The Dan Patrick ShowNBA writer Vincent Goodwill weighs in on Luka Dončić's lingering criticism and shares why Nikola Jokic makes the Nuggets one of the West's most dangerous teams. MLB analyst David Cone breaks down Aaron Judge's elite plate discipline and reflects on facing Barry Bonds back in his pitching days. And NBC Sports Premier League host Rebecca Lowe joins Churchill Downs to preview the big race and the incredible story Wrexham AFC making it to the Premier League.
You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports Radio.
Vincent Goodwill y'all, Who's Sports, NBA writer and host of the Good Word podcast on Young Who's Sports Ball Don't Wine Channel, joining us on the program. You heard those stories about Prince right.
Actually had dinner with someone last week in LA who talked about having a pickup game with Prince at the University of Minnesota in the late seventies with the that Kevin McHale team, and the coach told Prince to get off the floor because he was like, you're just a random guy here. But Prince was playing so well that the players were like, man, just come back. So yeah, and the Prince Stevie won. The argument is closer to me than the Michael Lebron argument. It depends on the day.
Wow. So you're saying, Stevie Wonder probably Yeah, I'll respect that you're wrong, but I'll respect that Prince tak Prince was a hit me machine man.
He was.
And you know, Stevie, what is it? Songs in the Key of Life, look.
Songs in the Key of Life and a Vision's talking book. He had a run in the seventies. Fan you did that. I'm not sure any artist ever has done so that that's the Stevie argument.
Okay, do the Knicks fans celebrate too much? Dan?
When you haven't won anything, then you deserve to celebrate. Like the last time the Knicks made the conference finals in the East was in two thousand. I was a sophomore in high school. Man, so I get it. I totally understand. Every other team has made it to the conference final. The most teams have made it to the conference final six since then. The Knicks haven't. So, you know, I appreciate their energy, I really do. They're a fun bunch to be around.
Okay, so you can't say like you've been there because they haven't been there in such a long time. But your fan, I mean, you just beat the Pistons and you're celebrating like you want to win a championship. When they beat the Hawks a couple of years ago, they celebrated like they'd want a championship here. I like the enthusiasm, but they kind of treat the Knicks like they're, you know, the young upstar team like they were the Pistons, you know, like, hey, look at this little spunky group here.
Well, I mean, they've won fifty games, right like this should be expected of the Knicks. The Knicks are the team that was prohibitively the favorite in this and you won three games on the road by the skin of your chinny chin chin.
It took the reps to help you one game.
It took you know, Asar Thompson, who had Jalen Brunson in jail in the fourth quarter, Like Dan, you've ever been on punishment before where you can't go outside and you look outside and the weather is just good, and your friends are running around and you can't go anywhere because you did something stupid.
That's what Jalen Brown was. Let me say, excuse me, Jalen Brown.
Jalen Brunson was until that last play a phenomenal play. And now the Knicks have reality facing them because the Boston Celtics are going to send them home in unremarkable fashion.
If it goes six games. I will be happy for the Nicks.
This is one of my pet peeves. And I apologize to my honors because they know that I say this all the time. I can't let the best guy on the floor beat me. He was just named the most clutch player in the NBA. They actually have an award that they gave to him. Thompson had done a wonderful job on him. But I go back to when I watch Michael Jordan push off Brian Russell and there's no help coming against Michael So the greatest player in the history of the game, and you're gonna have one guy try to guard him. And here's Jalen Brunson. Where is the help to get the ball out of his hands? Kat's not on the floor. Hadn't he fouled out? So maybe you're going to force somebody who's not used to taking that shot. I find it inexcusable that you can't get the ball out of the hands of the one guy you know who can beat you.
I think coaches like to keep things simple because when you get into scramble situations, someone cuts and gets open. Earlier in that fourth quarter, Mchal Bridges wound up getting to tip in because the floor was unbalanced. A lot of times, you're going to say, Asar Thompson, you want to be one of the best defenders in the game.
If we are to elevate.
