Concerned? Zack Wheeler’s start pushed back because of shoulder soreness

00:00:03
Speaker 1: Hi, this is Zach Wheeler. Welcome to Philly.

00:00:04
Speaker 2: Show, Rubin Marrow Junior, Jim Salisbury, Todd z Aleki. It's Thursday, August seven, twenty five. Hope everybody's doing.

00:00:14
Speaker 3: Well out there.

00:00:16
Speaker 2: Phillies dropped the series finale against the Orioles on Wednesday. Jim was at the ballpark on Wednesday. Jim is at the ballpark still late on Wednesday as we are recording this episode for you on Thursday morning. We've got Phillies Director of Video and Broadcasting Services, Mark Denarda coming up in a bit to talk about the whole Joan Duran Durantula experience, which has been a blast so far at Citizens Bank Park. Before we get into some other things, I want to mention that we're going to be taking your questions post trade deadline questions on Friday morning, so fire those away in the comments section on YouTube and in all of our different various social media channels. But Jim series finale Wednesday a Phillies drop it. They had a chance to sweep tell us a little bit about what you saw on Wednesday before we get into some news, some big news potentially they happened before the kind of the story of the day, no question.

00:01:15
Speaker 4: So range A Suarez for the second straight start, gave up a three year on home run, and you know they couldn't come back from it. They lose five to one to the Orioles. Good home stand. You know, you win a series against a good Detroit team, you win a series against Baltimore. They failed to complete the sweep, but you know, a lot to feel good about during this homestand they moved back into first place. They hit eleven home runs. Kyle Schwarber had a bunch of them, Brice Harper had a couple. And you know we're all gripped by Duan Tula mania, right. A Phillis got themselves a closer, and he had a couple saves in this homestand but I think, you know, you know, you're right. The big news to me was revealed before the game. Rob Thompson's gonna move Zach Wheeler backup days in the rotation. He had some shoulder soreness after last Saturday's outing, and that might explain some things recently. I think it's a pretty significant story.

00:02:12
Speaker 2: Right, and let's let's let's start there, Jim, this is this is the you know a fantastic, uh and important first pitch. First pitch is brought to us exclusively by our partners at Park Casino, Pennsylvania's number one casino. So Jim, tell us a little bit more about what Zach Wheeler. Uh, what's going on with Zach lear? According to what Rob Thompson everybody, Yeah.

00:02:41
Speaker 4: When Rob revealed his rotation for the Texas Series, which starts Friday night, he had Wheeler going on Sunday, that's two slots. Back revealed the sour shoulder after Saturday's outing the other front MRI. You know, Rob seems pretty unconcerned, says he's not concerned. Said it's nothing. He's basing that on the fact that the MRI was clean, there's no structural damage. They feel good about that, but you know, I don't think we're going to know until you know Sunday. And it's something to watch because he's indispensable for this team the rest of the season. He's indispensable for where they want to go in October. There are very few number one starters in baseball. He's going to be the guy you want on the mound in game one of a series. He's going to be the guy you want if you get to Game seven or Game five in a series. He's that important. So anytime you hear a guy like that, especially with his mileage. He's thirty five years old. Since he's arrived in Philadelphia in twenty twenty one, just under one thousand innings, the most in Major League Baseball over that span, So heavy, heavy workload. So I think it's something you have to be concerned about until you see him back on the mound looking like Zach Wheeler again. Last four starts, he's been fine, but he hasn't been Zach Wheeler, you know, the cy young candidate we're all used to seeing. Last four starts zero and two with like a four point nine ERA, a couple of numbers. He's given up twenty seven hits in twenty three and two thirds innings over the last four starts.

00:04:07
Speaker 5: And you know, the vello is still pretty good. It's maybe tick down.

00:04:11
Speaker 4: He's still getting a lot of strikeouts, but you know it's the command. He talked about that after the last Saturday start. And you know, he's hit five batters in the last four starts. He only hit three in his first eighteen. He's given up six home runs in his last four starts. He only gave up eleven in his first eighteen. So when he says the command is not there, there's some numbers to.

00:04:35
Speaker 5: Back it up.

