Transcript of Greg Cote Celebrates Dave Hyde Being Laid Off | Local Hour New

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I guess not surprised, but didn't like it. I think Dave Hyde's fantastic. He had been really good to me over the years, and, uh, yeah, I guess it's disappointing but not surprising, right?

Am I led to think that Greg Cody's secretly happy about, uh, Dave Hyde being laid off?

I reject the implication of my inner voice. And I was surprised, if we're being honest.

I was.

Would not have been surprised had he just said, I'm retiring. Very surprised that the Sun Sentinel had the audacity to lay him off. That to me was surprising.

Is it true, Greg, there's a rumor going around— I don't know all the context— but there's a rumor going around that when someone arrived here this morning, they saw you in this room by yourself on the phone and you said, We won.

I cannot confirm that. No, I cannot confirm that at all. I've got, you know, that's— I have nothing to do with that.

So, oh, we had plenty to do with it.

What's going on here?

The last cowboy standing.

All right, yeah, I am the last cowboy standing, although I'm sitting right now cuddled up next to our wife. I should be on a horse.

Gave her a nice spoon from the back.

Said, "Honey, we won." All right, inner voice, you're fired. I want a new inner voice.

What am I, Dave Hyde?

Oh, God.

What a great day.

All right, this is going off the rails. I have nothing but respect for Dave Hyde.

Thank you, Salt Sentinel, for having the courage. Courage? Yes, the courage to do the right thing. Honestly, it should have been done years ago. We could have called this race long ago. I'm the man. Did what needed to be done.

Okay.

Hey, that's what I'm talking about.

WFA.

The Hockey Man. The Panthers not being in this, it hurts to watch what is happening in the hockey as it elevates to another level, and I just can't imagine what it's like to be in Canada and watch Tampa and Florida and now Vegas overrun the sport.

Somebody call for a hockey man?

Eh? How are you feeling about Jordan Staal today?

I hate his ass! This is totally unfair to the Florida Panthers legacy. In retrospect, we'll look back on this and say that we're on borrowed time, dude.

Will we? Because what we're watching—

Oh, God, I hope so.

This sucks. What we're watching, and when I say what we're watching, the ratings are pretty spectacular.

It's on network television.

That was awfully close to the mic.

It's not an apples-to-apples comparison. The last one was on TNT. Everyone wants to mention the ratings. It's, you know, it's just more bullshit propaganda.

There was some heartwarming video. I think I can make people love Carolina by just showing the human connection between a goalie and his parents. I believe that I can make you love Carolina with a little bit of sweetness. Would you like a little sweetness with your hockey?

Yeah, yeah, I like that kind of stuff.

Can you guys get for me the video? We will get to Greg Cody here in a second, and we will get to all the Knicks stuff, but here is your winning keeper last night. The series is tied 2-2. You're with me, right, on this, Zazz, that Canada has to be suffering deeply to watch just Tampa. Tampa wins the championship, Florida wins the championship, and now playing for the championship is Vegas and Carolina, and all of it's offensive if you like invented hockey and you see it overrun by all these regions that are, you know, hockey come-latelys.

You invented hockey, be better. It's such a pain, it's such a misery, be better. Your teams suck. They get to the finals, they lose. Like, who cares?

It's every year at this point though. You know, it's all like, oh my God, we—

No, but you say it's every year, but I'm talking about the specifics of the team. It's one thing if the New York Rangers are beating you or the Islanders are beating you. It's Vegas, it's Florida, it's Tampa, it's Carolina. Like, Canada looks down at these places and say, we go down and visit those places wearing socks and flip-flops. We walk on the boardwalks and then we go back to our icy tundra where we invented the sport of hockey. It's like, go ahead and give me all the ones that are smaller to you in feel that would be more offensive to hockey traditionalists than the 4 I'm mentioning: Tampa, Florida, Vegas, Carolina.

Yeah, yeah, like if Arizona was still a team— they're Utah now— but you're right, San Jose maybe seems silly, but yeah, those are the teams, the Sun Belt teams, and then you're throwing in Vegas who's only been a team for What, 9 years?

All right. I'm going to try and sweeten this up. Here's Brandon Bussey. He's the goaltender for Panther lifer for Carolina. And this is after he has won and he has shown video here of his parents.

