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How about another three? This is getting ridiculous. The Rich Eisen Show.
If you have a sombrero, throw it to this guy. Today's guest, host and comedian, Roy Wood Jr. Fox Sports College Football Analyst, Bruce Feldman. Actor, Mike O'Malley and Super Bowl Champion, James Harrison. And now, it's Rich Eisen.
That's right. Welcome to this edition of the Rich Eisen Show. Live on a Wednesday right in the middle of a sports week. The NBA has tipped off.
The NFL kicks off week number eight right here in Los Angeles up the street with the Rams welcoming in the Vikings. That's tomorrow night. We've got a fun three-hour show in store for you. A bunch of in-studio guests. Actually, every single guest we have is in-studio. The very funny Roy Wood Jr., the host of CNN's Have I Got News For You is going to be first up. Very rarely do we have a guest in-studio hour number one, but you know what we said?
Why not? I felt the same way when I saw this purple shirt hanging in my closet today. So, both things can be related and factual. Also, Bruce Feldman is going to stop by. How about Kevin Oregon is the new number one team in the country thanks to Georgia knocking off Texas.
It's quite a weekend of college football getting ready for another. He will be joining us here in-studio on hour number two from Fox Sports and the Athletic. And this is great.
This is what I love doing in this show. You know who's going to be sitting in this chair right next to me later on is James Harrison. But James Harrison, the actor, will be sitting in that chair. And next to him will be the very funny and talented Michael O'Malley, who I met as the Rick years ago when he was that on ESPN's coverage of everything from print to TV.
James is an actor in the show Heels, which is now available on Netflix after being on Starz for a while. And Mike's going to be sitting with him and we'll just be chopping up. I have no idea how that energy is going to go at all, but James Harrison is in town. And we will be chatting with him and Michael O'Malley in-studio on hour number three with you now.
844-204-RICH being the number dial. Already seeing phone lines lit. We greatly appreciate all that. Here on the Roku Sports Channel, the terrestrial radio affiliate you're listening to us on if that's the way you listen to your sports talk or Sirius XM Odyssey. And there's also TuneIn.
There's so many different ways to follow us. Our YouTube channel is just on fire right now and we love that. Especially since you can take in your podcast there, Overreaction Monday is still sitting there from Monday. Great stuff from Kurt Warner on What the Football with Susie and Amy yesterday.
TJ Jefferson and O'Shea Jackson Jr. will be giving you the latest edition of No Contest Wrestling, their second part of their conversation with Swerve Strickland coming up later on. Good to see you over there. Chris Brockman, how are you?
I'm great. The NBA season's over. It's awesome. Nice. So if the NBA season's over, it looks like your baseball season was a while ago and your football season is currently.
Is that the way it works? I completely disagree. How are you Mike Del Tufo? Good to see you. Good retort, Rich. TJ Jefferson, candle is lit over there. How are you?
I'm great. Flowers are wilting. I gotta be honest with you. It was around the hat. They fought the good fight. I don't know, but it still looks beautiful.
Flowers looked like the Knicks last night. Nicely done. You know I don't care about it, but I'm happy you're happy. Let's start this show with a trade in the National Football League. Didn't see this one coming. As always, well, interesting that you say that, TJ, because I was about to rewind a little bit to a couple of summers ago when DeAndre Hopkins was on the move and he and the Arizona Cardinals parted ways after very four successful seasons there after his successful tenure with the Houston Texans. Three seasons in Arizona, pardon me, seven with the Texans and I thought he would either go to your team, TJ, with the Dallas Cowboys, put the star on the side of his helmet, let him start taking away attention from CeeDee Lamb and at the time Michael Gallup could have used his help as well. We don't do things that make sense, apparently, Rich. I don't know if it's a cap or because they knew they had to sign Dak at some point and CeeDee Lamb, so I don't know how far back the current narratives go with why certain stars have not been signed to put the star on the side of their helmet to supplement the stars that they've drafted in Dallas, but I thought he was either going to your team, TJ, or he was going to the Kansas City Chiefs and I thought, why wouldn't the Chiefs go ahead and sign him?
