The Best Voice in Sports Goes Deep

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Pablo Torre the hero as he knocks in Velociraptor and the cubs walk it off.

Right after this ad.

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So this is true.

My first ever rogue game as a broadcaster with the then Florida Marlins.

It was at Wrigley Field.

It was, I believe, still the coldest first pitch temperature on record.

28 degrees.

I finished the pregame.

I have to come back to do the lineups, but I have to really go to the bathroom.

Old Wrigley Field was two urinals, one stall.

Run into the men's room quickly, take care of it.

I'm washing my hands.

As I'm washing my hands, Harry Carey walks in.

I have not met him.

But that will come.

Sure as God made green apples.

Someday

the Chicago Cubs are going to be in the World Series, and maybe sooner than we think

it seems to me

he goes to the stall

and from the stall as I'm drying my hands he says out loud not to me I'm just standing there but he says out loud God is my witness I got so many goddamn clothes on I can't find my

And I look around and I'm like, wait, that just happened?

And that was it.

You didn't go, and here's the zip here's the two two that that's why we do that's why you do this job

It was taught to me a long time ago that pretty much everyone speaks about an octave higher than what they should.

And they speak out of here.

So you basically just.

Pointing to your throat there.

Right.

And so you basically just get yourself more to your diaphragm.

So I'm able to

get myself to a place where I sort of regulate and just I'm calmer.

And then it's just more natural.

I...

am in awe of how deep in your diaphragm you are

so deep i'm doing it right now.

I'm like, my, my energy levels will bring me higher.

Yeah, yeah.

And only when I started podcasting in earnest did I realize like, I'm like going through podcast microphone management puberty.

And this sounds so clean,

frightening.

You know what I mean?

Because I'm so used to Nat sounds and stuff like that.

So this sounds...

I mean, I could, you could just leave me in here and I would just

talk to myself.

Yeah.

Like there is a musicality to, and I say this to you all the time, that you have the best voice in announcing let alone baseball and you're making faces with your red glasses that betrays the reality.

When somebody says that I have a nice voice, I feel I appreciate it, but I would also say

it's like trying to tell somebody

I don't even want to come up with a crappy metaphor.

Okay, so I'm just jumping in here because I need to save Boog from his own self-deprecation and also because obviously I love crappy metaphors.

And to that point, the human voice is an instrument.

And while lots of us just sort of pluck our banjos, us broadcasters, John Boog Shiambi has a Strativarius tucked deep inside his diaphragm, as you can already tell.

It's why Boog is the voice of the Chicago Cubs doing play-by-play on their TV broadcasts.

It's why he's the voice of MLB, the show, the wildly popular video game.

And it's also why Boog calls college basketball and baseball for ESPN and was just named the national radio voice of the World Series last year.

But as audible as his job is, Boog recently got in my ear after listening to one particular conversation we had on this very show about the prospects of a rookie broadcaster, a real up-and-comer, named Tom Brady.

And Boog argued to me that while millions of us clearly listen to game broadcasts, the vast majority of people in America simply do not understand the most basic mechanics of what happens in the booth.

And that I, allegedly, might be one of those people.

So I asked Boog to help me find out, if that's the case, what he really does.

And he invited me to sit in the booth with him.

Actually, and hear everything that he hears, all of which we'll get to.

But first, we do need to get back to the matter of Boog's ego and my own.

Who counts as the best in this craft, which I brought you on here to both shame me about?

I think we'll get to it.

I did not.

Yes, you did.

You did.

We're going to save it

because we got to fully create a lot of people.

Well, and then the audience is going to be mad at me.

John Miller, I think, uses his voice.

Yeah, I just, I love him.

And I think Vin Scully used his voice

really, really well.

Fastball is a high pride of defeat left center field.

But it goes back to the fancy car.

I would say if it's not Vince Cully in my estimation, I think John is the next greatest.

Give me a little John Miller so people can situate themselves in the field.

John Miller is the voice of the San Francisco Giants.

He was the longtime voice of Sunday night baseball on television, the original voice with Joe Morgan.

There they go.

And the pinch.

Swinging a long drive to left center field.

It is

gone.

And you say this as somebody who is now the voice of the World Series on ESPN Radio.

Yeah.

This is the

voice carry is here, so to speak.

But he sounds like what?