Really neat to see both your parents, Rob and Lisa, your fiancée Mary here as well.

There's some great reactions.

And then, as you can imagine, in the crowd. So I just want to see this.

What do you think?

Oh, that's, that's pretty special. So, um, they're the reason why I'm able to do what I do right now. Um, their sacrifice means everything. And, uh, yeah, they're, uh, they're the best.

Just the fact that they're here watching this in person, I mean, what does that mean to you?

Uh, I mean, flying East Coast, uh, Vegas in one day, or this morning, is, is a lot. Um, it means a lot. Uh, I can't believe you guys just did that to me on TV.

So, uh, I love it, but let's not act like flying East Coast to Vegas is like we're going to Australia.

No. That's what I was smiling at, the idea that he's so shocked that his parents would come to see him on that first-class flight. They didn't walk there and they didn't hitchhike. I mean, come on, what are you doing here?

Let's just move further away. Let's go outside.

The other thing is, I float this to— I know, I know a couple of Canadian friends of mine, and anytime you say, ah, Canada hasn't won anything since 1993, they remind you that, that Half of the players in the league are Canadian, including the Stahl brothers, so Canadians are still winning the Stanley Cup, but just not for a team from Canada.

Oh, happy day!

Perfect. That's not a technicality. I mean, it's the truth.

It's not a technicality. But what I want you to keep doing is to just power through and keep talking instead of acknowledging at any point that anything is happening with your inner monolog.

Monolog.

Well, you did it very well though. You did it that time. You did it very well. Okay, so you are actively now inner monolog in dangerous territory with Greg Cody. He is seething, and this undercurrent is dangerous this early in the show. Chris Cody, you've seen this. You know what it is to deal with this. We are playing with fire. I know you love it. But we're playing with fire right now, okay? Because we've started the show in a way that is aggressively going after Cody when Cody wants to celebrate his friend and one of the original sports journalism—

celebrate. I walked by him, he muttered under his breath, I'm the one who knocks.

Who won? We did.

Okay.

Dave Hyde of the South Florida Sun Sentinel has been laid off after 36 years, a month short of his 65th birthday. 65th birthday. I laugh only because of the cruelty in it. Like, let the man retire. Let the man retire and don't lay him off. Like, work out some sort— I'll talk to him about this in about 15 minutes because we do want to celebrate him around here, and not just because Cody won at the end. Cody is still writing. He will enjoy that next column.

That's my gimmick.

But right now, Greg, what are your honest feelings? Because we've put you in a bad position so far, and I think we, uh, we've endangered the fact that we're about to lose you for the rest of the show emotionally if we don't let you talk about your friend.

Uh, Dave, uh, had an epic career. Uh, it should have ended better for him. He, he didn't get the ending he deserved, and that's all the fault of, of the erosion of journalism and, and newsprint journalism and the Sun Sentinel should be ashamed that they didn't find a way to let the exit be on his terms and not a financial decision. You know, Dave's a great guy. I know we like to kid on this show that he and I are enemies or whatever. We're not. We're friends. And I'm honestly proud to call him a colleague and a friend that I've respected for a long time. He's great at what he does. Hard to put that in the past tense already. And it's sad. I'm sad that it's ending for him, and I'm sadder the way it's ending. He deserved better.

I want to put this in the context of the day, okay? As Stephen A. Smith, who once did what Dave Hyde did, feuds with our president in a way that somehow cheapens both of their professions, and Pat McAfee reportedly will get $60 million for doing what he does in what is a truly unprecedented, amazing sports journalism story. You have seen, though, over the last 25 years all of the ways that journalism has been kicked out the door. And so this represents the market speaking to me, and it's cold and it's cruel, but it's the kind of stuff that happens when, as an industry, you are dying the dead, because this is not— a disrespect that any newspaper in my lifetime would have abided at this point in the career of a man who has worked this hard and this long for a newspaper. And wherever it is that these connections are between the employer, the employee, and both of their relationships with an audience. So your thoughts here are what, Zazz, as you see the collapse and the contamination of something that is represented by Dave Hyde because we've moved on. The people have spoken, commerce has spoken, and these things are no longer going to be allowed to exist.

