Share & Tell with George Santos, Mina 'The Meanie' Kimes, Danny Downer, and Pablo

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

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

Hey, Noah, what's happening?

Former NBA basketball referee Tim Donge here to wish you congratulations for getting that chode certificate.

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I feel like I come across as like a transparent person, but Dan, you know that I'm not at all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This is, Dan, we should promote this as like the big tease of this episode.

Mina Kimes finally reveals how much she is not telling you.

Well, I'm,

yeah.

Pablo Torre finds out.

Are you going to find out?

You know stuff.

Oh, I know.

Because you know me.

I mean, the, look, I'm not calling for anybody to get hacked.

I'm just saying on the list of people

who should be.

You are literally doing what Trump did in that one debate where he was like, China should hack,

was it Biden or something?

You remember Russia he was calling?

I just want all those hackers to

stand down and stand by or whatever the f ⁇ it was.

I'm not the one with the search history that

I don't read it to a man.

Yeah, we should stop talking now, actually.

Who would have the worst?

And so clearly you of this trio.

You are, but you are so well.

You are well concealed.

I've realized that to protect my mental health and do my job in a way that makes me happy, I have to be very deliberate about how much I share and what I share, both in terms of information and also in presentation, which is kind of what you're talking about, Dan, on different platforms, on social media, on podcast,

on television, you're getting very different

approaches from me.

I hate it for her, though, Pablo.

I hate it for her.

Well, because

the best her is the goofiest, freest that doesn't have to think about that at all when televised, doesn't have to think about it, doesn't have to give a consideration to the presentation, is just being herself.

What Mina is saying is that if you don't, if you don't like her on her around the horn, then you don't deserve her on a zipline yelling at Dan Lebetard giving football ticks.

I guess that's all I'll be doing for her.

I want to say thank you to both of you guys.

It's the holiday season.

Mina has a child.

Dan, I feel like one of his kids now working at Meadowlark Media.

And I thought that I would usher in the first topic of today's show by giving both of you this special gift.

Hi, Dan and Mina.

So Pablo tells me congratulations are in order.

Mina, congrats on the newborn son.

I love babies, and I hope that you guys cherish this little new one and you know, just have a blast and be great parents.

And whoa, Dan, congrats on founding Metal Arc Media, which means that this expensive ass cameo is work expense.

Well, I guess you all achieved your dreams, so go see Hawks.

I saw that on

John Oliver.

I hadn't seen the story before that he was holding a baby, and someone asked him, is that your baby?

And the response was the most sinister of responses, which is, not yet.

It's not my baby.

That man is such a threat to democracy as a general symbol that they will soon be stealing our babies while we're laughing at, isn't it cute what a liar he is let's give him some more some more money that's right

is it easier to laugh at him now that he's not in congress though and that he's not actually like a present threat to

like or is it um is there a word like there's sports washing eco washing there should be like a cameo washing

cameo washing

him when we laugh at him and and say dance dance monkey dance you know which is basically what came

but it is uh pablo it's offensive This man has a broken cameo.

He's one of the most popular ever because everybody wants to treat him as a joke, but he's ultimately cashed in on all the lies.

I paid him, you paid him $400

for that.

This is, this is the stop.

This is exactly the story that I wanted to talk about is how I'm supposed to feel about how much I love the fact that, yes, we paid George Santos $400.

We don't love that fact.

One of us loves that fact.

One other of us does not love that fact.

So I don't want to to be funding that man.

And I don't want to be funding him in at that price.

Get us a discount at least.

Make the price a joke.

Make that the funny joke.

So I want to point out a couple of facts about the video that we just played.

Number one, for people who are not watching on YouTube of the DraftKings Network, he's just sitting in his car, like knocking this out.

I requested this.

He got back to me in an hour.

So he's just learning through this.

Not trying.

Just, it's an ATM, of course, to buy more Botox.

He is Stugatz at the highest elevated elevated form of politics.

Well, the second fact is that in his Stugatsian way of just being very familiar,

he assumed that you guys are the parents of Mina's child.

I don't know if you clocked that.

He was congratulating Dan on Mina's son.

So there is just that fact of the matter,

you know.

Well, and Metalark, I mean, it can be argued that Metal Arc was birthed somewhere around

the three of us.

The idea of Metal Metalark right here,

the birth of it is somewhere around.

Just empower creatives to be themselves and they'll figure it out.

And he's better than all of us at Cameo.

None of us will make as much money as he does at Cameo.

What I'm about to say is probably going to make this mood in this Zoom profoundly uncomfortable.

But just seeing Pablo in between me and Dan, I do feel like if we had a son, it might look like Pablo.

