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The Neutral Zone

Brock Richardson and his panel of sports experts engage in a lively roundtable discussion about Parasports and professional sports news and newsmakers.

The Neutral Zone

Brock Richardson and his panel of sports experts engage in a lively roundtable discussion about Parasports and professional sports news and newsmakers.

Representation - May 24, 2023

Speaker 1:
Are you ready? Let's go. From AMI Central. Now start playing in the neutral zone. Here's a pitch on the way. 36 yards for the win. This! Here comes the big chance. The shot. Is! Is this the dagger? The Neutral Zone. Home run! This is as good as it gets. Now here's your host, two-time Paralympian, Brock Richardson.

Brock Richardson:
What's going on? It's time for another edition of The Neutral Zone. I am indeed your host, Brock Richardson, and I'm a little under the weather today so that's why my voice sounds a little bit different than normal. But I do promise you I am who I am, and I will stand by it. Coming up on today's show, we're going to be speaking with Paralympic athlete Robert Hughes, who is the statistician for the Sarnia Sting of the Ontario Hockey League. We will get the details of that from me, and we're going to also be talking about his Paralympic career. The New York Yankees and Blue Jays played a very interesting series. We're going to delve into that and some of the other interesting things that have gone on in the MLB. With that, let's get into our headlines.

Speaker 1:
Neutral Zone headlines. Headlines. Headlines.

Cam Jenkins:
Recently, the Phoenix Coyotes held a public vote around the idea of how the residents of Tempe, Arizona, would feel about building a new arena and using tax dollars to pay for at least part of the project. The community was against the idea and therefore the future of hockey in Arizona is currently unknown. It's going to be really interesting to see if it finally gets relocated. It probably should have been years ago because they've been having such problems, but at the end of the day, it's probably one of the, I think it's the fourth largest TV market in the US and that's why they're trying so hard to keep it in Arizona.

Brock Richardson:
Yes, that is for sure. The Scarborough Tigers win back-to-back Canadian Wheelchair Basketball League of Canada titles. Key notable members are Bo Hedges and Tamara Steeves and Puisand Lai who are part of the national team program. To have the national team members part of these leagues is always important because you learn something new from those national team members every time you take the court or field.

Claire Buchanan:
Becky Hamlin of the WNBA Las Vegas Aces was recently suspended for two games after violating league and team policies. In addition to the suspension, the league also rescinded the Aces' first-round pick in the 2025 draft for violating league rules regarding impermissible player benefits. The Las Vegas Aces didn't have a 2024 pick in the first round because of a prior trade. I know that they were looking at Becky Hammond to bring in forward conversations about the Toronto Raptors' coaching position, and I don't think that that's a good idea following these allegations.

Brock Richardson:
Those are your headlines for this week. And of course, as you've heard, I'm joined by Claire Buchanan and Cam Jenkins for today's program and we are coming off of the long weekend, which is the May 24 weekend, and we thought we would discuss a little bit about our weekends. I'll start by telling you that I went to visit the one and only Kelly MacDonald in London, Ontario. We went to the London Lightning game, which is the Basketball League of Canada team, and they're in their final series against the Windsor Express. They won, but it wasn't without some controversy in that there was a fight on the court and then a fight between the two owners. So lots of fun stuff for me. Took place this weekend and it was a good time. What about you guys? Claire, I'll start with you.

Claire Buchanan:
Well, no one was throwing fists, that's for sure. It was a pretty relaxing weekend for me. I am still in the stages of getting back to being in full swing with having a concussion, so taking it easy. Got to see some family. It's my dad's birthday, which usually falls on the long weekend and yeah, just hung out with family and caught some NHL and NBA games and watched the OHL final, game six. Well, could have gone to game seven I guess, but saw the... Watched the Peterborough Petes take it and looking forward to the Memorial Cup.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, for me, Brock, to be quite honest with you, who cares about my weekend? You said the owners were fighting? Like fisticuffs?

Brock Richardson:
No, no, no, no, no fisticuffs, just some very, very strong words were being exchanged by the two owners and it was just unbelievable. Kelly and I were sitting in the 200 level and I had a friend of mine who was sitting in the 100 level and I texted her and I said, "So what'd you think about that fight?" And she responded, "Which one?" And I said, "Well, the one that we just saw." She said, "Well, there were two. There was a fight between the two owners," and good times. So she expressed that to me. But yeah, it was a real good time.

Cam Jenkins:
I can't imagine owners getting in fights and it being public. The last time, and it wasn't even two owners, it was Masai Ujiri saying F Brooklyn, and he got in trouble for that, and he's not even an owner. He was like, I guess the governor of the Raptors. But for two owners to go at it, and obviously not fisticuffs, but even a war of words and in public and in front of... Oh man, that sounds like a WWE match just ready to happen.