Ourselves as a franchise as the Detroit Pistons, you have to be the guy in these situations. What greater test is it right now than to stop the most clutch player in the NBA this season. Like, if you're the Pistons, you're playing with house money at that point. Dan, this isn't the NBA Finals in nineteen ninety eight where you got John Stockton and Karl Malowe's legacy on the line. You can afford in that spot in this series to find out what you have.
If this went to a game seven, Dan.
The Pistons would have been wiped out, Like emotionally, I think that series would have taken so much out of them because they weren't expecting to play this loan given where they were last year. So you saw what you had Thompson in that moment. He's going to learn from it, and hopefully for the Pisson's sake and for Thompson, he will come back better for it next season.
Who's more threatening going forward? The Clippers or the Nuggets? Ooh?
I mean, look, I think the Clippers are better constructed, right.
I think the Clippers to.
Some degree are a better matchup for the Oklahoma City Thunder. But have you noticed what Nikola Yoka jays. He's still the best player on earth?
Right? Now and anytime you have a guy who can.
Tilt the axis of a game just by his mere presence, because you have to double him. You can't let Isaiah Hartenstein or chet Holmegrin or anybody else guard him one on one. Assuming they get to the next round, they have Game seven on their home floor tomorrow, Like that's where the balance comes. The question comes to me, Dan, do you trust James Harden in a critical situation and a critical game. He showed up last night, but that's been more or less the anomaly in the long term, Like, he's had some great games, and he's had some stinkers, and the stinkers stand out a lot more than the great games are just louder. But Dan, have you noticed the players who have the stinkers, the players who have the loud, bad games, suddenly have come to the forefront and had some great ones. Like Julius Randall with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Talking to Vincent Goodwill, Yahoo's Sports NBA writer. He was there last night with the Pistons and the Knicks. You also witness the Lakers get eliminated by the Timberwolves. Let me bring back what JJ Reddick said yesterday in his exit interview. This is how he starts out, and I want to know how you think this resonated with Luca.
I'll start with the offseason and the work that's required in an offseason to be in championship shape. And you know, we have a ways to go as a roster, and certainly there are individuals that more in phenomenal shape. There's certainly other ones that could have been in better shape. That's where my mind goes immediately, is you know, we have to get in championship shaped.
He's on the cusp of saying, Luke, I'm talking about you. How do you think Luca is taking this?
I mean when you get traded, And the underlying tenor of that was we think you're fat and out of shape, and you don't play defense, and we don't think your career is going to last very long as it should.
That should be a wake up call in itself.
I'm a bit surprised that Luca didn't get himself in better shape in LA once he was traded, having that sort of wake up call, that sort of public embarrassment, like say what you want about being traded to the Lakers and you're the next guy and everything else that was rejected him or Nico Harrison rejected him in such a way that was public and in such a way that usually challenges a player, and then JJ Reddick goes out there and challenges him like that, Dan.
He was food in that series against the Lakers.
He was blown by every single time and he just looked so gassed and out of it. And by the time Game five came around, you could tell he was going.
To be productive.
But he can be productive with his eyes closed, Like Dan, go look at what Luca looked like as a rookie when he was a teenager, and like man, he looked like in a donas compared to the guy that we see now. So I suspect he will come back in better shape because you know, he wasn't talking about Lebron James, like we know who he was talking about there. So yeah, Luca got challenged publicly in a way that he has to respond.
Now.
Doesn't this backup what Nico Harrison was saying in Dallas?
Yeah? It does.
Does it validate the trade? Does it validate what you got in return for the trade. Does it validate that you did not scan the league to get the best return possible?
For the trade. I don't think anybody. I won't say, there's not too many people.
There's a lot of people who were like, you know what, Luca, I mean, excuse me, Nico Harrison's out of his damn mind, right, But there were some people who are willing to say, you know what, I understand what Nico was doing. I just wouldn't have gone about it the way that Nico did it. And now, Yeah, the greatest thing for me is this. Nico Harrison essentially called Luka Doncic a loser pretty much. He says, I've been around world class athletes who are winners and champions, and you don't fit the bill of that. If there is not a greater indictment whether he's wrong or right, but for someone to basically and tacitly say that about you, and then repeatedly say that about you and f the MEF and say I'm not even afraid to trade you to the Lakers, I think that's.
