- 1 week ago
What are you looking forward to the most with Detroit Lions training camp?
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00:00You got Jake and Corbin on the other side of the glass.
00:04I'm Stoney in for Mike all week. What's up, Rico?
00:08Stoney, I would say I miss you, but you've been everywhere, my friend.
00:13Yeah.
00:15You're like Waldo.
00:17I know. Where's Stoney? Is there a press conference? Is there this? Is there that?
00:21Yeah, I like attending these things.
00:24Kind of like, to a lesser extent, you going to a lot of Michigan State events, even when I'm sitting
00:31there saying, wait, they're playing like the Little Sisters of the Poor and you still go.
00:34But that's okay.
00:35Right. No, but it was just funny.
00:37It's got Harris press conference and Michael.
00:41Michael.
00:42Yeah.
00:42And then this morning I'm listening to Cookies and John and they're like, hey, we got a celebrity showed up.
00:47And it was you.
00:48Like, man, you're everywhere.
00:49I'm not knocking you, man.
00:50I know.
00:51It's just like, man, Stoney is everywhere.
00:53Today was the only day from camp due to, like, some other things I have scheduled that I could actually
00:59attend.
01:00So I decided to show up and be there for my 40th Lions training camp.
01:11Really?
01:12I moved here in 86.
01:14I remember going, covering for Channel 4 as a producer.
01:19Training camp was at Oakland University back then.
01:22Not saying at all.
01:23Interviewing Daryl Rochers.
01:25Yeah.
01:25They went from, okay, in my tenure, from Oakland U to the Silverdome where they had the bubble and all
01:32that.
01:33Then to Sag Nasty with Marty and Millen.
01:38And then finally back to Allen Park.
01:41I kind of miss Saginaw.
01:43I kind of thought that's what training camp is supposed to be.
01:46You get away for a little bit.
01:47You know, like, the Cowboys still do it.
01:50The Kansas City Chiefs do it.
01:52And St. Joe, Missouri and some other teams still do it.
01:55When I was a kid, you know, as an Eagle fan, we'd go to Hershey, Pennsylvania for the day.
02:02You'd go to the amusement park, the Chocolate Factory, and then the Eagles training camp.
02:06It was fun.
02:07I'm not a big, no, no, I get it.
02:09I'm not a big fan of driving all the way out to Saginaw.
02:12Oh, I understand.
02:13I get it.
02:13But for the fans, for the state, they are the state team.
02:16It's, you know, gives more access to other people, I guess.
02:20I don't know.
02:20But, yeah, it was fun.
02:23I don't enjoy it as much as I used to because training camp, basically, it's just guys getting hurt.
02:30And it's just, you know, and you should know better than anybody with your team.
02:34God, injuries after injuries on the 49ers.
02:38No, you know what?
02:38It could be worse.
02:40You could be the Carolina Panthers.
02:42Yeah, that's true.
02:43Sponsored by 9-1-1.
02:45Wow.
02:46So, you know what?
02:48No, no, and we're going to get into the Scott Harris and, you know, the B. John Gibbs thing.
02:54But I do want to ask you this.
02:56For 40 years, Stoney, the evolution of the people covering the Lions, from the beat writers to now.
03:06The deans were, you know, Kurt Sylvester, Mike O'Hara, who ended up, you know, working for the Lions, and
03:11now he's retired.
03:12And as I was sitting in the room yesterday, or excuse me, this morning, and I looked around, and I
03:21said, holy yes, I'm the oldest freaking person here.
03:26You're the dean.
03:27And I've been covering, and look, I don't cover the team like the writers do.
03:32I'm not there every single day.
03:33I've never done that.
03:34But if you even want to extrapolate, when I worked for the NBC television station in Washington, we used to
03:40go, it was before John Jansen played for the Redskins, but we'd go to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the home of Dickinson
03:47College, covered them.
03:48So, yeah, it's 40-some years covering NFL training camps.
03:52So, yeah, it went from, you know, newspaper writers or magazine writers to now it's internet websites and bloggers and...
04:02People having their own YouTube channels like Brad Galley.
04:05Right.
04:06Yeah.
04:06Yeah, it was just like, you know, it was older, and now you just see kind of anybody out there
04:11covering this team.
04:12You know, you've seen the whole evolution in 40 years, so...
04:16Yeah.
04:16So, it's crazy.
04:18It's crazy, and, you know, we started covering the NFL.
04:21It was...
04:22Baseball was still number one.
04:26Yeah.
