It Sucks That The Bay Bridge Series Is Ending
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00:00I'm not gonna lie to you, talking about a Hock Tuohy girl is probably better to talk about the Giants right now.
00:05I want to know where she's from, what's her deal?
00:08What is she majoring in? Is she in business, finance, marketing?
00:13She majors in jokes on the street, clearly.
00:17Hock Tuohy girl, oh man.
00:19Have you ever thrown out a first pitch?
00:21No, I haven't yet.
00:22Do you want to?
00:23I do. I was gonna do one for the A's.
00:25Really?
00:26I was gonna do one for the A's, then they left us.
00:30They left us. I do remember that.
00:33But the PR, a lot of them was like, Poncho, you ready to throw a first pitch?
00:36I was like, let me get my arm ready, let me get my arm ready.
00:38Oh, you're that guy?
00:39I remember Guru.
00:40You turned to Lucas?
00:41Yeah, I did, because that mound is long.
00:43It is, though.
00:44No, it is, though.
00:45But Guru threw out a first pitch in the A's game.
00:47And how'd it go?
00:48Dude, he threw smoke.
00:49Yeah?
00:50Dude, he threw like 85.
00:51Guru complied.
00:52I think Dave Stewart even told him, he was like, wow, that was a little steam on there.
00:54Oh, nice.
00:55You gotta just throw it nice and easy.
00:56Now, Guru, that was his game seven.
00:59That was his game seven.
01:00Joe Lowe and Dave Stewart threw out the first pitch one time.
01:02The A's were gonna have us all do it.
01:03They had their old jerseys, so I was gonna have my custom-made A's jersey.
01:06And then they left us.
01:08It'd be all lowercase, Bonte, and then the A would be capitalized.
01:11My favorite was I came in that day, and all of a sudden, some guy's like wheeling it out,
01:15and they're doing a video.
01:16And the next day, I look online, and it's like the A's are doing a video
01:19about how they're wheeling out all their stuff.
01:21Because remember that in that back room?
01:23Yeah, that was a Caval Special right there.
01:25I loved that.
01:26They were good people, man.
01:27I was a Caval Special.
01:28It's not us.
01:29It's you.
01:30Well, it turns out it was you.
01:31What station are they even on right now?
01:33I don't know.
01:34Bloomberg something?
01:35I don't know.
01:36I don't.
01:37I do not know.
01:38This does suck that they're leaving.
01:40I mean, look, I guess for some people, going up to Sacramento, whatever,
01:45it might be more accessible for them, or at least they're not completely gone.
01:49But the way that this thing has gone down, to say that this is written right out of the script
01:54of Major League, is actually false.
01:57Major League was pretty cut and dry.
02:00This has almost been a worse, slower, more painful death.
02:04I mean, they flirted with everyone.
02:06They've lied at every single turn.
02:07At least in Major League, she made no qualms about how she wanted to leave.
02:10Right.
02:11In this one, they've lied and wasted taxpayer money every single year
02:16to try to, I don't know, jam up the whole system just to make it seem like
02:22maybe they were trying to build a stadium.
02:24When come to find out, they've never really wanted to build a stadium anywhere.
02:28They're just wasting resources that could be put to other.
02:31I mean, look, we all live in this community, right?
02:33We all know what's going on here.
02:34I don't love the way government spends money in general.
02:37I think most people agree with that.
02:38That's not a political statement.
02:39That's just common sense.
02:41And I think that we can all realize, like, our communities, we've got some issues.
02:46Forking over time, money, and resources so that the billionaire A's
02:51who don't want to come out of pocket for a thing
02:54can, like, fake build a stadium that they have no intentions of trying to do.
02:59Like, at that point, you're disingenuously engaging
03:02in trying to just basically lose money for everyone in the community.
03:06It's an absolute joke what they've done the last few years.
03:10And I find them to be the most disgusting people on the planet
03:14because they're literally wasting everyone's time
03:17and they have zero good intentions at all to actually build something.
03:22It's one thing if they tried to build something
03:25and, you know, they really, truly put their money where their mouth was
03:29and for whatever reason, there was all this bureaucratic red tape.
03:32And I don't think politicians are great.
03:34Nobody does.
03:35That's not a political statement either.
03:37I'm just saying that, like, at some point,
03:39you have to actually, like, put a little money in
03:42and show us that you're invested.
03:44And as my dad would say, put some skin in the game.
03:46You know what I mean?
03:47And they've never done that.
03:48And they've flirted with every single area,
03:51Portland, Sacramento, Las Vegas, and in every single turn,
03:55every community, whether it's locally or abroad,
03:58has said, yeah, this guy's full of crap.
04:00He doesn't want to spend any money.
04:02And no one wants to give him money.
04:04And what they've done to the team is a joke.