Like if you did one of those FaceMash apps.

Now it's really uncomfortable.

Yes, she's absolutely right about that.

In fact, you need to do that FaceMash app so that people can see

it will be Pablo.

You would be.

Yes, it's uncomfortable, but she's not wrong.

It's just my face.

You're saying you got to get into special software.

You're just, it's just my face.

No, no, it's not just your, no, it's not just your face.

No, suede on

this image.

Pablo, hers is her face.

This is why it's not just your face.

Hers is thin and radiant.

Mine is red and bloated.

When you combine them, we get your very full face.

I'm also Asian.

Dan is Latino.

There's a little

that is black.

Torre.

Pablo is for

you.

Pablo Torre is a Spanish name.

It's a Spanish name.

Three very ethnically confusing people hanging out together, wondering what we all look like if we crossbred is a nightmare of the party that George Santos does represent, incidentally.

Bring it back.

And I do want to

bring it back to George Santos, which is somehow more comfortable than the previous conversation we were just having for me personally, because

I was thinking, Mina, to your point, like

he's just, he makes me laugh.

And

he's a congressman from New York State.

And so I believe there are people, real people whose lives were made worse materially by the fact that he was the most flagrant liar in the history of American politics by certain standards.

And yet his salary as a congressman, which is generously speaking, let's say six figures, he's made more than six figures in three days just doing this.

And so what I'm left with is

the idea of I would 100 million percent watch a George Santos reality show.

I would do that.

I challenge you to say that you wouldn't.

I will also point out that he,

the reason I would watch it is because he used our American political system in a way that totally degrades it, but is legitimately something that makes me laugh out loud.

And is he, he's Trumpian in that way, where I'm just like tipping my cap and also consuming the content and also on some level, aspirationally mourning democracy, but mostly enjoying it for now.

I mean,

there are aspects of this that feel novel, and then there are aspects of this that are very much not new.

In fact,

we had a vice president candidate who parlayed her run into a reality show, Sarah Palin.

Like that happened.

So like the idea of, you know, that politicians are entering this space and

maybe I'm not talking about her intentions, but like what happens next is fame, it's lurid, it's reality TV, whatever, that's not new.

The direct-to-consumer nature of Santos, what he's doing, that is new.

This is something we talked about actually when we talked about OnlyFans.

There's some like kind of parallels here, which is,

you know, will people pay for this?

Do they want this?

That feels new.

And then, of course, you know, he is extreme.

I mean, he literally is only the first person expelled from Congress in quite some time.

The nature of what he's doing feels very new in the sense of like he is a specific type of celebrity that has overtaken the American entertainment sector.

So, naturally, one of those celebrities would make it to

the highest, you know,

halls of the land or whatever, which is that he is famous for

wanting to be famous, basically.

Yes.

Can you guys help me with part of this?

Because I don't want to be a scold.

Nobody wants this.

It's much easier to laugh than the fear for the fall of democracy.

But when Mina says those things are not new, she's absolutely right.

And obviously capitalism is not new.

But what feels new to me that he's an avatar for is just keep leaning into the shameless.

You can topple the rules.

You can topple the integrity of the offices.

You can topple and gerrymander district lines.

You can accrue real power if your superpower is just, I can absorb any form of shameless and then monetize it.

Like, I'd prefer to laugh at that.

It's more comfortable to just be like, isn't this funny?

But like,

symbolically, it's not funny given where the country is, given where the world is.

Well, also, textually, it's not funny on the level of I'm looking at the justice.gov website and reminding myself, so what did George Santos do allegedly?

And it's like, oh, he was charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, false statements, falsification of records, aggravated identity theft, and credit card fraud.

And I'm like, okay, that's bad.

Counterpoint,

there is this video of him,

proto-cameo, sort of style, um, where he roots on the Mets.

Hey guys, today's opening day.

As a good old Mets fan, I know you guys aren't going to be playing until April 6th back home, but in good old fashioned, let's go, Mets!

He's not entirely in on why he's funny, right?

And so it's this line of he is a clown and he's also beclowning us.

But mostly, the entertainment value to me is he doesn't totally get why I'm laughing.

And the more that he is going to become self-aware, the less funny it is.

But for the time being, I'm like thirsty,

like avatar for the utter desperation for a con for attention in the attention economy.

It's farcical and funny to me.

And I'm trying to train myself to realize it probably has peaked.

Like this might be, probably is like sell stock in George Santos right now is kind of where I'm leaning at this point, Mina.

Yeah, it feels temporary in a way.

And that's, I think, part of the reason why I'm maybe not as horrified or nervous about him.