Right? I mean, they had just drafted Rushy Rice. They were the defending champs and I thought this was it. And certainly since after they had just beaten the Philadelphia Eagles, one of the tweets a lot of people saw was during the game. DeAndre Hopkins tweeted out Patrick Mahomes is different with some eyes on it. And not telling any tales out of school, not on a very long limb right there, but at some point during the game, I don't know when, maybe it was when he was running. You remember on a gimpy ankle where we had ankle watch leading up to that Super Bowl and on his gimpy ankle he runs for first down right up the middle and maybe that's when it was, could have been any of his throws, could have been the throw to win the game, I don't know. But whatever it was, he decided to reach for his phone and go Patrick Mahomes is different and okay, so that's why you would want to play with him, right? He didn't.
Sign with the Tennessee Titans. Which was a choice. That we didn't understand. Because also in his remarkable career, one of 16 wide receivers with 12,500 or more receiving yards in 75 or more receiving touchdowns in NFL history and 10 of the other 15 are Hall of Famers and the others are Larry Fitzgerald, Steve Smith Sr., Reggie Wayne, Anquan Boldin, Irving Fryer.
How about that? The name we haven't mentioned around here, if ever. And he's one of three wide receivers to be a first team All-Pro in three or more seasons since 2017.
The others are Devontae Adams three times and Tyreek Hill four times and one of the many reasons why Tyreek Hill has done it four times is because of the quarterback we thought DeAndre Hopkins was going to go play with. But he didn't. And now he will.
Just like that. Because the Kansas City Chiefs traded for him this morning. It is rumored to be for a fifth round draft choice. That could become a fourth. Who knows what those potential guardrails are to potentially make this a fourth round choice for the Tennessee Titans? Literally a bag of footballs would cost more.
Like a bag. And this stat we know for sure is going to be erased. One would think. I shouldn't say for sure. Only three wide receivers that's been a three or more, three time first team All-Pro or more to have never played in a conference championship in their careers. Calvin Johnson, Sterling Sharp and DeAndre Hopkins. One would think he's got a real good shot to remove himself from that list since the team he just joined has made it to that round of the playoffs for the last six years in a row.
Now then. To what many of you might be thinking, including I believe the guy who's in the ten o'clock position from me right now. What has Hopkins done lately? Don't mean to put words in your mouth, but I can kind of feel it from you Chris. What has he done lately? Averaging a career low two and a half receptions per game and 28.8 receiving yards per game in this season, which he has only one singular touchdown. Is it because Will Levis has been spending much of his time while being the starter throwing it to the other team? Or is it because DeAndre Hopkins isn't that guy anymore? Bad example Rich because he's now playing with the player who leads the league at interceptions. There you go.
That's true. One of the many reasons why the Chiefs decided to make this maneuver. Right now Mahomes is tied for the most interceptions in the league with eight.
Tied with Gardner Minshew and Jordan Love, I might add. Mahomes' current passing yards per game, touchdown to interception ratio, passer rating, giveaways per game are dead last for him in terms of his career rankings. The Chiefs offense, just a mere 24.3 points per game, second fewest in the NFL. Total yards per game, passing yards per game, that's the fewest. Passing yards per game, 128.8 yards, that's the most. So they've been running it, they've been playing defense and they have been trying to make sure that whatever Mahomes is doing, giving the ball away or whatever's occurring on offense that leads to the ball being given away by Mahomes doesn't cash on the scoreboard and sure enough, that's worked.
They're 6-0. So what to make of this acquisition? Here's the way I see it. Last year when I was in London and I saw Je'Andre Hopkins for the Tennessee Titans before he was taking on the Baltimore Ravens and I saw him standing on their walkthrough practice next to Derrick Henry and I thought to myself these guys are going to have busts and canton and there they are standing next to each other and this team is struggling. What gives? And I thought to myself, what's going on with Je'Andre Hopkins? And I started asking around and some of the people on the Tennessee sidelines and some of the people with Tennessee were kind of like shrugging their shoulders because they said Je'Andre Hopkins was as fast as ever.
That their GPS monitoring of him was he didn't lose a step, he has actually gotten faster. He's like a fine wine. He's aging well. So there's that.
