 Hey, everyone. Yes, we're here. I'm Jack Curry and today I'm joined by John Flaherty and Flash. How's everything going at your end today? Everything's good, Jack. Same old, same old. I found a good routine over here. How about everybody in your house? Everything's going well. I think you hit on the right word routine. I said that to a friend of mine the other day. This is kind of the new abnormal. I don't want to say the new normal because I hope we go back to a normalcy at some point, but you know how much I love news, John. Sometimes you and Bob and I will be sitting in Bob's office and you'll see me start to percolate when news breaks. We had some news recently. Jeff Passen of ESPN reporting about a potential roadmap going forward for Major League Baseball. John, we knew that there would be potholes and logistical issues, but this was a whopper of a story by Jeff Passen because it laid out the possibility of all 30 Major League teams going to Arizona and the season being played in Arizona at the spring training ballparks and at the Diamondbacks ballpark. All of the players being essentially in isolation. You're a former player. You're an analyst now. What did you think of when you first heard this plan? Well, I think the analyst in me came out first, Jack, and that was like really happy to hear news that Major League Baseball had some sort of an idea, maybe a plan for down the road and got excited to dive into the details. And then the ex-player in me came out immediately and says, I just cannot see players agreeing to be away from their family, their children, their wives for four months. That's an awfully big commitment. So there's a part of me that's gone back and forth on this. I think players know how important they are. Obviously, they want to get back to playing, but I think they know how important the game is for the country, for the distraction of it, for something to look forward to. And then the other part of it is, when I immediately said no way players will agree to this, then real life came as part of this. And real life is money. And if you have a Major League player who has the possibility that he might not get paid for the whole season, then all of a sudden it becomes a family discussion. Will we be willing to do this in order to get paid for a season? And maybe almost more importantly for players, get a year of Major League pension time, service time. So there's a lot that goes into it and we can get into the details on the logistics of what it might look like. I'm curious, your opinion on what you heard and what it might look like and what you think it means. Well, I'm in agreement with you. When I first heard that there could be some level of a concrete plan, a lot of uncertainty still swirling around. The analyst in me who loves covering games, the reporter who loves covering games, there was excitement. There is not going to be a perfect plan in 2020. So when you talk about the isolation of players and the sequestering of players, the way pass and laid it out was they're going hotel, ballpark, back. That would be the agreement with these communities that that is how the players would be isolated. They need to have ramped up coronavirus testing and have those tests available so that if anyone were ever to test positive, you could test all the people around them. There's talk about expanded rosters because they're going to be jamming a lot of games. It's Arizona weather. It'll be 110 and 120. But John, for me, every time I think of all the things that add a little bit haze and a little bit of cloud to this. I go back to the last thing you said that if you're a baseball player, you want to figure out a way to play. If you own a baseball team, you want to figure out a way to have your team play. And there's not going to be a perfect plan. So maybe this isn't the exact plan, but maybe a chunk of this does end up happening. Yeah, and I go back to the X player and me again, Jack. Maybe the players union would propose this to the players that this will be the start of the season. And we're hopeful that it's not going to be the rest of the season and I think to your point. It sounds like testing is really progressing rapidly. And, you know, a month from now testing might look entirely different than it does today. So I think you will have a willingness for players to say, Okay, I'll try this or we'll start this with the hope that it's not going to be isolation for the entire season. It looks like nobody does and you can speculate all you want. But in order to get players to get on board with this, I think you can't propose it as this is what you're going to look like for the next six months of your family life. Maybe it's this is what it's going to look like for a month or two. And then we might get back to the the stadiums and get back with your families. Is the testing going to be great enough that you can test all of these families so they can be with the players. I'm sure all of this is on the table and be discussed. That's a great point by you and you've been in those union meetings. You've been a player rep so you know the way that that works. We should point out Major League Baseball this morning came out with a statement. You know this was in reaction to the ESPN story. Actually weren't if the ESPN story was kind of a little bit of a trial balloon. Get it out there, see how people react. The MLB statement said they've been actively considering numerous contingency plans that would allow play to commence once the public health situation has improved to the point that it is safe to do so. While we've discussed the idea of staging games at one location is one