But again, you know, you can point to other political figures who I probably would have said the same thing about, and I was wrong.

But,

you know, this feels like a 15 minutes situation for the reason you said too, I think, because of the like very specific nature of why it's so funny.

Doesn't it feel like it can't last?

But Mina, if I may, I did.

I mean, Pablo debuted his show with this particular shame of mine.

I was laughing at all of these same things about Trump and also pointing out, and this one's important to me, also pointing out, hey, he's not actually funny.

He's only unintentionally funny.

Like, he's not a comedian, but his base base thinks he's funny.

And so, what it then becomes is me, liberal elite, laughing at Trump as he takes the country from me because I'm laughing at him and how dumb he is because he's not actually clever enough to be funny.

But his constituency is like, nah, he makes you look like a fool.

He's funnier than you are.

He is funny.

Wait, Mina is grinning devilishly, and I don't know why.

Some of his nicknames are kind of funny.

I just, I don't aggravate.

Now we release the texts.

Now we release the texts.

Fair enough.

Go look at the, there's a giant Wikipedia page for just the nicknames, and there's a lot of deep cuts and ones that haven't made it to the mainstream.

Sloppy Steve for Steve Bannon is objectively pretty accurate.

Or, oh, God.

There's some real bangers on that.

No, you can find

it.

I'm not sure if I, if I want to co-sign the ones I find most hilarious.

Meatball Ron was good.

Meatball Ron.

He was better, but he tried out Desanctimonious first and it fell flat.

And then it

stuck with it.

Yeah.

Meatball Ron is funny.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I want to point out, though,

Wacky Omarosa.

I'm like, yeah, I can't really dispute that.

I should point out that he spent a lot of time on that one, did he?

Wacky Omarosa, did he?

Workshop that around the White House for a little while.

None of them are like particularly clever.

Also, like.

but no he connects there guys i'm i'm serious about this part of it you understand why the liberal elites who aren't running around with guns are laughing

at this stuff

while it's connecting with others and those others are feeling laughed at by not just people who are making them feel intellectually inferior but also look like us And they've got a leader who's telling them, these people are dangerous.

These people who are laughing at you, they're the rapists.

They're the people from other countries who want to take your country.

And to them, it's not a joke.

To them, it's not like, to them, it's like, no, let me go grab my gun.

This guy's got my back.

Danny Downer?

I feel like that would be Dan's.

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

Danny, Darkness.

Yes.

Damn.

Yeah.

I'm trying to think of one for Mina.

Hold on, Dan.

Let's workshop this.

We can't let her win this game be 1-0.

She always wins, though.

What would we go?

What would her adult?

would would we go some maladjusted mina so that we could

like just maladjusted mina that's if i was trying to harm her if i was trying to cut her or something messy messy messy mina describes that what her texts are actually like but not actually like her as an organized person um hold on

that's how you're gonna segue to the the private life discussion oh oh oh oh wait wait wait oh meanie mina the meanie

meanie mina oh you're oh oh, my God.

Pablo, do you know how much money we would make if we got on cameo Mina's real feelings about some people in the industry?

I believe that if Mina were to do that, she could at least charge as much as Brian Cox.

Hi, I'm Brian Cox.

I play Logan Roy, and if you want me, I will tell you to f ⁇ off in a very uncertain manner.

So Brian Brian Cox, $689, Dan.

That's the market rate for one of the great stage actors, thespian.

Thespians of all time.

You know, who's not winning is Cameo, by the way, because

there's a great, sorry,

something I'm Moneshwari, a friend of mine did a great article for the Times about the rise and fall.

During the pandemic, they were valued at like a billion dollars and had 400 employees.

Now

they had to fire like the vast majority of their staff.

And it's because they couldn't get A-listers to do it.

Oh, hold on.

Counterpoint.

I believe that disgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy is an A-lister.

Hey, Noah, what's happening?

Former NBA basketball referee Tim Donaghy here to wish you congratulations for getting that Chod certificate.

I know it's been a big thing for you to do, and you got it done, my friend.

So congratulations.

And I know Vegas bumped up the odds of you getting laid up to plus 4,000.

All the best.

And hopefully your buddy Alex will help you get that taken care of.

Oh, my God.

That was a Chod certificate.

I got it.

Yes.

The Chod certificate.

Well, yes, we got that.

I hope Metalark wasn't paying for any of the other videos that you showed there.

Tim Donaghy, luckily, is only $40.

So, you know, $20.

A real bargain.

That's why you don't want to be on cameo because you're basically allowed, allowed, like, you're revealing how popular you are.