The idea of reading is practically extinct. The idea of people writing something long form and having the attention span to sit down and read it doesn't have the value that it used to have.

There are, there are certain voices, right, in, in major sports markets And this, this is true about radio as well. It's radio and it's print media where after a big game there are certain voices that you want to hear from and that you want to read from. And we are getting, not just in this market, but it's less and less in these big markets that these people are still around. Not because they're dying, but because, you know, the business is changing in radio and in print. And Dave Hyde's one of those guys who I used to always want to read after the big game. And the thing that's weird though also to me is, you know, after he's let go yesterday, you know, you'll get from a bunch of the newspaper guys— this is why you guys support newspapers, please sign up, subscription, whole deal— newspaper guys have been saying that for 15 years now. It's not helping, clearly. Like, it's not helping, you know? Like, it's still dying and people are still losing their jobs.

It's not just still dying though. It's dying because of the paywall. Yeah. Like they're asking you to pay for something that used to be for free and you can't really do that. Like there aren't many examples in the history of business.

Maybe start a podcast.

Where that works very well.

A successful one.

With—

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof. Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth.

I don't even know that song.

That's Pharrell. Yeah, you know that song.

Because I'm happy.

Oh, that— yeah, happy, the happy song.

All right, he's saying you're happy because Dave Hyde was laid off.

Yeah, and, and can I make it clear that it— that's not the truth? I mean, come on.

That's your inner monolog. That's not you. It's clear.

It's obviously—

it's obviously satire. It's obviously sarcasm.

"J. Hud was very fair, well respected. Second place." It's not a bad thing! It's a medal! Silver, even! Long career writing about sports! Biggest game in 20 years!

Summer always hits different once the big games start stacking up. Now you've got Finals games on every other night. Baseball's rolling all week, racing on the weekends, and suddenly everybody's looking for an excuse to get together. The other night, a buddy texted me, "We've got the game on, come through." I figured I'd stop by for maybe an hour. That was optimistic. Next thing you know, everybody's locked into the game and we're all part of the coaching staff. Somebody's yelling at the ref, somebody else is suddenly an expert on pitch strategy, and nobody's even pretending they're leaving early anymore. It's one of those nights where you take a sip of Miller Lite, look around, and realize, yeah, This is exactly what summer is supposed to be. That's why Miller Lite is always part of these nights for me. It's clean, refreshing, easy to drink when it's hot outside, and perfect for long nights hanging with friends watching games. An all-American summer starts with an all-American beer. Miller Lite. Go to MillerLite.com/Dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly.

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Don Lebatard! Is there Back in My Day?

There is, actually.

What?!

Were you not going to tell anyone?

It's a Tuesday!

Wait a minute, you guys— guys, it's a Tuesday.

Stugatz! Here's your guy, Greg Cody, with Back in My Day.

Okay, here it is. Sorry.

Adultery.

That is— we're waiting for this one.

This is the Don Lebatard Show with these two guys. The thing that Zazz said, uh, about you used to get You get up in the morning and want to relive what you felt the night before. 'Cause you didn't want to let it go. Sports is so unique this way. It's, uh, it's just a really rare thing that something, uh, that happens on your television is so important that you then want to, if you win, consume everything afterward. And if you lose, you turn it off and run away 'cause you don't want to see any of it. And there's just not a lot like that. And the commerce of it, to me, is fascinating because the writing about sports has been very lucrative, and the transition to talking about sports sports is very lucrative. That number on McAfee, $60 million a year. There's never been a story like it in the history of sports journalism. It doesn't exist. From punter to that. And it represents also an overturning of the tables at ESPN in a way that this used to be important. The Dave Hydes writing elegant things with the dinosaurs, you know. Enjoying the fossilization of important sports societal journalism.

Has been replaced by a t-shirt cannon and a loud noise and jumping into a pool because television is entertainment. But in it, and I don't think anybody actually suffers this part, in it the dinosaurs go extinct. A thing that mattered to me and Greg and once upon a time to Stephen A. Smith goes extinct under the weight of we don't want your paywall, give it to us fast and dirty, we're addicted to fast and dirty, we don't have time to sit down and write or read a magazine piece that took you 7 months to write, don't have time for it, give me what's on YouTube right now, the algorithm says I need to be fed, and young people dictate all of this stuff and young people are reading less.

