in order to do so in that classic overtime game. And if it wasn't for Saban benching Hertz and putting in Tua, Kirby Smart has a national title.

So I'm surprised it's this lopsided, if I'm being honest. Lincoln Riley is a lot better looking than Kirby Smart, though, which I think played a large part in that poll. How's Lincoln's hair flow looking right now, though?

I don't know. I haven't seen pictures of him. Hairline's not great. He's got the visor, though. But Kirby Smart, he has a long flow. He just doesn't do it, does a lot with it.

Kirby Smart looks like if he was a vegetable, he'd be a squash. That's well said. I'll let that be the final thought. What do you got in ticket to the house today? Who pooped on my roof? I guess that won't be the final thought. We'll figure out what that's all about next.