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Thanks so much for joining us for Last Call, where we get to the topics we couldn't get to in the first 27 minutes and 48 seconds, Joe.

I want to ask you about an idea that was launched this week, primarily by Contemporary Productions and its longtime chief, Steve Schenckman.

Along with some private support, they're putting up these banners throughout downtown St.

Louis to honor St.

Louis legends.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Michael McDonald, people like Chuck Berry, Tina Turner, John Hamm.

Just to show the tourists, and maybe the locals alike, that hey, some great people live here and are from here.

Let's celebrate the heritage of St.

Louis.

What do you think?

I think it's a fine idea.

One, it isn't costing me any tax money.

Not yet.

And second of all, why not?

First of all, if they're going to have Jackie Joyner-Kersee, this area cannot do enough to extol the virtues of the world's finest female athlete of the 20th century.

According to Sports Illustrated, that is.

And Michael McDonald looks good, however old he is with that white hair.

Hang those up on the polls.

Will I probably not notice them after the first time I look at them once?

But for people out of town, they go, I had no idea the guy from Doobie Brothers was here.

Or Tina Turner's from St.

Louis.

Why not?

What the heck?

I'm sorry.

I just think this is an old idea that many cities have done before.

We can go back to the 80s.

What a time, what a town, what a team, when the Cardinals were the going thing in the 80s.

How about we put banners up that said, like, St.

Louis, where you can afford a house.

Or St.

Louis, crime is really down.

Or St.

Louis, whatever.

This one seems a little stale to me.

God bless Contemporary and what they're trying to do.

Because I'm a big supporter of doing anything we can do to turn around downtown.

But I think that involves getting young people down there and getting the party started.

It's an old school idea, and I think old people will appreciate it.

Now I'm an old person, but I think we need to spice it up a little bit more.

There's another way to honor these old legends, like the Scott Joplin House.

I went there a couple of months ago.

They have a little piano concert, and it could use some help.

Oh, a lot.

I thought, gee, just a few hundred dollars would probably help this out.

I like the idea.

When I go to Cleveland's airport and they have a big photo of Tina Turner, I think, man, they co-opted our superstar.

Or I go to Chicago's airport and they have all sorts of information on chess records and Chuck Berry.

Chicago's airport named O'Hare.

Yeah, well, that's right, after St.

Louis.

And I was in New Bern, North Carolina, and they had, like, Walt Bellamy Way.

I didn't know that Walt Bellamy, the NBA great, was from there.

So I like it when people can see that.

And, Alvin, do you know that a gentleman by the name of Donald Suggs is going to be honored with one of these?

Actually, I do know that.

Does that not change your mind?

Well, I'm just saying that he's Alvin's boss.

Right, exactly.

And he has done many, many, many great things for the city of St.

Louis and the region.

I get it.

Tap dancing.

Right.

You know, I just think that.

Now, Suggs me, by the way.

But I'm just saying this idea, this concept, dates back to, like, when I was at my first paper in Danville, Illinois.

So it just didn't really thrill me.

Let's just put it that way.

You know what's going to happen is it's going to be such a good idea and such a big hit.

Kirkwood is going to do a Kirkwood legend.

I'll bet you Alvin's in the top five.

In the top five, there will be a big banner of Alvin Reed right over 44.

If Kirkwood, like, put some banners up right now, they would probably, like, people at Kirkwood would tear them down themselves.

Right.

They wouldn't have the electricity to illuminate.

That's what I was going to say.

Right.

Okay, where do we go next?

Alvin, I think it's to you with Mike Rapoli.

He owns the UFL.

One of the owners with ESPN, Fox, and others, I guess.

He had a tweet yesterday saying he's not satisfied with the schedule he's been given by the CBC for use of the dome for the Battle Hawks next spring.

He's been given four straight home games and then five straight games on the road.

And he says this is unacceptable.

I'm with him.

I'm look, no matter what you think about the Battle Hawks, they draw between 25 and during their first year, like up to $35 ,000 dollars people for each game.

So here it is.

They come around.

It's another season in the spring and they find out that you have to play like four at home and five on the road.

That's the best we can do for you.

That's nonsense.

I don't think that was purposely done.

Once again, what you're saying, Joe, about don't blame conspiracy.

Don't call something evil that can be explained by stupid.

There you go.

I just think they dropped the ball.

I think they looked and said like, oh man, we kind of forgot about the battle.

Right, right.

It's inexcusable.

Also, at least up to the time we came on.

I think the post-match story that they had reached out to CBC and others for comment and had not got one yet.

So that's what makes me think they don't know what they're going to say because they didn't realize they had done.

I disagree.

I think the Battle Hawks don't even have their 2027 schedule up.

So the CBC books a lot of these concerts and conventions years in advance, and the Battle Hawks don't fill any hotel rooms.

But if you have like the Rolling Stones, every hotel room in the region is full.

If you have a convention, that's sometimes 6 ,000 rooms for four nights.

