 Hey everybody! Yes, we're here at Bob Lorenz. Ian Joy with you to talk a little baseball Ian. Major league baseball, the players come together. Sixty game season, spring training, part two starts July 1st. Games expected to start around July 23rd. As soon as the news hit on Tuesday night Ian, I thought about you because you've grown to love baseball over the last few years and I wondered what your thoughts were when you heard the news. I've been waiting for a long time to do this but seeing as though you're just breaking news I'm gonna do this just for you Bob. I'm ready to go you know. The game's back and I know you're happy to see it back but it was a great feeling for me to be able to go on my social media platforms and see such positivity. I mean not only do I have a great following now with baseball I also have like a lot of New Yorkers out there who are just so desperate to have their Yankees back and to see that reaction makes me very happy but my first thought was not necessarily just about the supporters or even the network it was about you Bob because that must have been a beautiful feeling when that news that breaking news the notification your phones binging going off the charts people are texting you I mean that must have been a special feeling for you and now you know you're coming back. Yeah first of all the thing I love about this moment in time is the fact that you have a little bend in the cap which I think is mandatory that flat bill it just drives me bananas. Alright let's move on. Now when I heard the news here here's what I thought immediately I was so glad the game was back that we're gonna get to talk about it a lot more look it was a struggle for both sides to get where they got going into the start of summer but as a fan I'm locking that up in a box now I'm forgetting about it. I want to think about some of the things that are gonna happen this season and in the first thing I thought of was how exciting the season is going to be it's not that 162 game marathon it's a 60 game sprint and how important is that let me give you an example the Washington Nationals won the World Series last year if you ended their season after 60 games they wouldn't have even been in the playoffs so that's how important that little sprint to the finish is going to be that's exciting for baseball. Yeah I mean that's huge and what's more important now is the training the practice to get yourself ready physically fit to make sure you're not going to go into the season with an injury to make sure that you're trying to get to 100% of your capacity as far as how well you can perform there's no room for error with this and that's what makes it so wonderful I mean it's been a creative mind a creative process to get us to this point and sometimes it doesn't matter what happened behind the scenes the fact is we got here and these creative minds are rolling and what they're trying to do out there is put a tremendous product out so that everybody can enjoy and make sure that every single game that we're watching every broadcast that we are doing means something there's something on the line you cannot afford to make mistakes you cannot afford to go on a losing run you got to make sure you're ready 100% fit rocking and rolling because this is where it matters most it's like playing a cup final if I'm to you the soccer term every game is a cup final yeah it feels like that like every game will be a playoff game the importance is there and by the way for yes we love to bring that to our viewers it's gonna be a great time covering all of this now one thing that stands out to me you mentioned got to be careful injuries the players to their credit done a good job staying in shape since spring training in March but let's talk about the impact on the Yankees we remember the roster was decimated by injuries last year 30 players on the injured list this year James Paxton Aaron Hicks John Carlos Stanton might not even have started the season at least two of them Stanton may have they're all healthy they're all gonna be able to play for the 60 game sweat they're hopeful Aaron judge will be too that's a big advantage for the Yankees having those guys back that is a huge advantage and how wonderful it is for those players who thought that they were going to miss the majority of a season or half a season or even in the opening games I mean that hurts a lot of players they want to play every single game they don't want to miss games injuries is sometimes the worst part of sports but the fact that this has happened and has given them an opportunity to help is quite incredible now we're gonna see the best players out there now we're gonna see the teams at full strength or almost full strength going into game one that's what I want to see but I'm intrigued Bob I mean some of the rules the regulation the scheduling the travel schedule it all helps the players as well that to me is a massive benefit and it's all linked and tuned in to make sure that we get the best product out there and I think everyone's got so much to look forward to but there must have been one or two rules that came out there or even the scheduling or regulations something must have caught your attention yeah so we're waiting for the official schedule to come out see what it looks like I do like add to the excitement stew I'm gonna sprinkle a little something else in there the fact that 40 of the 60 games are against division rivals so for the Yankees against the American leagues that's exciting huge chunk of the schedule I'm intrigued to see some of the other new rules come into effect specifically only for this year in extra inning games they have that runner start on second base now they employed it in the minor leagues but by and large America hasn't seen it up close for one season I know it's new it's different it seems like it's messing with the tradition of baseball I'm kind of excited to see what happens it might bring different strategy into play well now's the moment to try it right if that's been an idea before and I'm sure a lot of people have thought about it I think it's the time to put it out there and it's not as if we haven't seen wrote seen real changes recently over recent years we have seen real changes recently which have helped improve the game and and certainly for safety measures I think now's the time to implement those ideas so you know that's another thing that comes to my attention that this health and safety protocols looking after players you know baseball is such a sport where you're united with your teammates you know what you do in the dugout the celebrations those high fives those hugs the cool awesome times that you have I mean that's gonna change a little bit as well it's gonna be unusual for the players there and of course you have some some rules that caught my attention no spitting absolutely no fighting and I'm just thinking there's no way that's happening like we're definitely getting a fight and it's very difficult to stop any athlete from spitting out there on the field I mean some crazy rules but I'm loving the fact that they're getting pretty creative with these ideas and you know I think we're gonna see a great game come back here and people are gonna be excited to see it's not gonna be like it was it's gonna be different it's gonna be a great feeling all right so I wonder if they come up with new phantom celebrations they can't really fist bump they can't make contact so again here comes the creative part what are they gonna do but also to your point in what we're gonna see is the active players coaches etc personnel in the dugout but other than that non-active players and personnel they'll be social distancing in the stands so you want to talk about a different look and feel to the game regardless of the fact that there aren't fans there at least to start the season that's gonna be interesting as well to see what those players and personnel are doing yeah non-active players and personnel will also have to wear the mask so that's going to be something that people are going to have to get used to but again it goes back to it this is a different time that we're in right now you know many times throughout the last couple of months we thought baseball was never gonna have a chance of coming back it's got a real chance now we're getting closer and closer we're not there over the finish line but this feeling right now this breaking news the notifications that ping on your phone that get that excitement gone is a feeling we've been waiting for for a very long time I'm so happy for you I'm so happy for our crew I'm so happy for the network because when I see the network running and sports are going everybody's at their happiest and that's what I want to see I'm excited to be back in the mix with you guys as well and this is one step in a great direction yeah you know you mentioned it it suddenly puts a timetable on what we're doing we we sort of felt like you and I getting together a few times every week how enjoyable that is and it will continue to be but we'll be able to do it in person I thought immediately okay great I know that in a month most likely I'll be in the studio there'll be other guys with me we'll incorporate them in we'll incorporate you in that's exciting to me as a broadcaster knowing that we're going to have that interaction again and the quality of work that I feel we do it yes we get to share that with our viewers and that's exciting to me knowing that in a month's time we're going to be able to do that absolutely and the feeling that the fans have right now the viewers have that they're getting their baseball back is the same feeling we have that we're getting our yes network family back together again that's going to be an awesome feeling but this is going to be an unbelievable period of time for sports television there is going to be sports rammed down your throat for so long you've been sitting at home waiting and crying now's the time it's coming your way whether you like it or not and it's going to go quickly as well because there's going to be sports every single day for us all I can say is let's flood the zone on the yes network with broadcasting sports live sports let's go Ian 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