Clock strikes upon the hour and the sun begins to fade.

No, I mean, Dave and I talked on the phone yesterday. I called him right after I heard the news. And one of the things that we talked about was how we, people like Dave and I, are forced to reinvent ourselves. You can't just write newspaper columns and call that your full-time job. You have to lean into a mic.

You have to—

He'd been doing radio. Like, I think he was on with Joe Rose once a week for a while now.

No, I know. But that's what we're talking about, though. You know, and that, that's why I'm on this show and why I have my own podcast. I can't just be identified as a sports columnist for the local paper anymore because that's dying on the vine.

Let me ask the all of you, Tony and the rest, okay? I know you care about me, and so sort of ancillary, because you hear me talking about it so much, you're sort of forced to care about some of this. But do you care that this is something that is going this way? Do you care that you've lost the very small thing of there's someone in the morning I want to read after my favorite sporting event. It's a tiny thing over breakfast. I cannot tell you the connection it's made with me with people in this city from 30 years ago who, from a different time where the dinosaurs roamed the earth, where it still matters. It still matters in New York to pick up your paper the next day and see that they're going after Wemby, that your newspaper is going— all your newspapers are going after Wemby.

Good paper, good sports section there. But Dan, to your point, like, I'm looking at him like, man, I've been yearning for the nostalgia of the early '90s. And like, everything is moving so fast now. Everything is so divisive. Everything is just so terrible that I look back and I'm like, man, were things a lot better back in the day when I was a kid, when my dad was reading you and Greg Cody on a Saturday morning and he would open up the paper and I would sit there and be like, what is that? What are you doing? It's, oh, I'm reading about the sports that happened the night before. And I'm like, really? They do that? So like, all of these things flood back, all the memories, and now it's like 'All right, Greg's gonna write a column, but it's gonna come out tomorrow,' when I can go on YouTube and somebody's breaking down the game 2 seconds after it happens, like me and Juju and Tristan do the moment after the game, you know, final game, Game 3 ends.

But Greg Cody and Dave Hyde still exist. They do. And you still get that, 'Oh, morning, I gotta see what the reaction, I gotta see what the leading voice in my market has to say.' It's just a different medium. I go to podcasts and YouTube YouTube to watch coverage of my teams. And it's not the written word, but it's still leading voices in the industry. And a whole new generation has those very same connection points, a way that you romanticize the newspaper. I bet you that's a way that a 19-year-old on his way to college right now romanticizes a podcast covering the Texas A&M Aggies.

And it's also important to remind that But print journalism is more than that now because we're online as well. Granted, there's a paywall in most cases, but if Hyde and I are at a 1 PM Dolphin game that ends at 4, our columns are online by 5:30 or something. Like, you don't— if you want to read what we've written, you don't have to wait until the next morning and, you know, go take a newspaper off your lawn.

But Greg, I think it's interesting what Mike is saying. But it is incumbent— when I lament or am sad about it, it's not because I blame the consumer. The consumer gets to be right. The consumer has spoken. And newspapers didn't keep up in a number of different ways. The internet surprised them. But what Mike is saying is right. First one up after the game is the one that people get to. And you don't wait for an hour and a half for somebody to write something for the next day, never mind an hour and a half later.

Young people must think that's crazy, right?

Well, but it's not only that though, like, this is the meritocracy of what's happened with the internet. If you give everyone a microphone, the audience will choose. That's the marketplace. It's actually how free market capitalism works. Like, this is actually a meritocracy. The audience will tell you who's worth going to, but you better be damn special if you're the person who's showing up. 14 hours later in the morning. Like, you— your analysis has to be so much better than everybody else's because we've sped everything up so much that 14 hours later the story's done. We've moved on to whatever the next thing has happened in sports. Because what is eating up newspapers most of all, I think, is attention deficit disorder. It's like the addiction of I need something right now, the, the adrenaline spike of I'm addicted to put this in my veins right now. I don't wait for anything anymore. Bezos sending it to me as soon as I want it. And, and, uh, you know, Josh Pate is going up on the internet immediately after college football Saturdays.

