Do the Rules Only Apply to the Bottom Teams? | Just Wondering with Norm Hitzges

It's Tuesday, February 17th. Today, I'm just wondering about the double standard of punishment
in the NBA. We'll find out from Texas Ranger dancer Eric Nadal what he thinks of this year's
Ranger team and finally a new form of cheating at the Winter Olympics that makes my skin crawl.
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Bottom of the league, especially the NBA, do to get themselves a more favorable draft position.
And by doing that, maybe make their future just a little bit better by getting that slightly
better player. They'd get it pick six. Then they would have gotten it pick seven or pick eight.
The NBA hates it. Adam Silver announced big fines last week. Well, one big fine, one moderate
fine. The moderate fine was the Indiana Pacers fined $100,000 lunch money for sitting a star
Pascal Siacama, Siacama in a game. But Adam Silver landed on Utah with both feet,
finding them $500,000 because they sat very good players, Laurie Markenon, and Jerry Jackson,
Jr. for the entire fourth quarter of recent games in an apparent attempt to lose the game
so they get better draft position. Do I like tanking? No. No. But in systems like the NBA,
do I understand why teams do it? Yes. And honestly, would I understand if the Mavericks did it this
year? Yes, again. It's against the basic, the most generic part of sports competition to intentionally
lose. But the goal of the NBA, the nerve of the NBA, the selective punishment of the NBA,
the double standard of the NBA. Consider this as the season wears on and the contenders
have separated themselves from the pretenders. As the playoffs approach, those contenders will simply
sit their stars for entire games so that they can stay fresh and they'll be better ready for the
playoffs so that maybe by limiting the stars like this, the future of the franchise might get a
little better, that they might have a more favorable outcome in the playoffs.
Happens all the time. But will the NBA ever punish those teams, those teams for not playing players
in certain situations? Not a chance. That's a fact chance. They'll never do that. It's a double standard.
It's existed in the NBA for a while now and it'll continue to exist. The rich can do anything.
The poor get kicked in their basketballs. What do you want from your favorite restaurant?
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Our guest is Eric Deidel. This will be his 47th season broadcasting Texas Ranger baseball.
He's already in the baseball hall of fame. It's been there 12 years now since being given the
Ford Frick Award, which goes to the greater announcers in baseball. And we sort of arrive at a point
where we're right in a verge of one of Eric's big moments. No, no, not opening day. Every May,
Eric has hosted a huge birthday bash. And it's become a significant charity event in art
city. So Eric, hi, and let's start there. Tell us about the birthday bash. All right,
no one thanks a lot. Yeah, this is the 14th annual Eric Nadal birthday benefit. All the money raised
goes to the Grant Halliburton Foundation. It's an amazing nonprofit that provides mental health
education programs and suicide prevention programs in area schools. And this year for my 75th
birthday, how could I be that old? I have brought in two of my favorite party bands, Chuck Profit
and the Cumbia Shoes who come from the San Francisco Bay Area and Sammy Ray and the friends who
come from my hometown Brooklyn, New York. And they will be raising the roof at the Longhorn
Ballroom tickets are on sale at longhornballroom.com. It's May the 14th and it is going to be a party this year.
It always is, buddy. And by the way, ease off on that how old you can be at 75 stuff.
Got a few years on you. Let's turn to the new 55. Turn our attention to the 26 Rangers.
In the off season, what moves encouraged you about this team?
Well, most recently the McKenzie Gore move I thought was just brilliant.
I'm always willing to trade prospects for young upcoming major league established stars.
And that's what the Rangers have done with this move. And you've got a guy who has number one
starter potential. Clearly he hasn't become that. Command has been enough of an issue
that he's been maybe slightly better than an average major league starter.
But a guy who's still in his mid 20s has a great opportunity to take the next step forward.
And who knows if the prospects will pan out into something, maybe they will, maybe they won't.
I think McKenzie Gore is going to make it pretty certain that the Rangers have one of the best
starting rotations in the game. What about the off season has discouraged you a bit?
