MLB Preview With Jeff Passan, Caitlin Clark Gets Revenge, The A's Ownership Is A Joke Plus We're Getting A Turtle

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
On today's Pardon My Take, we listen to the people, and we have a baseball preview. A real baseball preview.
We've been wanting to get Jeff passing on for a very long time, and it did not disappoint. Awesome dude.
Great interview. Tells us all about the game.
some teams we should be looking out for we're also going to talk some women's final four we had caitlin clark versus angel reese on monday night uh we also have a update to the oakland athletics and fuck john fisher we are joining the cause even more uh we're going to do hot seat cool cool throne. We're going to do FAQs.
We're going to have a great show. We're going to get right back to the show.
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Okay, let's go. Boy! Boy! Now in the street there is violence And then a lot of work to be done No place to hang out or washing And then I can't blame all of the sun Oh no we're gonna rock down to electric avenue and then we'll take it higher oh we're gonna rock down to electric it's part of my take presented by martial sports welcome to part of my take presented by draft kings and draft Kings Casino.
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The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, April 3rd, and Kaitlyn Clark is her.
Her. Hermothy.
Hermothy Clark. That was an awesome two games.

I'm going to say it right now.

That was an awesome two games because I feel like people were just focused on Caitlin Clark.

Angel Reese, we love women so much.

I watched the second game, Juju Watkins versus Paige Beckers, and that was awesome.

Paige Beckers might be my goat.

Yeah.

We love women more than any other podcast in America. We love women.
I love women. Love all of them.
Hank, did you watch? Do you love women? Hank doesn't love women. I do love women.
I did watch. What was your thought, Hank? What was your big takeaway? Great play by both sides.
She's her. Which one's her? They're all her.
They're all her. Yeah.
It was honestly a great game. Even Van Lith? No.
She might not be her. Well, I don't.
Oh, you all.

Hank, pervert my take. No, no.
She's her. One bad game doesn't define a career.
I blame Kim Mulkey. Yeah, oh yeah.
Because Kim Mulkey just refused to make an adjustment. And then at the end of the game when she put Johnson on her, that was like, why hasn't she been defending Caitlin Clark the entire game? Well, she did have a few fouls.
But yeah, Johnson was – I think she had three fouls in the first half. But she was awesome.
She's the one to watch. Also her.
Also big-time her. Future.
Yeah, Kim Mulkey, it felt like she was like – there was some kind of grudge, maybe like a Malcolm Butler thing going on where she was like, I'm going to punish Van Liff and just make her guard Caitlin Clark one-on-one.

Someone, I think one of our colleagues,

and I'm sorry that I didn't, I think it might have been Riggs,

but I probably got this wrong,

but he said that Kim Mulkey is perfect because it's like if Bob Knight dressed up as like in the birdcage.

Yeah, yeah.

That's really what it is.

It's a good point.

