Gabe Lucques: The Phillies are playing .663 ball which is certainly no fluke on the 4th of July.

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Don't miss out on Black Friday in July savings at dell.com slash deals that's dell.com slash deals. I'm living my best life yeah yeah. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Here's the other surprising part. With guest host Brian Weber.

Yeah big shoes to fill. Eisen's a legend. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. The Rich Eisen Show. Do you know who I am? I'm a guy on television.

I have my own show. And now sitting in for Rich here's Brian Weber. Our number two of the program.

Always a delight to keep the chair warm for Rich. Try to maintain the momentum that he generates every single week and I appreciate you spending part of your Independence Day with us. Evidently there are some gremlins with the phone lines today.

That's okay. I am a carnival barker. I will continue to give out the phone number with the hope that perhaps later in the show or tomorrow because I'm back with you to wrap up the week with gusto for the Friday edition of the program tomorrow.

844-204-7424. Although in all candor if you happen to know who I am. Have you ever heard me take more than say two calls in the span of three hours? Just not my brand of radio.

Although I know it works for others. BW Weber. Weber with two B's is your best option on the X platform. Just had a very good football conversation with Trevor Sikkema. A pro football focus. A reminder especially during a holiday week if you miss any portion of any program you can listen anytime with the podcast.

We pushed that out immediately after the conclusion of the show. Coming up in 40 minutes because I'm a purist. I'm talking some baseball. I'm also going to take some moments right here to put in perspective what Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge are doing.

But we'll do it in entertaining fashion. Just want to be up front with you that baseball is still a topic. It is not sports talk radio poison. In 40 minutes we'll check in with Gabe Lux of USA Today. Plus I think we all need a break from the NBA analysis.

As much as I go all in during this time of the year eventually it runs its course. So unless while we're together for the next two hours or three hours tomorrow somehow Markanen's on the move or DeMar DeRozan gets traded I will adjust the format accordingly. I will venture back into the NBA in the final hour of the show when we talk with Eric Pincus. Long time hoops journalist. Check out his good work at Bleacher Report but we are shifting gears.

Coming up in 20 minutes I keep saying Independence Day because after all that is the spirit and the resonance of July 4th. That word independence got me thinking about where we are as a sports consumer culture right now. How much freedom do we truly have as sports fans? I'm not going to try to get too deep although I like to stick it to the man as much as I can.

Probably why I'm a guest host not the Brian Weber show after all. But we're going to talk about where we are now as fans and consumers and what the landscape looks like. That is coming up in 20 minutes. All right I've given you enough of an opportunity to say no he's talking baseball. I am not reading box scores. I am not going through real-time updates across the bigs. I am not going to peruse the standings. I'm giving you an overview that I think should have much more national impact understanding where the sport is today and I'm as guilty as anybody of making a business decision years ago as someone who got into this industry because I love baseball primarily.