00:04:36
Speaker 4: Now we might have a reason with the sort of see he felt after Saturday's start, and we have an MRI to make you feel a little bit better. But like I said, Sunday will tell the true story.

00:04:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, anytime, or more of the story.

00:04:49
Speaker 2: I actually more, Yeah, more of the story for sure. I mean, you know, I get why Rob.

00:04:54
Speaker 1: Says he's not concerned the MRI is cleaned.

00:04:56
Speaker 2: But anytime you hear any I always tell people, like anytime an injury, anybody, anybody talks about.

00:05:02
Speaker 1: An injury, you know, view view the information.

00:05:04
Speaker 2: Take that information kind of skeptically, you know, look at it with the skeptics skeptics side, because.

00:05:09
Speaker 1: You just never know.

00:05:10
Speaker 2: I mean, sometimes it turns out to be exactly what they say. It turns out to be nothing, you know. I mean, I remember when Wheeler had a sore elbow, fore arm whatever they called it, right in September twenty twenty two. You're sitting there going, oh, crap, Zach Wheeler's got a bad elbow. This is not good and they said no, no, no, no, it's gonna be fine. We're just gonna shut them down for a few weeks. We're gonna get it, give him the rest. And obviously he came back and he was incredible in the postseason. So maybe this is that same type of thing. But you never know, no one's ever gonna come out and say the manager's not gonna come and go. I gotta be honest with you. The MRI is clean, but I'm losing sleep over this thing. So you know, we'll we'll find out on Sunday. But you know, this kind of looking even further down the road, say he comes back and say pitches. Well, man, I'm telling you they they've already kind of kicked around the idea of a six man rotation at some point. They have some law stretches coming up of I think they've got like a thirteen game stretch coming up beginning on Friday, actually is the first game of a thirteen game stretch, and then they have a fifteen game stretch in early September from September thirty to seventeenth. They've talked about employing a six man rotation at that point at some point, So.

00:06:19
Speaker 5: Well, we might see some of that.

00:06:20
Speaker 4: I mean, certainly, I think there's reason to see that, if nothing else, just to preserve and make sure you have a healthy wheeler.

00:06:27
Speaker 5: Going into October.

00:06:30
Speaker 4: And you know Nola is going to make what two more starts on a TRIPAA then be back, so there would give you some depth painters up there. To me, this would have been a good time, you know. I actually asked Rob, did you think about maybe skipping them, just you know, saying take a rest with that workload. That would lend itself maybe to take in a cameo look at a painter like they did with Abel back in may or was it May or June when he first came up for his debut against Pittsburgh. That was a one shot only deal when somebody was banged up. I mean, you could have done that, but he said no, there's no reason too. He's feeling fine, you know. I know Zach is pushing forward. He's a guy who wants to take the ball. He hates any time off, never mind a couple extra days. So he's in the cy young race. I know he wants to keep plowing forward. So hopefully he'll come out of this feeling better. But it's definitely something to watch. I hate to say, like the Philly season hinges on it. I mean, I think that's hyperbole, but he's that important that you really need him and you really need him to get over this.

00:07:26
Speaker 6: Hey.

00:07:26
Speaker 4: That was first pitch brought to you exclusively by our partners at Parks Casino, Pennsylvania's number one casino. Parkscasino dot com is the website if you have a gambling problem, one eight hundred Gambler is the number to call, and remember you need to be twenty one to participate.

00:07:43
Speaker 2: Phillies fans, whether you're sliding into home or just chasing your kids around the yard, staying mobile matters. That's why we trust Rothman Orthopedics. From sports injuries to joint replacements. They keep you moving with top specialists who care for the best team and the best fans in baseball. Rothman's got your back because at Rothman Orthopedics, your mobility is their mission. Visit Rothmanortho dot com to schedule today. If you're watching us on YouTube, just scan the QR code on your screen.

00:08:16
Speaker 7: It's summertime, it's bathing suit time, and it's time to get a better bathing suit liner. It's twenty twenty five krats. I would like to feel more comfortable, and I would like to thank Fair Harbor for doing that.

00:08:27
Speaker 8: It's super easy. Get the Fair Harbor Breezone liner in your shorts. You can go play football on the beach, you can play paddle ball, and you don't got to worry about that crappy liner that other bathing suits have.