How much of a loser you are. You'd better have a fire lit on the ass.
Yeah, and now I understand why you can trade him. You don't want to invest that kind of money. You must get a better haul in return. That would be the only thing that I would argue you with this the pushback on this, But let's say Christy and Ad were still on the team and you didn't make this trade. Were they better equipped to beat Minnesota and actually make a longer run in the postseason than with Luca.
Yes, one of those things like the butterfly effect, right, Like if you put that team against this Minnesota team, Yeah, you got somebody that can handle Rudy Gobert, but you're not getting to the third seed without Luka Doncics being able to carry the regular season load in that way that Lebron James probably can't at forty years old. In the way that you structure your roster. This was a better playoff roster with Anthony Davis, it was a better regular season roster for Luca Dogers, Like, make no mistake about it, all the things that we said, he's still a top three player in the game. Let's let's not get it twisted. There's just more space for him to grow in the meantime.
Okay, wait minute, you say he's top three, So Luca's best or Joker's best?
Yo?
Yes, Sga Yannis, you're gonna put Luca over Yanni's.
I think Gianni's has won a grand total of one playoff series since twenty twenty one. At some point, you gotta start, you gotta you have to start saying, what have you done for me lately? Jannet Jackson, you gotta start saying that. And I would take Gianni's over Luca because he stays in shape and because he's a great player on both ends of the floor. But I, if any I wouldn't quibble with anybody who says that Luca's three.
Would you take Anthony Edwards over Luca?
Now we're getting somewhere, Dan, Now we're getting a little spicy. Yeah, you know ant Man, Superman, Batman, lagas in.
Five, Like, don't you love that?
Don't you love the fact that Ant is so outside he pays attention to what everybody says.
But but on the floor, Dan, there's.
A pride there that ant looked at the Lakers and he said, I'm gonna put these dudes out. And not only am I gonna put these dudes out, I'm locking up Lebron, I'm locking up Luca. Like taking the personal challenge of all this on both ends of the floor, realizing that both ends of the floor are important and leading, Like, think about this, He's gotten the most out of Rudy Gobert, Karl Anthony Towns, and Julius Randall. That's a mockley crew of dudes that as an NBA public we don't believe in.
I like that the Lakers made Rudy Gobert look like wil Chamberlain.
And they made Julius rather look like Charles Barkley circa nineteen eighty nine, Like are we kidding here? Like the Lakers just didn't have anything for Rudy Gobert. And when Rudy's the punching bag and Julius is the punching bag, it's good to see the rabbit have the gun sometimes. And I'm really really fascinated by this. Next year, I'll be covering the next series, whether it's Minnesota in Houston or Minnesota and the Golden State Warriors, and if Anthony Edwards Dan puts out in consecutive years, Kevin Durant, Nakola Jokic, Luka, Doncics, Lebron James, and then maybe Steph Curry. We're talking about in Isaiah Thomas, Run, Hakeem Elijah w On Run of putting out dudes with my bare hands.
Can't wait to see it.
Golden State in a okay situation here, how do you feel about them?
They better win to night? Are you kidding me? They better win tonight? Dan, You got a Game six on your home floor. Anything can happen in the game seven. And when you're playing against a young and dumb team. And I say that affection, I just watched the young and dumb team in Detroit last night. You don't want to give them any confidence to believe that they can actually win this series. Like we know, Houston is one player away. Whoever that player is, we don't know, we will see, but they're a player away. Golden State is built to win right now. Draymond Green is where he is. Jimmy Butler, they acquired him for this. This is why you have the guys that you have, not just so you can get out of the first round, so that you can make a legit run to the NBA finals.
If they lose a three.
To one lead, then can you imagine the joke to email you Doka in the Houston Rockets?
My goodness, what happens to Jimmy Butler if they bow out here.