04:27But now, as you know, football is king, and you can tell by the fact of the matter is there's
04:33so many people who go to training camp.
04:36And at least the people that were there today got to see Pat in action.
04:41Well, you know, the reason why is because, let's face it, you can't afford to see this team anymore.
04:46The Tigers, I mean, the Lions have become the new hotness.
04:49Tickets are ridiculous.
04:50Right.
04:51Where I know people who tell me it's cheaper to go out of town to see them.
04:56Oh, yes.
04:56Than it is to actually see them here at Ford Field, where, you know, you're going to go and try
05:00to buy tickets when they play the Cardinals,
05:03because tickets will be cheap there.
05:05Oh, yeah.
05:06You just include the airline flag, and you still make out cheaper than trying to buy the tickets here.
05:11But now, baseball was king, and ironically enough, what killed it was the strike.
05:17Yes.
05:18And they're about to do the same thing.
05:20I know.
05:20But when that strike happened.
05:22Which one?
05:22The one in 81 or the one in 94?
05:24No, 94.
05:25Yeah.
05:25The 94 strike just ended.
05:28In my opinion, it was done.
05:29It was never the same after that.
05:31I agree.
05:32I mean, they tried to come.
05:32So much so, they let people cheat, juice the balls, and hit the home runs.
05:37Remember, chicks dig the long ball campaign.
05:40And to put an exclamation point on what you just said, Sports Talk Radio, we started in 94.
05:49And so, the season, there's no season.
05:53The season ends.
05:54And the Tigers went through that.
05:56When they resumed, the Tigers were really awful for a while.
06:00And you lost a generation of baseball fans in this town.
06:06Yeah.
06:06I often felt bad for the Montreal Expos.
06:10Because I thought they were going to win the World Series that year.
06:13Oh, yeah.
06:14That team was loaded.
06:15Well, even in 81, remember they had two halves of the seasons.
06:23And the Expos beat the Phillies.
06:27And then they played the Dodgers, I believe.
06:29And the Dodgers won the National League in 81, if I'm not mistaken.
06:33Anyway.
06:33Yeah.
06:35It's, yeah.
06:35And look, as far as the general public, I'm not exactly sure how they get tickets.
06:41Because they are a hot commodity.
06:44And they have to park somewhere.
06:45And they take buses.
06:46Yeah.
06:46I think you've got to go online and stand in a virtual line to get the tickets.
06:52Yeah.
06:52Season ticket holders, there's one day for all of them.
06:55And there's another day for, you know, they have VIP tents and things like that.
06:59So, yeah, it was, I try to, you know, I'm still a fan, but I try to go back to
07:07where I was not a jaded fan.
07:10Because when you work in this business long enough, you become jaded.
07:14You know, I still care about teams I like to win.
07:18You know, I still get upset when they lose, both collegiately and the professional level.
07:22But it's not when you were a young kid where it was everything to you.
07:26And for the kids and, you know, people who, it's their chance.
07:31And the Lions are very good.
07:32Everybody gets, signs autographs.
07:34Not everybody, but different players each day sign autographs.
07:37So there is that relationship.
07:39And, like, J-Mo waving to the crowd.
07:40I mean, people love that stuff.
07:43No, it is.
07:43It's how they identify with the team.
07:45I mean, look, this city has embraced.
07:47I often say, I mean, if the Lions ever started winning, they would, this town is there.
07:51I mean, people supported them when they were horrible.
07:54Yeah.
07:54Right.
07:55I can only imagine for years, I'm like, man, if this team ever got good.
07:59Right.
07:59And I still said, Stoney, if they ever win the Super Bowl, you could start the parade at the old
08:06Silverdome spot.
08:07Yes.
08:08I think it's an Amazon center now.
08:10And take it all the way down Woodward.
08:12Yes.
08:13And people would be lined up three deep on each side of the street until you got down to Hart
08:17Plaza.
08:18Right.
08:18Because that's how many fans.
08:20And I said, the streets of Detroit would never be as dirty as they were because everybody would take their
08:25family members' urns and pour all the ashes in the street so that they could say, you know, pop, pop
08:31was finally got to see a Super Bowl.
08:33Yes.
08:33Absolutely.
08:34And look, everybody talks about, you know, how many people they had in New York when the Knicks won finally
08:39for the first time since 73.
08:40You know, this is 57.
08:42I mean, the only thing that comes close is the Maple Leafs, you know, if they would win the Stanley
08:46Cup in Toronto.