00:08:40
Speaker 7: H it is so comfortable. You gotta check it out. I'm telling you, it's like Butta but a baby. You gotta check out the Fair Harbor not only bathing suits, but they carry a full line of casual clothing shorts, shirts, hoodies. Go to the website Fairharbor Clothing dot com, slash foul and use code foul for twenty percent off your first purchase. That's Fair h A R B O R Clothing dot com. Backslash foul for twenty percent off your first purchase, and make sure that you use the ft promo code so that they know we sent you and you get the discount.

00:09:16
Speaker 6: Foul.

00:09:18
Speaker 1: All right, So here we go.

00:09:20
Speaker 2: We talked to the other day, Ruben Jim and I chatted with Mark Donardo, who is the director of Broadcasting and Video Services A lot of talk Jim of course, about Joan Doran and the whole late the light show and the spiders and the music and the phones, and it's been a lot of fun.

00:09:37
Speaker 1: So we thought we would catch up with Mark. Here he is. We want to welcome Mark Donardo to the show.

00:09:44
Speaker 2: Mark is the director of Broadcasting and Video Services and he is part of the crew that is getting the Joan Dran experience off and running in Philadelphia, which is like the thing now, it's like the big thing you come to a Phillies game.

00:10:00
Speaker 1: Mark, welcome the show.

00:10:01
Speaker 2: First of all, we were talking about this the other day Sunday night was might have been the only time we would have ever seen a starting pitcher pitching a score a shutout going in the ninth inning and Rob Thompson getting booed for letting him go out there because they wanted Duran to pitch the ninth How has this last week been for you since they got Duran with the Phillies.

00:10:22
Speaker 6: It has been crazy. I mean it has been a wild weekend. The Dran part of it is just you know, one component of the weekend. Remember it was Hall of Fame weekend, so we had all kinds of activities and all kinds of production that were already in motion before this trade even happened. We did know about Duran beforehand in terms of what his closer entrance was all about. One of our game producers, Emily Rutson, is a Minnesota native and follows the Twins still quite closely, and you know, in the conversations we had leading up to the trade deadline, they were like, Oh, I hope we get this guy. His entrance is awesome, and you know, we'd have so much fun with it. So when we got the notification that the trade was made an official about two hours later, I started getting texts from people in the front office, some people in Baseball operations, and then obviously my team that basically said we're going to have this thing ready to go on Friday. And my first response was, you know, oh, you're hysterical. That's great.

00:11:32
Speaker 5: Friday.