Yeah, your own value is horrifying to me.

Mina, the meanie, would kill at Cameo.

Like, if she was just offering not just her reading what you want, but her giving you embargoed secret thoughts on how she really feels about certain people,

that would kill.

You're making me sound like such a hater.

I am not that much of a hater.

No, I don't know.

That was mendacious, Mina.

just that.

Mendacious Mina.

Miserable Mina is what Trump would call me if we were debating.

Yes.

There's miserable Mina again.

Like, I would be like, well, actually, here's a bunch of facts.

Ladies and gentlemen, miserable Mina, am I right?

And the crowd would go wild, and you would see me melt just into a puddle on stage.

If you're looking to add 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 Coggiak Feene Champain, a 14 alcoholic volume, 400 by Remy Control, USA Incorporated, New York, New York, 1738, Centaur Design.

Please drink responsibly.

All right, Mina, what did you bring us today to

spite the premise of your misery?

Okay, well, this is a story about someone who I do not foresee granting cameos anytime soon or interviews, and that is Shohei Otani.

So

a little backdrop.

We are right now in Shohei Otani's the bachelor era because it is his free agency.

He is meeting with teams.

They are courting him to offer him hundreds of millions of dollars.

But he and his camp would not like you to know which teams he is meeting with, how those meetings are going, really any details about him, which seems to have irked some.

in the sports media

on first take notably both Stephen A.

Smith and Chris Russo complained about this.

The fact that we're even discussing this is a complete joke.

This Otani scenario, sweepstakes, you know, do you know when he went to MVP?

He wouldn't even tell you what his dog's name was.

What is the big secret?

Geez, he's a free agent.

He's talked to six teams.

Giants, he was in Dunedin with the Blue Jays.

Obviously, Roberts does that.

I mean, the Cubs are in the mix.

The Angels.

What is this?

The atomic bomb?

Our colleague Buster Olney, my colleague, sort of Pablo's colleague, Buster Olney wrote a column about how it was bad for.

He's my colleague, too.

He could be my colleague, too.

I don't have to be at ESPN to be a colleague of his.

He could be my colleague, too.

I don't know.

I don't know why I felt the need to clarify that.

I mean, all you did there was box me out.

I work at ESPN.

Pablo, you still work at ESPN.

Buster works at ESPN, and Dan doesn't.

That was that.

That's what you did.

He's our colleague.

Danny Downer, strikes in.

Buster Olney, our colleague.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Danny Downer.

Every time we say it,

can your fine producers do a wah wah sound effect whenever we say Danny Downer?

Let's see.

Hold on a second.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

Wow.

People are angry.

Not angry, but

the point that Buster made, and I think this is what I find interesting, because I do think

it's a point that

you can see both sides of, is that it would be better for baseball if Otani was a more public public figure.

He mentions in his column that Otani accepted the MVP award.

He saw this with his dog when they asked him for the name of the dog.

His camp said, We're not ready to reveal the name of the dog.

And then I went back and read some coverage of Otani and his approach to the media in Los Angeles or Anaheim.

And he is unusually reticent.

He doesn't, he limits his availabilities.

The angels protected him, I think, which is something he liked about playing there.

So,

you know, I don't think Otani personally owes anyone anything.

So I want to be clear, my interest in this is not coming from a place of indignation.

I think that's kind of ridiculous.

But I do think you can have a discussion over whether it's bad for baseball that its brightest shining star is not a public person.

Because, you know, like that's that's not an unreasonable stance to take, I think.

The part that's most interesting to me is I'm always fascinated by the cultural differences in all sports, but especially this sport, where I've seen Latin players come in and struggle with some of this stuff, but the Latin player gets imprisoned by you.

Don't be too flamboyant.

Don't get misunderstood in your second language.

Don't be too loud.

This one was interesting to me because, and I'd like you guys to speak to this part of it.

It's not merely that culturally there are some privacy differences between how we cover media stuff in both countries and Japan and here.

But more interesting to me is whatever level of privacy he wants for his personal life in matters of business and how public business deals are in America and Japan, like the sacred contract of business where Otani is from, like we have no respect for it here.

And so you're asking something of him.

He is more likely, man, Hideki Matsui came over here and was comfortable with his porn collection.

To me, this is something that is more dangerous in public.

Business in public is something that I can't speak to the cultural differences.

I just saw it with Ichiro.

He would not say anything publicly about anything because he was afraid of offending a sponsor because business matters are to be respected.

I imagine that in Japan, where he is an enormous star as well, he has been stealing for and stealing in the sense of S-T-E-E-L, like hardening himself against

the pressures from the outside that demand to know more, you know?

