Off The Desk 5/5/26

Good morning and happy Tuesday. Thanks for being with us and off the desk. I'm Julia O'Keefe. And I'm Nick Antonakis. Good morning. It's Tuesday. Tuesday. Cinco de Mayo. Cinco de Mayo, yeah. Lots of things happening on the National Day calendar and some nice weather as well. So yesterday was beautiful, but today's going to be even maybe I think Alexa said there's going to be more clouds today than yesterday, but temperatures are going to get up to 80 degrees. That's pretty nice. It's going to feel like a summer day out there. Lots of things going on. You did mention it is the 5th of May, Cinco de Mayo, a day celebrating Mexico or Mexican culture and heritage. I have a little bit of history about the day. Oh, nice. Yes. Let's hear. All right. So Cinco de Mayo's deeply rooted history in the Franco-Mexican War influenced Mexican, Mexican-American communities in the early years of the American Civil War. So it dates all the way back in the early 1860s. As the Civil War erupted, these communities took up the banner of the Cinco de Mayo celebration as a way to commemorate the cause of freedom and democracy. Today in the United States, Americans celebrate Mexican-American heritage and pride annually. Very nice. That's what today's all about. A couple other things happening. But yes, we're going to keep that message in that celebration of Mexican-American culture today all throughout Cinco de Mayo. Yesterday, it was funny. They posted on Instagram the clip of us talking about May the 4th. I saw that. Yes. So that's funny. Yeah. Today is also we also talked about yesterday a little bit on Teacher Appreciation Week and that whole message of appreciating our teachers all week. Today is actually National Teacher Appreciation Day. So today's extra, extra, extra, extra special. Thank you, teacher, in your life. Yes. This one's funny because we talked about this last week off the desk. It's also National Hoagie Day. Now, some of us up here may be like, well, what's a hoagie? I feel like in Massachusetts, we don't really call a sub sandwich a hoagie. That's more of a Philadelphia, New Jersey kind of thing. So I don't know. It's just a sub to me. It's just there's a lot of great subs out there that we can celebrate today. Do you have a favorite sub? I love. See, I go back and forth all the time. I like just a simple turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo on like an Italian roll or any kind of bread. Really, I love just going to Big Y and getting the ones that come in. Yeah, really good. I like an Italian sub to chicken, meatball, meatball, meatball, steak and cheese. Turkey is my go to for cold cuts. I love tuna also. I mean, steak and cheese for hot subs, chicken parm for hot subs. Meatball sub is good. It's like a classic. My mom makes the best homemade meatballs and then we'll have meatballs. Like I don't even eat the meatballs like by themselves. Yeah, the cheese melts on it too. So good. So good. Sausage and peppers. Oh yeah, that's another underrated one. Yeah, there's so many. I think there's so many subs out there. You can put anything that you want on a sub. Roast beef. Yep. I mean, you can make, I mean, I don't really know if the North Shore beef applies as like a sub as much as it does like a sandwich, but I guess you could transform that into multiple avenues of a roast beef. I mean, yeah, there's just so many different things out there. There's so many. You can stop by a deli today, grab a sub, thank the deli workers. Yep. Lots of people to thank today. It's also National Astronaut Day. We talk a lot about space on Off The Desk, especially, you know, now with the Artemis 2 mission having just happened. Now, crew's already preparing for the next mission. So amazing. So awesome. Cool. I was always so fascinated with space, but I know you said that you really like space. I did not like space. I remember I used to like look at the poster of the sun and how big it was. And then there was like text that said like, it'll explode in like 5.4 billion years. And I'd be like, what do you mean it's going to explode? The sun's going to explode. I used to freak out all the time, but now it's okay. It's fine. I mean, 5.4 billion years, we got some time. Yeah, we're fine. Yeah, well, there's that. Oh, yeah. Space in itself, when you think about it, it is scary. I mean, applauding all the astronauts who... I know. What a brave mission for an astronaut to go up to space. But I mean, I imagine it's such a cool thing to be like looking down at earth all the way up above. It is. And so few people have had that experience and can say that, you know, it has to be, there has to be such a strong bond between the people who have been able to do that and to see that. It's super impressive. I mean, the brightest minds really in the world. Yeah. In the U.S. going on up there. So that's so cool. Yeah, I wanted to go to space camp when I was in first grade. My first grade teacher did a huge exhibit for us, and she transformed her classroom