00:11:33
Speaker 6: It was less than thirty six hours, but we went ahead and I realized they were serious. So we got a zoom to call, a zoom call together on Thursday morning, we broke down the Minnesota video of his entrance. We broke it down to its individual components. We made assignments to our own crew, and we set them on their way, knowing that it was going to be a last minute deal one way or the other. So they're off. They're trying to, you know, redo the music, the customs, the custom mix that he had done. We're tracking down fire templates to render the animations. We're looking for spider models, all kinds of things like that. And I thought to myself, boy, you know what would be perfect is if we could just get some answers to the questions. It might help expedite the process. And I reached out to a good friend of mine at The Twins, who colleague Sam Henchin, who we've done work with before, and asked him, we're not asking you to give us your show or to do it for us, but can you at least point us in the direction And he was more than happy to lend us an assist, and he connected our graphics designer, Sydney Warwick. He connected her with their graphics designer. He sent us the actual soundtrack, the custom soundtrack for John's entrance, and we were off to the races. Then it was a matter of basically building these animations for our displays, trying to come up with a light show in the interim and you know, getting all the components together and being able to test them out before Friday night. We were able to get into the ballpark. We were there all Thursday Thursday night. Thursday night, we ran through a number of of you know, scenarios, but we also did a bunch of run throughs and we were able to get to a point where we were really comfortable. The only problem is when we do these kind of shows in the ballpark, it's usually programmed down to one button. You know, you take all these elements, fire the music, fire the animation, cue the light show, things like that. It all gets programmed. Did the one button. We couldn't do that. Everything had to be manual. So that night, got my foot up on the counter, you know, hitting a mouse to trigger the music and reaching over here and shutting off the lights to the ballpark and you know, doing whatever we could to try to get all the things going at once, and we were able to pull it off. So then the next night, again everything was a manual process, but we had individuals in place to do all these things. That's kind of the lead up to it. So once you get the technology kind of worked out, then you're thinking about what about the different scenarios in game, and so I went back and forth with Ned, Rice and one we got the proper permissions to do the show, and then Ned and I were working through the different scenarios during the game. What if we're down, if we're down, how many runs would we send a cameraman out there to the bullpen if it's a hold or a save? You know, all these basically parameters that we hadn't walked through and we were kind of doing in real time, which was fun. We've never put a camera in the bullpen before. We worked very closely with our rights holder and our partners at NBC Sports. Chelsea Johnson was our producer and Kelsey Lauder and Mike Mulligan as the director. That night, they helped us out, They put the cameraman out there. They were able to work their telecasts as such that they moved commercial breaks so they could take the entrance live that night. They happened to have a drone that was flying around the ballpark, so we had access to that as well. So everything kind of came together. So we go down in the get in the game early it's I think it's three nothing and it's not looking great, but I said, like, yeah, three, that's not insurmountable. Not with this team. You know, we tend to get hot a little bit later on in the game, and as we got closer and closer, you could feel the buzz in the crowd. I mean, they were up for the game. There's no doubt about that. They want to win the game. But they were absolutely looking for Duran and they came there prepared to see that show and to participate in that show. And then when we took the lead, I mean the place was just electric. So we already had the cameraman out there. We were able to get our timing right. They were a little rough around the edges, but it worked fabulously, And I got to tell you, I was really really proud of my team that worked on the elements. I was really proud of the communication that happened within the Phillies organization, you know, between our departments and baseball ops, between us and the Twins. It really worked that well. And if any one of those components had not worked out, I don't know that we would have been able to do the show on Friday night.

00:17:05
Speaker 9: The bet Parks app It's really cool I've been actually fiddling around with it quite a bit lately and.

00:17:09
Speaker 3: Playing some of these games.

00:17:11
Speaker 9: We've talked about it a million times, but Hulping more Puff is pretty cool.

00:17:14
Speaker 3: Cash Eruption Capital Games. There's some really really cool games.

00:17:18
Speaker 9: But in addition, you can go on sports and you can literally bet on anything.

00:17:23
Speaker 3: For the game Philadelphia. You know they they you know.

00:17:28
Speaker 9: You can bet pretty much, pitch to pitch, you can bet all types of parlays, all types of stuff.

00:17:32
Speaker 3: You can do right here on the app. It's pretty darn cool.

00:17:35
Speaker 9: They also have Betwire which is on the app as well. It's for you know, for your sports betting. It's a live feed right inside of bet Parks app with quick videos, hot takes, game predictions by some people from all over the country, pretty famous people and new casino users can get up to.

00:17:54
Speaker 3: One thousand dollars cash back.

00:17:55
Speaker 9: If you're down in your first twenty four hours, you got to see betparks dot com for details. Else you must be twenty one in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan or Maryland. Gambling problem call one eight hundred gambler. You love to play, you love to win.

00:18:09
Speaker 4: You bet Parks mark that is amazing cooperation between you guys, the Phillies and the Twins. Did that surprise you that they were so willing to, you know, give you guys their hard work and their show.

00:18:25
Speaker 6: Well, they didn't give us everything. You know, we still had a lot of work to do on our own, but the assist they gave us was paramount to us getting it done. Did it surprise me? No, I've been in this business for forty years. I know the camaraderie between the production people and the game entertainment people, not just in baseball, but in every sport. We're always watching what the other people are doing. We're always talking to each other. We've got annual conferences where we get together and do our thing and network together. We've helped out teams in the past. They've helped us out, so it's not unusual. But I was pleasantly surprised at the length they went to to help us out. And that is a that's a tribute to them as an organization, to their respect for Doran as a player and really for the game of baseball. They knew they created something that was awesome and that the fans enjoy. And you know, we weren't going to We weren't going to reinvent the wheel for the sake of reinventing the wheel. If this is branded with this player and it works for him and the fans are excited by it, why would we want to make you know, wholesale changes to it.