And I don't know if this is just like an Asian athlete thing, but I will bring another Asian athlete into the conversation, which is that Jeremy Lin, who has his own fandom, of course, abroad, specifically in China, he announced at the beginning of this year, okay, that he had been married for two years and no one knew this.

He at least an Instagram post.

I considered myself friends with him.

I no longer do after realizing that via Instagram.

But the point is, when you have a fandom, when you have an army of people who are demanding access and it's scary,

I get why Shoe Aotani is looking at the cost-benefit and just saying, look,

what you guys get off on, I don't.

I have a different sort of a kink.

Privacy to me is something that I enjoy in a way that must be unrelatable in a world where for us, literally, our economy is attention.

And he's saying, I don't need any of that money because the stuff I'm getting is not affected by any of the things that will make your lives and your businesses boom.

I'm good.

I think different people, certainly different athletes, are more private than others for very different reasons.

Like, Dan, I hear what you're saying about sort of the...

likelihood that there are like cultural factors with regards to putting your business out there or you know business in general.

But it seems very clear to me that Otani, it's not just about business.

This dude doesn't want anything about himself out there.

The dog is the funny story, right?

Because it's such an innocuous, charming thing.

That dog, by the way, is like the cutest dog I've ever seen.

You go to look at the picture.

Very expensive.

But Mina, is it him that's protecting the privacy of himself or the dog there, or is the economy of his people all around him not wanting?

I don't know whose choice that is because he's worth so much money and the business of of him is so strong.

Is he the one asking for that protection or is it just naturally gathering around him?

It's impossible to know, obviously.

But he doesn't come across when he is interviewed as somebody who's like dying to reveal things about himself

in a way that would make me think, oh, his camp is all, you know, they're crazy.

We can make fun of him.

Like the fact that his camp didn't want to reveal that detail, that they're being so cloak and dagger about this, it is funny.

It is okay to say, Hey, this is a little bit ridiculous.

Of course, he's meeting with the Dodgers.

You don't have, we don't have to like turn it into, oh my God, David Roberts, what a gaff that he revealed.

They had a meeting with him.

No,

they had a meeting with him.

That is funny.

But as far as why, in particular, he is private,

you know, and I was saying, like, there's like different reasons for that.

I suspect, because this is something I have noticed in general with public figures who are private, Marshawn Lynch is one who really comes to mind.

Kawhi Leonard.

It is the

Kawhi Leonard.

Sometimes it can just be your personality.

I feel like that's kind of the case with Leonard and to some degree, Marshawn, based on conversations I've had with people who know him.

But also, I think there's a fear of misinterpretation.

I know for me personally, that's why I am a private person.

We were talking about this at the beginning:

I am always afraid if I say something, it might be taken out of context.

It could be used against me.

And naturally, I do think that fear of misinterpretation is probably exacerbated by cultural differences in his case.

But,

you know, I think for certain athletes,

that fear will lead them to do business and treat the media a certain way.

And fear might be the wrong word, wariness, perhaps appropriately.

And I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case here.

But I think there is, and there is, by the way, a bit of a Venn diagram overlap, right, Dan, in terms of like the use of a translator and why you do it.

Some people do it to protect themselves.

Other people do it to evade media responsibilities.

So certainly Latin players have

enjoyed some of those strategies as well.

But I will point out that at a certain point, when you become so conspicuously private, you dare people to want to find out stuff.

Right?

Like that's strategically, this is where I caution against

strategy.

You can caution against it, but whoever his role model is here, like Ichiro kept his business, his business.

And Ichiro came before Otani and may not have been quite what Otani is, but it was similarly big in both countries.

And he controlled the narrative.

He did tighten the grip such that we don't, we never got to know Ichiro.

We don't know anything about, now it's a different age.

It's not the internet age and it's not now where you're daring people.

But what you just said is interesting, Pablo.

Latin players, I remember with El Duke Hernandez.

he had a translator, but didn't need one.

He was observing a lot, but it was a big controversy in New York.

Why won't he just learn the language?

Learn the language.

And Cashman and the Yankees wanted him to speak.

They didn't want him to be using a translator, and it was a thing.

But you're absolutely right when you say they're afraid of sounding dumb in their second language.

They're afraid of being misunderstood.

But it's not just...

the words, Mina, here.

What you're saying is any bit of information can be misunderstood.

Even the name of a dog can be lost somehow by a fearful camp in whatever it is, the bridge that we don't cross across the translation, you know, across this language barrier.

It's a barrier, but it's not limited to language.

I think to drill down on the dog thing, because I think it is really interesting, like, why?