Claire Buchanan:
Was it off of a bad call, a bad ref call?

Brock Richardson:
No, just bad blood between those two. They don't...

Claire Buchanan:
Ah, gotcha.

Brock Richardson:
... like each other much at all and they exchanged some words and yeah, two players got ejected. And the owners, I'm not sure if they got removed or not, because they obviously weren't playing the basketball game, but one owner went directly up to the other. Windsor owner went up to London's owner and started the war of words and off we went. And I do think there's a level of inspiring your team, but I think we should inspire them in different ways aside from having a war of words with each other. Cameron.

Cam Jenkins:
Well, I always like to spice it up here and maybe take the opposite opinion every once in a while, but I certainly have never done that on air or I don't think I would ever do that behind the scenes either. But man, yeah, doesn't matter what I did this past weekend, because obviously there are lots of fireworks before our Victoria Day at that game. So there you go.

Brock Richardson:
You want to get ahold of us on Twitter? Here's how you can do it.

Speaker 1:
And welcome back to the Neutral Zone AMI broadcast booth. Play Ball! And we are set to get this ballgame underway. The first pitch brought to you by Brock Richardson's Twitter account @neutralzonebr. First pitch. Strike! And hey gang, why not strike up a Twitter chat with Claire Buchanan for the Neutral Zone. Find her @NeutralZoneCB. And there's a swing and a chopper out to second base, right at Claire. She picks up the ball, throws it over to first base for a routine out. And fans, there is nothing routine about connecting with Cam and Josh from the Neutral Zone @NeutralZoneCamJ and @JWatson200. Now that's a winning combination. And this Oregon interlude is brought to you by AMI Audio on Twitter. Get in touch with the Neutral Zone. Type in @AMIaudio.

Brock Richardson:
We are so pleased and excited to be joined by Robert Hughes, who is a former Paralympic athlete in field and is currently the statistician for the Sarnia Sting. And he joins us, well, from Sarnia to tell us about his career and what he does as a statistician as well. Rob, nice to be with you. Thanks for joining us this afternoon.

Robert Hughes:
Yeah, thanks for having me guys. It's a pleasure to be here.

Claire Buchanan:
Rob, start off by telling us how your journey started with the Sarnia Sting. How did you come into that opportunity?

Robert Hughes:
So in the summer of 2007, I decided to make a coaching change in my field career, which brought me down to Sarnia and I didn't have anywhere to live at the time actually. So I was like, well, let's see what Lambton College has to offer, and they had sports and recreation administration. So I decided to apply for that. I got in and then I noticed there was co-op opportunities with the team. So I sent an email to the general manager at the time and they brought me in for an interview. And that's history. I've been with the team since 2007.

Cam Jenkins:
And Robert, what is the role of a statistician?

Robert Hughes:
So it all depends. Sometimes, like when I first started, all I did was track time on ice. So literally, all I did was track every player for 60 minutes. That was quite tedious, obviously, as you can tell 'cause everybody's jumping on and off the ice quite fast. But it now it has since evolved, so I now am part of the online scoring team. So when you see all the statistics for the games live on the internet, that's me. I work in conjunction with a team of three others and we compile all the stats and put them online for people to see live.

Claire Buchanan:
You touched on it being very detailed oriented. What is one of the most challenging parts of the job?

Robert Hughes:
Actually for me, where I sit, because arena accessibility isn't the greatest, so I have to sit on the main concourse for my job. When there are 4,000 people in the stands and standing all around you, and just trying to stay focused, not paying attention to all the background noise outside of it.

Cam Jenkins:
Oh yeah, that would be tough. Yeah. What's the part you enjoy with your job?

Robert Hughes:
The success of the players. Regardless of if they make it to the NHL, AHL, even if they use their education package to further their education, it's all about the players. I like to see them succeed, it doesn't matter. And we've had some really good players come through Sarnia's system, Steven Stamkos, Pavel Zacha, Jakob Chychrun, Travis Konecny, Jordan Kyrou, just to name a few. And you might not know that Matt Martin was a walk-on in 2006/2007. He wasn't even drafted in the OHL...

Cam Jenkins:
Oh wow.

Robert Hughes:
... and he was a walk-on for the Sting and he's had a long career in the NHL.

Brock Richardson:
We're joined by Rob Hughes who is the statistician for the Sarnia Sting and also a Paralympic athlete in the field, which we'll get to a bit later on in the interview. I'm Brock Richardson alongside Cam Jenkins and Claire Buchanan.

Claire Buchanan:
As far as I can remember, you have been able to drop names in the sport of hockey and sports in general. So you clearly were intentional about getting into a role that you enjoy and that you love doing every day. So what parts of this job correlate with you as a person most?