I realized I have bills to pay and even though I don't have any dependents if I want to stay in my regal one-bedroom apartment here in Southern California. I'm Brian Weber Infra Rich Eisen. You can pass along your thoughts on Twitter. X at me B W Weber Weber with two B's. Unless I was going to grind hard and be a major league baseball play-by-play announcer and I was around it long enough doing pregame shows for the Giants and the A's while those guys are tremendously talented off the year most are miserable because baseball is like life. There's 162 of them now if you want to take a step back and frame it in terms of the rewards of baseball if you love the sport the volume the quantity is the quality because there's a freaking game every day there's something to talk about that's why if I was filling in on WIP in Philadelphia or FAN in New York or EEI in Boston or whatever station you listen to the score in Chicago baseball is still king regionally and the fact that Aaron Judge continues to do Ruthie and things gives lazy shows a topic to discuss. Now I would not hopefully venture into that area so for example as NBA free agency is starting to drip drip drip and there's only so much LeBron I think we can reasonably discuss unless you're just looking to play the hits my man I saw this topic on one of the talking hit shows last night and this morning. Who is having a better year Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge? Now I can read you a bunch of numbers but that is mind numbingly boring from a perspective perspective of a casual fan especially on July 4th all you need to know is Aaron Judge right now has a shot at the triple crown and Ohtani is right there with him in all the major metrics in fact he's only a point behind him in batting average I'm now contradicting myself I can't help myself it's baseball I gotta dig into the numbers but Ohtani hitting 27 home runs coming back from another Tommy John procedure and I realize that the swing is very different than the pitching motion but isn't it just remarkable what Ohtani is doing now Judge is in a category of his own in terms of gargantuan talents this is my default mode let me put a little piece of paper here and a pen so I can make sure I don't get past five Paul Bunyan references if I say Aaron Judge I go right to Paul Bunyan because in the history of baseball there are only a handful of guys of his stature who are doing the kinds of things that he has done in baseball history and if I say that you know that's over a century we're talking Frank Howard not with the average we're talking Dave Kingman there are only a few dudes that big who have been able to obliterate the baseball and in Judge's defense he is not one-dimensional I mentioned the glittering batting average all those home runs he's also going to drive in a ton of runs so he's leading the league in RBI he also plays his position well in the field so I guess if you wanted to get into hot take territory you'd say advantage Judge because Ohtani is merely a DH but if we're talking versatility when healthy who has been more versatile than Shohei Ohtani if I wanted to broaden the focus and maybe this works better given how much apathy we have nationally for the grand old game I will give you an inside media perspective there's a reason every successful show talks as much football as possible because research indicates and you don't even have to look much further than tv ratings but if you do some focus groups football is so dominant you can argue I should talk football every segment every show year round I just can't do it in good conscience I have too much of either a legacy mindset or I enjoy the versatility of sports I'm not talking badminton I'm not taking you down the road of breaking down the Wimbledon draw but baseball still gets millions of people to show up still generates billions of dollars despite the fact it is the most mismanaged business in the sports world of them all so I'm watching last night the reveal of the all-stars starters and we'll talk about the implications of that with Gabe Lux of USA Today coming up in 30 minutes they also showed the all-star jerseys this is not a visual medium I'm part of the not ready for the simulcast players although one day before I retire I will be in that studio with my guy Del Tufo we worked together at NFL Network along with TJ and Chris it'll happen it's on my bucket list if you have a moment I will do my best to paint the word picture check out how hideous these all-star game unis are now we should not be surprised because baseball is so fundamentally mismanaged and broken remember the pants controversy we had in spring training and the x-rated trousers that baseball had letting you know balls and strikes in a whole different dimension so these all-star uniforms are grotesque here's a quick fix and I'm not just trying to be the guy saying everything was better in 1983 if you're of a certain age do you remember when the all-stars wore their own uniforms and how cool it was I can close my eyes and picture Dave Parker rocking those phenomenal Pittsburgh Pirates uniforms of the we are family buckos in 1979 I understand why we have these new jerseys merchandise so if you got a 12 year old kid now you're on the hook to buy him or her even more merch I get it I am not against capitalism but not everything has to be sold in terms of bankrupting your tradition and that's the problem with baseball they run away from history because they think somehow that's going to push away the TikTok generation the problem the problem baseball has is they lost generations of fans because the game became so damn