Just keep that in your mind's eye. That was right about a year ago and obviously people can fall off a cliff very fast in the NFL. And he is also in my mind's eye, one of the greatest receivers in getting his feet down and running his routes where they're supposed to be that I've ever seen. There's a throw to Je'Andre Hopkins on the sideline and you're wondering did he get his feet down? You don't have to wonder. He did. Like he did.
And that's like 99.9% of the time. So what I think is this is a terrific acquisition for the Kansas City Chiefs. It is exactly what will help this offense move the chains and is he going to take the top of the defense off?
No. Which is why I think some Chiefs fans are still holding out hope that maybe Tyreek Hill could go back there. That they could let bygones or whatever bygones be gone. And the Dolphins would just look around and say let's get him out of here and send him back to Kansas City. He's not going to do that. But what he will do is give yet another option to Mahomes running routes just like Kelsey that's going to kill somebody on a third down over and over and over again.
And inside the red zone if they're not giving it to Kareem Hunt three times or Pacheco when he comes back and you're double covering Kelsey you got a guy who's just going to get open and be exactly where Mahomes needs him. And in terms of what this might mean for the locker room as if it needs any help. I don't know. But how do you think they feel right there? You know right now? How do you think they feel right here? That they're like okay is there any complacency of yeah we've won two in a row.
Three in a row? Okay. They don't get that sense at all. But it's just like okay. Alright. We're just going to be smart about it. We'll give up a five that could be a four. So what? And you bring in DeAndre Hopkins and he walks into that locker room and there's DeHop. That's another Hall of Famer for the Hall of Famer Mahomes to throw to.
And maybe they're not done. I don't know. Maybe they had one more wide receiver. Why the hell not? I mean I had my fun the other day saying that when Mike Williams is losing his spot and the rotation for the Jets that don't worry he don't feel bad for him. He's going to catch the game winning pass for the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. That still probably holds true. I don't know.
Maybe it's DeHop now. I mean again he's a big name that hasn't done very much lately. He doesn't miss games. He's played in every single game he could for the Tennessee Titans. All 23 possible games with Tennessee since 23 played with him. And last year at 1,000 yards of receiving.
How? Seven touchdowns. So let me ask you this question. Over, under, six touchdowns in 11 games for DeAndre Hopkins with the Chiefs. What do you take? Under.
TJ? All the way up. I'll do the same thing. I'll go over.
I'll go over. It's just not what their offense is. Meaning what? They're just not a pass first team. They're a run team and they play defense.
So yes, DeHop is going to move the chains. He's probably going to get a huge third down here in the fourth quarter of a game. Holmes has been really good in the fourth quarter. Not so good in the first three this season.
But I just worry you guys are just falling for the name. And what type of impact this is going to be. Well I just know what he can do and what the Chiefs are going to do with him and how smart they are in terms of coordinating for Mahomes and what Mahomes needs.
And in terms of last year's problems that there were so many drops. That's one thing he's not going to do. That's true. So in all costs you was a fourth round draft choice. And you get DeAndre Hopkins from Mahomes after all. And we will see. I'm just kind of wondering. It's now this show.
The overreaction Monday pod as well. You're like digging away. I'm absolutely not doing that. You're digging away at the Chiefs are not a good offensive team. Well I think the metrics kind of show that. Right.
They do. Statistically the metrics show that. So I don't know why you're giving me push back about that. I'm not giving you push back about the statistics. I'm giving you the push back of the humans inside the helmets and in the shoulder pads. When push comes to shove on a third and four are going to beat you. And if they haven't beaten you all day because of that in the fourth quarter they will.
And they just added another guy that will do that. I think those things are different. But okay. Like I've said the numbers don't always tell the story. And any number you're saying about them not being good. Bottom line is when the game's on the line and you've got to make that pass. You've got to make that run. You've got to get that first down. Even if he's 0 for 11. He's going to be 1 for 12 when the game's really on the line.
That's just how I look at him. It's week 7. Let's just see what happens. You say that's week 7 but it's like year 7. Year 6 we've already seen with this guy. Well the Chiefs have 11 more regular season games and then obviously the most important ones that come. And he's finally got the best chance of his entire career to win a Super Bowl. It'll be interesting when he takes on Houston right?
One of his former teams. And we'll see. Obviously. But it just makes things more interesting and more exciting I think for Chiefs fans. And then just one more name if he does perform very well. One more name for Jerry Jones to have brought up to him on a Tuesday. When he appears on his radio station. A conversation of he's bringing them up himself.