Robert Hughes:
Oh, I think just a positive attitude, right? Give the go every day. Again, that comes to the core values of the Sting being family members. They could have said this isn't a really good fit, but they didn't even see my disability for anything. They just saw me as a person with a positive attitude. And that's the thing in life, if you have a positive attitude, you will succeed. It might take you a little longer than you want, but you will succeed.

Cam Jenkins:
Those are wise words. Let's get into your parasport career, Robert. Can you maybe talk a little bit about that and your journey from where you started to where you're going now?

Robert Hughes:
So I started at 14 years old, introduced by the late Ken Tom (Ken Thomas) in Halton-Peel, then it just evolved from there really. Within two years I made Paralympic standards. And then I qualified for Sydney 2000, finished fifth in discus and javelin and then represented Canada at two more world championships, three Parapan-American games. Yeah. 18-time Canadian champion. Yeah, something like that.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, gloat buddy. Gloat. Yeah. Yeah. Your resume speaks for itself as a para-athlete. What's one of the things that you are able to take from that career to apply to your everyday life?

Robert Hughes:
Again, like I said, just give everything you have. There's a quote that I like to live by, it's by Steve Prefontaine, he's an American distance runner. Remember, "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." So no matter what you're doing in life, just give your all.

Cam Jenkins:
Now, para-sports and the way it is today, what do you think para-sports... Where is para-sports at as we sit here today?

Robert Hughes:
Evolving. I would say it's certainly a lot better than it was back when I was competing. You have to look at some newspaper clips for some of my stuff. Now with social media and everything like that and digital media, it's a lot easier to have access. I would like to see more mainstream television time for all the athletes instead of having time-shifted or time delayed. I think it should be live just like it is for the Olympics. Why do the Paralympians get a different schedule, right?

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah. And Robert, what do you think of, I guess the standard to be able to throw at the Paralympics I know that's changed over the past few years on how they rate a person? Do you have any ideas or thoughts on that and if it's fair or not fair or how you'd like to be able to see it be a little bit different?

Robert Hughes:
During my career, I could say that it probably wasn't necessarily the most fair, because I actually did qualify for five Paralympic games in terms of standards, but I was only selected to one team in Sydney 2000. But again, that's the political stuff and I like to stay away from that. That's kind of why I also retired from the sport in 2016, because it was just too political for me, I wasn't having fun anymore.

Claire Buchanan:
There's always going to be politics in sports, unfortunately, and yeah, we do our best to keep them at arm's length. But how important do you see, say a athlete's council in sports to have that outlet for athletes to bring their ideas forward and challenge what's going on to push things forward in a direction that it needs to be?

Robert Hughes:
Yeah, I think those things are critical too, but I also think it's very important that athletes aren't afraid to use those voices. And a lot of the times, a lot of them are just because they're afraid of repercussions that might happen towards them and their career, but take a stand and strive for what you believe in. If you think it's really important, then go to those levels and make sure you get your voices heard.

Cam Jenkins:
Robert, one more question from me. Are you doing any para-sports now or have you retired from most para-sports?

Robert Hughes:
No, I'm completely done. I'm just working now. So I'm doing the Sting job and then I have another job on the side with a little bit of marketing.

Cam Jenkins:
Okay. Have you ever thought about coaching?

Robert Hughes:
Yeah, but again, where I live, I would have to move back to a bigger center. Sarnia's very small, so not very many athletes, para-athletes in general here. So if I was to ever coach, I'd have to move back to a bigger center.

Brock Richardson:
Rob, one of the things that I was really almost fascinated with is how you almost blew by your, I'm an 18-time Canadian champion and the list goes on and on, and you're just so humble and you're not the type of guy that gloats and says, this is what I did. What would you say would be the fondest memory of all the things that you got to do over your career, whether on the field of play or off of it?

Robert Hughes:
Well, again, I think the travelling and being part of a team. Actually one of my favourite ones was actually in 2013 when I was part of an integrated team, and that was able-bodied and para-athletes at the 2013 Jeux de la Francophonie games. So it was really cool because there were the able-bodied athletes that came out to watch me throw, because I happened to be at 9:00 AM in the morning on the very first day where nobody would care that you're there. But those able-bodied athletes got up and came to cheer me on. So the camaraderie was really great, that was probably my favourite memory.

Brock Richardson:
I love it. I absolutely love it, Rob. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. Best of luck with all of your future endeavours and continued success with the Sarnia Sting as I know you do such a wonderful job. And it was a pleasure to see you recently in London when you came down, when London and Sarnia were battling each other. So good to talk to you here, but best of luck with your future endeavours and thanks so much for doing this.

Robert Hughes:
All right, thanks for having me guys. It's been a pleasure.

