Hour 1: Joel Sherman

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**Michael Kay** (0:27)
And a good afternoon, everybody. This is indeed The Michael Kay Show. We thank you for joining us on this Wednesday, June 24th, 2026 Me and you for two. Those are the rules of engagement. The fastest two hours in Sports Talk Radio. You know the membership number. You know the code 1-800-919-3776.
1-800-919-3776. Mets are beginning a double header right now on 880, but you're listening on the ESPN New York app, and you're watching us on the ESPN New York YouTube channel. You people have been so great with this when we are displaced by the Mets, and we love you for it. Let's get right to it. We have great guests today. We're going to talk to Joel Sherman about many things, mostly New York baseball. David Stearns yesterday with his press conference, which he does every homestand. I give him credit for that. And we'll talk about the Yankees, what they need, what they should want and his vision for them moving forward. So Joel will be on at 1.3 and then Mike Lupica will be on at 2.3 because it's Wednesday. And that's what we do on Wednesday. We talk to Mike Lupica. So the Yankees won 4-3 over the Tigers yesterday and they played a very good game. They played a clean game, great defensive plays, outstanding play by Cody Bellinger on a single left field, throwing out a baserunner at home plate. He's such a good baseball player. Even Jason Dominguez made a shoestring catch that was challenged and the challenge was not overturned. He didn't overturn the call which was an out and then he turned that into a double play and then a hot shot back to the Mount Carlos Rodin turned into a double play as well. So they did all the little things well and they won. And that's what I've been saying. The margin of error is so razor thin right now because they're a little bit light when it comes to a lineup without judge and without Stanton and without Grisham. But they get the job done. Pretty decent pitching by Rodin. Three good relief outings out of the bullpen. Cruz, Hedrick and Bednar with a four out save and the Yankees won. But let's piggyback on something that we talked about yesterday. It's so funny the things that rock your boat.
So we talked about the lollipop incident with jazz chism, right? And people were outraged by it. Now, I wasn't that outraged by it. I said, it's kind of jazz being jazz. You know, those are the rules of engagement if you have jazz chism on your team. He's kind of childlike when it comes to this stuff. He likes lollipops and he didn't see anything wrong with having a lollipop in his mouth when he was playing second base. Now, Boone went on the John Boy podcast, which he does every week, and Teddy was quote unquote pissed off and then he addressed it with jazz chism. But when he met with all of us before the game in the dugout, didn't really want to elaborate, didn't really want to get into specifics and seemed annoyed when people kept pushing. Well, anyway, jazz chism hits a home run yesterday, right? All right. And it was a big home run. And he goes into the dugout like the players do. They run the length of the dugout from the home plate side to the outfield side. And then when he gets to the end, he knows the camera's on him because that's what we do it. Yes, we have that camera on the player celebrating. And then he grabs the canister of blow pops and shows it to the camera. As if to say, oh yeah, you're mad about me using lollipops. Well, here you go. And then when the clubhouse opened after the game yesterday, you know what song was playing? Oh, I'm sure you do. Lollipop by Lou Wayne. So everybody's angst, everybody's anger, everybody's over the top reaction to this.
It's ridiculous. They laugh at us. They laugh at us. And then, you know, Boone meets the media after the game and he goes, well, a lollipop kid comes through. So what looked like it was a serious issue is not serious at all. He just didn't want him having a lollipop on the field. He told them that. You think that, you know, it's so funny. I see the reactions and the reactions that we got on the show and the reactions on social media. Oh, that's why Boone is so soft on the play. No manager would go nuts on something like that. What you think is a big deal is not that big a deal. They laugh at our overreaction. And then for once, I didn't overreact yesterday. I said it's not that big of a deal.