Or he'll bring it up. Couldn't fit him in under the cap or didn't want to give up a 4th round pick or whatever. Those 5th round picks that could turn the floor.
Fully understand it. Poor Jerry. What a day. Poor Jerry. Poor TJ. Because of Jerry I'm getting roses and flowers and things. I don't deserve this. From one of the only Knicks who made a shot last night. How about them Cowboys?
It's all your fault Hunk. I can do it. I can play that.
Hey. It's just the two time defending Super Bowl champions just added DeAndre Hopkins for a struggling offensive unit run by future Hall of Famer Patrick Mahomes. And that's not a bad choice. And like I said in terms of taking the top of the defense off that's not what he's going to do. But what he will do is not drop a 3rd down.
Correct. And be situationally smart and make the plays. And I can't wait to see what they do with him. As a football fan yes.
As a fan of a team that has to go through them no. You feel good for Dehop really. He's one of the best guys in the week. And you know he's never really wait for anything until January. That's why we thought he'd make that choice for himself.
Yeah. And he didn't. But the football gods couldn't quit the idea. And there they have it.
Rich you said he had 1000 yards receiving last year with 3 different Tennessee quarterbacks. They think you'll be ready just in time for a whole. Wait a minute.
Las Vegas Raiders. My game is going to be ugly. Alright let's take a break. Roy Wood Jr. is here. Have I got news for you? That's the name of his show.
But have I got news for you Roy Wood Jr. is about to join us next. Great for you. Give it a try after this episode at progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations.
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That's OReillyAuto.com slash E-I-S-E-N-O-O-O O'Reilly Auto Parts. The show's out there that are solution minded. We're seeing air on a Saturday night.
They did not give us a budget for investigative journalism. So we will just crack the jokes. And I think being able to laugh at this stuff it gives me hope for the world. No matter what. I don't know where you are on your hope meter. It goes up and down. It fluctuates.
Mine's low. Not a lot of hope for society and mankind. This is when I lost faith in humans. When the aliens stopped kidnapping us. How do you know they've stopped kidnapping us?
Because who talks about it? Remember the good old days? Remember the 80s and 90s?
Every month there was a new person. They took me up there and they grabbed me in the crotch. And now no one, like, aliens won't even come holler at us, bro. That's how trash we are. We're like last call 2 a.m. and the aliens are still like nah. Used to be some quality, you know, down on Earth.
Not no more. Now they just don't even want to even kidnap us. Or maybe they are living amongst us right now. Some of the people are weird. I guess. It could be that. I guess. I don't know. We live in a world now where there's so many conspiracy theories that it's hard to get your conspiracy to the front of the line because everybody else is talking about dogs and cats getting eaten or there's lizard people or, like, whatever conspiracy there is.
And I hate that too. If you had a good conspiracy, you had to work that joint locally for months and then form you a small cult, build your cult following, get raided by the feds, and then we go, tell us about what you believe. And now you can just go on Reddit, type three sentences, and the next thing you know, elected officials are running around spreading the same misinformation. So, I don't know. I've lost a lot of faith. I'm happy to be here though.
That's my point. I appreciate that. I'm assuming you and the rest of your crew on your show text each other throughout the week similar like we text each other throughout the weekend saying we gotta talk about this Monday. We gotta talk about that next time. Myself, Michael Ian Black, and Amber Ruffin, those are the team captains on the show.
And we are on a group chat every single day. Hey, did you see this? Have you heard about this? Have you seen this? And it's interesting because our cultural, culturally what we give a damn about, Amber as a black woman, Michael, you know, it's three totally different worlds of, oh my god, did you see what happened between did you see that sexy red dropped a new song out of a sex spaceship?
And Michael Ian Black is like, I'm sorry. Is that a sentence? Yeah, that was a sentence. So, that's how you actually go ahead and figure out what you guys want to talk about.
To a degree, yeah. There's a great team of writers. And the show also, it's important to say this, it's a remake of a British show that's been around for 30, 35 years. So, they know the people that had Trip Productions from London, they know how to figure out how to make sense of this is relevant, this isn't relevant. Because what you think is the story on Monday, by the time we get to Friday night when we tape for Saturday air, it's into the ether. Trump was at McDonald's on Sunday? Yeah. I don't know if we'll even mention that by Friday night.