Brock Richardson:
That's Rob Hughes, a statistician for the Sarnia Sting, and he is also a former Paralympic athlete. If you want to get ahold of us by voicemail, here's how you can do it.

Speaker 1:
Hey, if you want to leave a message for the Neutral Zone, call now! 1-866-509-4545. And don't forget to give us permission to use your message on the air. Let's get ready to leave a voicemail.

Brock Richardson:
As athletes, we're not designed or programmed to gloat about ourselves. We're designed to take the wins as wins and take the losses as losses. I was always taught that they were learning experiences from when I was involved in bocce and involved in my career. For you guys, what stood out in the interview with Rob? Cameron, start with you.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, just I guess how far he's come, to see him as an athlete and growing up to where he is now and being a statistician for the Sarnia Sting and being in Sarnia and how independent he is. And then from para-sports, he should be proud of what he accomplished, going to Sydney for the Paralympics. That's something he is always going to be able to look back on with fond memories. So, great for Rob.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, Rob was one of the first friends in para-sports that I made as a young kid, and he exudes passion for what he does and that's why he has such a long career. I'm just so happy to see people doing what they love, like us right here. We love what we do and it makes me happy knowing that people are intentional with what they pursue. You hear about people that just go in day in and day out to jobs that they hate and they're miserable at work. So it's nice to know that people are out there really pushing for what they want to do and loving what they're doing. And like he said, using your voice to speak up and create the life that you want.

Brock Richardson:
One of the things that I grew up with as a motto, if you find the perfect job, you'll never work a day in your life. And as an athlete, yes, you have your downs and you have your moments where it's like, oh, got to get up and do this 5:00 AM practice or whatever the case is. Or in my case, my voice is a little bit under the weather today and it does sound worse than it actually is, I promise you out there. But we all have passions and we all have things that we love to do. And once we find that as a collective, it's very hard to move away from that. And if you step away and say, I'm missing this, it's almost that fear of... Not fear of missing out, but it's that fear of what's that next venture that I might have been able to gain from it if I take a step back and say, I'm not able to do this or what's that thing that I can learn from and do, and do it well.
And for me, that's what Rob is for me. Today's episode is titled Representation, and that's just because representation in the world is key and it is necessary. But for me, Rob touched on it a little bit. The Sarnia Sting is very much a family and it's very much a team of people, and it's easy to look at Rob in a wheelchair. For those of you that can't see him, Rob is a big guy and it's very easy to judge on that, but the Sarnia Sting haven't done that. So for you, Claire, why is representation important in para-sports but then in the world in general?

Claire Buchanan:
Oh, it's huge. There's that saying, if you see it, you can be it. You know what I mean? So seeing people like Rob in positions, like working in the OHL, that's some people's dream job and it takes one person to do it for an entire generation to be like, I can go out and do that. And recently seeing it and my world with women's para hockey is we've had a couple girls fight to crack the squad of the para-team. And if the people like Christina Picton didn't come along, then the rafts wouldn't happen. You know what I mean? So it takes one person to show a whole group of individuals, no matter what you're doing. Whether it's sports or you're working a different job in journalism or whatever you're doing, it's nice to see that those opportunities are possible for you because other people are doing it.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, representation matters for all people no matter what skin colour, religion, or disability, it's so important to be able to see someone of your minority, I'll call it, to say, "Hey, yeah, I can do that too." And that's why representation matters, because growing up like I did in the 18 hundreds, there weren't a lot of representation. Exactly. When the dinosaurs were on, there weren't a lot of dinosaurs with disabilities, let's get with it. And on TV you didn't see a lot of representation of disability either, and the internet wasn't even around and social media wasn't around. So representation matters because there's going to be a lot more confident people with disabilities today than there were when I was growing up as a kid, I feel because they have all of this representation on social media and now on TV and just other areas of their life that they're going to be able to say, "Hey, this person did it, why can't I?"

Brock Richardson:
In the coming weeks, we're going to have a conversation regarding parasports and putting parasports on. And when you're doing a service to parasports versus a disservice. And to me, that all stems from representation and it all stems there as well. And so stay tuned for more conversations like that. The conversation that I just spoke about will be happening in about two to three weeks, I would say. Looking at the schedule ahead. But yeah, I thought this was a good starting point here. Before we move on to a bunch of wacky stuff that's gone on in the Major League Baseball, where do you guys see parasports when you hear Rob talking about it? Where do you guys see parasport as a whole and abroad? Claire, start with you.