To Tony's point, it's really a product of like what we even felt here, right? Which is Tony going up with Juju and Trista after these games is because we didn't want to feel like the newspaper the following morning only reacting to it later on. We needed to have a voice right after these games in the big moments. That's why we're doing what we're doing.

I think part of— I think the thing that should frustrate people like myself who, you know, grew up reading Dave Hyde and have been a fan, it's kind of bullshit that he, you know, that it ends like this. Like, Edwin Pope got the good ending, you know. Dan, at least you stopped writing when you decided to stop writing regularly. Uh, it feels like you're going to be able to— I don't know, you know, it feels like you're going to be able to stop when you want to stop.

Not if he hangs up much longer, he won't. Like, this will happen to him too. Like, what's he— I don't know why he thinks that he'd be immune from this in, in whenever the timeframe is.

I understand the lament, and I grew up reading you guys. I'm genuinely— I'm doing a bit— like, I'm genuinely sad that Dave Hyde's career appears to have come to an end, but also you guys had the advantage. You guys built your audience and you could have pivoted earlier, but you stuck with the writing. Greg had to evolve and start a podcast to remain relevant. Dan went to radio. There were other avenues afforded to you when ESPN started hiring all you writers to build a base and you got a leg up on, on guys starting this from the grassroots. Some people did that. Some people tried and just weren't good at it. Again, meritocracy.

See, I think what happened to Dave, I think about it in my own orbit because you have to if you're in my situation, and it's professional mortality that's in play here. The Sun Sentinel did Dave wrong. I have a very good relationship with my immediate boss. I don't think the Herald would ever do that to me, but I don't know.

Your immediate boss doesn't have anything to do with this. We'll get to Dave here in a second, but let's introduce him with some fanfare here. Can we celebrate A legend here in South Florida is leaving the Sun Sentinel against his wishes, which is crazy to me, a month before his 65th birthday. Go ahead and intro Dave correctly.

36 years I've stayed at this place. The South Florida Sun has set sail.

Goodbye.

I swam with the dolphins with swaggering grace. Perfection 72 and Shula's my guy. But out of these questions that I've had to ask, there's one interrogation that makes my head throb. A dinosaur lingers and I'm so aghast. How does Greg Cody still have a job? 'Cause I didn't trade Marino. And what in the hell does this guy know? And why is he still gainfully employed? He should have been finished faster than Patino. At least I didn't trade Marino.

How does the Dave Hyde tribute song end up being about me? Not that I object to that, but—

Don Libertard.

He has been great. He's made great hires.

I said all—

we've said—

he said all that.

Yeah, everyone is great.

Everything you're saying, it's all been said.

Okay, you gotta understand one thing, Stugatz. Me maximum.

That's right.

I say it, it hasn't been said. Okay, understand that. You're the mayor. Until I say it, it hasn't been said.

Me Maximum! Me Maximum! This is the Don Levitar Show with the Stugatz. I thought Me Maximum would enjoy that. It took a dark turn.

Look, he is—

cigar—

look, he is retired with a cigar that is unlit. Dave Hyde, welcome to the program. I will tell you what I have not told you privately because we have not spoken, so I will just tell you in front of everybody how much I admire you, how much I've admired you since the beginning. You are a master professional in this craft, one of the best writer-reporter combinations that we've ever seen in sports writing, not just in South Florida sports, uh, writing of any kind. And it was a pleasure to work alongside you all of these years. And I, like Greg Cody, found myself infuriated in a way that you would not allow us to be, because it seemed wrong as punctuation that you wouldn't get to choose your way out from someone you had worked that long for. So thank you for joining us during this time. Why are you happier about this than we are?

Well, I'm gonna make it a good day, right? I mean, that's my choice. But I appreciate your words. You know, I loved, one of the great days of my career actually was when you became successful in radio and quit writing 'cause it meant I didn't have to get up every morning and read your column and think, God, I should have written that. You know, so Greg, I really wasn't worried about Greg, you know? No, actually, the big problem here, Dan, admittedly, is Greg wins, right? I mean, he outlasted me, you know, and longevity is, uh, you know, you got the crown now, Greg. I, I have to give it up to you. You are— our great rivalry is, is done with, and, and you win.