Because there's so much stuff there's every single news cycle just wipes out the line before it. Unless he goes to a Wendy's or I don't like if he just does a whole fast food tour. Do you respect, and this is Trump aside, do you respect any politician that pretends to do a blue collar job in front of a camera for 20 minutes? No, not if the people who are actually there to be served are not actually customers.
Well, of course, yes. There's that as well. It's just a big one-act play. I don't like it. I don't like when the politicians work a shift. Work a shift, send the cameras away, and let the regular people who come there, they'll tell me whether or not you're good. I got it.
Work degrease night. You ever worked at an Outback Steakhouse? I have. I have not. I have for a day and a half.
And how'd that work out for you? Degreasing. You work the night shift. You don't even see a customer. You come in the out shift. A lot of those fast casual spots, they do the de-cleaning of the kitchen after the employees have gone home. So you come in and hazmat, CSI, and just blooming onion dust is all up in your face, and that's work. Yeah, I've never worked in a kitchen. I have worked the, you know, I've been a checkout grocery clerk. I did that double coupon days in Staten Island, New York, and the wall bombs were a path mark. People get very, very agitated if you don't give them their double coupon appropriately.
I've done that. I've only worked places where I could steal food. So, Subway, Baskin-Robbins, supermarket cameras people watching, but I'm talking Golden Corral. I can just sneak a chicken wing when nobody's looking. Like, you can just have two, like, a lot of those waiters at buffet restaurants, look in the apron pouch. It's food. Roy Wood Jr. here on the Rich Ozzie Show.
It's a dish rack. I'm sorry to give away the secrets. How did you get started in stand-up? I was 19, so I was at Florida A&M, and they used to have comedy nights over at Florida State.
I would ride up to Birmingham and do open mics and stuff like that. So, like, that was the genesis of it. Me and some buddies were stealing credit cards when I was a teenager. I don't know if you know that. It's very illegal. Stealing credit cards? Well, if you use a credit card and your name in on it, it's frowned upon.
There are rules in place in the Constitution against this type of activity. And so, during that time on probation, I just started doing stand-up while I was in school for journalism, and when I graduated, I just stuck with it. And, like, that was where it started, man. I did every weird room in the South, like, you could go to some random hillbilly room and do jokes, and the next night you're performing for Dope Boys, and the next night it's a proper mainstream club, and you're there with Jeff Foxworthy.
He's in town working on this hour. We're going to cut everybody to two minutes. Yeah, that's how you have to deal with that. Yeah, I mean, that's not a shot at Foxworthy.
I'm just saying the idea of you get to see legends work, and then the next night you're paid in cocaine. That was the South, and that's me at 19 years old on a Greyhound bus. Mind you, no car. Greyhound bus. Oh, bro, I rode the dog my first year of stand-up just riding the country, like, when you see America from a Greyhound bus, it's three things every American should do. Before you're allowed to vote, you should work food service, you should work outdoors, and you should ride the Greyhound. A lot of people say every American should serve in the military.
I don't agree with that, because some people are not cut out for combat, and that's not who I want to be next to when the bullets are flying, but D-Grease night at Outback Steakhouse, everybody should do that. So you're talking about some tough audiences right there, Roy Wood Jr. Where does performing for Major League Baseball and their players and managers rank for you in terms of difficult audiences? The MLB Awards show last year, that was difficult, but fun, but difficult because I was doing crowd work with Bartolo Colon and halfway through the bit, I went oh my God, he doesn't speak English.
Because I'm doing the bit, and I'm like, this is funny, what's his problem? Oh yeah, that's all, oh! Anyway, moving on ladies and gentlemen, Ronald Lacuna is here. It was a good time. I'd say correspondence dinner is tougher because half the room is set up to hate you. It's just that when you're dealing with rich people, like this is just baseball, basketball, football is the toughest. Football is the toughest. Any athletic group to perform in front of them, football is the toughest. Hats off to Keegan-Michael Key and Steve Harvey who have done the NFL Honors. I would argue that is the toughest room in comedy. Tougher than the Oscars, tougher than the correspondence dinner, tougher than the Emmys.