I mean, he's gonna still have a lot of money in a couple of more years to figure this out with Golden State. I think it's a bad look for everybody, But as we saw with Jimmy Butler in Game four with that bad injury, he's capable of carrying them in ways that lifts a team. Not dissimilar to what Stephen Curry does. They just do it in a different way. I would not be surprised if the Warriors treat this like a Game seven tonight, because they have to treat it like a Game seven to night if no of the reason, Dan, they need the rest, They need a couple of more days before going on to the next series. You don't want to be wearing the Houston Rockets scent on you while you're playing Anthony Edwards in a Minnesota Timberwolves in the next round.
You don't want those problems.
Always great to talk to you, safe travels. Thanks again for joining us. Always good Dan, that's Vincent Goodwill, y'all, who's or NBA writer and host of Good Word podcast on Yahoo's Sports.
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He's David Cone. He won five World Championships. He works for the Yes Network and also ESPN Sunday Night Baseball analyst. And I've been watching baseball and reading about baseball, and I forgot about Aaron Judge. And I looked at the numbers. His April is mind blowing and like it's Barry Bonzian. And I said to Fritzie, I said, see if David coneill join us, just to put this in perspective, and Cony joins us. Down you get to see this on a daily basis. Here what exactly did Aaron Judge do in the month of April.
Well, Dan, thanks for having me on again. Always a pleasure.
I got my time zones mixed up Central East Coast, you know, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock. But you know, Dyton, you know I will leave that where it is. But you know, watching Aaron Judge since the day he showed up, I was in the booth with Joe Torrey actually and Paul O'Neill. On his major league debut, he had a massive home run off the center field restaurant, the Black Glass in the Yankee Stadium. We couldn't believe what we're seeing. And then over the years we said, well, yeah, tremendous power.
Strikes out a little too much.
He struck out about forty percent of the time on average when he first broke in.
Now it's in half. He's cut that in half.
He's only striking out twenty percent of the time now, and his batting average is over four hundred. The power is still there. He's such a smart hitter, Dan, he's chasing less than ever. You can't get him to chase those breaking balls out of the zone anymore. He's hitting for a high average. It's just it seems to me that the only way you can talk about Aaron Judge is talk about how smart he is is a hitter. He anticipates a flow better than ever. He knows how you're going to pitch him, and he's on you. He knows you, he reads you, and he's getting better and better and better every year to where now he's only striking out, as I said, about twenty percent of the time. Major League baseball average is about twenty two percent. He's below average striking out now and still hitting four hundred and fifty foot home runs.
But he has a bigger strike zone. I think eight years ago everybody talked about is that swing going to hold up? You know, big guy, long swing. But it has held up. But you, as a former cy Young winner and you win five World Series titles, I want you to You're gonna face Aaron Judge right now. So first inning he comes to the plate, how do you start Aaron Judge.
Well, he does swing at enough first pitch fastballs to where that kind of scares me a little bit.
You know, even though he's very selective.
Now he gets a ton of walks he doesn't chase, but he's still ready aggressively for that first pitch fastball. So Dan, I'm still I'm trying to get ahead of him. I'm trying to sort of get ahead with a breaking ball because a lot of times.
He spot you that.
So if you could drop a curve ball in there for the first strike, then you've got count leverage. And now maybe I'll try to bust him up and in out of the zone. But everything throwing him is around the edges and up in the zone. I still think, you know, you try to get him up and in any great hitter, if it was Barry Bonds, if it was bay Rufe for that matter, I've got to test them up and end to see if they'll chase, to see if they can hit a fast ball right on the upper right quadrant, upper inside corner. And then once I find that out, then I'm back to trying to throw breaking balls. But that's where he's been so impressive. He does not chase the fish earn biting Baron Judge this year is just his chase rate is top five. He just does not does not chase breaking balls out of the zone.
All right, you're gonna face Sho Tani. What are you doing the same thing?
You know, I've got to try to get ahead somehow because he's very aggressive from the first pitch on. And if I were to give any advice to any slugger out there, I would say, be ready on the first pitch.
If you're gonna spot me a strike, then I'm gonna take it.
