Hour 2: Buster Olney

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is The Michael Kay Show Podcast.

**Michael Kay** (0:03)
I gotta get more Kay.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:05)
Listen live weekdays at 1 on the Espn New York App and your smart speaker.

**Michael Kay** (0:14)
You're listening on the Espn New York App or on 880 Espn, and you could be watching us on the YouTube channel right now thanks to the people at the Parisman firm. And if you have the YouTube channel, you're now going to see our next guest as well. Why? Because he's a professional. That's why. He doesn't just deal with a phone. He knows how to get the video up. And that is Buster Olney, my colleague at Espn. Buster, how are you doing?

**Buster Olney** (0:38)
I'm doing great, Michael. I'm glad. You know, I've seen the headlines, all this question. When is Michael Kay going to retire? Yankee fans up in arms, like, worried about that. So I'm glad you're still with us.

**Michael Kay** (0:50)
Yeah, it's amazing in the world of aggregation how things just take off. I was asked, would I be doing broadcasts when John was doing them in 84? And I said, I don't think I'll be living at the age of 80 So I don't I can't promise that. But I never said I was retiring. I have no intention to. I mean, I might get fired one day, but I'm not going to retire.

**Buster Olney** (1:11)
Oh, well, and that's knowing you when I saw that. That's I knew exactly what you were talking about. But it is it is pretty funny. You know, hopefully, you know, there'll be a day when you get to make is make a speech in Cooperstone. That would be well deserved.

**Michael Kay** (1:25)
Well, that I do not think is going to happen, but I appreciate the thought.
I had a Yankee fan on X last night, and he wrote, the Yankees are a disgrace and full stop. And I mean, I think this team has had a phenomenal season for what they've had to deal with. All teams deal with injuries, Buster. I'm not making excuses for the Yankees, but they're 18 games over 500, three games out of first place. I would think that you'd agree this is far from a disgrace.

**Buster Olney** (1:54)
Oh, totally.
You know, in a year in which you lose one of the most valuable players in baseball, and this year, every time Aaron Judge goes out of the lineup, he reminds us just how valuable he is, and yet they've been grinding away, right? They haven't had the typical offensive season since Judge went out, and they've been winning, essentially. You see it day in and day out with their pitching, and they find a way. And they're going to make the playoffs again. They're going to have another winning season with the last one was what? When Buck Showalter was the manager the last time they didn't have a winning season?

**Michael Kay** (2:26)
92

**Buster Olney** (2:27)
Right, exactly. So I agree with you. Here's the other part, too. The American League is so wide open, you know, wide open or mediocre, you know, however you want to describe it. The bottom line is the Yankees have a real chance to get to the World Series. And I still think, I think you and I have talked about this, that if certain things go right for the Yankees down the stretch, their ceiling might be higher than any team in the American League. And the funny thing is the way the League is going to play out, if you told me that the Yankees were eliminated in the wild card round, I'd go, yeah, I could see that. And if you told me that the Yankees made it to the World Series, I'd be like, yeah, I could see that, too.
It really is such a level playing field in the American League.

**Michael Kay** (3:11)
And Vegas has the Yankees as the favorites coming out of the American League, but to me, there's one thing that has to happen, and that is Aaron Judge has to come back and approximate Aaron Judge. So what do you think the likelihood of that happening?

**Buster Olney** (3:24)
I have no idea, and the Yankees have no idea. You and I, and no one has any idea, because the way this is playing out, and I don't know if you had the same experience as I did, but when you talk to people within the organization about Judge in late June, it was like, well, we'll get them back sometime after the, the All-Star break, trade deadline, and then we'll probably have, you know, a month or he's going to come back. Now it's more like mid-September, third week of September, which means there's going to be an incredibly small number of games that he's going to have to get ready, up to speed against pitchers who, you know, the best pitchers in the world who are in mid-season form, so to speak, because they'll be coming off, you know, in September.