Ask them, NFL players have just literally been through battle, and then they just are you just sitting there thinking about the non-guaranteed contract? My knee hurts, and I'm just staring at you. I did a cancer benefit for Tori Holt's Foundation in North Carolina ten years ago. I'm going to date myself. Marshall Faulk was there, Von Miller was there, Chris Chambers of the Dolphins. Now you are dating yourself, but Marshall likes comedy. Marshall finds it funny.
Okay, now what about the other 200 people in the crowd? You survive it, but it is by far one of the I would argue that NFL players are probably the toughest. The only thing tougher than NFL players are college football players because college football players are too cool to laugh, and I think I'm cooler than you, and you're old.
I won't say the comedian who did the joke, but I did I can't even say the year because then you'll know the comedian. So when they have the dinner, I can say ESPN, yes. Okay, so whenever the TV station that is carrying the college football final, there is a dinner for both teams, and they hire comedians to perform for these teams. This happens every year for these teams.
This has happened the last decade. I was at one of these dinners and performing, and one of the comedians went on stage and looked at this crowd of kids pre-NIL and he goes, how does it feel to be the only people in town not making any money off of this? Crickets!
Crickets! But it was the best joke. Sometimes those are the best jokes. You know, baseball players, they're very laid back. I would argue, and I've never done anything with the NHL, but I have got drunk with Dave Boling once.
Okay, that sounds fun. And that's my one sample size of interacting with a hockey player. I think it's a good sample size for how the rest of it would go. I was at a Baseball Writers Association dinner years ago when the Yankees were winning all the World Series in the late 90s, and the entire dais was filled with Yankees because they were all winning the awards for MVP and Cy Young and whatever. Like Jeter was up there, and Clemons was up there, and Steinbrenner was up there, and Joe Torre was up there. There was a comedian named Bill Sheft who got up there, and he did a few minutes. And the joke was, we should send Chuck Knoblauch to Cuba so he could overthrow Castro because he had problems being accurate to first base. As a matter of fact, one year he threw over first base and clocked Keith Olbermann's mother in the face, I believe.
You want to talk about crickets? But you could see on the right side, the players were on the right side of the dais. They were trying to stifle their laugh, like Kohn and Clemons and Jeter and those guys. And then on the right, Steinbrenner just did not find it funny, and I guess Torre was looking around to see if he should laugh, too. That was one of the funniest jokes the entire night. I'm hoping MLB lets me come back this year to do the All-MLB Awards show, but it's going to be interesting because on the one hand, you have Shohei Ohtani, you have to celebrate that, but how can you not mention what happened with the White Sox?
But how do you do it in a way that's tasteful and respectful? It is also history. It's history, and you celebrate history with baseball, right?
Yes, you do. 120 losses? We don't shame people for losing. Anything could happen, everything, every game. I don't know how to, you know, we'll see. We'll see.
I probably just talked myself out the gig. I hope not. But no, I'm going to celebrate Shohei Ohtani. Let me look at Major League Baseball. It would be an honor to come back and host All-MLB 2024.
As you're making considerations, we will celebrate Shohei Ohtani, America's greatest immigrant. So you have the C on your hand? That's what I'm going to call him. Is this the Cubs? Yeah, it's the Cubs.
This is one of those alt colors. You know what they do. They take fans like me and then they trick us into buying nine different hats. So you're a Cubs fan? Yeah, yeah, I grew up Cubs. My dad did radio shows with Ernie Banks in the 60s and 70s. How cool is that? And by the time I came along after that and we moved to Birmingham, the Cubs were just white noise in the house on a regular afternoon in the summer.
And so that's just what I kind of fell into. Even though the Braves came on at night, like everybody figures, oh, you're in Birmingham, why didn't you root for the Braves? I'm like, yeah, but the Braves sucked in the 80s. And nobody wants to acknowledge for the legacy that Bobby Cox built, in the 80s, the Cubs were statistically the better team. Playoffs 84, playoffs 89, Dawson MVP 87. So they were a fun team to watch. They had Jerome Walton and Dwight Smith. They were co-rookies of the year in 89.