into like there was a divider and there were different areas. One of them, she decorated the rug to make it look like Mars. Oh, wow. That's kind of cool. And yeah, it was really cool. We learned all about space camp, and I thought I was going to go. And then I saw how expensive it was. And even though I was only six years old, I was able to comprehend that space camp was not cheap. And then my mom said I could not go to space camp, but that was OK. I still just loved learning about it. My grandparents actually had when I would go over to their house, they had a huge door puzzle and it was all the planets. And I used to do it every time I went to their house. I would do it in their hallway and it would cover the entire hallway. And then I would learn about all the planets. And yeah, I love space. That's awesome. I don't think I'll make it up. Was it you or Chris who wanted to be an astronaut? Well, I mean, both of us, but Chris really wanted to like all the way through. I my dream definitely subsided probably around the third grade. But Chris said he he really thought he wanted to be an astronaut up through up through a while. Wow. Yeah, that's cool. It's I feel like it's it is a common. Kids have a. Yeah, kids. Yeah. Dream job. Space camp was really cool. There were a lot of us who wanted to be astronauts. So. But yeah, here I am at 22. Second best thing. Forget going to space. You're at 22 news. Obviously. Yeah. So happy National Astronaut Day. We also mentioned. Yeah. So nurses appreciation week and teacher appreciation week. There's a lot of meal deals going on this week to give a shout out to teachers and nurses. Also, huge thank you to nurses for everything you do. I mean, massive round of applause. I could never drive in that environment and the work that they do to care for patients and keep everyone safe is incredible. So thank you, nurses. Yes. And also like working through the night around the clock care. Incredible. But lots of places are giving. Yeah. Like I said, meal deals. Applebee's is one of them. They're giving out free appetizers a week to nurses and teachers. There are a few others I saw. I know Chipotle has something going on this week. There's a list online. So go check it out. Go treat yourself because I mean, they'll be treating you. So it's a win win. You deserve it. Yeah. So Applebee's is also great. There's great appetizers. Lots of sticks. Yes. Fingers. Can't So yeah, lots of stuff going on today. That'll bring us to the end of the recap of the day, I guess. But there's lots more to come on off the desk. I have a very fascinating sports related article that Nick doesn't know too much about yet. And I think I'm excited to see what your live reactions going to be because it's crazy. And there's a broader conversation on where things could be going in the sports world. Oh boy. Related to robots. So stick around. You won't want to miss that. We'll be right back. All right, welcome back to off the desk on this Tuesday edition. Thanks for being with us. I'm Julia O'Keefe. I'm Nick Antonakis. Thanks for being with us this morning. We have an interesting topic coming up on Julia. Oh, yes, it's very interesting. So it has to do with the sports world, but also intersecting with AI and technology. As you know, we've been seeing all these headlines on AI as new platforms are being developed and tools are coming about because there's just so much that AI can do. And we don't know all of it yet. We're quite literally learning as we're going along. But this headline is the NCAA Rules Committee approves a robot for challenging balls and strikes in the SEC tournament. OK, wait. So now this is a little bit different. So it's for challenging only. All right. Read into it. Let's hear. Yeah. My first off, my initial reaction to hearing robot was what's like a literal robot. I was like, really? Like, are we going to actually do this? But I might not hate this as much. OK, OK. All right. So I'm just going to read the article and then we'll react. It's on our website, too, if you want to go check out our website. Yeah, it's from the Associated Press linked on WWP dot com. So the robot umpire is coming to college baseball, at least on an experimental basis. The NCAA Baseball Rules Committee on Monday approved the Southeastern Conference's request to implement a challenge system for balls and strikes for each game of the twenty twenty six SEC tournament. It will be similar to the system used in Major League Baseball. Teams can challenge an umpire strike or ball call via an automated ball tracking system that monitors the exact location of each pitch relative to the specific batter's zone. Then the commissioner goes on to give a quote saying it's committing to their continued commitment to innovation. This addition represents a continued step forward for our game, et cetera, et cetera. Each team will have three challenges to start the game. If the challenge is successful, the team will retain the challenge. If the original call is confirmed, the