I'm gonna get a lot of the plate if I think that you're gonna, you know, not swing. That's how I face Mike Piazza in the two thousand World Series. I knew he would take a first pitch strike. So I threw an eighty five mile an hour fastball right down the middle and he took it first strike, and I still can't believe it. And then I went to work. I started throwing sliders, started throwing fastballs in got them to pop up. So that's kind of the strategy. Try to get ahead with something off speed, eventually test them up and end throughout the course of the bat, and then see if you can still try to get them to chase. And they're two hitters that don't chase all that often.
But you look at these guys who are and I would think that first pitch, you're you're not trying to throw something away, it's gonna be around the plate. That if I'm a hitter, I'm just I'm gonna sit on something. I'm gonna guess that you're gonna throw me a fastball and it's gonna be around the plate. That would be my mindset coming to play. I don't know how many hitters have that first pitch mindset.
That's a great point. I think more and more we're seeing it.
You know, the thing about analytics in today's game, you know every account is analyzed nowadays. You have reams and dreams of information nowadays that players get in and dated with, and sometimes that might take away from the natural order of things in terms of their aggressiveness. It makes you a little more information you get, the less aggressive you become, generally speaking. But with that being said, the great hitters can really zero in on a location and if they get it, they're gonna jump on it. And that's what we call cheating and the first pitch of in that bat. If you're cheating on a fastball, you can start your swing a little bit sooner, and if you get fooled or whatever, you still have two more strikes to work with.
So that's the.
Pitch that gives count leverage. That's the pitch of the pitcher wants to get ahead of, and that's the pitch of that the hitter wants to do damage on, because that might be the best pitch he sees throughout the whole bat.
If you could start your franchise with Otani or Judge, what would you take?
Oh?
Wow, you know, I mean, I guess the projection is how much pitching can you get from Otani? Well, you know, with the injuries what he has left. I mean, if you're going back a couple of years, and obviously Otani with the pitching side of his game, it just puts him above everybody else. But there is no doubt that in the batter's box with a bat in his hands, there's nobody like Aaron Judge. He is clearly the best hitter, better than Juan Soto because of his power numbers better than anybody in the game right now. Aaron Judge, offensively speaking, is the best hitter. And it's not really even an argument.
You did well against Bonds. I remember he didn't even bat two hundred. I don't think against you.
Yeah, I caught early Barry Bonds, you know, in his Pittsburgh years, you know, in the Mets day, so you know, early Barry Bonds is a different cat then later San Francisco Giants Berry bombs.
But you couldn't make him like he had a strike zone about the size of a bread box, you know, a mailbox, and he was not swinging on anything that wasn't in that little area. It felt like, how tough was that to? You know, if you miss, it's gone.
Absolutely, you know.
And the thing about Bonds was is that he kind of choked up on the bat. You know, you think he looked like Phil Rizzuto up there, the way he choked up on the bat had at times, right, if you ever seen Phil Rizzuto and how much he choked up on a baseball bat, that kind of bounce was that way. And what that made him so dangerous at was fastballs in.
He was so quick.
If you tried to pitch him in and you did not get it in there, that's the ones he lost. You know, those were gone. Those were hit hard. They were either a line driver or a home run. So you had to be really careful when you tried to pitch bonds inside because anything anything that that didn't get in off the plate, he was going to have a good swing out.
What is that like when you throw a pitch and it's almost like an old bleep that that you know you threw a pitch and it's a bad pitch. The question is what are they going to do with it?
Yeah? Almost out of my hand?
You know, it's like hitting a golf ball fat you know, I mean, you play golf and you know you got a wedge in your hand from one hundred and twenty yards and you're going to stick this close and you just you lay.
The side over it. You know, that's how it feels out of a pitcher's hand. It's just you're late with your arm.
You get around it, it gets a loose spin on it, and you feel it immediately off your fingertips and you're going uh oh, almost almost halfway to home plate.
You kind of have already.
Prossessed the fact that that's fat that's hung watch out.
Do you have one? You remember where they weren't very kind to the baseball.