The Battle Hawks, not quite the same.

They have to come up with their schedule years in advance.

Well, the problem is their teams are changing all the time.

That's true.

But we have the most successful franchise in that league since day one, and that should be appreciated by St.

Louis.

Well, they actually averaged last year 23,000 a game.

So couldn't they go to Enterprise?

Well, I doubt they're going to let them play there.

Yeah, I doubt they're going to let them play there either.

I don't think you just move over all of a sudden and say, hey, make room for us.

And I have not been to a Battle Hawks game, okay?

But it is kind of unfair to the fans that you have to be there four weeks in a row.

When you follow a team, a football team, you go a week, then there may be a week off.

Maybe you go two in a row.

So I think in a way it's kind of like I don't like the message that it's sending to the local folks who follow the team of, oh, all those people out of town are much more important than you are.

I had the exact opposite reaction.

I thought, who is this Ripolli to be talking down to St.

Louis when we're the biggest supporter of his league?

But I don't think the fans are going to be in favor of having to go to games four weeks in a row.

You don't do that if you have season tickets.

If you had season tickets when the Rams were here, they didn't play four home games in a row.

And I think it makes it harder on the fans of the team.

Because the Battle Hawks fans drink so much, it takes them two weeks to recover.

Well, look at what that's doing for the sales tax.

Yeah, that's true.

You love increasing taxes.

HIPAA represents the younger urban dweller.

How important are the Battle Hawks to your experience?

Did you move here because we had a team in the UFL?

No.

I moved here for all of St.

Louis City's charm.

But I do find the commitment to all the sports very, very charming.

And I have not been to a Battle Hawks game either.

Okay.

You and I should go together.

We should go together.

Well, you have to learn the cry.

No, I'm not doing that.

I have not done that.

Have you been to a Cardinals game?

I have.

Okay.

There are polls out indicating something that I think, Bill, most people don't believe.

And that is Fred Wellman, who's a first -time candidate for public office, has a chance of beating Ann Wagner, who's been in Washington representing St.

Louis now for 14 years.

You actually have a personal story regarding Mr.

Wellman.

Oh, well, I talked to him the other day.

And he seems so energized and naive.

He believes, or at least led me to think that he believes he can win.

And I'm heartened about that.

You know, I mean, I think that Ann Wagner has just been phoning it in for a long time.

But I don't know if it's really going to happen.

I mean, I have a real wait-and -see attitude toward it.

But he says the polls show that he is.

I can't believe the polls, though, because the polls all call people.

And most people I know do not answer the phone unless they know the incoming number.

I think when I've talked to people over the years covering politics over the most recent years, they basically talk about how you never really could 100% trust polls.

You always had to take it with a little grain of salt.

But you really can't trust them now.

And the first thing they mention is that exact fact, call screening.

I don't know that number.

I'm not calling.

Or if you get ahold of someone, you lie to them.

Oh, yeah, I'm voting for so-and-so, whatever.

The only poll I ever trust will show up on November 4th, when they have all the votes counted.

And that's going to tell you who's going to win.

And I think right now, and especially you always get it, and both sides will do it.

I love it when one candidate will send me a poll showing they're in the lead.

Then the other one says, well, I'm in the lead.

It's like, oh.

So our paper basically has a policy of unless the post-dispatch conducted the poll, we don't quote polls.

I got a text with a video from Andrew Bailey, and he was asking me to save the state from radical leftists.

And I started to send him a response.

I said, just stand down, Alan.

Let it go.

So I don't know how they got my number.

I don't know why he was sending me this video and whatnot.

I will say that, man, if they're showing Wellman up five points, he may well lose.

But I think it is indicative of he's, A, doing much better than the way Ray Hartman did or the last few candidates that ran against Ann Wagner.

And it is also saying that people are dissatisfied with Ann Wagner and the Republican Party, whether Wellman wins or not.

Except the district has been so gerrymandered.

Well, I'm just saying, I don't think it's five points.

I'm not saying he's going to win by five points.

I'm not saying he's going to win.

But I am saying that it is showing something.

And, oh, here's another angle to it, and I heard this today real quick.

You know what it does?

Even if he doesn't win, the Republicans had to throw money in that race they could have been throwing someplace else in the United States of America.

And a little Democratic operatives are saying that's a good thing.

Well, in those games, sometimes people don't mind where the other poll shows them behind because they're afraid their people may stay at home.

Oh, there's no way Joe Schmo loses.

He wins all the time.

No, no, Joe Schmo wants you to realize he's in a life-and-death fight here.

So get out to the polls.

You know what, I agree with that, but it's the desperate hour, this midterm.

So I don't think anybody's going to say, like, oh, we got this wrapped up.

Well, I don't think anybody's saying the Republicans are going to win.

It's a midterm election.

Yeah.

They'll probably lose the House.

That's it.

They'll probably lose the U.S.

House.

I hate to cut you off.

We'll pick this up next week or sometime soon.

Thanks so much for joining us.

See you next time.