team will lose the challenge. OK. Upon a challenge, the pitch location will be compared against the electronic strike zone. The result will then be displayed on the stadium video board and broadcast. The SEC baseball tournament will be played May 19th to 24th in Hoover, Alabama. The automatic ball strike system would be allowed for other conference tournaments if a conference wanted to use it and follow the same protocols as the SEC. So essentially, it's not much different than Major League Baseball. Exactly. Yes. So I don't I do not dislike that at all, because honestly, and we said it before we came on air, I said if there's any sport for this to happen in baseball is the sport. And it's exactly because of the strike zone. I mean, that's the biggest question mark in all of officiating in sports, I'd say. It's the most undetermined zone. It goes from ump to ump. Each ump can have their own sort of design for a strike zone. They can call it different on a game basis. Like it's a wishy washy zone, especially as a casual viewer of baseball. It's definitely on the bottom of the four major sports for me. I've probably watched it the least. OK, but just as a casual sort of viewer going in and seeing this stuff, there's no sort of consistency. So seeing that being implemented is actually a good thing. I've heard in the past that it would totally do away with umps even judging the strike zone where my brain. Yeah. So that is something else to consider. But at least having this sort of robot design in the background ready to sort of help if need be. I think that's totally fair, especially when it comes to challenges. I've seen many, many instances of managers being very upset with a certain strike call. And then in baseball, it's also so like like they'll just toss you out like it's nothing, like it's crazy. So I don't think this is a bad thing. So my original reaction was bad, but now it's pretty gray. Yeah. So the headline itself, I mean, I kind of had the same reaction at first and then I read more into it. So maybe I was leaning into the tease ahead a little bit because I didn't read. But then I did read this before. But the robot should should the headline. I guess that's a journalistic question. Should the headline have called it a robo, a robot? Is the real question here? It's technically robot technology. So I guess it's fair. But it does. Like you alluded to before, it offers a fair question of like, where does this go in terms of future officiating in all sports? Right. That was kind of what I was going to ask you next is, do you feel like this could be, you know, have a place than any other sports? I'm thinking we see the photo finishes and even rack races or something like that. I know. So I was a swimmer growing up my whole life. And I know for swimmer, we had the touch pad. So that's pretty standard there. Even if it's if it ends in a tie, you have the numbers because that's when your hand touched the wall. But even in terms of, you know, calls like fouls or penalties. And but I guess if that's the case, you kind of it's a little less gray than baseball, so to speak, where there's an actual zone. So I don't know. It'll be interesting to see if this is something that can be developed into other sports. I mean, I've seen in the past, I mean, the first down marker in football now that's had its own implementation. There's a chip inside the ball that if it's really, really close, they don't do the whole bring out the chains and measure anymore. It's like, where is the chip inside the ball located? So that's one thing in the NHL. There's more technology surrounding like puck crossing line, whether it's goal line offsides, stuff like that. I mean, camera technology in that sense has been around for a minute in terms of keeping those things up. I don't know if they've implemented more of like a technology side of things where they're actually like tracking where the puck is. Same thing with basketball. But I think it all just deserves to be said, like. I think part of the drama from sports comes from the undetermined factor of like the humans making the call. So like the technology in place to help make that call, I like. But in terms of like the NHL, for example, where, you know, you got the replay of the puck slowly crossing the line and like, does it fully cross? Is there any paint in between? Like, is the ice exposed? Stuff like that. Exactly. That stuff being left up to human error adds a lot more drama to sports. I mean, if you add in the technology aspect, it's debatably undisputed in that case. There's an answer. Exactly. Exactly. So I kind of like the aspect that the human decides the extra technology in place to help make that decision, I think is great. But if it went further than this, like I don't think sports should be officiated by robots completely like that would be that would be bad. I know. Yeah, that's yeah. Because I guess we're seeing, you know, and there's all headlines and speculation of, you know, if A.I. is going