Yes, I remember in the playoffs with the Yankees we were playing the Cleveland Indians. Bases loaded Jim Tomy up at the plate and I hung one of those pitches, one of those sliders I was trying to throw a back door, was trying to sneak it over the outside corner. It came out of my hand fat, As I said, It kind of just spun in there and it just laid out over the plate and he hit it in the upper deck at the old Yankee Stadium. The sound off is bad. I still hear my sleep at night sometimes. I Mean it was so loud the way Jim only the way Jim Tomy could hit it, and it was a grand slam, and you know, we ended up winning that game. It was the clincher in the playoffs. And I think it was ninety eight. I believe we were playing the Indians in the playoffs and we ended up winning that series and luckily we scored enough runs. But that brought him back, that that grand slam from Tommy. Tommy brought him back. And I still remember it like it was yesterday.
And it's and it's there's certain sounds. You know, Baseball's about sounds, and you could tell when something's off the bat. You can tell when you're at the plate and you can hear that fastball coming by how it hits the mit. But you know, Maddix told me it sounds like two cars crashing when he gave up a home run. He just said and he said, look, I'd rather you hit it four hundred and fifty feet instead of you know, two ninety eight down the left field line.
Yeah, you know, it's Have you ever been in a restaurant with a waiter drops a bunch of dishes in the back and that sounds and the dishes breaking.
That's what it sounds like to me. You know, that sounds off of Jim Tomey's bad.
I mean, if you you know, kids today, if you want to see something, you know, a mountain of a man swing the bat and listen to you know that Jim Tomy's the guy to go to YouTube and watch his vats.
Ken Aaron Judge hit four hundred.
I would say, probably not okay, you.
Know he's not going to beat out a lot of infield hit. I mean you've got to get some of those like little you know, five hoppers that you can beat out.
Yeah.
Absolutely, And also there is the random variance, the luck factor, right, I mean, analytics if the one thing I love about analytics, modern day analytics is it kind of shows you you can look under the hood, as they say, and say what's kind of lucky and what's going to regress to the mean a little bit? And certainly batting average on balls in play, those ground balls that are always finding holes, you know, tend to turn around. They start to find gloves after a while. So that's the fortune part of it. The batting average on balls in play is unbelievably high for Aaron Judge right now, and you gotta figure that's gonna some of those hard ground balls that start to start to go at shortstops and second basement, and he's not gonna he's not gonna have that high of an average on especially on the balls on the ground.
Where are we with torpedo bats? I thought they were ruining baseball and I haven't heard much about torpedo bats.
What happened?
Yeah, I think that was just you know, if you they'll be studies on how do you know, how do you create a viral moment?
Right?
How does something go viral in today's today's day and age. That was just a perfect storm. Michael Kay set it up perfectly. The Yankees had a bunch of home runs on that day when he talked about for the first time the torpedo bat, when actuality the torpedo bet had been out for several years and other players and other teams actually were using it on.
That day, and everybody thought, oh no, it was a Yankee thing. Oh the Yankees are cheating.
And it was just a perfect viral moment where everybody thought, this was this is brand new technology.
What is this?
We got to ban this, you know, this is too good, and Boom, there goes Jazz Chisholm hitting a home run. Boom, there goes Anthony Volpi hitting a home run, and it just created this moment where everybody just jumped on the bandwagon and thought, this is new, this is this is there's something funny going on here, when in reality, actually it was nothing could be further from the truth. It's like a getting fitted for golf clubs. You know, it's like a game improvement club, so to speak. You know, the torpedo bet that gets the mass where you hit the ball most often, and not supposed to help you a little bit, but it's certainly within the rules.
There's nothing illegal about it.
What's the highest percentage you got for Hall of Fame votes?
Oh?
Gee, I was one and done. You know, I think you had to get five percent. I was a little under five percent. I think I was four percent each something in that range, you know. And you know the dynamics of the Hall of Fame vote. There's only ten ten players you can vote on. In that particular year, there was a lot of good players on the list, so I just could I couldn't quite get enough to stay on the ballot.
Yeah, but you would. You didn't win two hundred games, which probably you know, we like round numbers. But you were on five World Series champions. You want to say, young, that pretty good resume.
I have no complaints, you know.