Claire Buchanan:
We're on a good path, that's for sure. I was recently at the Wheelchair Rugby National Championships, and for the first time ever see you could stream it live and watch it on CBC Gem. And recently with the Ottawa schedule with the men's wheelchair basketball that had Team USA and the Netherlands in town, again, you were able to watch it on CBC Gem. So history is being constantly made because we're doing things that have never done before in terms of broadcasting and seeing parasports on TV, and I'm excited. I'm just excited for the next loop of Paralympic games to see what those contracts look like and what the hours of coverage look like. And not just that, it's outside of the actual tournaments and games that are going on, it's the advertising throughout the year when it isn't a Paralympic games year of, hey, these athletes are still training and they're still competing and they still matter in this world of sports. So it's like we always say we have a long way to go, but we have done so much in the last little while even.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah. Digital media and social media, it has changed the game not only for disabled sports but for quite a few different sports as well. Even if you think of soccer across the pond, social media, you're able to watch those games now when you want. And yes, they're being covered on TSN or Sports Nut as well, but even 10 years ago it wasn't, you just read it in the paper and that was about it. Social media and digital media, it is going to be, it has been, and it will continue to be such a game changer for disabled sports and being able to get up-to-date information on all the different types of tournaments. And I'm not even talking about the world championship tournaments, I'm talking about your local tournaments, your grassroots tournaments as well. And that's where it all starts and gets people excited to be able to push through or to enjoy the sport and keep moving forward. So that to me is going to be the biggest media moving forward for disabled sports.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah, for sure. I agree. And we're going to have plenty of conversation about disabled sports and para-sports in general over the next coming weeks, because the Parapan-Am games are creeping ever so close and there's many events that are taking place now as we've told you about in the headlines recently. I want to talk about baseball, and I don't want to talk about baseball in the sense of who's doing what and how. I want to talk about some of the stuff that we've seen recently on the field. So let's start here.
Domingo German, a couple of weeks ago was told to go wash his hands because he had a sticky substance. He washed his hands, he came back and it was fine then. He then played the Blue Jays and the umpire realized that he had another sticky substance on his hand and he was ejected right then and there because the substance was too sticky. Then we have a situation where Clarke Schmidt from the New York Yankees also had a sticky substance on his hand, was told to go wash his hands. The Reds manager, David Bell, came out and said, "Hey, what's going on? Once you find a sticky substance, isn't this game over? Aren't they ejected?" And he was the one, David Bell, that got ejected. So your thoughts on these first, Cameron, and then I'll delve into where I want to go from here, but just give me your general thoughts on pictures and sticky substances and that kind of thing.

Cam Jenkins:
I don't know. There's two ways to think about this. I had a coach say to me one time, if you're not cheating, you're not trying. Claire's laughed at that 'cause I think she knows the coach I'm talking about. But to me, I don't like it when people cheat and especially if they're using a sticky substance to get people out to make the ball dog dive up, down, all around, whatever they can do with a sticky substance and a baseball. I don't know. I think they should be suspended and I think the guy from the Yankees, he was suspended, 10 games if I am correct.

Brock Richardson:
Yes, he was. Yeah.

Cam Jenkins:
So I don't think there's any place for it in the game, but I'm sure a lot more people do it. I'm just going to be really upset if Kikuchi is doing it this year, and I hope he doesn't get caught for using any sticky substances or cheating. But I don't know, I guess if you're not cheating, you're not trying.

Claire Buchanan:
I want to know when in professional athlete's careers, we're talking baseball here, so at what point in these guys' careers did they go, "Yeah, I'm in sport and I'm going to do it the right way and I'm going to play fair"? Where's this turning point of, hey, I'm going to try to cut corners and follow along with trying to get away with stuff. And there's some things in sport, yeah, they're not going to change, but this has been an issue for quite some time now and I just don't get it. I want to say give it a rest. Why are you trying to cheat, so blatantly too? They have it in the game now that pitchers' hands are getting checked every time they come off that mound. Why put yourself and your team at risk?

Cam Jenkins:
In that position.

Claire Buchanan:
You know what I mean? It doesn't compute for me, because I like ethics and sportsman.

Cam Jenkins:
Well, it's because of the dollars. It's because of the dollars. The money, the millions of dollars. So if you end up having a great season as a pitcher and you end up going 24-2 or 24-5 or whatever the record is to be a really good record, once you're up for... Once you're up for unrestricted free agency, you can get 20 million dollars.

Brock Richardson:
Say that five times fast.

Cam Jenkins:
Well, no. I had a hard time saying it one time.

Claire Buchanan:
But do you really want to go... Do you really want to be like a Mark McGuire that is like, okay, you had the record, but there's a little asterisk beside your name because you didn't do it fairly?