boring once analytics took over and again I'm not anti-intelligence I'm typically a member of nerd nation although I got into this industry because I enjoy storytelling and baseball because of the volume because of large rosters times 162 games times 32 teams gives you more potential storytelling devices than any other sport still like anything else when the calculator crew took over it changes the fabric of the game so the baseball decline that I have witnessed over the last 15 years comes down to two things the rise of football as a better tv sport fantasy football and gambling also pushing that along although if you want to get down once you bet baseball you could do it every day although it's trickier I know you got to get into odds but if you're betting I think you can figure that out as opposed to all of us understanding the spread if you want to bet baseball I'm told go with the hot pitcher that's just anecdotal do not write that down as betting advice baseball got into a crisis when they took the human element and made it secondary in terms of running the clubs so I realize how we've arrived where we are today and even though they finally abolished or largely limited the shift they made the bases bigger they added the pitch clock which has made the game much more watchable and they should have done it years ago the problem remains the ball is just not in play enough because now pitchers have gotten so dominant and that's because if you are an eight-year-old phenom 30 years ago you played all the sports now mom and dad said hey joey guess what we're playing club baseball and you're playing year round so by the time you get to high school or the low minors you're throwing 102 and you've already had your first tommy john pitching will always be ahead of hitting and it doesn't help that the approach to what's happening at the plate says swing for the fences because the analytics crowd will tell you if you put the ball in the air the outcome is either going to be a home runner or an out you put it on the ground it could be a double play remember we're not playing baseball anymore we're playing a game of attrition trying to save 27 outs so that's what fundamentally occurred which leads me back to what i wanted to discuss greatness has to break through how repetitive and mundane the sport has become in recent years it's all or nothing at all home run or strikeout and i don't want to get into the conversation about the merits of the bunt okay i realize we're not doing satellite radio in the middle of the night but there's something to be said for variety if the whole world is zigging why don't you zag why doesn't one team try small ball just to mix it up i was so happy to see steals become part of baseball again last year i'm not saying we have to go back to the 1983 cardinals taking advantage of the concrete like turf at bush stadium and having vince coleman peeling around the bases i'm just saying i want the sport to be less cookie cutter and that's why icons like judge and otani break through and command our attention now it helps the judge wears the pinstripes because everything is bigger in new york but i get the feeling even if otani played for the yankees and the dodgers are comparable the difference is new york is and i say this as a recovering new yorker so i'm not disparaging my hometown from 3 000 miles away just like rich i grew up rich is actually part of new york city staten island i grew up on the edge i could see the bronx from our luxurious home in pellamander new york i'm brian weber in for rich eisen eight four four two oh four seven four two four hit me up on the x platform bw weber weber with two b's new york drives the cycle in terms of talking points because of the media dominance which has only gotten bigger because of where espn is located but even if otani were on the yankees i don't think he would be a larger figure than he currently is now you may say to me hey filling guy we all know otani what are you talking about my point is this 15 years ago otani would be the biggest athlete in the country arguably in the world because he's the face of baseball and i get it mahomes mahomes patrick mahomes moves ahead of him because he's the best player on the best team in football going after an unprecedented three pete in terms of three consecutive super bowls we haven't had three consecutive nfl championships won by a team going back to vince limbarty's packers with some nfl titles and then the super bowls back to back we could talk about lebron james being a transcendent global figure but there was a time and i'm not going back to 1947 when it was baseball boxing and horse racing i'm saying as recently as 15 or 20 years ago a player of the magnitude of shohei otani as a baseball star would be the biggest star in the american sports culture i could argue with his versatility because he's going to pitch again and the dodgers might want to have a conversation with him saying something along the lines of my man you're going to have a shot at winning the national league mvp award as a dh we've never had a full-time dh do it you got to go back to don baylor late in the 1970s who was only a dh for 40 of the time for the then california angels but he played the outfield as well and he won the dh is getting terribly minutia laden but if the dodgers had the mindset of maximizing otani for the entirety of the contract they could have a chat with him saying look at what you're doing right now as a hitter only with the injuries they moved him up to the leadoff spot and he's still mashing the ball because he's a singular talent the problem with that straw man