08:47I was going to say the Cubs.
08:48It's been 67.
08:49The Cubs was amazing, too.
08:50Yes.
08:51I was going to say the Cubs when they finally won.
08:52And the Red Sox when they finally won.
08:54Yeah.
08:54In 04.
08:55You have those long droughts.
08:57Hell, the Phillies, when they won in 80, that was their first ever.
09:02They were one of the, you know, my father, I used to go to games.
09:05I said, Dad, they always lose.
09:06He goes, they've lost my whole life.
09:08They went to 1915.
09:10And he wasn't alive then.
09:121950, he was there when they won the National League pennant in Brooklyn and then got swept by the Yankees.
09:18But that was it.
09:19I never saw the Phillies in the World Series as a kid.
09:22I was in college, my senior year in college.
09:25No, actually, I graduated by then.
09:28All right.
09:28248-539-9797.
09:30We'll get to Scott Harris in a second.
09:32But let's go to the phones.
09:34Jan in White Lake.
09:35What's up?
09:36Hey, how you doing?
09:37Good, Jan.
09:40I remember him going to Oakland, but my dad was a big Lions fan.
09:45He was in the 57 championship.
09:47And he used to take us to Cranbrook.
09:50Oh, wow.
09:50That's right.
09:52And we're lucky enough, you know, to carry Alex Harris' helmet, you know, back to the locker room.
09:59And that was a big thrill.
10:01And Roger Brown, it was just, you know, you could be standing right next to the players.
10:06It was really pretty special.
10:08They were the original fearsome foursome.
10:11Absolutely.
10:11And thanks for the call.
10:12Bill Belichick was an assistant on some of those in the early part of his career because that's – Cranbrook,
10:20he got into lacrosse and things like that.
10:23Gina in Wyandotte.
10:24What's up, Gina?
10:26Hey, Rico.
10:27Hey, Stoney.
10:28How are you?
10:28Good, thank you.
10:30Good.
10:31Stoney, I don't know if you remember me.
10:32Stoney, I met you today at training camp, and I just wanted to say, so respectful, I yelled your name,
10:38you turned around, you took a picture with me.
10:40That's right.
10:41And we know that's what training camp's about.
10:45Yes.
10:46You go to live training camp and take a picture with Stoney.
10:50The hell with Jared Goff.
10:52It's Stoney.
10:53Michael Stoney.
10:54Michael Stoney.
10:56Here's my second point.
10:58I've been going to training camp for a long time, and I can relate to what you're saying, Stoney, when
11:04you didn't have to actually have a – buy a ticket or get – not buy, but get a ticket.
11:08You just walk in.
11:09Right.
11:10So I'm the person now that is standing back saying to all the big adults like me, let this kid
11:16in.
11:17Let this kid in.
11:18Let this kid in.
11:19So it's changed a lot.
11:22However, it is so nice to see the smiles on the adults' faces that get to take pictures with someone
11:28like Mike Stone, me, and the kids that get those autographs and just get the waves from JMO and stuff.
11:35So, you know, it's hard once we get good.
11:39Hopefully we get better.
11:40But thank you, Stoney.
11:41That was really –
11:42Gina, Gina, real quick before you go.
11:45Picture with Stoney or picture with Jameer Gibbs?
11:48What would be the highlight of your day?
11:50I already have one with Jameer Gibbs signing his glove in an away game because we were in front row.
11:59So I never had Stoney yet.
12:01Yeah, I am – I'm an autograph snob now, and I hate to say that, but I keep telling my
12:05wife, stop getting autographs.
12:07We don't have any more room.
12:08That's why I put the kids up there.
12:10So Stoney, definitely.
12:12Rico, I don't know if you remember me during the draft.
12:15First day of the draft, I was so nervous.
12:18Picture with you and Mike Lenny at Buffalo Wild Wings.
12:21And, yeah, I couldn't believe how nervous I was just to be around the two of you.
12:24So thank you, you two as well.
12:26All right.
12:27Well, thanks.
12:28Appreciate the call.
12:28Thank you, Gina.
12:30Michael Stone or Jameer Gibbs?
12:32Yes.
12:33So are you negotiating a new contract like Bijan, too?
12:35Yeah, exactly.
12:36All right, 248-539-9797.
12:40All right, coming up next, we'll hear some of what Scott Harris had to say yesterday
12:46and your thoughts on how he presented himself after the trade deadline.
12:52Of course, the Mize trade happened right when we left the air.
12:56Again.
12:5797-1.
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