And it was, yeah, it was a very bad job coaching by her to not make an adjustment on that i knew that something was off with kim from the second she stepped out on the court and she was wearing the most understated thing that she could possibly i want kim mulkey to be like full-on kim mulkey but wearing the technicolor dream court coat instead she looked like uh like leslie nope celebrating st patrick's but we can't be hypocrites because we've always said like when cam new Newton used to dress in his crazy hats and then lose a game, I think Kim Mulkey knew that they were in trouble, and that's why she dressed down. That was her ass whooping.
That was a get-my-ass-whooped suit. She didn't want to wear a magic eye dress to the podium afterwards? Yeah, she wanted to wear a full tiger skin.
Yeah, now, to be fair, I thought that LSU was just pounding the shit out of Iowa in half and it also it was awesome it was a great sporting event because we were very excited to watch it we had talked about for a few days it was highly anticipated and then it lived up to the expectation which is rare well let's wait to see if it's a great sporting event because we don't have the ratings yet okay yeah we'll wait to see that uh it was only on espn we think it was if it had been on abc then maybe it would have been better than it was. We have to argue the ratings no matter what.
Yeah. Whichever way they go, we have to find a way to argue about it constantly.
Because as everyone knows, we watch sports only that a lot of other people want to watch. And if a lot of other people aren't watching it, then that sport means nothing.
And it's funny because the the ratings when they are on network as opposed to on cable there's always a massive difference like if you look at the the men's side of the bracket when they show like the highest rated games of the season so far or of this tournament they're all the cbs games yeah the other ones which i i understand that it is a thing but still to this day i don't understand who has CBSbs and doesn't have espn or who has abc and does not also have hospitals hospitals yeah maybe old people maybe maybe some hotels and you know what i realized watching this game who doesn't have espn because i i got it like 20 years ago you understood like remember when espn got mond Monday Night Football and people were like, this is bullshit. Yeah.
Like, how could you do this? Yeah. Or even when they had Sunday Night Football, I was like, this is bullshit.
No one can watch. Like, well.
Can you even get a cable package that doesn't have ESPN? I would like to. Yeah, there's like a 10-channel basic package.
It's like CBS, Fox, NBC, ABC. I just thought of our next punishment.
Yeah. God, that would suck.
Oh, my God. Maybe dorm rooms.
Dorm rooms might not have ESPN. That would be torture.
No, because when I was in some- Kids in dorms are not using cable. Oh, shit.
We just got aged shamed. Yeah, that's a fair point.
Oh, shit. I realize that Hank is right.
No, but I had ESPN when I was in college. I remember P like the first episode of pti that's right yeah yeah yeah um again aged us god damn it we just hank just set a trap we just walked further into it they're just using youtube tv damn it they don't have they don't have uh the women's college basketball game for my sega saturn it sucks we got to get off this topic because I've been having a couple of days where, uh, yesterday I thought that Draymond Green actually bought a bedazzled, uh, testicle necklace.
Oh, the nutsack. Yeah.
It was NBA central. Yeah.
That was going to get you sometimes, but yeah, the games were awesome. Uh, Kim Mulkey, no idea what she was doing, but Caitlin Clark, like that was something about great athletes and rising the occasion and being like, you could tell it was very personal for her, even though she was saying it wasn't, but it was very personal, getting the revenge, dropping 40, like hitting shots out of nowhere.
It was awesome. It was a great watch.
It was a great game. I actually- I think UConn's going to beat him though, because I think Gino, like if you you watch the second game gino had a game plan for juju walkins that kim mulkey just didn't have

for kateley kim mulkey's game plan was one-on-one and then have all your bigs drop back yeah and so

she was just getting open look after open look i think you might be right because i think it's

i think it's going to be yukon and south carolina the finals but it would be awesome if we had

dueling nc state yukon finals that would be great both brackets. But I think I like the format of the women's game better.
What do you mean, the quarters? The quarters. I like the quarters.
You know, I was thinking about this as well because quarters makes more sense. Fouls reset.
But I like that college basketball is the only basketball that does halves. Yeah.
the only basketball that does also i like one and ones women's doesn't do one and ones yeah five fouls per quarter is a double bonus one and ones are fun because you can just be like well this guy's out of chance yeah yeah but i mean if you're what my one knock against the ncaa tournament on the men's side is that down the stretch if there's like two minutes left in the game it just turns turns into a foul fest where the game stopped every five seconds. And you don't get that in the women's game.
Well, you get it sometimes. Remember Caitlin Clark versus, uh, who was it? Oh yeah.
No. Yeah.
At the very end of that game. No West Virginia.
When she hit her shot, like 17 free throws. Yeah.
But I think it, it minimizes it. Yeah.
Like it, it lessens it. Whereas sometimes at the end of men's games, it becomes like, okay, there's really no action going on.
Yeah. Either way, it was a great night of basketball.
I was very, like I was glued to my TV. I think- So women's basketball already arrived, but arrived even more.
Yeah, I think it's here. It's here.
It's now. They're her.
It's very now. Until we see the ratings.
We're going to have to wait to see the ratings. And the one group of people that did not like the game last night the city of albany rebecca lobo just took a wild shot at the city they got a stray shot when she's like yeah there's really nothing to do in this city and albany's just sitting there watching it's so proud that they're hosting a game all eyes are on the city and then rebecca lobo just taking a big steaming dump all over it but did they have any arguments against yeah yeah so mckenzie works here at barstool she's from albany okay she was quick to respond we actually have the biggest walmart in the world oh so also state capital so yeah so up yours state capital's gotta count yep something like pizza how many people do you think here here's something nice to say about albany i would say out of any state in the united states of america people get what's the state capital wrong more with new york yeah maybe so then it's like the fun like no actually it's albany yeah albany is the capital it's also i don't know if that was a compliment it might be the most corrupt city in the world really i think most people that serve at the head of the new york state government end up getting arrested after they of office i think it's like 90 percent of chicago's got to run for it chicago's pretty good baltimore baltimore what do you call somebody are they are you just basing that off the wire i've been re-watching the wire that's such a good show yeah i remember hamsterdam um but don't you think that if you ask like 100 people what's the capital of New York, they'd be like New York?