argument is we know otani's very identity comes down to being a pitcher it's in his dna he forced his way to major league stardom by choosing the angels because contractually they said we're gonna let you pitch so even though you could argue because if you look at his numbers during the periods in which he hasn't pitched he's hit even better you could say show hey just be a one-way player and you're still gonna be the best or top three player in all of baseball but give him what he's already achieved an unprecedented versatility we've not seen since george herman babe ruth couldn't you argue that otani is the greatest athlete of the century and i don't do mount rushmore's but i'm just doing this in terms of an overview who else pops into your head and it's olympic year so i don't want to slight anybody who we don't talk about other than the olympic cycle michael phelps would belong in that would belong in that conversation but what otani is doing i'll give you another nugget i mentioned this out in passing yesterday but anything that can bolster my argument is healthy otani a couple nights ago became the first player in baseball history to have at least 25 homers and 50 extra base hits before the all-star break three separate times he is rewriting record books that have lasted for decades and it just feels like for whatever reason beyond our apathy about baseball as a sport there's a lot of okay he's great so what and maybe it's my own tendency to get back to the pursuit of excellence that's why i wanted to be around sports that's what not to be too self-important i strive to do every time i turn on the microphone i just appreciate what otani has already achieved and what he's currently accomplishing along with erin judge in a way that it feels like to me there should be more of a national conversation understanding the games are not played in black and white anymore and they don't take trains between cleveland and boston i'm brian weber in for rich ism we'll get back to the baseball conversation coming up in 20 minutes when we bring in gabe lux of usa today i believe i turned on the tv yes the hot dog eating contest is over i am not giving you the details i'm not trying to be a contrarian it's just not important to me maybe i'll google and i'll do a factual here's your update and we'll keep moving i do feel badly for jeremy shep you talk about a sports journalist his father dick shep basically was the first print journalist to cross over to have tv fame i mentioned the packers he co-wrote instant replay with jerry kramer one of the best football books of all time jeremy shep somehow was assigned to this event and i guess since my mindset is your best ability is availability jeremy said yeah i don't think we're doing a lot of journalism these days let me talk to somebody who just ate over 50 hot dogs since we are getting into the mindset to enjoy some gluttony as a nation on this fourth of july a reminder ready set griddle this grilling season get the weber slate rust resistant griddle with the carbon steel cooked up that feels safe for metal tools and it is a hundred percent safe so you don't have to worry about that element at all it is pre-season and ready to cook on right out of the box it's the griddle that stays ready not rusty this griddle heats evenly edge to edge so you have comprehensive coverage it reaches up to 500 degrees the weber works prep cook and store system keeps cooking supplies handy you can carry all the food condiments and utensils you need so get fired up for your new weber slate rust resistant griddle i'm brian weber no relation if i had weber grill money i would not be here on a holiday coming up on this independence day are we a sports fan we the people about to have less freedom we're getting a little philosophical here i'll explain what i mean coming up always a delight to being for rich and the fellows we roll on on the 4th of july right here on the rich eisen show hey everybody this just in it's summertime it's time to go and do all those summer things like going to a baseball game during the summer i'm about to do exactly that and i know exactly what to do and you should too you should go look forward to making new memories this year by going to a ball game using game time the authorized ticket marketplace of major league baseball which makes getting tickets faster and easier prices on the game time app actually go down the closer it gets to the first pitch so you can wait to buy your tickets with killer last minute deals the all-in prices feature you get to see how much everything is before you purchase views from your seat you know exactly where you're getting your get in your seat and the view of the field from it their lowest price guarantee of course that's game time takes the guesswork completely out of buying mlb tickets download the game time app create an account and use my code eisen for twenty dollars off your first purchase terms apply visit game time.co for restrictions again create an account redeem my code e-i-s-e-n for twenty dollars off download game time today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed let's talk o'reilly auto parts people you love their jingle you're gonna love their friendly helpful service even better because they're in the business of keeping your car on the road and the parts knowledge they have it's all you need for your maintenance and repairs they've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock either in store or online so you never have to worry if you're in a jam the team at o'reilly auto parts can test your battery for free in or out of your car if it needs to be replaced