Hour 1: Buster Olney

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This is The Michael Kay Show podcast.

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**Michael Kay** (0:41)
Good afternoon, everybody. This is indeed The Michael Kay Show. We thank you for joining us on this Monday. It's July 6th, 2026, me and you for two. Those are the rules of engagements, the fastest two hours of sports talk radio. And you know how to get involved, right? Of course you do. It's 1-800-919-3776. We like to call that the password. We have a lot of stuff to talk about. You know, funny thing, last time I spoke to you was from the Beach Bash. And that was on Thursday. And at the end of my show, I said, I'll see you all tomorrow with a free for all Friday. I did not know that I was off. I was listening to the station after I left. And they were talking about that there's going to be a show from like 10 to 2 And I said, well, that's cut right in the middle of mine. So we lost a free for all Friday. I didn't know I was off because of the holiday. It's a station holiday. So this is the first time I've had a chance to talk to you. And boy, do we have a lot of stuff to talk about. 1-800-919-3776. Now, we are not going to ignore the Baligan stuff. And we have Mark Cannizzaro live from Seattle on at 2-30 because it is unbelievable. They will send in his red card. He will play today in the round of 16 United States against Belgium. The president of United States, Donald Trump, was involved in a phone call to the head of FIFA. But if you read Mark Cannizzaro's column today, the appeal was already in motion before President Trump even made that phone call. That phone call now splinters this country because they don't want, a lot, half the country doesn't want Trump to look like the conquering hero. And the other half of the country that doesn't even care about soccer but might care about President Trump, they are now rooting for the United States soccer. It's so amazing that politics makes strange bedfellows. Anyway, we'll talk about it. How much of it was President Trump? How much of it was a terrible call? Because that's what it comes down to. He should not have been issued a red card. And that's what the United States was appealing. And it looked like they were moving toward getting it rescinded. So it ended up being rescinded. But now that the president revealed that he did make a phone call to Infantino, well, that now turns half of the country against the United States tonight against Belgium. It's really weird. And we'll talk about it a little bit later on in the show. But I want to start off with the Yankees. And how they're playing and we've been running a promo all day on the station. Are you concerned? And I'm going to be honest with you right now. I am concerned. And here's the reason why.
Aaron Judge is not walking through that door anytime soon. I mean, anytime soon. And I think a lot of this is because of the missing Yankees. So if you get judged back by the third week of August, I think you have an absolute celebration. You have no idea when you're getting Stanton back. No idea. Don't even know if he's coming back. You have no idea whether he's coming back and if so, when. Max Fried, I say, if everything goes perfect, perfect, you get him back at the end of this month. That's perfect. If ever there's no setbacks, it'll take at least three more weeks. And Rodin, after that, the season could slip away at that point. Here's the thing that's really bothering me. When I listen to the comments that are coming out of the Yankee clubhouse, it's mind-boggling and almost infuriating. They talk about a lack of focus.
That's disgraceful, a lack of focus. You could say we're in a slump. I don't know what's going on. We're not pitching well, we're not hitting well, we're not fielding well. But yesterday Jazz said lack of focus again. This is after the captain said it when he met with the media. And he said he sees a lack of focus. And then Garrett Cole kind of cosigned what Jazz said yesterday. He said, yeah, I guess you could look at it that way. That is unacceptable. There's no excuse for lack of focus. What are you focusing on other than the baseball game that you're playing? You just lost two out of three to the twins. The twins are your personal punching bag. If you played the twins, this is from 2002, including the playoffs on, going into Friday night's game, if you played the twins for 162 games and you had the winning percentage that you have against them since 2002, the only games you would win in 162, 119 games, that would set the new record, that would set a record for the most wins in a season. The record right now is 116, that's held by the Seattle Mariners. It would be 119, that's how much, how thoroughly the Yankees have completely dominated the twins. And the twins come into Yankee Stadium on the 4th of July weekend, and they embarrass the Yankees. They take two out of three, they win six to one yesterday. Once again, a starting pitcher shoves the Yankees like where the sun doesn't shine, seven shutout innings, three hits, the Yankee offense has gone away, the Yankee pitching has gone away, the Yankee defense has gone away. How could you not be concerned? And now, I'm coming to you live from St. Petersburg, Florida, where tonight the Yankees will start a four-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays. And the last time the Yankees were in Tropicana Field, they got swept in three games in April. They got swept in three games in April. And if you really want to be nervous about it, they have an unbelievable record. I'm talking about the Rays who are now in first place. They have an unbelievable record here at Tropicana Field. They're 31 and 12 at home. 31 and 12 And now, they're going to be playing a Yankee team that's just playing terrible, terrible baseball. So, how do you regain focus? How do you straighten out what has been an abysmal stretch of baseball? The last 17 games are as bad as I've seen the Yankees look since the Stump Merrill years. And I know they've had flat spots before, but this is just out and out, embarrassingly bad baseball. And it just grinds my gears to hear people say, well, we're not focused. Well, what are you focused on? Well, what exactly are you focused on? What spike you're wearing?