I was really hoping the Rangers would find a way to sign a guy with a proven track record as a
closer. That being said, they did. It's Alexis Diaz, but he hasn't been a closer for a couple of
years. And because his velocity has gone down, he hasn't had the same stuff, hasn't had the
same effectiveness. I was really hoping that the Rangers would keep Sean Armstrong. By the end
of last season, he had developed into a very reliable late inning reliever. And Bruce Bochie was
using him in every sort of situation. If the game needed to be saved in the seventh inning or
the eighth inning, he came in then. If not, he gave him the ninth inning and he did a great job
there. I don't know how much more money it would have taken to keep him. I don't think that much.
He signed with Cleveland for 4.5 million. And my guess is the Rangers had to be offering at least
three. So to lose him out over a million or even a million five, that was disappointing to me.
But again, it's easy for me to spend their money. Don't take this wrongly about a really good guy
and a guy who was critical to the Rangers World Series season, Jordan Montgomery. But they gave
him 1.25 million dollars and he won't be ready until perhaps August from an argumentary. If you
add that 1.25 to what they were offering Armstrong, you get awfully close to being right in the middle
of that bidding. Yeah, that's a good point. There's probably a lot of creative ways the Rangers could
have done that. And I don't know if they were at the point that they needed to make the decision on
Armstrong. What the other things were that the Rangers had going were perhaps they were saving,
you know, a million or two for something else, whether it was Armstrong or whether they still had
hopes of resigning Patrick Corbin, you know, or another veteran starting pitcher who would be ready
for the start of the season, I don't know. I'm not privy to those sorts of conversations. But I
still see the bullpen as a big question mark going into the season. And you know, last year,
it's very deceiving last year because the Rangers had a very good bullpen ERA. But they had a terrible
bullpen one lost record. One lost records are not significant for starting pitchers. They are
significant for relievers, especially when you have a losing record as a reliever. It means that
you came in with a game tied or you team with a small lead and you managed to be the losing
pitcher. That happened far too often last year. You look at the one lost records of all the
Ranger pitchers, including the ones coming back. And they're not very good. I agree. I agree.
Now there have also been three major changes to the starting lineup. Danny Jansen replaces
Heinz. You want to hire him at catcher. Josh Smith, a super utility guy, is now the starting
second baseman in place of the traded to Marcosemian. And Brandon Nemo is the starting right
fielder in place of the good by Adolis Garcia. Is this team better, slightly better, even worse
than last year, from a starting lineup perspective? I'd say they're slightly better
based on the seasons that people had last year. If you assume that Jake Berger is going to have
the year he had last year, and Jacques Peterson isn't so as Josh Young, which I don't think you
can assume, then with the additions, the changes made at the three positions. You mentioned
the Rangers are slightly better. Hopefully the Rangers are slightly better at those three
positions, but much better at the three that I mentioned due to improvement on the part of the
players who are coming back. Let me go there with you for a second. Eric, what has happened to Josh
Young? About three years ago, Josh Young looked like he'd be at least a star if not a superstar.
He was an all-star as a rookie. You know, Bruce Bochi was batting him anywhere from fourth to sixth
in the lineup as a rookie, and the confidence in him certainly paid off that year. I don't know,
it seems to be pitch selection, and I don't know if Josh has been reluctant to make any sort of
mechanical changes or changes in the way he identifies pitches, but he's clearly got to do
something to get back to the form he showed in 2023. The question you ask is one for hitting coaches,
I guess, and one for Josh. You know, what has happened, but clearly the production has been nothing
resembling what it should be based on his rookie season, and based on his track record, you know,
in college and in the minors. Let me go to the three names you mentioned now. Young, Jake
Berger, the first baseman, Jack Peterson, the D.H. Eric, if they fail, there don't appear to be
any fallback positions on this roster. Should then he then fail.
Well, that's a good point. At, you know, at this moment, I imagine you would look to Mark
Kanna, you know, who's coming off an injury-plague season with a couple of different teams,
and it's playing at the age of 37. I've always been a big fan of his. He's done a lot of damage
against the Rangers over the years, you know, while playing for the athletics when they were in Oakland.