they'll find you just the right battery for your vehicle need your windshield wipers replaced a brake light fixed or quick service they'll help you there and find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help the professional parts people at o'reilly auto parts are your one-stop shop for all things auto do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online so stop by o'reilly auto parts today or visit us at o'reilly auto dot com slash eisen that's o'reilly auto dot com slash e i s e n o o o'reilly auto parts so brian weber back with you it always helps to turn on the microphone i was in the midst of a lovely rant we're back on the rich eyes radio radio network and i'm sitting at the ridge eyes purchased by granger with supplies and solutions for every industry granger has the right product for you call quick granger.com or just stop by it is amazing i did my first radio show in 1988 every 10 years or so i get on a roll and i forget to turn on the microphone that is operator error although it does point out i am live on the fourth of july and the other way i can demonstrate that is begrudgingly passing along the results of the hot dog eating contest in coney island i am not making this a topic i just spent a good portion of the opening monologue trying to contextualize the greatest athletes of this century joey chestnut is not going to be part of that conversation still to give you the overview joey chestnut set the record in this gluttonous competition quote unquote with 76 hot dogs and buns remember you gotta eat the buns that was a few years ago 2021 last year was down to 62 your winner as he was chowing away chowing away with 58 hot dogs a fellow named patrick bertoletti and now you know the rest of the story i had an eloquent opening right there i cannot believe i forgot to turn on the microphone it happens everyone although i know some of you out there listening probably of the mindset dead air was much more riveting than yours truly talking about deep things like sports freedom on the 4th of july coming up in 10 minutes we'll get back to the baseball conversation when we check in with gabe luxe of usa today not to get too deep and i'm not getting political but it is interesting to me as someone who does spend far too much time thinking about this stuff if i'm going to be candid it's been the most important thing in my life since i was 19 years old so a 35 year run it's not over but i'm trying to have a little bit more balance but as i think about where we are as sports consumers because it should be clear in addition to enjoying a hot dog or 12 i consume a ton of sports media listen to a lot of sports talk radio even though i don't enjoy the talking head shows i've hosted them so maybe i am hate watching as you kids say it is a fascinating time for all of us in terms of how the media landscape is evolving so if we're talking about freedom we have never had more freedom as a collective a group of sports fans than we do now if you are interested in watching anything you can find it and what a magnificent development that is as much as i romanticize growing up in the 80s there was the game of the week on nbc so living in new york if i wanted to see andre dawson on the cubs i had one shot a week in addition to wgn but my old man was very cheap and we didn't get cable until i was deep into my teenage years but i'll save that for my therapist so we've never had more options it is a wonderful time to be a sports fan i don't care what your niche sport is because i say that in fairness if you're not part of football basketball baseball maybe hockey for example i spent 20 years off and on at the tennis channel if you love wimbledon you can now watch every court simultaneously on your phone unbelievable technological events now here's the problem we've hit peak sports tv for lack of a better term content is the broadheading but you know what i'm talking about i think you've realized what's coming for all of those years that we bash cable tv and i'm with you because it ain't fun to see the cable bill go up and up and up and for years it was a monopoly so they held us hostage but for all the hand wringing and consternation about getting ripped off by the man with the cable company because you couldn't pick what you wanted why do i get all these channels well how do things look now so for example if you're someone who needs to see every nfl game you do realize you're going to have to sign up for even more streaming platforms this year because christmas day is going to be owned by netflix we already had the peacock we already had the peacock experiment last year and i'm treading lightly here because i realize who i'm filling in for and rich eisen was a visionary he took this show to the roku channel and me nominated simulcast now the difference is that's free and my only dilemma and it's not a huge conundrum in my life will be fine either way is the more things go beyond the mass appeal like watching a game on network television the more we wind up in silos the less we have in common now i understand there are workarounds and i guess you kids on tiktok have pirated streams i'm not even talking about that i don't want to get into the dark web but there are generations of sports fans who never watch games anymore they just watch the highlights on social media and that seems odd to me because half the fun of watching a game is the organic development okay your team's now 14 in the second quarter but you know there's a long way to go so if you're only seeing the dunks and the threes do you have a real sense of how it played out and again maybe i am just stuck in