Give me a little John Miller in that way.

It has some Vin sing-song-y to it.

It's sort of playful.

There's a shot

One of the

ones in my head would be: I remember in the World Series, there was a pop-up to the left side, and their shortstop was Edgar Rentoria.

And sort of in post-play describing it, he said, and Joe,

Rentoria went back and said, Yola tengo.

And then he tangoed it.

And like, that's John, you know, just that playfulness and

an almost kind restraint.

No doubt.

And there's also, there's, look, there's a,

there's a cleverness and a wit that is pretty unparalleled.

The story that I was going to tell was, yes.

I had missed a dinner a previous night

after having maybe a couple too many.

And I jokingly, I was supposed to meet Rick Sutcliffe and Dave O'Brien.

And I'm out in the hallway and John Miller walks by and Sutcliffe says, do you believe it?

Boog stiffed us for dinner last night.

Said a man named Jack Daniels beat his butt and that's why he couldn't show up.

And John, without missing a beat, says, well, that's nothing.

A couple of days ago, I was mugged by three chocolate chip cookies.

I really admire the way so many of these guys do their jobs and the gift for the language, the humor, and it's also using the voice, right?

The job is so fascinating to me.

And I've been shadowing you at work.

Oh, gosh.

I was at City Field with you, in the booth with you, wearing the headset.

Um, because again, you shamed me, which I'll explain.

I keep on saying I'll explain it.

I will eventually.

But the point is that you're using an instrument that is by design not supposed to be electric guitar solo.

There is a restraint that's built in, but inside of that space, you get to be not just to lard all of this with like just highfalutiness, but

there is an art to this.

And how you learned that art and how I apparently allegedly fail to understand it is why you're here.

I do feel like there's art out there.

I don't feel like that's what I'm producing.

I would tell you that for me,

it's accessing five-year-old me who who likes to play.

And the willingness to play is what brings out my

authentic self.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you say that so self-consciously, your authentic self.

Yeah, right.

Well, I feel like

it gets said a lot.

I don't, and then

I don't, you know, from a, you know, crafting it standpoint, I just think that.

You know, you look at so many of the great calls,

you know, the Gibson home run,

the radio call is Jack Bucks.

I don't believe what I just saw.

One of the things that I always point out is

the best part about that call is he doesn't do it once.

He does it twice.

He says, I don't believe what I just saw.

I don't believe what I just saw.

From Eckersley, Gibson swings and a flying ball to Deep Wright Field.

This is going to be a home run.

Unbelievable.

A home run for Gibson.

And the Diggs have won the the game five to four.

I don't believe what I just saw.

I don't believe what I just saw.

And then Vin's call on TV is: in a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.

High fly ball into right field.

She is gone.

In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.

I just, I don't know, man.

I mean, look, for some people, I'm sure it doesn't speak to them, but I like they had one shot at it.

Nobody.

So I want to explain the stakes of this because it's not just that you're announcing a game for an audience that is used to a century plus of tradition.

Yeah.

Like you can't be an electric guitarist because the electric guitar in this metaphor that I'm torturing was not invented when they fell in love with the game.

So it's just a restriction on like what you have available to you.

And then there is the live definitional aspect of like, you are,

you are writing the first draft of history in this way, of sports history.

And if you f it up,

it's going to be recorded that way in every highlight that gets played for eternity.

I go into it thinking it's a chance for me to do something great.

I don't contemplate it as what if I f it up is the first thing.

The other part that I would say in terms of how long people have done it, and it's one of the handicaps for young people in the sport, and that is

the game's been broadcast for it's the ultimate broadcasting sport because there's so much space and because they've been broadcasting it longer than any of the other sports.

Right.

Hours upon hours in all these senses.

And so we all try to sound like a 67-year-old white guy so i want to talk so like there's a ground ball to short with a guy on first and there is still a part of me that wants to to

you know so okay so imanagi gives up fly balls and i'm a dork for mentioning that but it's like tonight if there's a man on first you know he could really use a ground ball and then it's like on the ground to short swanson to hoarder onto bush and that's just what the doctor ordered and it would there's a part of me that has to resist saying that but the part of me that's saying that is because that's the type of shit that I heard.

And it worked for the person authentic.

But like, that's not how I speak.

And so

I really

want to be as far away from that as possible.