And he is probably the first fallback. You know, you're also looking at the possibility of a guy
like Ezekiel Durand getting regular at bats, you know, some combination of those little
rascals from last year with, you know, Michael Hellman and Alejandro Esuna and Cody Freeman,
possibly filling in, you know, as D.H.'s and first baseman. So I wouldn't say there's nothing there,
but there's really nobody proven as there would have been if the Rangers, for example,
had decided to bite the bullet and bring in a guy like Nick Castellanos or some proven veteran
hitter like that. You know, albeit sad Castellanos had so much clubhouse baggage. I'm not sure
the Rangers had any interest at all from the standpoint of chemistry. Well, for those who don't know
the story, Eric's note about clubhouse baggage includes bringing beer into the dugout.
Yeah, he wasn't playing at the game at the time, apparently after being taken out of the game,
he returned to the dugout beer in hand. Oh, jeez. The target in the American League West,
four years and years now has been Houston. Has that target changed? Has Seattle established itself
with its very young solid players as the team to beat not only this year, but maybe in the
next few years? Unquestionably. I mean, they were awfully close to going to the World Series
last year. They've managed to retain Josh Naylor. You know, they traded for Brendan Donovan.
They've, you know, they've stepped up their offense a little bit. You know, their starting rotation
is clearly one of the best in baseball. They have one of the best closers in Andres Munoz.
They've managed to put together a good setup core in front of Munoz. And, you know, they look like
a very solid, you know, 95 win team. Okay, so very quick questions about the Rangers.
What's your guess right now on who the number five starter will be in the starting pitching rotation?
I'll be surprised if it's not Kamara Rocker. I think he's going to be every given every chance to
make the ball club. I think that, you know, the Rangers would like to use Jacob Lats in the bullpen.
And in order for Lats to be able to pitch out of the bullpen to begin the season,
somebody's got to grab the number five starter job. Rocker is the guy who's clearly going to
get the first shot at. With Josh Smith now becoming the starting second baseman,
how much does that weaken the bench because last year he was the bench if somebody went down
or somebody need to rest? Yeah, well, assuming that, you know, Josh will probably be in something of
a platoon at second base, probably with Ezekiel Durand. You have lost a valuable guy off the bench.
You still have one of those guys on the bench on any given day. Both Michael Hellman and Cody
Freeman were impressive last year and could turn out to be, you know, Josh Smith type players.
They're both extremely versatile, both with good back to ball skills and good speed.
So I think they might become, you know, the next Josh Smith, one of those two were both of them.
You mentioned the possibility of Josh Smith platoon at second base. He doesn't hit left-handed
pitching at all. As you well know, a 207 last year. But that's said to say far better than Evan
Carter, who doesn't hit left-hand pitching at all. And Jack Peterson, who's been a platoon player
from the moment he signed here, do the Rangers have too many platoon players in their lineup?
I don't think so, especially when you consider that, you know, the platoon guys you're talking
about are lefties. And the bench looks to be basically right-handed, you know, with Hellman and
with Freeman and with Durant. So, you know, and Canna, I don't want to forget to add him to the mix.
I think that I think they've got the right compliments for the left-handed platoon pieces that
are in the starting lineup most of the time. Now, Bruce Boci is a magnificent manager. His record
speaks for itself and he's gone. But under the radar, how much do you think the Rangers might
miss Mike Maddox, who is also a terrific pitching coach?
Great question. We'll see what Jordan Teig's does. You know, he's got a great track record.
The players love him. He worked under Maddox. And until you get an opportunity, you know, you don't
know that a guy like Teig's can't be as good. He obviously doesn't have the experience.
He'll have a different touch. He may not be grabbing players by the shoulder when he goes out to
the mound. But Maddox is, you know, unquestionably one of the best in the game. His track record is
just superb. You know, if there was a Hall of Fame for pitching coaches, Mike Maddox would be in it.
That question. And, you know, the question of how much the Rangers miss him will depend a lot on,
you know, how Jordan Teig steps up. And I'm very confident. I think he's a good man and I think
he's really smart and has the ability to communicate extremely well. That being said, you know,
I think all of us kind of wish that Mike Maddox was still around. And we weren't having to
ask the question of will the Rangers lose something big in the loss of Mike Maddox?