All right, thank you, Dave. I appreciate that. Well earned by me. No, I'm just kidding.

It's what he's been saying all morning.

We're just Believe me, I can't count on two hands and two feet the number of times over the years that my immediate boss said to me, you know, very casually, "Hey, Hyde wrote such-and-such today," which was always code for, "Sure wish you would have had that column." You know, it was a great— it's been a great friendly rivalry that we've had, and I think there's a mutual respect there. I'm going to miss Dave. I'm going to miss seeing him in press boxes and chatting with him. And lamenting about the demise of our industry, which is now, uh, underlined.

Yeah, I mean, part of the great joy of our, our jobs was the press box. That's what I'll miss, you know. Um, but, you know, come on, I'm 65. We all known people in the last two decades. It just seems every year the, the press box gets thinner and thinner. Um, and so, you know, I've always thought it got fatter and Well, actually, it probably did with internet people. You know, I'm talking the newspaper that got thinner and thinner.

The mechanics of the ending, what is worth sharing there in terms of our indignance on your behalf that there had to be a better way to do that so it felt a little more like you were choosing it?

Well, I mean, you know, there's no great secret to it. They, uh, They were ordered by the hedge fund company that owns our paper to cut salary. And I had the biggest salary. And so it came down to do they fire me or do they fire a couple, 2 or 3 people, basically. And, you know, Greg had people in his corner standing up for him. I obviously didn't at the end. But, you know, I'm 65, to be honest. I was close to the finish line anyways. So, you know, it's kind of liberating in a way in that, okay, I want to do some things and have some things in the work if they pan out. And if they do, then, then this will be a great move.

The book is Swagger that he wrote most recently with Knicks courtside fan Jimmy Johnson. That's the book he did most recently. Just one more question on the the mechanics, though, of 65 years old. You don't feel hurt or disrespected that your company should have cared about you more than that as a longtime employee? It would be a fairly natural reaction, I think, for anybody to have.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that is natural. And I, I would have hoped one of my immediate bosses or, you know, a couple of people made the decision would have stood up for me and said, what's best for the paper. And I think that they were more human and they said, let's get rid of one person rather than two. And so, but, you know, for so long I had great people standing up for me. And at the end I didn't. And that's, that's how it works sometimes, as in any career.

Dave, before you came on, I was talking about how this for me is a lesson in professional mortality, because I have to think of your situation. In the context of mine, and I don't know that your boss standing up for you would have done much good. I have a great relationship with my immediate boss, but if the people above him, you mentioned, the people above them want me out, I'm gonna be out.

Yeah, well, I think this worked. The company said, or the hedge fund said, you have to cut this much money, and one guy took the buyout, and evidently they had, you know, they, that wasn't enough, so then they have to make a decision and I was the decision. So, you know, again, the Sun Sentinel, when I went there and Dan at the start of your career and Greg and you were in the prime, it was— we had 29 people, you know, in the sports department. Right now there's 8. So that tells you where— what's happened to newspapers.

I am told here that we have some awards. Somebody just ran in here. I'm not sure exactly what we're doing right now. This is a Lifetime Achievement Award. What kind of award? What award is this? Uh, thank you. Uh, we've got multiple awards.

We've got—

thank you. This first one here is for Dan. It's Dan. What does it say?

Dan, what do you mean it's for Dave?

But to Dan.

What's it say, Dan? It's for Dave.

It's for you to present to him.

Okay, I thought I was presenting both of them. I'm only presenting this one. Okay, I thought it was a Lifetime Achievement Award. And this is, uh, better than Dan.

Yep. Yeah, that's a good award. Yeah, that's a big award. Everybody wants that one.

That's a good one.

We have another award here.

Uh-oh, we have Greg. We have another award where Greg— thank you, Olivia. Greg, this is for you to award here. It's a Lifetime Achievement Award for Dave Hyde of the Sun Sentinel.

Okay, Dave, this, uh, this is an award not as prestigious as the other one, but, uh, this is an award, uh, better than Greg. Greg, which I didn't know, but that's a good one too. All of your readers are nodding their heads right now. Yeah, so this is your award as well. It's heavy, man, this trophy. That's a big award.