00:19:47
Speaker 5: Mark.

00:19:48
Speaker 3: So when I make changes in my front office and.

00:19:52
Speaker 10: We are looking to try to get a player, and we make a.

00:19:55
Speaker 3: Trade and we're, you know, in.

00:19:57
Speaker 10: The front office, we're high five in each other, we're digging on each other. What happens in the production room when you guys pull this thing off and it ends up working.

00:20:06
Speaker 3: Do you have that same sort of electricity? Were you guys like, oh my god, we did it.

00:20:11
Speaker 6: This is awesome.

00:20:11
Speaker 5: This is the coolest thing.

00:20:12
Speaker 10: Because I got to believe that with all the hard work and all the machinations you had to go through that you guys had to be pretty fired up in that in that room.

00:20:20
Speaker 6: We were, and you just, I mean, you painted the picture perfectly. We were excited. We don't normally get that excited at the trade deadline there unless you've got Cliff Lee coming in or somebody like that. You'll know, but you know about that. But they were, they were super excited. So when we sat down on Thursday morning and I talked to them, I knew I had like a huge ask to ask them. They were already up to their necks in Wall of Fame stuff, and I came in. My first lines were, I said, listen, I'm gonna rip the band aid off and tell you we have to do this. Forget about everything else that you're working on right now. And I said, I'm saying this in a way I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but we have to do this. There's no there's no not doing it. And if we have to drop some stuff, if we have to reassign projects, if we have to cut back on what we're doing, we're certainly, you know, okay to do that, and we're in the position to do it. And to a person, nobody complained at all. And a lot of people had a lot of extra work to do. Sydney and Ariana Kreuzact. Sydney was doing the graphic design and creating all the animations the fire and the spider, and Ariana krez Act then had to take these animated files and program them onto our displays to make sure that everything fit nice and neat, and if you were there earlier on Friday for the game, you'll see that. All the way through Philly's batting practice, we were still tweaking the animations because they they were chopped off in some parts and not fitting properly in others. And you know, that's a testament to the dedication of these of these folks. They were they're so proud of what they do and they were so excited about that. I'm just I can't say enough nice things about them.

00:22:17
Speaker 4: Real quick, Mark, when you did your like practice or your dry run on Thursday, the day before he made his debut with you guys, did you have to wait until nightfall till it was dark to practice and do the lights and everything so you get the you know, the full experience.

00:22:34
Speaker 6: Yes, we had to. We wanted to see what it looked like for light levels, for the animation and the fire. We knew that more times than that we'll be running that in a dark environment. But there are going to be day games where we got to run it as well. But we did. We waited until probably seven or eight o'clock to start with that, when the sun had gone down, and I got to tell you from the moment I saw the animation, I got chills, and you know, nothing really after forty years, nothing really excites me that much. I was excited. And then when I saw the spider come across the right field display in the field, I lost my mind. I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen in my life.

00:23:21
Speaker 10: So our periods on the day games, now do they it comes up? You know, get you get your phones out, get your phones out?

00:23:29
Speaker 3: Will they be doing the same thing on a day game During.

00:23:32
Speaker 6: The day games, we won't do the prompt for the phones out right now, it's our intention to run the animation, run his music, follow him out of the bullpen. So you're really going to get everything, but the light show component of it. We will run the lights in the ballpark. I don't know that you're they're going to have that much of an impact, but we won't break from that. It won't be anything special. You know. The things we have to work out are you know, what are we going to do if the Philly's going on Winning Street and he hasn't pitched in a while and he just needs to get his work in and he's coming in in a low leverage non saved situation. We'll probably just run his music and save the show for those big moments. That makes sense.

00:24:16
Speaker 2: That makes sense, And then I know you've got some more things planned, Like the show is not finished yet, you're still planning on some tweaking modifications. What can you tell us about I mean, what can you tell us? What you can tell us and what else might be in store that you can maybe hint to or just refer to.