Yeah. Okay. Let's finish with a handful of Eric N. Adele questions.
If for some reason you hadn't made it as a broadcaster, what was Plan B in life for Eric N. Adele?
Plan B was going to law school and being a very unhappy attorney for the rest of my life.
And at about 45 years old, calling around to see if he could have minor league announcing
jobs. There you go. Probably right. Probably doing a Gary Thornton becoming a lawyer first and then
moving into broadcasts. My old broadcast partner at ESPN, Gary Thornton, thanks for bringing his
name on. And you know, she's bringing him up. He's a guy you I mentioned all the time when we get
together to vote on the Ford Frick Award. I think he's very deserving of the Ford Frick Award.
And I don't believe he's even been on the final ballot even once. And I'm determined,
at some point to at least help him get on the ballot. Some years I'm on the nominating committee
to set up the final ballot of the 10 whose names are listed. And I just think it's a terrible
oversight in the case of Gary Thornton, Mark Holtz, and Merle Harmon. Those are three guys who
have not been on the final ballot. And I know you worked with all of them, Merle. And one of them.
Norm and they're they're outstanding broadcasters with incredible track records. And I guess it
tells you just how tough the Frick Award is to win when guys like that haven't even been on the
final ballot. I can't imagine none of them have been in the room at the final voting point. I
can't imagine that none of those broadcasters have made it to the final ballot that Eric, I'm sorry,
I know this is easy to say, but that's ridiculous. I agree. I agree. And I'm going to continue to
continue to keep working on that. That's it's one of my goals. Now this next year the
Ford Frick Award will go to a pre-divisional baseball era broadcaster, which means that
Merle Harmon will be eligible to win the award and hopefully he'll at least be on the ballot.
Well, hopefully he'll be in the Hall of Fame where he belongs.
Okay, besides this wonderful charity bash, you have a lot of charitable causes have had in your life.
One of them has been Cuba, which again, tensions are rising in Cuba.
Can you simply no longer make it to Cuba?
You can still go under the restrictions that the Trump administration has put on travel to Cuba.
You need that one of 12 legitimate reasons. There have always been a list of reasons.
They've been cut back a little bit under Trump, but you can still go for the purpose of supporting
the Cuban people, which is a category vaguely defined. You can still go for professional research,
which I've done on many occasions. For educational and religious reasons, you can still go.
Do you want to go is another matter. The country has no electricity more than half the time.
All the time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There is electricity less than 12 hours a day
in most of Cuba. And even in Havana, they're generally on four hour shifts, four hours of power,
four hours of no power. It's incredible. They're living like a third world, even a fourth world
country right now. The lack of gasoline, the lack of fuel to run the power plants, not to mention
cars and buses and public transportation. The state of the country is in shambles right now,
and they actually need our help more than ever. But the idea of staying there, where you may not
have electricity half the time, is a bit of a, let's say it's a deal breaker for a lot of people.
And then for several months, it has started to die out. They had a pandemic of a virus called
Chicken Gunja, which is generally found in Africa. But it's a mosquito-borne virus similar to malaria.
And the reason I did not go to Cuba this year to support the Cuban people and do professional
research is they had this virus sweeping in the nation. And supposedly over a third of the families
in Cuba had somebody infected with the virus. It can be deadly to people over 65 years old.
And I decided that it wasn't worth the risk and chose not to go as the first time in many years
that I did not make an off-season trip there. Yeah, we've already touched in the point that you are
over 65 years old. Finally, growing up, was there an announcer you listened to that made you think
you wanted to be an announcer? Well, there were really two. The first one was Mel Allen. He was doing
the Yankee games. When I first asked my father, is that guy, did that guy get a doctor's note,
how did he get off work today to go to Yankee Stadium and talk about the game? And my dad,
he was a dentist, said, no, that is his job. And I said, well, he's got a better job than you,
dad. You're going to go fill some cavities. He's going to go watch a baseball game. So he was the
first one. But the one who really motivated me to get serious about this was Marv Albert.