Cam Jenkins:
No, I wouldn't. But I would never even be a Major League Baseball player or a soccer player or a football or a hockey, the list goes on. It's easy for me to say, "Oh yeah, you know what? I'm never going to cheat and never going to do it." But when you are at that level and you're making $800,000 a year or a million dollars, I don't know what the lowest level for getting paid as a baseball player is, but let's say it's $2 million. If you get two million dollars, but if you did this and cheated, put sticky substance on a ball to make it dance and you can get 20 million a season for four or five years rather than two million a season, that is incentive enough for people to do it. And I don't agree with it, but I'll never be in that position where I'll be like, okay, two million dollars, take half off if you're playing for the Blue Jays because it's 50% off, so like a million bucks and you might only play a year or two.
I don't know what decision I would make in that situation. I would like to think I wouldn't cheat, but I don't know. If it's making 20 million compared to one or two, I don't know.

Brock Richardson:
I don't know. I'd be happy with one or two million dollars and my morals attached with it. I will never be in a position to be able to make one or two million dollars, let alone 20. So just for me, that's the struggle that I sit here and I say, well, where are we going here? The point that I want to make here on top of all this is that, do you think that a 10-game suspension is enough? Because if we look at the Domingo German situation, and the Blue Jays were just not getting anything going, and he pitched half the game and they still lost the game, do you think there should be a deeper punishment rather than just the 10 games? Which, for the listener out there, 10 games for a starting pitcher is actually two games. So Claire, what do you make of that?

Claire Buchanan:
I like the 10-game suspension. I think that it needs to be attached with a fine also. Like you said, we don't know what the direction this is going to go in and what it's going to snowball into of what other corners people are going to try to cut off. And I don't know what else to suggest to really cut it off at the Achilles tendon to make it stop. But yeah.

Cam Jenkins:
Cut through Achilles tendon off. Wow.

Claire Buchanan:
You see it in other leagues too. A fine to these guys, it's a slap on the wrist.

Cam Jenkins:
Oh.

Brock Richardson:
It's like 100 bucks.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, that's a dinner out. You know what I mean? They get a fine and they're like, "Okay, sweet. I guess I'm not going on a date this weekend." That's how much it impacts their wallet. And so I think seeing suspensions-

Cam Jenkins:
Well, still go on the date, but find something free to do.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah. So I like seeing game suspensions no matter what league we're talking about instead of fines. Because for one, that hurts your record and you really have to move some pieces around depending on who the suspension is on. So, I don't know.

Brock Richardson:
Listen. For those of you that can see, I'm a bigger guy and if I'm not able to go out for my hundred-dollar dinner, I'm going to be upset. So I'd rather not do that and play within the morals and values of the situation. I want to throw an idea out to you both and see what you think. Do you think there should be a punishment? And I'll give you two examples that I talked about earlier in the week in some of my hits. One would be, do you tell whoever the offending team is that they lose an inning of bats or do you add some runs onto the board or do you just leave it the way it is? Cameron, what say you?

Cam Jenkins:
Wow, the choices. I don't know. If a pitcher has been dominating that much, why don't we go with option D and say that they have to stop the game and the other team wins.

Brock Richardson:
Wow.

Cam Jenkins:
Because you've been cheating and obviously dominating because of that cheating, so why not say the other team has to forfeit and the game is won by whomever they're playing against.

Claire Buchanan:
I like it. Over the last few games, the Blue Jays could use a little extra runs on the board, but I love the spiciness of a forfeited game. Yeah, give them the L.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah. I'm not sure that it will ever get there to be honest with you, but I like the idea. I personally think you should take an inning away from the team that cheated and say you are less three outs than the rest of everybody and you don't get to bat in the seventh or the eighth inning. And that's a you problem, because you cheated.

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah, myself, I like the idea of forfeiting and the other team wins. Because if you just suspend the player, if it's a really good pitcher, yes, you could be hurting the team by them not pitching. But a 10-game suspension is two starts out of 162 games. That's not going to really matter a whole hoodah when it comes down to it. So I don't know. I think you need to have some sort of punishment that the team takes, because then maybe you'll have peer pressure from the other teammates so that doesn't happen again.

Brock Richardson:
Look what happened to the...

Claire Buchanan:
Well, what if we...

Brock Richardson:
Go ahead, Claire.

Claire Buchanan:
Sorry. So this sticky substance is essentially a performance-enhancing substance.

Brock Richardson:
Yeah.

Claire Buchanan:
You're enhancing your performance, so why not put that under the same list of other performance-enhancing avenues that people are taking within the sport? And if you look under those suspensions, they're season-long.

Cam Jenkins:
They can be, yeah.

Claire Buchanan:
You break that rule and you're done for the year/

Cam Jenkins:
You can be. Yeah, for sure. There's like three, and I don't know how many games it is, but you're right. I think one might be 50 games, the other one might be a year, and the other one might be...

Brock Richardson:
A lifetime, I think.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, and that's more of a punch in the gut. Yeah. Exactly, yeah.