the past but i do think we've reached the tipping point and there's going to be more and more outrage is a strong word but pushback from sports fans are going to say wait a minute i'm used to getting the games in a very straightforward fashion for example there are cable blackouts that have continued because of carriage wars between regional sports networks and the cable behemoths that say a large portion of the country can't watch the Atlanta Braves right now and i guess the answer is you could turn on the radio but we've gotten accustomed to a golden age of content everything we wanted right in front of us largely in a straightforward economic fashion if you can pay your cable bill now it's going to be if you go out and get every streaming every streaming service you're going to need to watch every nfl game espn plus amazon peacock netflix now coming online i'm sure i'm overlooking something paramount plus is free but you get the point i'm making here it's actually not free but the games are mere simulcast from what you get over here on cbs so i don't think you're missing anything right now if you add up every platform you need to watch every nfl game and i was picking the nfl because the mba is going to amazon after next season as well you're going to wind up paying more than you currently do so i'm fascinated to see how that impacts the industry because sports has been the one thing that has been recession proof we've never had a pullback in fact we've had unbelievable growth as seen in ratings player salary franchise value why do you think the celtics are for sale right now there's a sense it's the top of the market but i do worry about generations of sports fans who are just not as connected to the games the way we were because they're all on in prime time or they're gonna have to say hey dad can you sign up for peacock and i can't have an issue because i grew up in the household run by a very frugal father i can't have a problem with parents saying i got to draw the line someplace and kids will figure it out but it just to me feels like we've reached a very important inflection point so on an independence day enjoy what we have now because it feels like we've hit a new horizon in terms of having less freedom and spending more as sports as sports consumers i'm brian weber remembering to turn on the microphone it is important in the audio realm hit me up on the x platform bw weber weber with two b's coming up we will take you around the bases talk more baseball with gabe luxe of usa today in fact we'll focus on the second city the white sox were supposed to be awful and they've lived down to those expectations the horrid team but what happened to the cubs a lot of folks picked them to win the central and they have been equally dreadful so far we'll find out when we check in with gabe luxe of usa today i'm brian weber i appreciate you spending part of the 4th of july with us on the rich isin ship so shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business shopify is there to help you grow shopify helps you sell everywhere from their all-in-one e-commerce platform to their in-person pos system shopify's got you covered shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers with the internet's best converting checkout 36 percent better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms and sell more with less effort thanks to shopify magic your ai-powered all-star what i love about shopify is how no matter how big you want to grow shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level shopify powers 10 percent of all e-commerce in the u.s and shopify is the global force behind albert's rothies and brooke linen and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175 countries plus shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way because businesses that grow grow with shopify sign up for a one dollar per month trial period at shopify.com westwood one all lowercase go to shopify.com westwood one now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in shopify.com westwood one it's kickoff time and believe podcasts are here to get you ready for the season he wanted to change the culture and he wanted me to be a part of that with believe you get immediate reactions game previews and expert analysis from all 32 teams plus all of your favorite college teams he's just rare in just about everything he does sideline to sideline end zone to end zone this was good for everybody just search believe that's b-l-e-a-v podcast wherever you listen welcome back to the rich eisen show radio network brian weber with you i'm sitting at the rich eisen show desk furnished by granger with supplies and solutions for every industry granger has the right product for you call click ranger.com or just stop by let's talk baseball always a pleasure to check in with gabe lux of usa today gabe i appreciate you taking the time on the fourth of july how are you i'm good brian how are you i am doing well and let's start with the news that was announced last night the all-star starters became official philadelphia having more validation in the midst of a very effective year on the diamond three quarters of the infield will be phillies gabe i realized that bryce harper and kyle schwarber currently banged up but when we take a step back and look at all of the positive things have been happening in philadelphia this year why do you think this team has been this good yeah you know it's so typical in baseball but it comes back to pitching and uh you know the star power on the team is immense and the the stars play like stars you know when you're talking about harper when