I think most people would say New York.

What about New Mexico?

That's another one.

Santa Fe.

Damn, Hank.

Nice, Hank.

Florida.

Tallahassee.

Hank, Mr. Geography.

What about-

Oh, this one's tough.

I know this one.

Pennsylvania, Montpelier. Oh, so What about the state you reside in? Chicago? Yeah.
Oh, fuck. Wait, Chicago's not a...
No, you live in Illinois. I live in Illinois.
This capital of Illinois is Montpelier. Yeah, correct.
Just keep saying Montpelier. Springfield.
You'll get it right. Springfield.
Yeah, nailed it. I think there's a Springfield in all 50 states.
I read that 10 years ago Yeah Simpsons That's why Simpsons Everyone can claim the Simpsons Is somebody from Albany Called an Albanian Yeah Tough night for the Albanians You'll rise up Or a New Yorker You got it They probably have good pizza And a lot of snow Someone brought a pizza Pizza shop Brought a pizza to Dave And they gave it to him On the way out It Yeah. And there's a Sunni there.
There's a Sunni in everything. That's where Billy and I got it.
Billy dragged me to TGI Fridays. Yeah.
Dragged you to TGI. Jake, you should be so lucky.
TGI Fridays is fantastic. Dragged you there.
All right. We're going to get right back to the show.
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All right, back to part of my take. Other things we've got to talk about.
We've got to talk about the Oakland A's. So PFT and I have unveiled a gambling strategy this year.
We're betting against the A's, minus one and a half single game. So far, we're four and one.
But, and we have a long history of John Fisher, fuck John Fisher, piece of shit. We'll never buy anything from the gap.
I think that's where his money's from. So the A's are a joke.
The A's have great fans. The A's are moving to Vegas.
The fans are losing yet another team we feel really bad and there's this website called The Last Dive Bar that is supporting the fan movement for opening day they did a big tailgate thing outside of the stadium I think it was like 20,000 people basically showing hey we have fans you just don't put out a product and you're moving the team you pieces of shit so the last dive bar has a bunch of merch which is great and they have these bracelets and a couple a's players were wearing the bracelets and mysteriously got benched and sent down yeah i think there are four players that they've spotted but the the biggest names ruiz estuary ruiz he was your hit by pitch he was my hit by pitch guy i think he led the majors in stolen bases last year he's very fast he started out uh i think he went three for five yeah and then they sent him down to triple a he was wearing a last dive bar bracelet he was wearing a last dive bar bracelet um there was the other guy uh they're they're all-star from last year he got benched um so there it seems to be that they're punishing the guys that are wearing these bracelets right they're basically saying we like the oakland coliseum and we like the fans who support us we want to support them so they're punishing their own players allegedly for going up against the ownership and it's sad man like a i'm a little gonna get a bit serious, but there's nothing more evil than an owner of a sports team

that treats their fans like shit.

And this guy is the king of it.

It should be illegal what he's doing.

He's taking away joy from an entire city.

He's taking away, like, families growing up and becoming fans of the team

and memories that you're going to have with your family going to these games.