I mean, another reason, you know why I like modern analytics is because war, the war ranking, whether you use fan graphs, you know what these websites that sort of calculate the war rankings. It's Baseball Reference B War or f war, fangrafts war. They're they're both a little different in terms of pitching. Ones based on the era, ones based on fit field or independent pitching, so that it gets a little technical. But you know, I'm around sixty war, you know, on both of those categories, and that's kind of the the entry point of being considered for the Hall of Fame. But I still kind of think I'm a classic borderline guy. And when I look at my generation, I can really kind of count on five on one hand, who the guys were.
You know.
I mean, let me think Trandy Johnson, Greg Maddox, Smoltz, you know, Pedro Martinez, even Roger Clemens, you know, all the controversy aside.
I mean, I want to know.
Who Chilling absolutely is above me in my mind, absolutely, you know, put the politics aside, or whether you like him or not or morality or whatever.
I mean.
I'm not sure if I want all the sports writers, the guys that I hung out with in the hotel.
Bars all those years.
I don't know those guys to beat the boil judge you know of anybody, I tell you the truth, But Kurt Schilling is a Hall of Famer.
I always thought that Pedro Martinez was underrated.
Absolutely.
I think if you talk to a lot of hitters who faced him, they would say, he's the toughest. Cal Rickens Jr. Ask cal Ricken Jr. Who the toughest pitcher he ever faced? And that's cal He played every day. He didn't miss anybody. Yeah, Pedro, Pedro's the answer, you know. So that tells you, Kenn of what you need to know about who you didn't want to face, your least likely pitcher that you wanted to face, And a lot of guys would say Pedro.
Yeah. I always viewed him as kind of a right handed Sandy Kofax. He just put up incredible, incredible numbers. There great to talk to you tell Michael Kay, we said hello and thanks for joining us.
It's my pleasure. Dan anytime.
That's David cohne be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show week days at nine am Eastern six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
She is Rebecca Low NBC Sports Premier League host and hosting the Kentucky Derby and All Unfolds Tomorrow. NBC Sports will be at Churchill Downs Saturday, two thirty Eastern on NBC and Peaconks. She also hosts the Premier League Live from the very same location, with coverage beginning at to eastern. Right here on peacick all. Look, who is part of the scenery. It's Rebecca. Boy. Describe the pageantry surrounding you.
Oh, Dan, so lovely to talk to you.
It's a lot of pink because it's Ladies Day in honor of remember in breast cancer.
Atribute to them. So we got a lot of pink, got a lot of pink. Hat what very.
Tall hat seems to be a theme. I'm not a big hat person, Dan, I don't know if you are, but I love a fascinator. But the hats around here are quite incredible.
There's a there's a horse walking right behind you by the way.
See you.
Then it happens in it does happen a lot.
I'm in the past.
There are a lot of horses down there at church Church Hill down all right, set the scene for tomorrow.
Okay, So, as you said, I'm doing a bit of double duty. So we've got the Premier League in the morning. I'll be here in the morning. We've got three mats windows finishing with Arsenal taking on Bournemouth, and then we come off there on NBC at around two thirty eastern, I think, and I row pretty much directly to Mike Turrico then opens the show for the coverage on MBC. They'll have been on all day pretty much though on USA Network and People. He'll then open the show on NBC the Big Open at two thirty eastern and I run. I make a run in some direction, not quite sure which direction is yet to meet up with Dylan Dryer. We do our first hit and then I have a bunch of hits throughout the day, culminating in the winner's circle with the interview with.
The winning owner.
So I can't wait for that. That is always a great, great moment. I get the best seat in the house down to watch the race. I'm like in the pagoda at the winners in the winner circle. So it's an absolute true And.
I told this audience those two minutes, there's nothing else that compares to those two minutes when those the horses are, you know, in the gate, and all of a sudden boom, they're off. And how would you describe that feeling?