Marv at the time was doing both the nicks and the rangers on radio. He would just do the home games
at Madison Square Garden. What a cushy job. So he was playing at home. He went to the garden and
he did the game. And he was so exciting. I was always making sure that I would get my homework done
in time to hear every word that Marv said on those nicks and rangers broadcast. And I'm really
happy that I've got a chance, gotten a chance to meet Marv, tell him all about that, explain it
to Kenny, his son, to Al his brother, and Steve his brother. And I'm in love with the Albert
family. I just love those guys. And really, if it wasn't for Marv, I don't think I would have
committed to pursuing this. And I would be probably an unhappy lawyer somewhere.
You know, you bring back memories for me of Mel Allen, who would start his broadcast by saying,
hello, everybody. And we talk about commercialism in sports today. Remember the Yankees used to have
the Valentine blast. Oh, yeah. The beer Valentine sponsored home runs. And Mel would pour a beer.
You'd see it on TV. He had one of those Pilsner glasses, a frosted Pilsner glass. He would sit
there and pour the beer and say, Daddy's going to drink that beer and you're going to go pull some teeth.
You know, we've been friends for a long, long, long time. We've known each other since the late
70s in Dallas. And I can't tell you how good it is to talk to you every time we cross paths.
Likewise, Norma, I'm so glad you're still at it. This is fantastic. The podcast world. It's like
being a designated hitter now, isn't it? It extends your career. You don't have to play defense.
You don't have to show up at a radio station. You can sit the bench and play once a week.
That's it. You don't have, you don't have people telling you what to do other than Ashley and she's so
sweet. It doesn't matter. God bless you, buddy. Have a wonderful charity event.
Thanks a lot, Norma. May 14th longhornballroom.com. See you, Eric.
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In these winter Olympics, besides some dazzling events, we've had all manner of controversies.
There was the Norwegian byethlot byethlead who confessed in a post-race interview to having
an affair that had cost him his long-term relationship with his girlfriend. He thought that would
get her back. By the way, you know where a byethlot is, it's the way where people
they ski cross-country as fast as they can. And then at given points, they stop.
Pick up a rifle and fire to test their marksmanship. It's the Norwegian version of a drive-by shooting.
There's also this incredible accusations, multiple accusations, of cheating in curling in curling.
But my favorite of all the stories come out to come out of Milan, this winter Olympics,
is another accusation of cheating. And this one, for me, makes my stomach turn over and it
makes my skin crawl. It's in the sport of ski jumping. For me, looks so dangerous. You come flying
down this hill and then up the ramp and then you literally fly. And the winter is the person
who goes the furthest down the hill takes the longest ski jump without killing her himself.
Now, they want every age. They want every inch, every meter because that can be the difference
in no metal bronze metal, silver metal and gold metal. So will they take any advantage they
possibly can? Well, yeah, probably maybe yes. Because in these winter Olympics,
WADA, the world anti-doping agency, is investigating claims about male long jumpers
doing something to potentially help them get just the little more of an advantage. See,
when you jump, you want to fly and you flatten out your body to try to make it like a sail.
Well, what if your suit is a size larger, if your body suit of size larger? Well, you get a little
more of that sail, SAIL, sail effect. So how do they qualify for a bigger body suit?
Well, there are now suggestions that some of the male ski jumpers are injecting their penises
with high higher, I'm going to say this correctly, high luronic acid. It makes, well, it makes them
larger and larger they are, the more they can say, gee, that feels uncomfortable and they get a
bigger suit and they get that SAIL effect. Now, now, how long does that effect last? I have no idea,
no idea at all. And what are the consequences of injecting high luronic acid
into your junk? I have no idea, but I assure you this. What made me, would I like to cheat that much?
No. And now a word from our title sponsor. Today's episode has been brought to you by
Fluent Financial. Retire earlier, live better. And by Bob's staking shophouse on lemon and Dallas
and in Craig Ranch in McKinney. Bob's a Dallas tradition for more than 30 years.
If you've enjoyed just wondering, please hit follow and a fresh new episode will land in your
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episode of Just One Ring. I'm Norm Hitzkes and know that every day I'll be just wondering about
something. And I'm Mary Hitzkes and I'll just be wondering too.
This is a stolen water media production.