you're talking about schwarber and jt real muto when he's uh when he's healthy and now alec balm is uh stepping into that role you know leads the majors with the 70s lead the national league with 70 rbis but uh you know you get to that great base of starting pitching and it's just remarkable what they've gotten not just from zach wheeler uh not just from ranger suarez but now from christopher sanchez uh you know all of those guys with eras under three uh and and going you know six seven innings and outing absolutely um you know unheard of to have a staff that does that uh in this day and age and then you know erin nola pitching even even better than he typically does you know but uh certainly justifying the fact that they decided to refine him and then a real lights out bullpen as well so you know they can kind of you know it's so hard to do in in this game but they can kind of impose their will on teams uh whether it's uh you know with the you know the offensive explosions or winning you know tight games with with the bullpen uh with good starting pitching or simply outlasting the other team out flanking them because their bullpen is that deep uh you know they're playing 663 ball which is uh certainly no fluke on the fourth of july when you get to this point in time so yeah they uh they they are certainly the juggernaut that their record makes them appear to be 663 is borderline insane as we continue with gabe lux of usa today here on the rich isin show so gabe i mentioned i watched the broadcast revealing the all-star starters i also saw some hideous all-star game uniforms did you catch that at all and i don't want to be a prisoner of the past why can't we go back to what worked in the 70s and 80s when the all-stars wore their own uniforms i actually did a story on this uh last summer uh in seattle uh you know kind of pulled the pulled the major leaguers about it most of them wanted to wear their own uniforms you know the the cool the cool thing of just seeing everybody represented everybody out there uh kind of uh backed up by the fact that uh the modern uniform especially in this mikey fanatics modern parent just you know the the game specific uniform just doesn't look that good uh you know there well the borderline pornographic as we found out in spring training right right right right you know the the names don't look great on them uh you know it's uh it's it's a massive failing by nike really and uh people you know it's kind of funny you hear uh sort of press box wags complaining about things and like oh why is there so much talk about the uniforms why is this even a story well it is a story because this is an area of the game that major league baseball has identified as important for marketing purposes uh important you know to kind of connect to kids and and to sell you know more merchandise to people and some people will just blindly buy whatever they put on the rack that's fine they'll make their money but uh you know if uh you know the sneaker heads out there the uniform aficionados out there think they're ugly they are objectively ugly you know that's a problem that's a big failure if you're you know creating a product that people think is cool and wants to identify with and and you know they're they're objectively not great uh that's that's a you know a significant failure on on the part of major league baseball and its business partners uh at a time when they're making inroads positively in a lot of other ways and uh you know doing the best they can to kind of juggle this uh this tv streaming reckoning that's uh you know been coming down the pike for about a decade now you know it doesn't seem that hard to make a really good looking aesthetically pleasing uniform so i don't know i don't know when they're gonna you know supposedly they're going to course correct by next year uh you know the the proof will be and whatever they they put on the hanger come february i guess appreciate the analysis i'm glad that also tapped into what you were writing about last summer i'm brian weber aim for rich eyes and we're talking baseball with gabe luxe of usa today gabe i spent the opening portion of this hour detailing the transcendent season that aaron judge is putting together he's got a shot at the triple crown albeit here early in july however if we take a big picture look at the yankees since june 15th a record of four and 12 that's the worst in all of baseball so what has led to this rough patch yeah i think it's uh you know this could be way oversimplifying things but it could simply just be a matter of they weren't as good as they were when they were playing 700 ball they're not as bad as they are right now um you know and it's kind of interesting they were able to overcome you know the slow start of aaron judge which seems like eons ago right and maybe in reality it was only about three weeks to a month uh you know which you know april is a very tough month on guys and obviously he's been a triple crown winner since then but uh yeah everything was going great for a while there from you know may may to mid june you know about a six seven week stretch where everything was chiming and now things have hit a wall a bit you know i think you just look at louise eil uh you know american league pitcher of the month in may untouchable in may and now here's a guy a couple years removed from tommy john surgery uh and which isn't to say that he's hitting a wall necessarily but uh you know he's certainly maybe getting into some uncharted waters with regard to uh you know making you know more than than you know he's up to 17 starts now that's that's definitely more than that