to be replacing jobs and that's the case where and in what industries. I guess the question is this one where it would be functional or does that, like you said, take away the human aspect of sports at sports? Absolutely. But also, you know, a bit of a bit of the whole game, a bit of the waiting for the ref to make a call. And I feel like there's a sense of, you know, when you're waiting like in football or baseball, when the ump's on the screen or the refs on the screen and you're waiting for them to make the call. I feel like if you're looking at a screen, just waiting for a computer to calculate something, you miss a lot of that. You miss a lot of there's less. I don't know. I just feel like I'm picturing, you know, is it going to be like a buffering or is it going to be rendering and you're it's going to be the screen's going to be loading to then make the call as a computer. A lot of stuff that would be very, very different. Some of the best moments I have growing up watching sports is those moments of human judgment, like determining whether or not a play was offsides in hockey and they're going and it's like frame by frame of the skate passing the blue line and then it pauses and you're like pointing at the screen. You're like, that's on side, that's offside, whatever. And but it's up to like the human in that case. But like it's sort of I've seen it most recently in football with like the first down marker, like they've gotten rid of the whole aspect where they're bringing out the chains and, you know, they bring it out and you're measuring down with the actual physical chain and pile on whatever. So. It's too bad in that case, like you just see the football here on the screen and it's either past the line or it's not. There's not much that you can do to be like, no, it was closer than that, blah, blah, blah. Like there's not as much contest anymore in terms of that kind of stuff. So I wonder if people who have felt like they've had a really bad call made on them would have a different opinion than we do right now. Well, that's the thing, too, because people who have a really bad call made on them. Of course, it's happened to our teams before, too. You hold that with you and you're like, if it weren't for the rest, like we could have won that game. But imagine something is determined by technology in that case, like it's an absolute. You have no argument. You have no nothing. In reality, refs can change, but a system can't. Nick, that was so profound. In reality, refs can change, but a system can't. I like it. I like it. Yeah. Very interesting. Obviously, there's a lot of wider conversations that can be had there. I mean, this tournament happens this month, so we'll have to see how this system fares with college baseball as opposed to the major leagues. So stick with us for that. And I'm sure if we get an update, we'll talk. It's always great off the desk topic, anything like that. Oh, yeah. Lots of stuff to talk about. And of course, you're so knowledgeable about sports anyway. So great thing to talk about. But speaking of sports, I mean, the Red Sox got a win last night. I know. I don't know how much of a win it was. I mean, a win on paper, yes. But Roman Anthony out with right hand discomfort after taking a swing. So that would be a big loss for Boston if he's out for a sizable amount of time. He went back to the city. I mean, the Sox are on a road trip now, but he went back to Boston to get evaluated. So we'll wait and see on that. Roman Anthony, one of the few bright spots on this team right now. I mean, he's a young stud out there. He's made strides since last year, probably one of the best young talents in all of Major League Baseball. So would stink to see him sit out. So hopefully he's OK. It would. And when do I think tonight again? I think they're in a series now with Detroit. So all right. Well, there goes. We'll see. Hopefully another win. We'll take two in a row for sure. Yes. But also in more local sports news, local as in Springfield. The Thunderbirds play again. They play the Providence Bruins at home. Yes, they're at home. And there will be two home games because, well, I hope I'm not mistaken. I'm pretty sure it's two home games now because it'll go two away, two home, last one away. Yeah, I think for a five game series, usually in seven game series as it goes to two, one, one, one. So I thought maybe we'd go to one, one, one in this case. But actually, no, that wouldn't even make sense. Keepers are back at home at the end. So never mind. It is two to one. So they will be back at home for game three. And there will be a game four since the series is split one to one right now. So two home games for the T-Birds tonight and then Thursday. So go out and support Springfield, everybody. Yeah, so exciting. I'm sure they have a block party going on today. The energy is going to be wild in there. If there's watch parties around locally, go check those out. Cheer on the T-Birds en route to Calder Cup. So super exciting stuff. Super exciting. All right. We're going to take another short break here and come back with some heartwarming animal stories, because, of course, we love talking about animals on Off The Desk. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right. Welcome back to these last few minutes of Off The Desk. I was saying in the break, we hit all of our hot topics today, space, A.I. and now animals. Here we go. Yeah. So here we go. This is a very heartwarming story out of just just down in ninety one out of Hartford, Connecticut, which is funny because I saw this on social media on. You know, it's crazy. I thought I did, too. And then I was reading the story the next morning. I'm like, I've seen this. Yeah. Getting deja vu. That exactly happened to me, too, because it was a large account, a national account. And yeah, I saw it on social media and I was it made me a little sad reading it. So I scrolled away really fast without actually looking at what it was. But it's very heartwarming. Now I know what it was. So this is a story of ducks that were rescued from a sewer drain in Hartford. That's why I was sad, because the ducklings fell down into the drain. They were I know they were saved. I know. But the video I saw, the video I saw was the mother duckling searching. Oh, yeah. She was flying around. So I saw them getting saved. Here they are. They're getting saved. So fire crews in Hartford quickly rescued the ducks one by one and reunited them with their mom. Look at that. I mean, come on. Look at that. Yeah. This is the angle that I saw the video from. And yeah, they were all saved. But look at that. I'm an empath. I can't help it. Look at that. I'm in the same boat. There they go. There they go. But my thought immediately was, thank goodness. Yeah, it's so good. Thank goodness someone saw the mother duck in distress. I know and said something and said something. Yeah. Half the people would have just assumed it was nothing. I know. And that poor mother duck would have been without her babies. Oh, look at that. All four of them were rescued. No, there's six of them. There's four in that video. But all six of them were rescued. I mean, that happens a lot, I'm sure. But it was good that this video got rescued. I know. But awesome. Very heartwarming. It is. Great to see. Now here's another one. Not as local. This happened down in Texas. Now this is crazy. Show this picture. Thank goodness this kitten is okay. So down, look at this. This is Elmer. Now poor Elmer was found stuck in a bucket of glue. They named him Elmer. But a good Samaritan came across the kitten stuck in a bucket of glue and brought him to the vet. Look at him. I mean, look at this. There you go. Well, look at that. Well, look at the first picture. Yeah. First picture, he's like upset. He's like, I'm done. Second picture, he gets a little bit better. Then you go to the third one. He's happy. I love his attention. So they used canola, two gallons of canola oil to remove the glue. Oh my gosh. And he had multiple baths until the majority of it was gone. Then the last bit of the dry glue was removed weeks later. Look at, they had to put a little cone on him. I think that's actually. That's a styrofoam bowl. Because he's so little. I know, they can't even put a real cone. He's too small. But look, he's all cleaned off. He went from this to this. I know. All because a nice good Samaritan brought Elmer in. I did read that Elmer is all healthy and ready for adoption now. They have thousands of inquiries of people looking to adopt Elmer. Can you imagine if that was like my pets and I found them covered in glue? I'd be like, what the heck am I going to do now? Right? Apollo, the dog covered in glue. I'd be like, you know what? Yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah. If my dogs were covered in glue, I mean, they're big dogs too. We would have to figure something out, but hopefully maybe, I don't know. They use canola oil here, but I always think. Olive oil. I mean, the Greeks, we turned to olive oil for everything. So should get some glue off too, but. Yeah. Coconut oil probably would work. I mean, Dawn dish soap is always a bit in a pinch. I mean, you see it in the ads all the time with ducks covered in the oil. So hopefully it actually works. Yes. But these were good, good animal stories today that ended with all the animals being safe and tons of inquiries for Elmer. And he's considering Elmer's from Texas. It might be hard for someone from our area to adopt Elmer, but if you're looking to adopt a kitten, always go to Dakin, AJO, MSVCA. They always have animals looking for homes. So hopefully we maybe inspired people to adopt a pet out there today. Lots of good stuff. All right. That brings us to the end of Off the Desk on this Tuesday. We'll be back tomorrow for Wednesday, our last new episode of the week, but you can always check out our show Off the Desk and all of our other shows on the 22 News Plus app. All right. We'll see you back here tomorrow. All right, everybody.