04:06And if you think about how many amazing A's players
04:09have gone through there over the last few years,
04:11like, to say that the A's fan is the most loyal
04:14and also been screwed over the most
04:16in all of the world of sports,
04:19that feels like an understatement.
04:21Yeah, they've, I mean, well said.
04:25It makes me angry.
04:26Not much I can add to that.
04:27But, you know, getting to know A's fans over the years,
04:31especially working at this station
04:32and going to a lot of those day games,
04:33it was a lot of fun.
04:35And the tradition of the A's, you know, it gets lost.
04:38I'm a big history buff when it comes to sports.
04:40Like, I love the sports history.
04:42I love the guys who paved the way for the guys of today.
04:46And when you think about those classic 70s teams,
04:48and you think of the classic late 80s teams
04:50or the early 90s, and then you think about
04:52the one they were on in the 2000s with the big three
04:54and Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez,
04:58they had dudes.
04:59They had dudes.
05:00And even this last decade, they had dudes.
05:02And they just never had any interest
05:05in keeping the team together.
05:06They never had interest.
05:07They operated like a small market team
05:09in the fifth, sixth largest market in the country.
05:12Like, and I...
05:14A market that they owned.
05:15A market that they owned.
05:16They one time owned.
05:17And so, I never believed that.
05:19Boy, because there's arguments,
05:21well, can two baseball teams work here?
05:23Can they get a stadium or what?
05:24They used to have the beautiful Oakland Coliseum
05:26with the mountains up there and the hills
05:28and the lawn and the outfield.
05:30I do believe two teams could work here in this market.
05:33I truly believe that.
05:34The A's fans are deep in the East Bay, deep.
05:38And now, when you don't invest into your own product,
05:41or you don't invest into the stadium,
05:43and you raise prices for parking,
05:45and you don't fix the concession stands,
05:47and you just operate like,
05:48yeah, we're a minor league function,
05:50you're gonna lose a lot of people.
05:52And they lost a lot of people along the way.
05:54Workers, employees, announcers.
05:57And so, when I think about the Bay Bridge Series,
06:00you know, some people are like,
06:01hey man, are you excited?
06:03I just think about the A's.
06:04I look at it from their perspective.
06:05It's like, this is it.
06:06This is gonna be one of the,
06:08they've got what?
06:09A two game series here with the Giants,
06:10and then they got their final series.
06:12They've got like three or four big crowds left
06:14in that stadium.
06:15Sellouts.
06:16And Spadoni's an A's fan,
06:17and I wanna hear from him,
06:18but they've got basically three big crowds left.
06:21They've had people,
06:22they've had crowds of like 2,000 people
06:24at a Major League Baseball game.
06:26Major League Baseball, 2,000 people going to a game.
06:28When you systematically alienate yourself from a community
06:32and dismantle the team every three years,
06:35and then cry poor, and then blame everyone,
06:38what do you expect?
06:39You have literally pooped on generations of fans,
06:43and you have not given them back,
06:45like you have to reward people.
06:47It's one thing if you're just inept,
06:48like the Tampa Bay Bucs were just inept
06:50for the longest time in terms of like,
06:52but they were like at least in that area
06:54and trying to be there.
06:55The Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
06:56They have had one foot out of this area for 20 years,
07:00and they're always blaming others.
07:02And the part that bugs me,
07:03I'm Mr. Business.
07:04You know, I'm not that I love to defend the finances,
07:07but like, it's a business, yeah, yeah.
07:09But I also believe, this is just how I believe,
07:12the sports team is a representative of the community,
07:15and you have a civic duty to represent the community well.
07:21That doesn't mean you're going to always do it properly.
07:24Sometimes you make mistakes, every business does,
07:26but I do believe that it's in part a community stewardship
07:30where like the fans do have invested stock,
07:33and you need to invest in that love for them,
07:36for them to meet you halfway
07:37because you're a consumer-based business.
07:39And they just have like totally whiffed on that at every turn.
07:45Spadoni, real quick, what you got?
07:48Probably going to be my last game ever
07:49at the Coliseum tomorrow, like for an A's
07:51because I think the Roots are staying there
07:52and playing their next year.
07:53I'm actually excited about that,
07:55that there'll be actually be professional sports
07:57still being played there.
07:58But yeah, tomorrow's probably going to be my last ever game
08:01watching the A's at the Coliseum.
08:03I want to pick your brain on that on the other side
08:05because I know you're bringing your boys.
08:06We'll talk to Kate Scott first, NBC Sports Philadelphia.
08:09Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
08:11Madden's own.
08:12Who'd you say?
08:13Who'd you say?
08:14The great Scott.
08:16Kate Scott makes her return to the morning roast
08:21on the other side, folks.
08:22We buried the lead.
08:24We buried the lead.
08:25She's coming up on the River Islands.