He's taking away the community because he wants to make a little bit more money, even though this guy, he's a failed son. Yep.
His parents own the gap. He inherited all of his money, and he wants to be like, oh, I want to make a name for myself.
I want to make my own money. I'm going to steal a team away from a city that loves it, and we're going to move it to a city that does not give a fuck about it.
Yes, and cowards because he doesn't he never faces the music he never answers to what he's been doing he's been putting out a terrible product and basically saying look no one's here when we know when the a's are rocking that place is awesome the coliseum is one of the coolest places when they've had these runs you know the 20 win game streak back in the Billy Bean days, the playoffs where they had guys dressed up and all this fun stuff. They're passionate fans, and this fuckhead, John Fisher, has basically robbed them not only of their team, but kind of of their dignity because the way they're going out is so sad and what he's putting on the field is so sad that he's like oh well no one's showing up no no you did this you created all of this and you're a piece of shit and we stand with the city of Oakland and the fans of the A's and uh it's it's so petty that he's we don't know for fact that he you know made these roster moves because of the last eye bar bracelets but a coward like him would make that type of move well if you listen to the way that the manager had to justify the moves you could tell he did not believe what he's saying it sounded like he was just he had to say something that was not the owner told me to do this so he came up with something with ruiz where it's like, yeah, you know, last year he needed some things that he had to work on.

Yeah.

And he did not address at all what he's, you know,

he's obviously one of the best players on your team.

And when you're trying not to lose,

it's a big double middle finger to your fans.

And credit to A's fans because they have organized boycotts.

They've organized reverse boycotts.

They've organized protests.

They're doing everything that they can.

Like normally when a team gets moved, it's usually, you know, people are are upset about it but you don't have this big uprising against it like you saw in uh in like european soccer for the super league where people flip their shit the a's are the a's fans are actually going out there and making their voices heard and it just stinks having a guy yeah that just is outwardly hostile to your fan base so i don't know if you don't and they turn their replies off on tweets yeah they turn their replies that's the most cowardly shit they're cowards so here's another thing that uh is crazy in the cowardly nature of the a's front office and ownership uh so last night we were talking via text and we were talking about how we won again because the a's stink again this is not a we're betting against the players we're betting against john against John Fisher because he's a piece of shit. And he's actually going to do everything in his power to make sure that we keep winning our bets, which is crazy.
Correct. So, we were talking about it and we were talking about the last dive bar and how cool it was that these guys are, you know, so passionate about the A's and trying to get the fans, you know, being like, hey, we're still here.
So, we was like, let's go buy some of these bracelets, support them. I went on the last I bar website.
Their merch is awesome. I got a little crazy because I was going to buy merch for all of us.
So I ended up buying a lot of merch. So I hit submit on the merch.
And Brian, who runs the last I bar emailed me like two seconds later, and was like, this is email. Whoa, what an order.
Just want to make sure you intended to buy all those items. It wasn't a slip of the thumb.
Mind blown. So I was like, shit, he probably thinks that I mess up.
And so I replied to him and I was like, I'm Dan. We have part of my take.
We support you guys. And he sent me a couple of links in the story with The Last Dive Bar and the a's specifically just shows how cowardly these people are the last dive bar has been doing this for a while where they've been making incredible merch and being a part of the community and helping the community the a's actually commissioned a bunch of the last dive bars work and mlb sent like a letter to them and was like hey you're in copyright infringement and brian was basically like but you don't understand like like all of these designs the a's commissioned this from us and essentially the a's once the once the it was clear that they were going to move they ghosted the last die bar completely never.
Never thanked them for anything they had done for them. Never said, like, hey, these guys made a lot of cool shirts and promos and all this stuff.
Brian was saying that they did bingo night that he ran. They basically pretended they didn't exist and won't even look them in the face.
This passionate fan group that has been doing a great job for the A's. So the A's used them.
The minute they were going to move, we're like, oh, we don't know those guys and have ignored them. So if you're looking to support the A's, they have a couple other groups.
The last I bar, we're going to be, I bought a lot of stuff. So we'll be wearing it.
We'll be wearing their bracelets. And we want to support the city of Oakland because owners like this are pieces of shit.
They should not just sell the fucking team.

Sell the team to someone who wants to keep it in Oakland.

We're at a point now where fans are smarter than they've ever been.

We know what's going on.

It's happening actually right now kind of low-key with Jerry Reinsdorf.

He's pulling the same shit right now.