It seems like you disagree with that award. It seems like I've never heard a presenter—

heavy, that's my blank.

I've never heard a presenter present an award and say, I'm not sure I agree with this.

Oh, did I say that? Speech? Oh, I didn't know.

Speech?

Not from you, Greg. He was so ready to give a speech. Dave, what are you grateful most grateful for here in all of the years, almost 4 decades? What are the things in South Florida sports that you're most grateful for? The things that you leave here saying, yeah, these are the things that moved me.

Well, there were a lot of events that moved me. The great thing about this job is you get to meet excellence.

Okay.

You meet the Pat Riley at the top of his career. You meet Jimmy Johnson and get to know him or Don Shula I did a book with Dan Marino too. So you get to meet and ask questions that other people just don't get to ask and get to know these guys in a way. And to me, it was always what— how's excellence work? And attention to detail of the Pat Reillys or the thinking big of Reillys or Jimmy Johnson, just thinking completely different. That was the best part of it to me, other than the people you meet in the press box, you know? And that was always part of the fun. But, you know, I was thinking before I came on here, I finally got on the Le Batard Show. I finally did it. And that's a career achievement. It just took me 5 years.

Yes, usually it's hello then goodbye. This time it was goodbye then hello. That's not the way that works. That normally works. His first appearance at the Sun on the show comes with his last appearance in the Sun Sentinel. Dave, thank you and congratulations. Greg, any more words here for your friend, our friend, as he leaves?

Yeah, Dave knows how I feel about him. Nothing but respect, admiration. You've been a beacon for my entire career, just about, and I've really appreciated it.

And vice versa to you guys. You know, I started at the Herald and Greg's desk was right next to mine and I would watch him. He was very organized and meticulous. And as a young reporter, I can still look at him at the end of the day, cleaning off his desk, putting everything in order. And I'm a complete slob. Unfortunately, that didn't rub off on me. Dan, I thought you were the best. The ability with words, not just spoken, not just written, which is all I can do, but spoken, which is what you've gone on do great. So two, two great friends, um, I got to meet along the way.

Thank you, buddy. Uh, we love you and we appreciate you, and, uh, it's a sad day. Don't try and make us happier about it.

Thank you.

All right, nice chatting with you.

Can we get that photo back on the screen that we were just showing? Because how about that swagger from Greg Cody? I, I asked if this is a real photo or if it was AI because Greg looks that good.

Who are these people?

That's my Tom Cruise era.

You look incredible.

That's Dave Hyde, Greg Cody, and John Wholen sitting. I don't know who's standing. Top left to right is Sean Powell, Larry Dorman, and Gary Shelton.

So this is one of the great staffs of all time in Miami Herald history. Dinosaur sounds are not appropriate.

John Wholen—

sorry, John Wholen was not one of the writers. He was an exceptional editor, and also the first time I met him was introduced to him— this is funny, this is actually funny for the audio audience, okay? The person on the lower right sitting next to Greg Cody is a little person. And when I was in college, this was my first editor, and so he would wake me up screaming, yelling into the phone something, because you would say he was hostile, aggressive, and from a different dinosaur time, correct?

Yes, yeah, very acerbic, to say the least.

So, but I, but I never, I had never met him, right? So for 2 years, this person is talking to me and I'm imagining some lumberjack swaggering through an office or whatever. And so I'm introduced to him one time in the Miami Herald. He is sitting at his desk, but he's sitting in a chair like the one that I'm sitting in, right? And so the sports editor points to the back of the chair, which I can't see that anyone is sitting in the chair because the back half of the chair doesn't have anyone in it. And says, you know John Wallin, your boss, right? And he's pointing to what I think is an empty chair 'Cause I've imagined somebody who's 6'8", 300 pounds, and instead the chair is larger than him and it doesn't look like there's physically anyone in the chair. Somebody's gotta tell you he's a little person, no?

Did he turn the chair or no?

Yes, yes, it was shocking.

You need a heads up there.

It was shocking. Yeah, Tony, that was exactly my reaction. What were the initial, like, I thought it was some sort of practical joke. I'm like, is it April 1st? Why is this person pointing to a chair saying, "My boss is a chair, an empty chair." Here!