Support for Donnybrook Last Call is provided in part by Design Aire Heating and Cooling.

Thank you very much for joining us again.

This is Last Call.

We take a look at the topics that we couldn't get to because of time constraints in the first 30 minutes.

But um last night, Alvin, you were at the soccer stadium and uh you happened to witness a big game between Guatemala and the United States.

The USFA won.

Uh, but what you told us in the meeting before the show was so interesting about this experience, the likes of which I don't think I've seen in St. Louis.

I had never seen anything like it.

That scene was fantastic.

There were license plates in in the parking lot where I at um Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and the people that rolled out Guatemalan soccer fans.

Okay.

Flags, horns, vendors were up and down the street, blue and white everywhere.

everywhere.

They started parking at 2:30 in the afternoon for a six o'clock game.

It was absolutely just spectacular for St. Louis.

And that's like and I'm not now I'm jealous of Kansas City over this whole World Cup thing.

I really was thinking like, you know, may it be a hassle, whatever.

No, it was fantastic.

And it proves sports brings something to your city.

And we we we miss the Rams and any opportunity we can get to bring things to St. Lewis like that.

We have to do it.

We have to do it.

Well, I will say Tom Acriman on this morning's uh KMX broadcast played the sound of the stadium after Guatemala scored a goal.

And you would have thought you were at the Michigan Ohio State game.

And I got another one for you.

Okay.

So, at about 10 minutes to 6, they played the national anthems.

When the opening chords to the Guatemalan national anthem starts, within seconds, the people singing the words echoed throughout all St. Louis.

The national anthem for the United States of America started right after that and all you heard was the music.

And I'm not hating on the people that were there, but I just thought to myself, man, now that's some national pride and these people were having fun in that stadium and it was good for St. Louis.

It was good.

You know, I I I'm all for the Guatemalans and what they do, but as far as the singing, you know, we don't tend to sing.

Yeah.

I I I mean it isn't uh that you know we're not patriotic, but we go to a ball game and when they play the national anthem, there's a few people who sing, but it's really not what we do.

All right.

It's a hard song.

Nobody sounds good singing our national anthem.

I I hope Guatemala was a little more tuneful.

I I I all I know is I heard them singing with pride.

And by the way, I was at a blues game at the be that was earlier this year and it was Veterans Night, okay?

And they do this in Canada from time to time.

They'll do the first chords and then you're supposed to sing ac capella.

Now, Canadian hockey games, they sing O Canada like loud and proud.

And this ac cappella part when it came on, I'm looking around.

I'm like, am I the only person that knows the words to the national anthem?

I It was kind of sad.

So, all right.

Well, what what do we think about uh the WNBA announcing this week that it's expanding to places like Philadelphia and Detroit and Cleveland, Sarah?

Yeah.

But uh not coming to St. Louis.

So given what Elvin said, is that a huge loss or what?

Mitch McCoy says that Mitch McCoy says that he believes that it has something to do with the lack of an NBA team in St. Louis, which would be which would be under the police department and they would have to purchase permits for all kinds for all the games.

Right.

So that he he we waited.

The ownership included uh the Chaffitz family, uh Jason Tatum, and the Hoffman's.

Do you think the WNBA looked at their plans for Washington?

Uh, you know, I do think this came down to they wanted to piggyback on places that already had NBA franchises, but I'm bummed about it because I feel like in a city like St. Louis where we don't have the NBA and desperately deserve an NBA team and should get one, this is like the hill that I'm going to die on lately.

No, I'm on it.

I've already written about it.

Yeah, but yeah, but like getting an WNBA team would be our way of showing that we could come out and support it.

I think this could be a great basketball town.

I think it's a missed opportunity and this was a great ownership.

Well, we we we have Slooh basketball.

Oh, I go I love it.

And and that that's a good time.

Yeah.

And we knew we knew as much as we it was it was such a painful period when Stan Enis Stanley Kroni, you know, oh no, this is my home state.

I would never move the team.

Never, never, never.

My aunt Edna or my aunt Alice, whatever.

Um and he turns around and makes fun of us and mocks us on his way out the door.

Um, so we there's so much anger, sadness, whatever.

But this does leave a black eye when when when you can't or at least the perception and the people who were there were dieh hard football fans, but when the perception is that nah, you know what, they're just sort of wishy-washy Johnny completely.

Well, we've lost two football team, a major league baseball team.

Yeah, that's right.

A golf tournament that that has an impact whether we want to.

Not to mention an American League team if you go back.

Yeah.