00:24:35
Speaker 6: Well, you know, we met on that this morning. We're looking to implement some minor changes by next homestand those might be instead of having the Liberty bell, we are able now in addition to changing colors, you can run video files through that LED product, and so everything that we're going to do is really going to be contingent on fire and the flames. We also have heard from a number of people, people who are obviously experts and spiders, that the fighter we have in our animation is not a tarantula, it's a it's a black Widow spider. So we're working on correcting that as well. I'm unhopeful it'll be equally as disgusting and scary as the Black Widow was, but that so I think you'll see some some changes and some twists based around flames, which may or may not happen. But we're you know, we don't want to you know what, We don't want to mess with it too much, but we would like to put a Philly spin or a Philly twist on it if we can.

00:25:48
Speaker 5: The Black Widow is two for two and save chances.

00:25:50
Speaker 6: Yeah, Jimmy, don't don't think we don't. We don't hear and think about this, like, don't change it now because tar Angela out there all of a sudden, We're going to be do we run the Black Widow or the Tarantula? What are we doing today?

00:26:04
Speaker 2: And then the phones will if you accept something on the MLB Ballpark app can like be synced to the light show down the Road.

00:26:12
Speaker 1: That's a down the Road thing.

00:26:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're discussing that right now. And that's one of the new features we put in this year and got passed through, so you can work on the end of the it'll work with the MLB Ballpark app. People can turn their phone lights on regardless they don't need the app, but the lights will be synchronized with the music. So the difference would be if you connect to the app and hold your phone up. That light will be beating along with the music, and it'll give it a you know, and it'll give it a cooler effect in ballpark. So we're looking to do that as well. I have to add. As much fun as it was doing this, and as much of a challenge as it was, we had no idea what the impact and what the reaction from the public was going to be. We didn't know the magnitude of it. When the game was over, we breathed a collective sigh relief because we got through it. Uh and we got to the finish line when we got home. When I when I tell you, I have not finished answering that all the texts that I got from people, one of them was not Jim's Dog. But we we did get, you know, we got we got texts, and and that people were telling us that the reaction online, you know, on the internet, and the number of views that it had gotten on MLB or on our own website, I was, you know, was in the millions. So we didn't set off and set out to do it for that. But we we we now understand, or at least I understand everything that we do has the potential to resonate outside of the ballpark and have an impact on social media. And that makes us happy, and it makes us a little bit more determined because we're not doing it for just forty thousand fans. We're looking to do it for the millions of people and who are out there watching TV and watching highlights on the internet.

00:28:22
Speaker 4: Mark, I want to ask you, like you guys, the Philadelphia Ahillies are in the business of winning ball games, and you win with your athletes. If a particular walk up music or a particular you know, entry for a closer like Juan Durand makes that guy feel good and puts him in the zone, do you have a responsibility to come through for that guy to make him perform.

00:28:44
Speaker 5: He put him in a good frame of mind, so we might perform better.

00:28:47
Speaker 6: Oh, we absolutely do. And there is an ongoing conflict between sponsorship, entertainment and what the players want, and they don't always align. So we've always been more constantly in compromise mode. But when these guys send us up their music, that's the least we can do. If it makes them happy, if it gives them a comfort level, the only thing we need to do is to make sure it's clean. And there hasn't been a single guy since two thousand and eight that has sent us a clean version of their song. So we spend a lot of time either trying to clean it up ourselves or finding a clean version. But it does mean a lot, and we've got the scars to show. We've got a lot of stories over the years of players who very superstitious like Chase and never changed it. We had Raoul Banyez who called up one time in between games of a doubleheader and he had had a really bad first game, and he said, just pick something for me that would you know, that would make me want to go out and commit a felony, he said. So we get texts from our communication staff every day. God blessed Nick. You know, Nick Castianos is one of our greatest customers. He changes his songs a lot, but all the guys are pretty much into it. But that's our responsibility to do that. But it's also our responsibility now when the fans embrace something like this, to put it out there, you know, for them, and let them play with it. It's really tough if you try to. It's always a big leap of faith to try to do it on your own. And that's why I really commend the Minnesota Twins for doing that. Most of these big things usually happen organically, at least they happen organically in Philadelphia. Philadelphia fans hate to be told what to do. They're smart people, you know. But if you're going to want their participation in the Closer Entrance, then we'll let them know a little bit. But I was shocked at how many people lit up their phones and we had only had that prompt that was out there for about ten or fifteen seconds. You know, I told my staff, I don't think we even need to do this. Yeah, you know, these folks are are left, they're on it.