I want to give you

as much of me as I can.

I've learned and come to appreciate that all of us everywhere are imitating somebody.

But within these industries where there is a gold standard, unconscious or not, it gets passed down like an heirloom.

That you, I assume, when you fell in love with this, we're imitating somebody.

No question.

I still do it in different spaces.

One of my favorite calls, and this will hurt some people and love other people, but one of my favorite calls is the Buckner play by Scully.

Three and two to Mookie Wilson.

Little roller up along first.

Behind the big, it gets through Buckner.

Here comes Knight in the midst with it.

Sometimes someone will hit a little roller up along first, and all of a sudden, I find myself just rolling into that call.

But like, yeah, when I'm doing basketball, I was gonna say, you also do college basketball for USPN all of the time.

I will steal puts it in.

Breen is someone that uses that all the time.

Or Mike Gorman, when I was at BC, is a big got it.

Pierce

for the game.

Got it.

And I don't know.

It just comes out.

Yeah, I bothered you about this.

You refuse to develop a catchphrase.

Yeah.

I think I.

None of that for you.

And I love Breen.

I want you to bang.

Oog.

Why won't you bang?

I actually, you know what?

That's not true.

That's not, I do have a catchphrase.

I actually do have a catchphrase now that I, you know what, it's funny.

This is how, but this is how I want it to be.

I have a catchphrase, actually.

And

I started using it with the Cubs.

When the game is over, I bark ball game.

What's the intonation?

Ball game.

Last year here.

Swing in a liner.

Come on!

Ball game!

Michael Bush lays out!

Cubs win!

And I just started doing it, and it just happened.

Like, that's it.

So I was in the booth with you for the Cubs Mets game, and

it struck me like

the degree to which you can show off in a game, right?

The degree to which you can sort of like put the ball between your legs and spin it around.

I don't know when you feel that, but there was a moment when you just showcased it to me.

And it was, I believe, the bottom of the third.

And I was like, hey, Boog,

people make fun of me on this program, Pablo Torio finds out, because I say phrases that are impossible to diagram and for some people

impossible to understand at all.

Just so many angles on Tom Brady and just so many curves

with you.

Voluptuous.

Truly zoptic, I believe they used to say in like the 1920s.

And so we gave you

a couple of options like, hey, can you do something with us?

This is a menu.

Yeah, a menu of just ridiculous highfalutinisms.

Yes.

Do we have the clip of what I provided, Boog, the menu item that

I ended up suggesting to him?

I've been described as truly Zapdig, as

they'd say in the 1920s.

That guy's not afraid to put ketchup on his hot dog.

Bounced a third backhanded.

Magical.

And Alonzo retired, and there's two away.

Did you say Zapdig?

Zapdig.

Can you break that down for me?

Plump?

I've never heard that term before.

Well, that's what they would say in the 20s.

Yeah.

I'm here to help.

I had my friend Pablo Torrey with me to JD's giggling, feeding me

smart words, like they would say at Harvard.

And then you continued to call a broadcast that was utterly professional.

So the part that's funny is that to me, part of what makes that funny is bouncer to third and magical throws it to first.

but that's the autopilot that just kicks in.

It was the best.

That's what kicks in.

Is so we do the

bit and the line, and then the ball's at play.

And it's like, all right, we got to get to get this going.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm going to force you to keep doing that as a side note, um, as I continue to just truly uh harangue you into doing things for my total benefit and no one else's.

If you're looking to add something something special to your next celebration, try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Veen, Champagne, Force and Alcoholic Volume.

Imported by Remy Control, USA, Incorporated in Europe, New York, 1738, Centaur Design.

Please print responsibly.

So

we should explain that your voice matters to me in all the ways we've discussed, but also because

I've been searching for fair criticism of myself.

And you have been, I told you this before the show was launched.

Yes.

That we needed an ombudsman of sorts.

The ombugsman.

And you said, what about the ombugsman?

And I forgot about it.

Yeah.

Because we're doing a zillion shows.

Yes.

And then at some point, I believe you texted and then called and then generally harassed me about how I gave one of the worst takes you'd heard.

You and Mina.

Me and Mina.

had given one of the worst takes smart people say dumb things

all right so in short what mina and i both said back in February on this program is that Tom Brady is going to be good at broadcasting.