Why would you not release that inoculous detail?

I would suspect that, like, look, if the dog's name got out,

this is so ridiculous.

Pablo, Pablo Torrey finds out.

You got to figure it out.

Make that your mission.

I'm on it.

You know what I mean?

No, I'm on it.

I don't think it would.

The reason why this camp probably would not want that to get out is not because the dog's name is like Hitler or something.

That would be bad.

I would also not want to reveal this for the record.

Yes, that would make sense.

Yes, that would be bad for everybody involved.

That would be bad for baseball.

It would be bad to not disclose that either way.

It would be a signifier probably to the athlete that his his representatives are talking to people.

So, right.

So, he might

look at that and say, Well, yeah, right.

Like, yes, yes.

There is it is like when I was when I was young and I had a lot and a

diary, I didn't have a lock, but I would put like a single hair on top of it

to see.

And then, if my brother had broken into my room to read the diary, the single hair on the diary is the dog's name.

Manipulative Mina.

Misery, the movie, Misery, Misery, Mina.

Misery,

What a move, Dan.

Mina is talking about laying a trap in the forest of her own house, hoping that someone falls into it, daring someone to go for the thing that she has, for the bait that she has laid.

As the daughter, sister of an older brother,

it's something I don't think you guys would understand.

You just unlocked a core childhood memory that I had suppressed, which is I was on a soccer team growing up where the coach had a German shepherd named Adolph.

Yeah, see, I would not have disclosed that if I was that coach either.

The first time we heard it, I remember all of the parents and the kids just being like, wait,

what?

You got if the only way to even begin to have a dog named that is to have it be like

Like what's one of the one of those ones that can't like get on a curb like needs to be lifted to be put on a curb.

oh a miniature maltese yeah yeah a teacup maltese

he said it was a family name at one point we don't believe adolph is one of those names where if you look at name popularity obviously it falls off of it's like a win probability chart for a team that loses it like it just completely falls off obviously for good reason That's

what a metaphor.

I'm going to tell you a funny story.

I want to tell you both a funny story about a teacup Maltese.

One of my greatest fears with a former girlfriend was her going out of town and, like Christopher and the Sopranos, me sitting on the teacup Maltese and killing the teacup Maltese.

So I had a great, no, I'm not kidding you when I tell you, I had a great fear that I was going to kill that animal.

And so sometimes, one time, I was walking this tiny, tiny animal, and around a corner comes a big dog and grabs it by the head, grabs Bella by the head, and throws her up in the air.

And I did a six-year-old girl's horror movie

scream while the dog was in the air because my greatest fear had been realized in that moment.

That animal's head was in a bigger animal's mouth, and I was as scared as I've ever been.

Did you catch it?

Well, no, I was just too busy screaming.

I was too horrified and screaming.

I didn't catch it.

Got thrown up in the air and fell on the ground and was not killed, but could have been killed on my watch.

I heard an amazing rumor because I actually have been like asking around about Otani's dog name.

The rumor I have heard, okay,

is that Otani's dog's name, the reason they're not saying it is because

the dog's name is the name of one of the teams he is considering.

Stop

Dodger, the dog's got to be named Dodger.

That's a good reason.

It is a good reason.

It's a good reason not to give the dog's name.

Papa Tori finds out.

You don't understand, by the way, what it's like being a sister.

This people are always like, oh, I mean, how do you deal with all the hate online and the abuse?

And I'm like, my brother used to put his farts in a jar and leave them in my room.

Does that work?

Yeah, does that side just like that?

No, it doesn't work.

It's the stupidest thing ever.

But I just use that as an example of the like, being being a younger sister to an older brother is like living in Saw.

Just

horror traps at every turn.

I would like to disagree, but I'll point out that me and Dan simultaneously were like, wait a minute, could we do that?

Is that is that

physics?

Does that work?

Is that what I'm doing?

I'm going to try now.

We're going to find out.

There was an article on Awful Announcing.

The headline was, How How Gen Z is killing sports media as we know it.

And Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe reacted by saying, It's been over for a while now.

I miss when there were real smart people who were sports fans.

And it became old guy yelling at clouds.

And then the internet turned on Shaughnessy and said, Get out of here, journalist guy.

We're taking over now.

And made him feel like an, you know, an old man with a mop for a head.

And so this is where we are

with how some of this stuff is covered.

Young people get to be the reason that things are popular.

But what I wanted to read from this article that felt to me like this is time passing me by, what I'm about to read to you as an old-timey journalist, more like Dan Shaughnessy than whatever it is that's happening at the parts of the foon chain that scare old media with young people.