00:31:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny how much the technology has changed. I remember Brad Lidge and eight. I think that that it was you really couldn't do much. So it was just on the scoreboard. It said like lights out Lidge. And now you think about how far it's come. Well.

00:31:23
Speaker 1: I wrote something the other day just about the.

00:31:25
Speaker 2: Closer Entrance songs, and I was trying to fill in some gaps and I emailed Mark and I said, hey, I need I need these six guys or whatever. Mark, how far back do your archives go in terms of walk up songs, entrance songs, warm up songs? Like if I said, hey, what was Chris Snelling's song in two thousand and eight or somebody totally random, like, how far back does it go?

00:31:47
Speaker 1: Where if that guy showed up.

00:31:49
Speaker 2: And you wanted to play it, or somebody wanted to ask you, you could you could pull it up and find it for me.

00:31:54
Speaker 1: Because we found everybody's I asked for you the other.

00:31:56
Speaker 6: Day, I can promise you I don't have Chris Snelling, so yeah, and I don't know what that was. I want to give a shout out to a guy named Mark Wyatt, and I think you may remember him. Yes, Mark was the music basically the music guy for all four teams at one point in the South Philadelphia areas doing Flyer Sixers, Eagles, and Phillies. He's one of the first guys in Major League Baseball who really introduced the sound effects in game and some of the other cute stuff that we've done over the years. And and you know, he's moved away from it for health reasons, but you know, he really built the foundation and he was a guy Todd that would be able to. He kept the list, you know, his own list. So the archives only exist really as far back as when he stopped working for us, which was right around the pandemic. But we can tell, you know, we've got a pretty good idea from some other records of a little bit further back than that. I started back in two thousand and six, and I've tried to keep good records. But anything before that was before my time.

00:33:03
Speaker 3: He wouldn't have my walk up song. I guess I have to know what my wife walk up song was?

00:33:10
Speaker 1: What was it?

00:33:12
Speaker 3: It was one by YouTube?

00:33:14
Speaker 5: Oh wow, that's a little slow.

00:33:17
Speaker 6: Make a note of that.

00:33:19
Speaker 5: What what was in O?

00:33:20
Speaker 6: Wait?

00:33:20
Speaker 5: What was the song you had to censor? In eight You said there was only one song? Maybe?

00:33:28
Speaker 6: Oh no, I said that that several All of them said the filthiest, most disgusting songs. And now you know, now the challenge is, and sometimes I think that our our our Latino ball players are messing with us. We have to get somebody to translate. You know, we'll get a song from from uh Latino artists and their Latino rappers, and they're really just as aggressive with their lyrics. Says as the American rappers are, so we really have to vet that carefully because we don't notice anybody in the ballpark.

00:34:08
Speaker 4: Hey, Mark, we love a good story on this on the Philly Show. Didn't Ruben save your life one night?

00:34:14
Speaker 3: No? No, no, that wasn't him.

00:34:16
Speaker 6: I had, Yes, it was Ruben. You back in two thousand and six, it was my first season with the Phillies. This is memory I'll take to my grave. Now, we ran a replay on fanavision of a home run with a fan reaching over something. We ran it. This is before replay and back when the rules were even tougher than before. So we run this replay. The crowd goes nuts. They're booming the crap out of the umpire and I get a call in between innings from the supervisor on site saying, oh, the umpires would like to talk to you after the game. I'm like, all right, you know, I knew it was kind of borderline, but that'll be fine. So I go down to the umpire's locker room after the game and I walk in and the clubby there says, hey, hold on, they'll be right with you. The guys are in the shower. So I'm standing there. I'm waiting. So the first umpire comes out. I think it was Las Diaz. He's got he's holding a towel and nothing else, dripping wet just came right out of the shower holding the towel. Then the other three umpires come right behind him with no towel. So I am in a room with four naked umpires that are all simultaneously yelling at me, and I don't know where my where to divert my eyes. You know, I'm looking, I'm you know here here there. I look over to there. I look over to the buffet table and of course it's a buffet of like big sausages and the bropworst or something, my worst nightmare. There's a knock on the door in wats Reuben behind me, and he's like, Mark, I got this here, guys. He understands. You know, it was a mistake. It won't happen again.