That's basically the take.

Brady, if you hadn't heard, is going to be doing color commentary alongside Kevin Harlan on Fox in September.

Brady is getting paid $375 million over 10 years, reportedly, to do it.

But yeah, Mina and I basically bought Brady's stock.

And I argued confidently that Brady's previous life as the greatest quarterback of all time

is absolutely absolutely going to transfer to the booth.

Tom Brady, where it's just like, whatever his take is, is inherently interesting because that's how good he used to be.

His one personality trait that we know of is competitive freak.

He's probably been doing an insane amount of preparation.

Like he is not like the criticism of Romo now is that he's maybe not as prepared as he was initially.

This is, these are all the, you know, leaked stories we're seeing.

That's not going to be the case with Tom Brady based on everything we know about him.

And it went viral in announcing circles, it sounds like, where people were like, these

alleged smart people.

I don't know about that.

I think most people were on your side, to be honest.

Oh, I mean to say publicly,

yes.

And Dan was on the other side of it.

Yes.

But Mina, I would say to you as someone who has done that, I would say to you as someone who has a lot of information at her disposal, you know how fast all that moves.

You can prepare for that.

Tom Brady, I'm sure, will have a lot of things to say and not enough time to say them because you are not prepared for how quickly all of that moves when you've got 700 sheets of paper in front of you and you need to know.

And Dan is always on the wrong side of it.

Always on the wrong side.

Dan Lebatar is on the right side.

That's the thing that where I am, yeah, I'm just gently

dangerous.

Yeah.

On his side.

Me and Lebatar down on a limb is just insert.

I mean, there's no joke.

You don't even need, yeah.

But the announcing circuits I refer to are people who actually are announcers.

Yeah.

Who are like,

oh, that's why you came out.

I mean, that's that's the genesis of all this was we went back and forth.

I sent him a voice text

and

mildly berated him, if that's possible.

Please recap what the argument was as you understood it.

I just thought it's hard to be an analyst, And the idea that, look, if you're betting on it, more often than not, these guys come to become color analysts.

They're not very good.

The ex-athletes, like in this case, Tom Brady.

And there's so many reasons for it.

I mean, I would say number one is they're not going to respect it and put the work into it that they put into their game.

But then the next part that I would say that you guys were missing is just this idea of.

Like when Tom Brady's playing the other team, he doesn't know the first and last name of all 11 on the other side.

He knows the corner's bad and he can pick on them, but he doesn't know his first and last name.

When the ball's thrown to him and he's broadcasting a game, he's got to say his first and last name.

And accessing that is a completely different skill set than

the idea of, oh, he's open.

I can throw it to him.

Like, it's completely different.

Where I was baffled by your take was, but he also has the most sophisticated high-speed processing of the mechanics of the game.

The next thing is to know is he's dissecting a defense in a booth the way that he would, presumably, on the field.

And then he's got to say it, and that has nothing to do with him playing quarterback.

If in the booth they allowed him to throw the ball, I'm not saying, look, he might be good, but I was annoyed that you guys gave him the benefit of the doubt that you think just because he can process, that he can process and spit it back out.

No, we'll see if he can.

I think what I underrated,

which is hard for me to now dispute to you, to your face, is that the skill is transferable.

Like the hardest part about all of this would be, can you diagnose the play?

Can you do the prophecy thing, which Romo was famed for until he stopped being famed for it?

But like that to me feels like the unicorn skill of like, tell me the future.

But for it to be executed at the highest, highest level, it's two parts.

It is diagnosing and articulating.

And the diagnosing part certainly replicates what he does in his former job.

The articulating has nothing to do with it and is a completely separate skill.

And to prognosticate that he will be good at it,

we're all just kind of guessing.

Like part of me was like, I just want to see it.

Yeah, right.

Like, I don't care if he's bad.

I just want to see if he can swim and if he's going to tell me the future.

And even if if it's clumsy, I'll take it.

And you're saying that, oh, your face, your face is already like, this is going to be, it's not what you, okay.

What is your face suggesting?

What is it?

What do you, what do you, what do you mean?

I just want to see it.

I don't, I mean, look, an example to your point, in my opinion, would be listening to LeBron and JJ do that podcast because everybody has talked for years about LeBron being a savant.

And so far on that podcast, you're watching and it's like, man, he's a savant.