more than a half year you know he's going to be a 30 start guy for the first time in his career that's uh that's a pretty significant leap for that guy for a guy who didn't pitch at all in 2021 who only pitched in 2023 in the major leagues only pitched four minor league innings last year so you know you got those guys hitting hitting that wall radome not pitching as well as he used to be doing uh clark schmidt is on the i.l and it's probably going to be on the i.l into august and he pitched to a 2.52 era you know so it's uh a little bit of a depth is being exposed uh you know some of the performance isn't matching what it is but uh you know i think they're going to be fine i know it's a it's a kind of a blinking red light right now they're two games behind the oriel's uh you know and and certainly you know right there for for having the best record in the american league so i don't know if they'll be as good as they were in may but i certainly don't think they're going to be as bad as they've been for these last three or so weeks gabe we have just a handful of minutes left in this hour it's an expansive question but you always do a good job of crystallizing your thoughts so the whole point of the recent rule changes in addition to speeding up pace of play and the pitch clock has worked magnificently was also to get the ball in play more often hence let's limit the shift let's have bigger bags why do you think pitching is still so dominant even after these rule changes yeah it's uh it's kind of crazy the league-wide batting average right now is 242 in the final year with the shift with everything else it was 243 so it's it's it has now corrected back you got rid of shifts you added the pitch clock the batting average went up to 248 ops went from 706 to 734 well now that's all falling off a cliff the ops again is back down to 705 i don't think it's going to be that bad you know all those numbers have gone up the last week i don't know if you've noticed but it's been pretty hot lately oh wait are hitters heating up with the weather we are talking baseball game i love the old bro oh and it's you know i think it's kind of true we're obviously pretty far removed from the uh you know from the days of april uh you know cold weather and guys you know you know they're trying to shake the cobwebs but uh the ball is flying right now and i you know i don't know if uh mlb did one of its little uh let's see some happier baseballs in there but uh it's definitely carrying more than it did you're starting to see those uh you know those returns with the uh the higher some higher scores uh and whatnot but no it's uh to the to your greater point it's absolutely true it's uh you know it's it's harder than ever to hit i think just because again so many people are throwing 9 500 miles an hour relievers are better than ever uh and scouting reports this is probably the biggest thing to me the thing i hear most consistently uh that they you know they will find a hole and they will exploit it and i think it's just the fact that they've gotten so finite that it's not just pitch to this quadrant but uh you know pitch to even this spot within this quadrant and pitchers are so good now that they can they can hit that and uh you know it's it does seem like a paradox because it's like you know nobody can hit everybody's blowing out their arms right it just seems like you know both sides of the ball are suffering but uh and at the end of the day i think it's it's the hitting piece of it that's still you know is struggling and uh there's only so much major league baseball can do to prop them up and you know you talk to a pitcher about it and they bring up a very good point which is since 1969 virtually every rule change has been to benefit hitters and so they're they're getting a little salty about all the things that are being taken away from them starting with the you know the lowered mound ever since you know bob gibson's epic 1968 season so yeah it's there's only so much you can do to kind of uh artificially pump up uh pump up the hitters but it's uh it's still a flog for them certainly gabe outstanding information as always i really appreciate you taking the time on the 4th of july hope you and your family enjoy the long holiday weekend okay you got it brian thank you man gabe luxe of usa today is outstanding and looking ahead if i'm lucky enough to sit in for rich on labor day i will write a note to myself turn on the microphone secondly we will talk some baseball in addition to going all in with football college football in the nfl on labor day and when i talk to game my first question will be game balls are flying out of the yards does that mean the ball is juiced because that's how it works in baseball right i go back to the old sinatra lyric all or nothing at all a myriad of strikeouts or a slew of home runs we are getting ready for the final hour of the program hop aboard on the x platform bw webber webber would to be straight ahead a couple more thoughts on nba free agency why did the league kill all the drama by design that is coming up as we continue on the 4th of july on the rich eisen show welcome to talkville the ultimate smallville rewatch podcast season four i'm glad that it's over i'm glad that it's over um as as we know now that season five is supposed to be one of our better seasons obviously the tattoo storyline you know how i feel about that you hating that storyline brought me a lot of joy because i kept waiting to see how it was going to keep going and then how they would somehow settle it binge seasons one through four of talkville before season five begins wherever you listen you