Cam Jenkins:
And there might be that as well with the stickiness. Maybe if you get caught once, it's 10. Maybe if you get... But I don't know. But that'd be nice to see for that as well. Maybe the first one's 10 games, the next one's 50 games, and then the next one's a year, if you have sticky substances found. Maybe that's the way to do it.

Brock Richardson:
The thing that frustrates the H-E-double hockey sticks out of me is there's no consistency. And I was reading through bits of the rule book on sticky substances over the weekend, and the only thing that really comes out to me is if you have a sticky substance, you're out of the game. So why are players being allowed to wash their hands and come back? If you're deeming the fact that this player had a sticky substance and it's too sticky, why are they being allowed to wash their hands when the other manager's coming out and saying, "Hey, wait a minute, this is what the rule says. Why aren't you following it?" What the heck gives, Cameron?

Cam Jenkins:
No, and I agree with you. If that's the rule book, then that's what it should be. And maybe they have the rule book in their pocket as well. But to be honest with you, I can be a forgetful guy and to be able to memorize an entire rule book that the umpires have to do, I find that amazing if they're able to do that. And the managers, if they're able to do that as well, get on them. But with all the 1-A and 1-B and 1-Cs, I would never be a manager or I'd never be a umpire, 'cause I would never, ever be able to remember it.

Brock Richardson:
You don't have to remember it. And anyone that says you do, they're full of horse poop, because you can literally call up your buddy in the back place with one of the 75 phones they have in the dugout, and you can say, read me the rule on X.

Cam Jenkins:
Okay. The managers can, but what about the umpires that are out there?

Brock Richardson:
They can do the same thing. They can call the league.

Cam Jenkins:
They can call the league. They've got a Bluetooth in their ear and they can just call up and say, hey, what's the rule on this?

Brock Richardson:
Remember what happened with the Toronto Blue Jays when the ball hit the knob of the bat and there was bedlam and all this happened? The umpires called the league and said, "What do we do here, because we've never seen this happen?" So yeah, they can call the league, just use your resources that are available to you. It's that simple.

Cam Jenkins:
Now was that an instant replay that happened, with the bat on the ball?

Brock Richardson:
No, they...

Claire Buchanan:
No, it was just a phone call on the field.

Cam Jenkins:
Oh, so it had nothing to do with the instant replay and if it hit the...

Brock Richardson:
Well, step one was, did it hit the knob? Step two was, okay, it hit the knob. So what's the rule? And it was literally a phone call on the field that said, what do we do in this situation? And to me, the rule book is the exact same. You can make a phone call and say, hey, league that made the rule book, tell me what this rule is. Why can't we just do that?

Cam Jenkins:
Yeah. Well, if you're able to do that, then great. I don't understand why the umpires wouldn't have made that call. But as we know, refs, umpires, they all make mistakes too. And maybe part of their job, there's probably a supervisor of umpires that might have said to them, "Hey, you made a mistake. The person should have been out. You shouldn't have told them to wash their hands."

Brock Richardson:
Maybe. But then we also never hear from the umpire themselves other than a quote that comes out and it says, "Oh yeah, we've found a sticky substance and it was too sticky for our liking." But everybody else has to stand in front of the media and say what they felt. Why can't we sit and talk to the crew chief of an umpire one or two games when situations like that happen?

Cam Jenkins:
Absolutely. I think all of the refs and umpires in NBA, NHL, MLB, they should all be able to stand out after a game and take questions from the media too, to explain themselves. They should be held accountable too.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, I love that point, Brock. They get away and they're kind of protected with... You can say a comment, and that's all we hear from refs is, oh, we made a mistake or this or that, but there's no actual, hey, face the situation. And when players are interviewed with mistakes that they made and talking about their suspensions and stuff like that, they're right in their face. And there's 50 reporters there saying, "Hey, why'd you make a mistake?" Why aren't refs put in the same position?

Brock Richardson:
Unless their mic was hot. Okay, Tim Peel, who had his mic hot and then he had to defend himself. But sure, let me put a microphone in front of an umpire, even just the crew chief, every night and say, "So, what about this? Why did this happen?" Because that, as a fan, as an observer, would just make me feel satisfied and say, "Finally I get to speak to the person that made the wrong call."

Claire Buchanan:
That way that would've helped a lot in that last Leafs game with that goal.

Brock Richardson:
Aw, did you have to bring the Leafs in? Really?

Cam Jenkins:
Well, and it doesn't matter, it's so many games that are like that. And I think with being an umpire, that's the more true of the umpires and the refs, of calling balls and strikes. They don't look over at one end of the diamond and say, okay, well, we called 12 strikeouts for this team, so we've got to call 12 strikeouts for this team, like they do in the NBA or in the NHL for fouls or for penalties, because they always try to manage the game and try to have just as many penalties. So I guess maybe from that perspective, I think Major League Baseball doesn't manage the game, they more umpire it.