I think the only way I can describe it is having seen for the first time I've ever seen the one hundred meters rates the men's one hundred meters I saw in Paris in twenty twenty four, which is only what nine seconds, so it's much shorter in that way, but you're also it's the same build up. You're all waiting, building up to this tiny fraction of time in which so much can happen. So it feels a little bit like that. And then the ending is so interesting, damn, because when the favorite wins, the whole place are up. And then the last couple of times I've been here when it's not the favorite, or we had Rich strike at eighty to one a few years ago, it was like you could hear a pin drop. Everybody was furious. So the end is really interesting as well, depending on who wins. And then it's just seeing the happiness on people's faces, that owners the connections.
It's just one big party.
It's amazing what kind of celebrities are going to be there.
So I've heard that Aaron Rodgers is coming. I think.
Lamark Jackson. I think to see the Baltimore Ravens. Yes, okay, excellent, Simone Biles. I'm going to be interviewing Somebone Biles tomorrow's I'm so excited about.
That, ya boozy.
We've got Jack Harlow, the singer who's a big Premier League ban so excited to talk to him about Premier League before we actually did the interview.
So we've got the good number of good faces coming down.
Taylor Swift, she's showing up.
You know what.
I don't think So this year there were rumors that Travis Pelsey was coming.
I was going to interview here.
That's could have been interesting, but no, I think he's going to the Formula one this weekend. So there's a lot of good things going on. But this is the place to be. Don Patrick, you know it. I cannot believe you're not here.
Okay. If I'm going to ask you this, if you could have a triple Crown winner, you could be an owner of a triple Crown winner or why wow, or one of the owners of Wrexham.
Oh gosh, I have to go Rexam.
I have to go Wrexham down because they are going to the Premier League and that from where they've come to where they're going is just the fairy tale. I used to cover Wrexham when they were in the fiftier of English football. It's called the Conference, the National League, fully professional, by the way, that's how much we love our football and England five years professional football.
I used to go there.
I used to cover the games and that was around for the two thousand and eight kind of time, two thousand and two thousand and nine.
So to see them now and in my opinion, they'll be in the Premier League within three years.
For us, that'll be an amazing story and I can't wait for it because everybody in Wrexham, just a small town in North Wales, everybody in Rexham loves what's happening and I would love to be a part of that.
So if got any shares.
To me, yeah, but I you know, I don't think that the reaction when you had, you know, two Hollywood celebrities buying your football team. They're coming in and all of a sudden, you know, the locals probably weren't keen on Ryan Reynolds and Rob mcwall.
Not at the beginning, not at the beginning down because Rexham, like every English football club, is very steep and tradition has ways of doing things. English football has ways of doing things and sounds terrible. We don't like outsiders. We don't like outsiders, and as much as we love Americans, sometimes we've had bad experiences in English football with some American owners. So I think there was reticence and there was nervousness that their club because as I've told you we've talked about before, Dan football clubs in England are everything to the people in that town, city, or even village really and Wrexham is no different. So they weren't convinced when they came in. Took them a little time, but now they've realized they're two people who absolutely have the best interests of this club at heart and are taking them onto great things.
And now I think they've bought them.
She's Rebecca Lo NBC Sports Premier League host and hosting at the Kentucky Derby. You know, if I had a horse in the derby. You know what I would name it?
What?
What do you think I would name it? Hurry kane waker?
Oh we got no, Dad, We've got two thirds of the way from this is going very calmly.
Dan's behaving himself, and then you throw in the only words that you so that you cannot say on English television.
I can't believe you've just done that. I can't believe it. I can't believe it.
I get you every year, every year, every year I get you.
Don't make me say it.
No, no, no, I would never. But if you were working and all of a sudden you went with the favorites and you went sovereignty wanker, send down, stop it, stop it?
Can you exage?
Because it's kind of the sort of thing I feel like might happen over here, Because you guys think it's just like a joking word and people have probably heard it on like Ted Last.
Could you imagine that could actually happen?
I'm Dad.
I've had a situation recently where my son wanted to buy a fanny pack and I just got to.
Tell you, in England, we can't be using such words.
You google it, don Patrick, I don't want to say it again.
Okay, so do that after the shop.
Have fun this weekend. Thanks Dan, great great, great to see you. That's the lovely and talented Rebecca Lo NBC Sports Premier League host in Kentucky derby host as well.
