Hour 1: Frank the Tank Fleming

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
This is The Michael Kay Show podcast. I gotta get more Kay. Listen live weekdays at one on the Espn New York app and your smart speaker.

**Jake Asman** (0:41)
No Michael Kay, Jake Asbit and for Michael. That's right. We're taking you till three. I don't know if you guys have heard, but Jalen Brunson is coming on this radio station right at three with Alan and Peter.
I'm being told I must mention that at least 15 times every 120 seconds. So Jalen Brunson on a three, Jalen Brunson on a three, Jalen Brunson on a three, Jalen Brunson, El Capitan, the King of New York on a three o'clock with the afternoon show. We do have a couple of guests on our small vehicle here. Frank the Tank from Barstool is going to join me at one thirty and Big Nick Totoro is going to join me at two thirty. So we got a super fan from the Mets, a super fan from the Yankees. Big Nick is awesome. I've had him on before. Frank the Tank, I haven't spoken to in many years. I mean, he was kind of blowing up at first and now he's a huge star that Frank walks. He's doing walks with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I know Alan and Don have each done a walk with Frank the Tank. We'll talk some baseball with him and Big Nick on our show today, mixing some football as well. But we start with the All-Star game. It wasn't great. Let's call it for what it is. I'm someone who still watches it every year. We talked yesterday how it's not what it once was. You didn't have the true star power you were hoping to see. No skeins, no Mizorowski, no judge, no Ohtani. Okay, fine. It was just a boring game. I mean, I'm happy for Cody Bellinger. I'm happy for Ben Rice. The American League going out there doing its thing. The Yankees offense, the six and seven guys in the lineup coming through. So that was cool to see. Good for Cody winning MVP. He won MVP though with a single in the first inning.
It was not a great game. We could be honest about that. I don't really know what MLB is going to do. I've heard some people say, well, should they just scrap it all together? I know Alan and Peter talked about that yesterday. I don't think they should scrap it all together. I just think it's one of those things where we have to just accept what it is. We have to just understand that it's probably never going to get back to what it once was. You'll have pitchers who drop out. That's part of it. Maybe they could push the game later in the week and have an extended break, and you'd have more participation from guys who pitched on Sunday and don't want to throw on Tuesday. But again, some years the game is really good, and last night was a dud. It was 4-0. You had a strikeout galore. It's ironic that Yankee fans, myself included, we complain about how the Yankees are too home-run or bust and don't have enough guys that could put the ball on play, and it was the Yankees with some singles by Bellinger and Rice last night for the AL. That being the difference in the game, and then everyone else was just striking out. You had 15 strikeouts by AL pitchers, 12 by National League pitchers. It was the most in a nine-inning game in All-Star game history.
The teams combined for just one extra base hit. It was a boring game, we can be honest. But I don't think we need to make radical changes to the format. It is what it is, like, OK, the game was not great.
We move forward.
I don't think we need to do much for it. The home run derby was excellent, so you have that. So if the derby is great, and the All-Star game is a bit of a dud, all right, fine.
At least if you're a Yankee fan, which I know many of you listening are, you saw the Yankee players be well represented and come through. Bellinger, Rice, big hits, fourth Yankees player with a bases loaded hit in an All-Star game by Cody Bellinger. Last night he joined Red Ruffing in 1934, Vic Reishi in 1948, and Derek Jita in 2000 So good for Cody Bellinger, which was him on Espn radio last night talking about his at bat.