They have a, once said that they run off all free throws chet takes the ball out they send two guys to the other end and now shea has got he has it on the right wing or the left wing or whatever case may be at the same time that the big is trying to load on shay there's a guard that's flaring chet to the opposite slot do you know how hard that is

they're flaring a seven footer to the opposite slot but it's not happening in live real time

right

and that's the distinction and and look don't get me wrong i am not a surgeon.

You're calling Tom Brady unclutch.

I'm doing it.

That's right.

Chokes under pressure.

Yes, that's correct.

We're not rockets.

I also would tell you this.

They do a terrible job in our industry training the analysts to explain to them, hey, man,

don't call him the mic.

You can refer to the mic, but like if you want to be great, and this is, again, these are opinions, but like,

it's not, it's not, if there's a pop-up to shallow right, JD can't call him the second baseman.

yeah Jim just said McNeil yeah it's like you can't call him and the second baseman goes out nah man no who went out like you got because there's a story to who the second baseman is so like to that that's the that's the the part of it that I don't know that gets completely articulated and being able to do it efficiently being able to do it in a manner that where you're really hitting the points that need to be hit.

So one of the criticisms that I had read just in the press that executives had sort of levied against Romo, people have done this for decades upon decades, right?

Was that he wasn't doing enough storytelling as the analyst, as the color guy.

What does that mean?

I wouldn't, because I don't know that I would say that in a live game,

I think it's hard to ask the analyst to be the storyteller.

I would say that the play-by-play guy is more trained to be the storyteller.

I would say initially he was someone that did the, you know, the prognosticating.

To me, and again, I think that there are certain people that are going to care and certain people that are not.

And I realize now I'm turning into like the

douchebag on the hill waving the wand.

But

I think, yeah, there's just a little more sort of game flow stuff.

Like on that, the final play of the Super Bowl, like, yes, be quiet.

Not great.

Can only feel the number of people out there being like, what's going on?

First and goal.

Mahomes playing session football.

It's there.

Hartman, jackpot, Kansas City.

And this was the Andy Reid special.

This was the Andy Reid special.

We talked about he was saving all day.

He's going to fake a motion to go across.

And at that moment, he turns and goes back Hartman, who they didn't have, right?

You're looking the guy called play.

Right.

Right, right.

Like, there's a, there's a flow to the.

So the dance.

Yeah, there's a dance.

That's what I observed with you and JD, Jim DeJay's former pitcher in the 80s, who is also like shockingly, given his demographics, statistically fluent and incredibly

smart.

Yeah, man.

He's and so you guys are so awesome.

So I want to say about your broadcast is that it is traditional in the ways that are obvious insofar as you respect what this should sound like.

Yeah.

But it also is subversive in the way that you weave in like advanced statistics,

which I think is less about a personal, we've talked about this, less about a personal crusade you have, although of course you are moneyball curious.

Yes.

Long have been.

It's that this is how the actual sport

talks.

That's right.

At the highest levels, they are talking not about, okay, so for you, what stats in baseball, as just an example here, in football, there are parallels, but in baseball, what you do, what stats are the ones that fans focus on that actually people who make decisions don't give a shit about?

Wins, pitcher wins, they don't care about.

Runs batted in for the most part, they don't really care about.

Runs scored individually, they don't really care about.

I was telling you off the air about stories in the middle of a game last year, I texted Jed Hoyer, who's the president of baseball operations for the Cubs, and I said, who leads our team in RBIs?

And he guessed and he was wrong.

And then he asked Carter Hawkins, who's the general manager, and he guessed and he was wrong.

And then he asked our head of R ⁇ D and he guessed and he was wrong.

They were all for three,

the guys who are running the team.

So, I mean, look, my point is simply, we can sit there and everybody can get cranky about, I don't want to turn it into math class, but I also would say I feel some journalistic or reporter responsibility to deliver, this is what they're looking at.

Here's how they are being evaluated.

And this is what it is.

The two stats that correlate the most with run scoring are on base and slugging.

So every offensive stat, whether it's weighted runs created plus or WOBA, is some derivation of those two together.

So

look,

you have to focus on the way these players are being evaluated if you want to do something that delivers some form of accuracy.

Yeah.

And so when I was shadowing you in this take your child to work day kind of dynamic, we were on the field.