So they were the fun up and coming team. Like that's what I wanted to do. I thought I was going to be Mark Grace. I wasn't supposed to be sitting here with your ass. I'm supposed to be supposed to be at Cubs convention in January. Mark Grace, man.
He was great. Sandberg, all those guys. Yeah, then I got to college and realized I couldn't hit a 90 mile an hour fastball. Like there is something about playing baseball at schools that don't take it seriously. That is a detriment. I did not know this. I also did not know that you were supposed to travel to play baseball really well. You're supposed to play it all year. I was seasonal because my mama was broke.
In the summer I did not travel and do high school camps over at UAB. I was at Golden Corral stealing chicken wings. So my athletics suffered as a result of that. This is why I'm sitting here.
It's because I didn't have the athletic prowess. I realized early on. I needed to talk about it. What did you know? Was there a moment? It's age three. No, I'm just kidding. An exact moment where you know, oh, I'm never going to be good at this.
Is there an exact moment? Probably when I wound up suing the New York City public school system for negligently putting me out on some wet turf and breaking my wrist for it. Nice. Everything went through the court system. Years later, 15 years later, I got a check for $1,000.
It came in very handy. That's it. That'll cover the copay. That's the cover of the copay.
Exactly right. But now here I am talking to you. Check swing, Rick Woodfield sophomore year, Ramsey High School. Ball rolled back to the mound. I thought it hit the knob of the bat.
And I ran it all the way out. Pulled my hammy. Was thrown out only to look and realize that the ball never hit the bat. It hit my wrist. It was a check swing. It was a hit by pitch.
I had indentations on my wrist. I go to the ump. I go, ump.
It hit me. He go, boy, you wasn't going to do nothing the next pitch. Go on back. Sit down. Under his breath, the ump tells me, you ain't nothing.
You ain't going to never be nothing. Let's just not do this. Go sit down. And I agreed. I was just like, yeah, you right. Let me just go on.
Sit down. And now you're doing some bits, coming to bits with Bartolo Colon. Look at you, Roy Wood Jr. Have I Got News for You airs Saturdays 9 Eastern on CNN.
Available the next day on Max, which you could get right here on the Roku portal. Thank you for coming back here. A pleasure, man. Thank you for having me. You bet.
Same here. At Roy Wood Jr. on Instagram. Check him out.
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Back here on The Rich Eyes and Show. So, April 9th, 1981. Dodger Stadium. Dodgers opening up their season against the Houston Astros and Jerry Royce was slated to start, but he got hurt. 24 hours before the start, Bert Hooton, who was on the team, was the first thought, but he was unable to go for whatever reason. And Tommy Lasorda, the manager, turned to his rookie left-hander from Echuaquila, Mexico and said, Fernando, you take the mound. And boy, did he ever take the mound. Fernando Valenzuela, number 34 in your program, took the mound and what happened over the next six weeks is the stuff of legend, stuff that you rarely see ever, and stuff that Dodger fans will never forget. Nor will anybody who follows Major League Baseball or sports in general because the run that created Fernando Mania is absolutely off the charts, remarkable. 8-0, every single game was nine innings, complete game, including five shutouts, including the opening day, five hits, five strikeouts in Fernando beating Joe Nicro, then he took the mound in San Francisco and beat Vida Blue with a ten strike out performance, gave out one run, three shutouts in a row at San Diego, beating Rick Wise at Houston, beating Don Sutton, former Dodger and future Hall of Famer.
Then they came home and this is the one right here against San Francisco. He beat Tom Griffin, 5-0, seven strikeouts, seven hits and another shutout, but this is the one where he came back home after those three games on the road doing what he did, and that's when I think, just in terms of looking back on it, that's when Fernando Mania was born. That's when you had to go to Dodger Stadium if Fernando was starting. That was the first time when it's like, okay, that kid that shut out the Astros on opening day and then has only given up one run in his last 27 innings, including two more shutouts.
We gotta see him. We gotta go see him, and then he shuts out the Dodgers, 5-0. Goes on the road to Montreal and does give up a run, beats Bill Gullickson, 6-1, went to Shea, TJ, beat Mike Scott 1-0, struck out 11 New York Mets in another shutout, and then he comes home, takes on Montreal, and this is, again, another sellout crowd, almost 54,000 for Fernando Mania to see the kid in the middle of May now.