Brock Richardson:
The worst thing that television networks ever did was to add that little box that sits in front of the catcher to determine balls and strikes. And it's not appropriate. Because guess what? That balls-and-strikes situation isn't accurate, 100% foolproof. And we've taken that human element away from umpires. Yeah, there are some egregious ones, but the worst thing MLB and TV networks did guys, was put that strike zone in there because now we know how bad umpires really can be and are.

Cam Jenkins:
Well, I don't think you've seen the worst of it, because let me just say, instead of robocops, there might be roboumpires.

Brock Richardson:
Bring it on. But even that's not going to be a perfect system. And yeah, it's just going to be what it is.

Claire Buchanan:
Yeah, there's still going to be glitches.

Brock Richardson:
No matter what you do, it's not going to be a perfect system. Quick thoughts from the two of you. Blue Jays, what's going on? What's wrong? How do we fix it, Claire?

Claire Buchanan:
I don't know. They seem to be playing okay baseball. I'm not seeing any drastic things that are going just haywire. They're just playing... For one, they played the Yankees. And whether you want to argue about sign stealing or whatever happened in that series, they were the better team. They got the more hits and the more players across the plate. So I don't know, I just hope that they can turn it around, because we were hoping that a good home stand was going to put us in the win column instead of the loss column.

Cam Jenkins:
Wow. The Blue Jays, they have been leaving so many base runners on. And you know how much I didn't like Montoyo, I don't know if you remember those days.

Brock Richardson:
No, I don't.

Claire Buchanan:
No, he's your favourite guy.

Cam Jenkins:
Well, Montoyo 2.0 is about to happen and that's John Schneider. I'm not liking the way that he manages the game, the way he's managing the relief pitchers.

Brock Richardson:
Look at that. We're out of time on the show. Too bad. No, I'm just kidding. Go ahead.

Cam Jenkins:
It's unbelievable. He's not managing the bullpen well, the opportunities to be able to put people in the right place to succeed. I think they're going to have to manage the lineup as far as who they have hitting 1-9. And the players, they're just leaving way too many players on base and the manager can't do anything about that if the players aren't hitting. But you have bases loaded in what was it, one or two outs on the last game against Baltimore and they couldn't even get any runs across, or first and third with zero out or... It's atrocious. They've been playing atrocious and against the Baltimore Orioles. When did the Baltimore Orioles start being good again? Just this year, I guess beginning of last year.

Claire Buchanan:
They're on their way. They're young, they're on their way.

Cam Jenkins:
They're starting to turn it around now, and the east division's the hardest. And the Blue Jays, they're just throwing it away, man. Don't get me started.

Claire Buchanan:
A tale as old as time here in the city of Toronto.

Brock Richardson:
It's too early to worry about baseball guys. Come on. It's May.

Cam Jenkins:
Are you talking about baseball?

Brock Richardson:
It's May 24th as this is-

Cam Jenkins:
Oh, it's not. It's never too early.

Brock Richardson:
Guys. It's fine.

Cam Jenkins:
My god. Schneider. Man, if he keeps managing like this, he may be out halfway through this season.

Brock Richardson:
Cameron, one question. Do you have to have a hate-on for one manager of the Blue Jays or another, or is this just your existence?

Cam Jenkins:
No. Well, if they didn't lose the last seven of eight games, and if you didn't manage the bullpen so badly, and if the Blue Jays didn't flipping leave so many runners on base... I can't count that high, how many players on base that they've had on the eight. The only other thing you could do, but it's not possible, is put Kikuchi in five days in a row and then they might have a good record, 'cause Kikuchi has been playing well.

Brock Richardson:
You make me sick, my friend.

Cam Jenkins:
You're already sick, Brock. Don't blame it on me.

Claire Buchanan:
What a year makes. We wouldn't have been calling out Kikuchi to come out on the mound five days in a row last season.

Cam Jenkins:
No, Kikuchi's my boy, said at the beginning of season. Brock was poo-pooing that idea and Kikuchi has been playing great. He's been playing great. So put Kikuchi out there five games in a row. Let's get a five-game win streak. Go, Jay's. Go!

Brock Richardson:
Cameron makes me sick. On that note, that is the end of our show for this week. I would like to thank Claire Buchanan and Cam Jenkins, I guess we'll thank him. Just kidding, Cameron, I love you. Also, thank our technical producer, Marc Aflalo. Our podcast coordinator is Ryan Delehanty. Stay tuned next week, because you just never know what happens when you're into the Neutral Zone or what argument we might get into next week. Stay tuned, be safe. Be well.