Well, I I I'm old enough to remember when the NBA used to always have an exhibition game in St. Louis in the fall and that was very well attended.

Very well attended.

And I I've stumped for Hey, look, we got Bradley Bill, we've got Jason Tatum.

Why don't they those two teams they're on play here?

Excellent.

And I don't I there's never been any response to that.

Bill, I want to ask you about something that I don't think anybody knew about until it was reported this week, and that is that with the state takeover of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, there's a little clause in the legislation that says that the next police chief has to come, I think it says it has to be a man that comes from within the ranks of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

It can't be an outsider like the current chief, Robert Tracy.

I mean, so if Elliot Ness were not dead and if he was available, we couldn't hire him.

Well, now now you're hitting close to home.

Elliot Nes went to Fanger High in Chicago, your high school, the most famous alum of my high school.

But as far as a chief from inside the department, I've always liked that idea.

It's kind of like uh editors.

I've always liked the idea of you're a big organization.

you there's somebody in there you can hire from within and you know somebody you who doesn't come in and have to reinvent the wheel and doesn't know his way around and you often get somebody who just interviews well and oh Bill I got to disagree with you on this I'm sorry I I'm so disgusted by this.

I just feel like this is just St. Louis throwing in the towel.

Like we just want to be a backwater.

We're just going to like protect our own guys.

We don't want any people coming in with big new ideas.

I feel like Chief Tracy is a great example of somebody who comes in and brings the energy of saying you don't have to do things this way.

You know, John Hayden, the the chief right before him, really good guy, came up through the ranks.

Everybody respected him, but he kind of knew how to run things the way that they had already been running.

And that is not what that department needed.

I'm heartbroken that we're now going to like we can't now go out and try to attract the best.

And we got a board, right?

We have a board that at least looks like it's going to rubber stamp anything that the police come up with.

And now they're going to have the chief.

They're going to have the board.

They're just going to it's it's like it's a blank check for the union.

But don't you think at this at this particular moment, I mean, we are with all due respect to my dear friend, Representative Alexandria Okasio Cortez over here.

I'm joking.

I'm joking.

I've been waiting a long time watching my pearls.

No, honestly, I do think that this is such an important moment in our history.

Yes.

That that if if that, you know, before when we had these guys who were brought up through the ranks, things were going pretty well.

Obviously, it's a whole new world.

It's it's a whole new world.

But, um, in terms Why are you looking at me like I mean, I don't think we had some great chief the chief that was part of the towing scandal and the and the chief that ran the horses through the Marty Gro parade.

And I like Ron Henderson, but come on.

I think we're pretty average.

And you know, there was a guy named Bill Bratton who was good in Boston, so he went to New York and he he was great there.

Then he went to Los Angeles.

He was great there.

Under this rule, we could not hire Bill Bratton.

And that just seems crazy if he's the best and the brightest.

was like, "Okay, everybody who plays for the Cardinals has to grow up in St.

Louis."

No, but you I I think you've you've got to have a really terrific relationship between the police and the business community.

I think that has been lacking for some time.

And I think this is the whether it whether it works out in terms of application, that's another Well, we have a great chief and he came from someplace else and now we're said we don't want no more chiefs from any place else.

That just make that's illogical.

I I just don't get that.

by the way.

And would you call the Chiefs?

They've been pretty average.

If you're a ball player and the manager comes, he's like, you know, you're pretty average.

You may as well start looking at the want ads, right?

You're you're not getting the job done.

So, but are we giving Chief Tracy, I mean, you know, in in her interview with Carol Daniels, she uh Mayor Tishara Jones, former Mayor Jones was talking about the 40% reduction in, you know, a particular type of crime.

But was there I mean, a lot of these numbers have Oh, oh, wait.

Now, wait, get this.

Get this.

Jefferson City questioned the numbers.

Asked at that press conference, no, the the numbers are solid.

The governor, no, the numbers are solid.

All of a sudden, the numbers were solid when he's trying to seat this police board and work with the police chief.

So, nobody believed him down there.

Yeah.

Governor Kehoe and then all of a sudden now they believe I I'm not arguing the numbers but I I think as far as policing goes there's certain things that they all do.

They give it different names.

I mean uh Chief Hayden called it triangularization and hot zone or things are better now.

I'm saying you have a city resident at the table.

Things are better now.

And I just don't get this up.

We're out of time.

Yeah.

We'll just keep the unforgiving clock says wrap it up, Brennan.

So, we're going to do that and come back next week.

We hope you do, too.

Thanks so much.

Have a great weekend.

Happy fourth.

Good luck arguing that one.