For the last two decades, beleaguered sports media execs and veterans have bemoaned about how millennials consume sports content.

We read blogs and not game stories.

We get our highlights on social media and don't watch TV.

We listen to sports podcasts and turn off sports talk radio.

But in due time, the challenge of capturing millennials will seem like the good old days.

We may not pour over the box score in the next day's paper, but that's because we've already seen it.

We enjoy sports just like our parents.

The difference is we consume content differently.

Today, the challenges are much more existential and problematic.

What if young people don't like sports at all?

And then it goes through at length how we're different generationally.

I don't really have a question for you guys.

I'm just placing in front of you the idea.

You guys are younger than me, and you've been making fun of me about being old for a while.

And so, here you occupy the space best equipped to do the translation or be the bridge between what I am or what Dan Shaughnessy is and what young people crave from their sports coverage.

I was simply leaving space for our producers to insert the downer sound because I assume that was obviously what there it is.

I appreciate appreciate it.

You say down or sound.

Look it here.

Maybe America's next great sports section will be found in some form on Twitch or IGN.

Don't just say goodbye to long form writing.

Say goodbye to the written word altogether.

So,

Mina, I'm curious how you think about this as somebody who also is still getting away with plausibly being young while also inside feeling very, very old in ways that make me honestly psychologically more lebitard than whatever imaginary person is our collective phobia in this industry.

But I do caution against seeing

young people as so categorically different a species.

And therefore, it reminds me of the story we did on Share and Tell many moons ago.

I even forget, due to my own age, who exactly I was talking to about this, but it was the idea that, oh, young people can get scammed online at a rate actually greater than the old people.

And we sort of imbue young people with this power because they are young that

sort of papers over all of their stupidities.

And I think there's a difference between us not understanding the direction things are going.

And I confess, I wish I knew more about the direction things are going.

But Mina, I also want to point out that like to make them into the boogeyman is to also, I think, give them a compliment that they have not yet earned, which is admittedly the oldest thing I could possibly say.

yeah well i was you know i think dan very artfully uh tried to avoid demonizing uh young people when you were talking about sort of the nate changing nature of both sports and sports media in terms of consumption um you're just saying you you know you're you're not sure you understand it in terms of like how do people these days, how does the next generation watch sports when they're looking for commentary?

What is the nature of the commentary?

What are the platforms they're going to for that commentary?

All these things are like radically changing in a way that I share Dan's.

I wouldn't say confusion is the wrong word, but I feel like there's a lack of clarity right now around the entire space

that makes it hard for us to project.

Like when people ask me.

the question like where do you see yourself in 10 years or even five years i always say i don't know because the places people are going to right now to hear sports commentary which is what i do for a living are changing so quickly and the way you make that commentary is also changing it's very hard for me to look out and say this is what we're all going to be doing i don't think we thought the three of us would be in this format exactly years ago for exactly um

you know

But as to like what the next generation actually wants out of sports, I don't think that it's fundamentally changed that much, to be honest.

I think they still want the same moments and narratives and takes and discussion and deeper analysis, but how they want that delivered is something that I'm not sure.

Like, we're all trying to figure out.

And when you, Danny, when you, when you, when you read that column about how, you know,

Washaugh is saying it's not the written word, I don't know if that's true necessarily.

I don't think it's accurate to say young, you know, like the

Zoomers only consume news via like 10-second soundbite.

That feels like old man yelling at the cloud and feels inaccurate to me.

But let me read some of these numbers to you, and you tell me what you take from this, Pablo.

Like, what is accurate and what is inaccurate?

The numbers are dire.

According to a new study, only 58% of Gen Zers say they enjoy live sport.

That figure aligns with other data about our beloved Zoomers.

Only 23% of Gen Zers say they're passionate sports fans compared to 42% of millennials, 33% of Gen Xers, 31% of baby boomers.

More concerning, 27% of Gen Zers said they dislike sports altogether compared with just 7% of millennials, 5% of Gen Xers, and 6% of baby boomers.

There are myriad possible explanations.

Youth sports participation is way down.

Kids are now addicted to video games and

virtual worlds.

TikTok is melting everybody's brain.

But the fact is, young young people aren't digging traditional sports these days.

The idea of sitting down at a predetermined time to watch a three-hour game seems so outdated.

That's different.

So I concur that this is something in the C-suites of all of these sports, they are very aware of and they are very afraid of.

But I would draw...

I would draw a straighter line towards just the general fragmentation of everything as opposed to a specific allergy towards the product that we loved and got taught by our parents or whoever it is indoctrinated us into the cult of sports.

Meaner, right?