And if he tries to move the White Sox to Nashville, we will absolutely be like,

fuck you and do the same thing. So it's just we're at a point now where fans can figure out we're not stupid.
We know what's going on. And we stand with City of Oakland.
And fuck John Fisher. We do.
And nothing would make me happier than if every single player on the A's wore that bracelet. Yeah.
You can't fire all of us. Yeah.
And that's a little unfair because they have jobs. Yeah, they want to get paid.
And they want to get paid. They have families.
They want to be in the big leagues. They're in a bad spot.
I'm not saying that they're bad people if they don't do it at all. It would just be funny to see what the A's would do if everybody on that roster also wore this race.
Just sell the fucking team, man. Like, just do it.
And go fuck off. And you can make a lot of money.
You can make a lot of money. You can fuck off.
Sell it to that Oracle guy. Yeah.
There's a lot of money in the Bay Area. Find another...
Just one billionaire. That's who we should be putting pressure on.
Any of these weird Silicon Valley type people. As we've said on the show before, if you're a billionaire and you don't own a sports team, you're a fucking weirdo.
One of those people needs to step up to the plate and just offer them a big, big offer. Buy the A's.
Keep them in Oakland oakland i have thought the thought crossed my mind because our betting strategy is that we're betting the same amount against the a's every single game my thought the thought crossed my mind that what if we just won a game doubled it won a game doubled it until we had a billion dollars we buy the a's that would be an wouldn't it? Also, Major League Baseball, you're currently embroiled in a gambling scandal right now. Do you think it's the best optics to move a team to Las Vegas? If Rob Manfred is serious about the gambling issue, I think the first thing he should do would be to not let a team move to the city of sin.
I i agree but either way the last dive bar guys and

like i said i i wish i had a list of the other ones i'm sorry that i'm not uh don't have all of them but there's other other aids groups that are doing great great work we are in preliminary talks uh depending on where our travel takes us this summer to potentially come out and support last dive bar.

Yep.

We just did a live podcast

in the,

maybe we can trick

John Fisher fans yeah love to talk to him pick his brain about how to be a successful businessman hey you know what john fisher you're probably misunderstood want to come on pardon my take and explain your side of things because we're just getting one side right softballs only and it seems like in today's culture billionaires are the easiest targets for people and they don't get to. So we would like to be your mouthpiece.
Oh, man. How great would that be if we could trick him to come on and then he walked off? Yeah, that'd be great.
He's a piece of shit, man. Oakland 68 was the other one.
Oakland 68 is the other fan group that I think does great stuff. They've worked in conjunction with Last Eye Bar.
Say something nice about the A's as well. Their outfield grass is awesome.
Dude, the Coliseum rocks. I love the grass in Oakland.
I know. I even bought, I'll say it, I bought a couple art prints.
Oh, of the Coliseum? Yeah, from Last Eye Bar. We're going to put it up in the studio.
Yeah. We're going to stand with Oakland.
And if you've seen the artist's rendition of the stadium that they're planning on moving to or the one that fisher just threw out there it looks like the sydney opera house yeah it's just ridiculous they're not going to move into that stadium it has me juiced up too because it's like we we have you know an awesome platform that uh we're very lucky to have and it's like if we can use it to stand up for the regular fans like fuck John Fisher yeah this is a fuck John Fisher podcast unless he wants to come on and then we'll have him on and again softballs only John yeah we'll be so nice we'll ask you oh hey what's uh your favorite type of jean cut yeah that's good that's a fair question first question John hard question. Tech vests, are they back? Yeah.
When you thought of making polos with vertical stripes, were you like ka-ching? You remember those swing commercials that you used to have with the all-white background people jumping over each other? That was brilliant. Yeah, man.
You're an advertising genius, John Fisher. You're not a fail, son.
I would like to just put this out there. I will fight John Fisher.
I would, too. In Rough and Rowdy.
Yep. I will fight him with one hand tied behind my back.
I will fight him with both hands tied behind my back. So you fight him with one hand.
I'll fight him with none. Just head butts only from Big Cat.
Fight us, John Fisher, you bitch. Fight us.
You won't. He's probably just sitting in his little mansion.
I'm like, oh, Vegas won't like you. That's the other thing.
Yeah, you're going to go out there. They've already got their billionaire, Mark Davis.

Yeah, and he rocks.

He would never move a team.

Never.

He's not going to invite you to P.F. Chang's.

Shit.

Damn it.

We got ourselves in that one.