Middle of May! Take the mound against the Montreal Expos again, take the lead 2-1 into the 9th, give up a solo shot to Andre Dawson finish the inning, and then a walk off by Pedro Guerrero made him a winner, 8-0 with a .50 ERA. Fernando Mania was born, then, you know, he comes out, they're playing Fernando by Abba, right? El Nino, El Toro, whatever you want to call him, the Bull. He was unbelievable. Mike Brito, you might remember him, he was, for you folks who remember the old days, in Dodger Stadium. He was the guy who would always hold up, he had the fedora on and the mustache, he was the one who always held up the JUGS gun to see how fast the pitches were. He was a long-time Dodger scout. 1979, he went to Mexico to go see what was up with a shortstop. Fernando was on the mound, and as the legend goes, fell behind the shortstop that Brito was scouting, 3-0, and then pumped three strikes straight in a row to strike out the shortstop, and as the story goes, he forgot about the shortstop.
Signed him to a $120,000 contract. Lasorda turns to him in a pinch, Fernando Mania is born, and in a way, connected the Latino community, the community of many, as we know, living here in Los Angeles, the melting pot that is Los Angeles, certainly those many folks who hail from Mexico here connected this city to the Dodgers in a way that nobody had ever done, from their move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. It had taken a long time, but he's the one who did it, and of course, it led to a World Series season in which he was the first ever pitcher to win the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Awards in the same season. He finished fifth in the MVP voting. The other four were Mike Schmidt, Andre Dawson, George Foster, and Davey Concepcion, who remarkably is not in the Hall of Fame, and then he was fifth in the MVP voting. He also won the Silver Slugger because he could hit two. A lot of people forget that about Fernando. He won the Silver Slugger for pitchers in 1981. By the way, he's seven for nineteen in his career as a pinch hitter, Fernando. But Game Three of the World Series against the New York Yankees, and Dave Righetti, who was a left-handed phenom pitcher of the Yankees' own in that Game Three. It was Righetti versus Fernando. Fernando got a three-run shot from Ron Say in the first to get a nice lead, but the Yankees scored twice in the third and fourth innings to take the lead. Eventually, Fernando got the lead back, and guess what he did? Complete game. A hundred forty-seven pitches. Now we're talking.
A buck forty-seven. His arm is fine. The screwball he threw was unhittable, and then his wind-up would always throw you off. Certainly, the way that he would look to the sky. Breathing through his eyelids. Breathing through his eyelids, as we know from our fun days at Bull Durham years later. His tenure as a Dodger, towards the end of the decade, he began to wane. He was not on the World Series roster in 88, and so in 1990, June 29th, against the St. Louis Cardinals, he threw a no-hitter. Moments after Dave Stewart had done the same thing on that day himself, and it was the first day in Major League Baseball history, we had two no-hitters in the same day, and that's the famous call by Vince Scully saying, throw your sombreros to the sky.
If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky. And he died yesterday. Fernando Valenzuela.
The age of 63. He was appearing with Sandy Koufax earlier this year. He didn't look very well. But he is now chit-chatting with Vince Scully in the sky, where we threw our sombreros back in the day. Truly one of the most remarkable tenures and starts to anybody's career ever. Fernando Mania.
May he rest in peace. And by the way, look who's playing in the World Series for the first time since 1981. Yankees and the Dodgers. And I'm sure it will be a very moving moment before Game 1 of that series when Jack Flaherty takes the mound for the Dodgers against Garrett Cole. You're already feeling it in this town from Dodger fans. This is one that leaves a mark. Leaves a mark.
Certainly since he was in the Spanish language broadcast booth for the local Sportsnet LA since 2015. Alright, Bill. We're recording now. Please put your phone on silent.
Where is my phone? Let's go, man. Get it together over there, player. Go ahead. Pick on me the way that you want to. I wouldn't say that to my son.
Just go. Why would people want to listen to the Sims Complete Podcast? Father-son dynamic duo talking about the game of football. We do a lot of quarterback and coach talks. It's fun. I love doing this. It's been awesome. Sims Complete. Check us out on the Believe Network. Appreciate it. Just search Believe. B-L-E-A-V wherever you listen.