I was yelled at for touching the grass.

Yeah, you were.

By the City Field guardian of grass.

he was like, You can't be on the grass.

This guy can, you can't.

And I was shamed like a child, like an actual child.

And I backed away.

It was good, too, because the guy came over and said, You can't be on the grass, but he can.

And then when we were leaving the field, another guy came over.

And even though we were on the dirt, he said, Don't go on the grass.

Yeah, I'm a habitual grass stepper.

Yeah.

And in the process, I was watching you report.

I mean, in a sense, research.

You have on your phone an advanced statistical personalized stat packet that you have provided by a personal

researcher.

Yep.

You have your iPad in which you score the game on a tablet as you would by hand, but now you have just a searchable archive for, I guess, forever.

And you're having these conversations with people on the other team, the home team in this case, the Mets, on your side.

You're watching VP.

And I was watching you have conversations that I then heard you work into the broadcast.

And I was just like, okay, Boog is working.

Like, this is

the unseen stuff that I did not anticipate when I gave my takes about how Tom Brady is going to be awesome.

And it culminated in just a broadcast that didn't show the seams.

Like, all of this is about

what you did for me with that Zaftig thing into your research.

It was like, oh, the point is that you want people on some level to not know how hard it is.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I feel uncomfortable saying,

I don't want to make it seem like.

You had like a dozen tabs open, like searching like that ball came off the ball came off the bat at 101 miles, whatever it was.

You were like, Give it another reading.

Do one more.

I can't.

I'm so self-conscious.

The middle of the Mets batting order.

Ripped into left field.

Wow, did that hang up?

And Hatt makes the catch.

Too hard.

113 miles per hour on a line.

The other part that you

picked up on very quickly is the social aspect of it.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, we,

I forgot.

I met Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling, neighboring to your booth, and Gary Cohn.

Gary Cohnston.

I don't wait all the time.

You guys, Ewan Taylor, who is the on-field reporter for you guys,

handed Keith Hernandez customized Oreos with his cat.

Haji.

Haji.

Oh my God.

Wait till I'm home.

Wait till I get home.

I'll wake Haji up and show him.

Yeah, that's right.

A little salmon and Levy and Oreo for dessert.

Sweet.

You guys are the best.

I want to know.

Are you going to eat them?

Did you see them?

I saw them, man.

Unbelievable.

Wow.

Keith Hernandez and Haji.

21 and a half he is.

Yeah, his birthday.

And so there are two sets of cookies.

We got Keith Oreos

that have just Haji and then Keith and Haji because we thought it'd be funny.

I don't think Keith Hernandez will be happier this season than he was during that moment.

It was magnificent.

All Taylor McGregor right there.

And so

you mentioned Andy Green, who works now in the Mets front office.

He was the Cubs bench coach last year.

Smart baseball guy.

I'm excited to see Andy Green.

I like Andy.

And there are so many people throughout my time that I've connected with.

David Stearns, I got to know through Craig Counsel when he was with Milwaukee.

I was really happy to get a chance to see him.

And we talk baseball.

And then, yes, I get to use it on the air.

And all of it in some dorky way kind of nourishes me my head for sure because these are interesting, smart people and they provide really good content and perspective.

But then also the social component, the connective, you know, I'm hugging Andy Green.

I had a pen explode on me.

I got pen all over him.

Andy Green doesn't like being hugged.

What are you going to do?

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I invaded your personal space as you were invading Andy Green's personal space.

That's a good way to put it.

But I want to get to, can I have you, can I have you do some

stuff?

Cortez.

Is Cortez round around?

Oh, yeah.

Cortez.

I've been telling him to help me prepare for this last part of the show,

which is a dangerous thing to foreshow.

Yeah, I can't even.

There's going to be stuff on here that, oh my gosh, yeah.

Yeah, we might both lose our jobs.

That's fair.

I'm willing to risk it all.

So, you heard me mention before that Boogiambi is the voice of the most popular baseball video game in existence, MLB The Show.

What I did not mention, however, is that that video game is so intricate that if you were at bat, let's say, and you repeatedly asked for timeout,

Virtual Boog

would

get a little frustrated with you.

Time called.

This is brutal.

No one has time for this.

Just hit pause.

And that is the thing about baseball in a nutshell.