00:36:06
Speaker 3: There.

00:36:06
Speaker 6: So for that, Ruben Rubin, you're a hero.

00:36:12
Speaker 3: No I'm not.

00:36:13
Speaker 5: You've got to save that night, Ruben, you.

00:36:15
Speaker 6: Got to save I.

00:36:18
Speaker 10: Respect that the job that our folks did, and I know that they didn't. They would never ever want to disrespect you know, the game itself or the rumpires.

00:36:28
Speaker 3: That's just not how they operated.

00:36:30
Speaker 6: Right well, right.

00:36:31
Speaker 4: The the in game entertainment of Citizens Bank Park is second to none. And you mentioned you're in this business for forty years. It's amazing how how far it has come. When I used to go to Famiway Park as a kid, they had an organ and all the kids used to chant.

00:36:45
Speaker 5: We want to hit, we want to hit. That was the in game entertainment.

00:36:49
Speaker 4: And now we have spiders and tarantula's and light shows.

00:36:53
Speaker 5: It's great.

00:36:53
Speaker 6: What what's what's been great? It's it's been a great career. It's been a lot of fun for me. I start to the Spectrum, you know, worked my way up and through what was the Core State Center to begin with. But you know, when Eric Lindraws had his first game for the Flyers, we put lasers. We had a laser light show before the opening face off, and that in itself was remarkable back in nineteen whatever it was, you know, the late eighties or early nineties. But the Spectrum was such a decrepit building. We probably you know, I don't know, we probably violated I don't know how many walls and rules that catwalk up there that we had to store all this stuff. It wasn't even fit for a human being to walk around, but we were able to pull that off. And so every year there's always something new and different that other teams are doing that want to be integrated. Some things work really well in Philly, and then there's other things we look at and we say, ooh, that's great for Seattle, that would ever go over here?

00:38:01
Speaker 10: Right.

00:38:01
Speaker 6: Well, it's you know, we're always kind of, you know, trying to be a little conservative in the way that we approach things, but it's it's always a ton of fun and it's it's an honor and a pleasure to do it. Like we tell people, you've got one of thirty jobs like this, you know in the country, so respect it, protect it. And the other thing I tell them is make sure you know your replay rules or you're gonna get naked umpires exactly exactly right.

00:38:34
Speaker 2: Well, the Durand Show has been a lot of fun and it's you know, it's certainly brought a lot of excitement at the ballpark and it you know, I've heard so many people that have said I've watched that.

00:38:45
Speaker 1: I've watched that five thousand times on my phone. I just keep hitting.

00:38:48
Speaker 2: Replay and replay and replay because it gets them so excited. So h and it's excited the fans and you know, the players, I mean, and everybody.

00:38:57
Speaker 6: It makes us feel great. We're a little uncomfortable with the attention. You know, we're the people that are in the background, and we're in the background for a reason. We kind of stay off the radar because that's just who we are. So the amount of attention we've received in the last seventy two hours has been remarkable and really almost overwhelming. But we're we know our fifteen minutes are almost up. We're going to ride it out again and then start focusing on the rest of the season and the postseason hopefully to you know, have some big things in store for them.

00:39:36
Speaker 5: Well, at least you got to do the Phillies Show.

00:39:40
Speaker 6: Bucket list item and I can die tonight a happy man.

00:39:46
Speaker 2: Thanks Mark, Mark, thanks so much for joining us and sharing a little bit of a lot about this fun experience that Phillies fans are going through. We appreciate the time.

00:39:57
Speaker 6: Well, thank you guys, and keep doing a great job. We love the show.

00:40:00
Speaker 5: Thanks more.

00:40:02
Speaker 2: The Philly Show is brought to you by the Foul Territory Network. Subscribe to The Phillies Show on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. If you like us, give us a review, Follow us on Instagram, TikTok x, Facebook, and threads. Find Reuben's analysis before, during, and after Phillies games on NBC Sports Philadelphia, on the Sports Radio ninety four, WIP Morning Show, and MLB Network. Find Jim at all phl y dot com. Find me at MLB dot com, the Phillies Beat newsletter, and MLB Network