Like that feels, if you were to sub out, I don't have the numbers on this, of course, but sub in movies, television shows, anything, the internet broke up and siloed everything in a way that prevents the authority of institutions, foremost of which in media was sports, let alone journalistic institutions in media itself.

It just sort of shattered all of it and scattered it across the floor.

Yeah, it's the death of monoculture is like what you're talking about.

Sports, you know, have inhabited that space in a way that like there used to be like certain movies and television shows.

And as everything is fragmented, they're suffering from the same thing, which is not that

the younger generation,

I don't think there's anything inherent to the product necessarily that is turning them off.

Although, you know, maybe there's some polling that shows, you know, like the lack of youth participation and concerns about like broader societal issues, health, things like that might matter.

But I really think more is they just have more stuff to do and things to look at.

And so naturally, when you have,

you know, a generation of people who are interested in like a ton of different things and have a ton of different things at their fingertips, they're going to consume the big things a little bit less.

And that doesn't feel like it's changing anytime soon.

Correct.

So there might be a world in the not-so-distant future where sports are still incredibly popular.

Taylor Swift is still like something of a, like, incredibly popular.

There's still like, you know, big movie franchises that do Barbie, whatever.

But

the dominance isn't as assumed as it was in the past.

And so what we're left with, I think, if we're looking to our crystal ball collectively,

we're left looking at this.

Hey, Danielle, this is Stugat on Cameo.

This was sent by your husband to be here, maybe now, your husband, Phil.

He said, we're getting married this weekend, and

he wanted to surprise you, his future wife, with a cameo.

Can you tell the way getting married to me?

Well, listen, let me tell you something.

Anyone who knows Phil, and I've known him forever, and no one knows Phil better than I know Phil, okay, knows that he is going to be the best husband, father, okay, the best friend that you'll ever have in the world.

A faithful, honest, never going to cheat on you, never gonna do a bad thing to you, work hard, support his family.

I mean, I am telling you, I know Phil.

And there are a few people who know Phil better than I know Phil.

He is so tired of playing that character after 20 years that he is giving the bare minimum effort on, all right, I'll give you your public lies, but I'm just going to move move my hands around and look totally bored while I do it.

He'll leave me give me $79.

He is sitting in a chair.

He turned on a light, but you can only see like half of his face.

Not trying.

Not trying.

It's just held his hand out here.

He is.

Have you ever seen in Key West when a monkey jumps off of someone's shoulder and runs and grabs a dollar and then runs and runs back?

He's not even running.

He's getting someone to turn the cameo on for him, and he's just laying there.

And that's the lazy circus monkey at the very end of his act.

We started the show with the Santa story talking about sort of how, like, these ridiculous characters have suddenly achieved power in various spheres.

What would be the equivalent for Stugatz in sports?

Would it be like if they made him, like, if he had actual power?

Would that be the closest thing in our world?

Oh, my God.

He had actual power.

He's got, he's got a lot of power.

He's got a lot, but that's how he uses it.

The power to sound drunker as he continues to speak over the course of one minute is a power that you two can can sample for

$150

is what that costs.

$15.

He's charging $150.

He's done 220 of them.

For that.

Wow.

And complaining that he's not making enough money.

Yeah.

The commissioner, the commissioner of the NCAA,

John Weiner.

At the end of today's episode of Pablo Torre finds out,

it's time to say what we all found out.

Who wants to go first?

I found out on Pablo Torre

finds out where the root is, I am a founder.

I'm a founder of a company.

I found out that my company funded a professional liar that isn't Stugatz and paid him $400.

And I'm offended by that on behalf of the company and the country that Pablo Torre had that expense allowed by whoever is in charge of the money around it.

Immediately.

expensed.

I found out that Pablo Torre, who loves double entendres and innuendo, draws the line at me pointing out that he looks like the uh

the child of me and Dan.

That was the first time I've ever seen you look uncomfortable.

His discomfort was wonderful.

I don't know what happened there, and they're going to be able to have so much fun with the computer images of that.

Like, it's going to look like that.

I do want to see what our face is mashed together.

It looks like now, Dan.

That's my discomfort.

What I found out is that I live in fear of the people who Photoshop images for Pablo Torre finds out.

Yes.

And speaking of the people who work for me/slash torture me on a regular basis, Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Michael Antonucci, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Healy Lohman, Rachel Miller-Howard, Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tumanello, and Julia Warren.

Studio Engineering by RG Systems, Post-Production by NGW Post, Theme Song by John Bravo.

Thank you to the big lead for calling us the best sports podcast of 2023, even though we've existed for like three months.

We'll talk to you soon.