Approximately one zillion weird scenarios can happen in a game, like someone abusively calling for time.

And these scenarios can involve a zillion different people.

And so I wanted to understand what doing that job, the job of the guy who has to simulate, call all of these hypotheticals, what that job involves, so that this show, and maybe these show as a result, could take full advantage of that too.

Okay, so LLB the show.

Yeah.

I want to introduce this concept by explaining how it is you did that job.

Yeah.

What did it involve?

So there's multiple things, but there's

base hit left field.

Here comes the runner around third, and the Mets are going to the World Series.

And then base hit runner comes around third, and the Mets are going to the NLCS.

Like I have to do every version of it.

And then every possible

you are a Nexus.

And then I have to do, and then I have to do your name.

And I do

Pablo Torre.

Torre

Torre

Torre.

That's it, so that they can stitch it all together.

And that's for everybody's name.

Are you afraid of being replaced by AI Boog?

Nah, not really.

I mean, eventually, I probably will ask for it.

The part that I love is that I do some of it in my apartment in Chicago, and it dawns on me, even with, you know, sound muffling, et cetera, that the people people across the hall from me are like, man, he is just so into his craft.

Or just like, that guy is insane.

Yeah, he's just practicing his home run calls.

That serial killer.

Yeah.

That's me.

So, but truly, like, when you do the math on it, it's like thousands of people.

So I would say

so.

We've done,

I think I've done it for five years,

and in five years, we've done over 300 hours of recording.

Oh, my God.

So.

So you are, I mean, you are, your consciousness is effectively uploaded into the MLB of the show.

Yeah, it's system.

It's intense.

And so

what I am going to venture to guess is that you were never asked to describe some of the following scenarios.

This is going to be hard because what I did was assemble a writer's room of Mike Scher and Alan Yang and Mina Kimes and me and Cortez just vaping in the corner uselessly.

I basically am giving you the office writer's room.

And I was like, they're all baseball fans.

What do you guys want to hear?

And they gave me some prompts.

So I'm going to give you the prompt.

Yeah.

And I want you to call this like it's happening

in a sporting event.

Yep.

So here's one prompt.

In the middle of a Royals Twins game, Nicholas Cage drives onto the field in a Subaru outback and attacks the shortstop with a Nerf gun.

This is so stupid.

It is.

It's It's really, it's really.

2-2 to Buxton is foul back.

And the count remains even.

And whoa, hey, what do we got here?

Look, there's a car in the field.

Good lord.

And it's out at shortstop.

Bobby Witt Jr.

is backpedaling.

He is skipping.

That's Nick Cage.

Goodness, Nick Cage is out of the Toyota outback.

And he's got a gun.

He's got this.

What is going on over there?

Oh, it's a Nerf gun.

Everybody will be fine.

He's shooting the Nerf gun at Bobby Witt Jr.

This is terrible.

I stink at this.

Let's say it's Mets Cubs.

Yeah.

And in the stance is Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Okay.

He's wearing a,

well, actually, he's wearing and then systematically eating in its entirety a sombrero made out of tortilla chip material.

And there's guacamole, there's salt, there's nacho cheese.

Back here at Wrigley as we go to the top of the fourth, Cubs lead the Mets 4-0.

Oh, and look who's here today, Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Tell you one of the great things about coming to Wrigley Field is a giant sombrero hat made out of tortilla chips.

And nobody loves it more than that guy, Sir Anthony Hopkins.

And I mean, JD, look at him getting down on that sombrero hat.

The guacs going everywhere.

I think I see some fava beans there.

You know that he is enjoying himself a little bit of Chianti.

And, oh, gosh, get him a napkin.

For the love of God, clean it up.

Okay, Alan Yang submitted this one.

Can you have Boog do Leonardo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arm wrestling Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

to a violent emotional draw that culminates in an embrace, maybe respectful, but wary?

So whatever your spin on that is.

Back here at Wrigley and time now for our heavyweight arm wrestling matchup.

It'll be Sonia Sotomayor and Leonardo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

And away we go.

Release the arms and Leonardo.

Very, very strong.

He's got Sonia Sotomayor close to a win.

Very, very close.

Sonia Sotomayor back the other way.

She's got some guns.