potential option. We haven't settled on that option or develop the detail plan. That's the statement they gave out. Jeff Passon's article had a lot of details and there are a lot of conversations that have already happened. Just a couple of other points. We have to throw these out. We don't know if they're ever going to happen. But electronic strike zone to allow the plate umpire to maintain sufficient distance from the catcher and batter. No mound visits from the catcher or the pitching coach. I saw our colleague Mike Medvin say well what about a guy leading off first base with the first base when they're going to be close to knock that idea down. And then how about this sitting in the stands six feet apart the recommended social distancing instead of the dugout. I mean this is it's the world we're living in and it all is captivating and fascinating to see where we actually end up. Yeah and a few things that I would immediately thought about well what about the play at the plate if I'm catching and a runner comes around third and there's contact and there you know you're you're not in that safe distance same thing at first base as Mike Medvin pointed out second base all over the place. So those things jumped out of me but I wanted your opinion on this because that electronic strike zone right away. I thought to myself this is an opportunity for major league baseball to get something in the game that we think has been gaining some momentum over the last couple of years. And I kind of saw that and said opportunity to see if they can get it into a major league game. Makes total sense right now you have it and perhaps the umpire has the ability to call the strike or was the electronic strike first and the umpire gets to overrule it but probably the other way around. I mean right electronic strike you would presume is the one that's going to be accurate. There's just so much to dive into John that it gives us a lot to discuss going forward. We want the world to be safe and we want everyone to be OK first but we cover baseball for a living so going forward I'm just fascinated by what we end up seeing and I hope we see baseball. Yeah Jack I think the one thing that I took out of it when I when I read that article this morning was OK they're they're really throwing a lot of things out there and they're really trying to be ready to go when they get the thumbs up. And I think that's what we feel like right as a network also it's like you're you're throwing things out there trying to figure out how you're going to be able to cover the sport that you love. And when you do get that thumbs up let's back to it that you're ready to go full steam ahead. So I was impressed that all these discussions have been happening between major league baseball. I heard some other news yesterday in the baseball world some sad news Al Kline Hall of Famer Mr Tiger as a reporter going into Lakeland they used to love the fact that here's this Hall of Famer still dressing with the players every day and doing it so anonymously. I know you had interaction with him. Your thoughts on Al Kline. Well you know sad day yesterday and you know I spent two and a half years as a tiger and I've been covering Tiger games as recently as last September and was able to sit in the booth with Al Kline and Kirk Gibson and just have a conversation. And I think that's the one thing that I can say about Mr. Kline when I thought about him yesterday I didn't think anything about the Hall of Famer. I didn't think anything about the statistics or the numbers on the field. What I thought about was what a gentleman this man was and I actually was describing him to my son as all of these accomplishments that he had on the field and the ability to be a Hall of Famer. But when you were around Mr. Kline you were around to stay gentlemen a very humbled man. A sweet soul and I now look back and say how thankful I was for all of the interactions I had with him but specifically last September and he came into the booth to see me that tells you what Al Kline is all about I was a backup player in Detroit for a year and a half before I got a chance. And he treated me with a lot of respect I'll never forget him. He debuted at the age of 18 one of batting title at the age of 20 more than 3000 hits in his career. Now I want to tell you a quick Al Kline story and this is an eerie story I have to preface by saying that. So I open up these baseball cards on Twitter as part of the S network have a little fun but every pack that I open up doesn't go on the S network. I got a lot of packs flash so I opened up a pack of baseball cards yesterday morning. This card was in it. It's an Al Kline card. Wow. It's a throwback card and yes those are included in packs. But when I heard the news later on I had I had chills and I don't know what it means. I think it's a beautiful symbol of a life well lived. But I wanted to hit you with that story because it just eerie is the only way that I can describe it that this card landed on my desk the day that he passed away and it will have a prominent place going forward because of all the wonderful things that he meant to so many people. You know Jack you're a reporter and a writer and I think your words just said it perfectly a life well lived is exactly what I think about when I think about Mr. Taylor. We're going to end it with Al Kline and send out all of our condolences to family friends the Detroit Tigers community and flesh. I'm sure you and I get the chance to talk again soon and maybe the pieces of the baseball season will be coming together even more at that point. I look forward to it Jack and be safe as always. Same to you.