I got nothing else.

um

okay hold on what if um you're calling a cub game you're at yankee stadium in the bullpen um

elon musk and mark zuckerberg are there yeah

and

they're actually going to do their mma fight okay during the seventh inning of uh this yankees cubs game okay and uh after a few sad moments of wrestling

they suddenly just decide to start staring in each other's eyes and they start kissing

gently.

Am I allowed to change it?

Of course.

Okay.

So here it is, the matchup we've been waiting for.

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, they will square off in this UFC Battle Royale.

And we are underway.

And Elon right now with the upper hand.

Elon with a takedown.

And he's punching him in the face, punching him harder.

Wait, what's that?

It's Nicholas Cage.

He's driving his Toyota Alphac onto the field and he has run them both over and killed him.

And this fight is over.

That is

that is so stupid.

Yeah.

All right, Boog.

At the end, here's the only way to sort of send you off into your job.

Can you call me hitting a game-winning triple at Wrigley Field?

I'm a Chicago Cub this time.

My teammate on first base scoring the game-winning run is a Velociraptor.

Yes, it's just figured out how to open doors and hit off-speed pitches.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nice.

That just happened.

But now we're here.

Bottom of the ninth.

Okay.

Two down, bottom of the ninth.

The Cubs trying to pull out a win.

It's a 2-2 game.

Play Holmes on the mound for the Yankees.

And here's the Cubs, Pablo Torrey.

Right-hand hitter digs in.

Velociraptor over there at first.

Holmes listens in for the sign, and he's he's ready.

The kick and the pitch.

Swinging a ball-driven.

Right field towards the corner.

Slicing Fairball.

That's going to get into the corner.

And Velociraptor is on his horse.

On his way to third.

Velociraptor, they're going to send him.

Soto trying to dig it out.

Velociraptor on his way to the plate and save.

Ball game.

Cubs win.

Pablo Torre, the hero, as he knocks in Velociraptor, and the Cubs walk it off.

You are too good of a friend to be.

Thank you for doing this.

Absolutely.

Love you, buddy.

This was fun.

God bless.

Thanks for having me, man.

So the show isn't over yet.

And it could be, obviously, but it isn't because I got one more thing, a bonus thing I didn't know where to put, but I just wanted to hand to you before you go.

And it is not another Tom Brady tick, even though I would say that my desire to watch him try and pluck his banjo, as it were, on live television, has now been at least partially satiated by that orgy of humiliation that was the Netflix roast from a couple weeks ago.

Also, it it was kind of, it was, it was a little weird, right?

That he got up and strenuously objected to the Bobcraft hand job joke, but nothing else.

Nothing else involving his like family or ex-wife or anything.

It's a little weird, right?

I digress.

The reason this episode isn't over yet is because I had one more request, a shameless, romantic request for Buk.

What are we doing?

Is the rain scene from the notebook?

I give that a shot because I would say that I've seen that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll admit it.

I've seen it.

Well, looks like it's going to rain.

Ryan Gosling knows it's going to rain.

Now it's raining, everybody.

Oh, boy, what are we going to do?

Yeah, the sweater on top of your head's going to help a whole heck of a lot.

I feel like a very, very personal conversation is about to be had because the rain is making Rachel McDonalds very uncomfortable.

He's laughing.

She's laughing.

Everybody's laughing.

Everybody's laughing.

Oh, yes.

And there's joy.

It's rained.

It's like washing away all of the painful memories from back in the day.

And she wants to know,

how come you never wrote me?

Isn't that what happens?

I think that's what happened.

Now it's serious.

She's staring at him.

We're going to get close.

Yeah, the lightning just flashed.

Docked the boat already, Ryan, for the love of God.

She's furious.

She went from joyous in the rain, and she wants to know how come he didn't wait for her.

And now she's turning around.

He's still going to put the boat up on the dock, though.

Let's go.

Why?

We all want to know why.

She waited for him.

She waited for him.

Well, how come your mom hid the letters?

Huh?

That's what I want.

How come your mama we all want to know?

Your mom hid the letters.

He wrote every single day.

I've seen the movie.

I'm not embarrassed by it.

Yeah, it wasn't over.

It's never over.

It's not over right now.

Come over here.

That's all I got.

Did they kiss?

Bouncer to third and Madrigal over to first.

And that'll end the inning.

And they're kissing.

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark media production.

And I'll talk to you next time.