Hey, call us old again.

You're old.

Okay.

Nashville, get ready for one of the biggest parties of the summer in Music City.

Barstool Nashville is hosting the Summerfest Block Party on Friday, May 16th and Saturday, May 17th outside of Barstool Nashville on 2nd Ave South. We're closing down the street and putting up a huge music festival stage for a star-studded lineup of artists which includes Galantis, Loud Luxury, Young Gravy, Cameron Whitcomb, Josh Roche, Shaylin, Chandler Walters, and Dylan Schneider.
And the two-day event is hosted by me, Brianna Chicken Fry, and Out and About's joey and pat don't miss one of the biggest parties on the summer doors open at 5 p.m on may 16th and may 17th 21 and over get your tickets now on barstool nashville.com uh can i talk real quick about a fan base since we're we're on fan base talk uh that i want to give a quick shout out to and that is the providence twitter providence basketball fan base, because I don't know if you guys have seen this, but they're basically gaslighting Ed Cooley into resigning. Yeah.
They started, I think it was an April Fool's joke with a fake account, blue checkmark account being like, Ed Cooley's about to resign, story coming soon. And they've taken that, and the hashtag hashtag the resignation is trending and uh i actually think if there's one fan base that could get someone to be like wait am i resigning it's the providence basketball fan base they're an army they're crazy i love them so much they are a weapon i do not ever want to be on the wrong side of probably got john i mean it was once john fanta did the windmill dunk powers are unlimited.
Yeah, yeah. So they're going to get Ed Cooley to wake up and be like, am I resigning? There's probably somebody in the Georgetown, in the university that has seen that and been like, wait, is coach leaving? Listen, I know that he's probably not resigning, but it was 0% chance on Sunday, and it's at least a 5% chance today.
Yeah. All because enough people are tweeting the resignation.
Max, you agree, right? Yeah, no, I just love that you said probably because you don't know for certain whether he's resigning or not. Exactly.
The thought has been put out there, and now he has to do a press conference saying he's not resigning. That at least has to happen.
You think he's going to do one? He has to address it. I think he might issue a statement.
He has to do something.

No zap it.

The world is talking, and he has been weirdly silent throughout all of this.

It is weird.

It's a very funny situation.

Shout out to Providence Twitter.

Yeah, I saw the video Rico did with them.

They're psychos.

Oh, yeah.

They're psychos.

But it's a great, they're just passionate about Providence basketball,

and they have time on their hands. Yeah.
By the way, Breaking Moose. Breaking Moose.
Zach Eadie has been named National Player of the Year, back-to-back. Great.
Great. Good.
Brilliant day for basketball. My theory was that Ace from from texas yeah everyone's like why does he pronounce his name like that it dawned on me when we're watching the games i was watching with titus and i was like remember joe theisman his name used to be theisman and he changed his name to theisman so that he would help a marketing campaign for winning the heisman trophy which by the way he did not win.
I think Ace Smith changed the pronunciation of his name to rhyme with

Naismith.

Think about it.

Yeah, I am.

Makes sense.

I am thinking about it.

But, yeah, Zach Eadie won.

Congrats.

So that wasn't enough for Ace Smith.

That wasn't enough for him.

Not nearly.

He got close, but not enough.

Yeah, Zach Eadie is National Player of the Year, back-to-back.

And we'll see if he can close. Did you guys see the clip of Zach Eadie is National Player of the Year, back-to-back.
And we'll see if he can close.

Did you guys see the clip of Zach Eadie playing baseball?

Yeah.

Very funny.

Gas.

I would have fucking taken that 300, 350 easy.

Respectfully.

Respectfully knock it out of the park.

He threw, what, 75?

74, I think, yeah.

Yeah.

He just looked so weird.

I bet it'd be hard to hit, though.

Yeah, I mean, it's hard to look at on the mound. What were you going to say, Jake? Ace Smith's father said the B was originally a Sharf's S.
No, he changed it to an A-Smith word. Wrong.
It's a German letter that resembles B, but it's actually pronounced interesting. Respectfully, you're wrong, dude whose name it is.
You are wrong. We're too smart for you.
Yeah. Okay.
Let's do Hot C, Cool Throne, and then we will get to Jeff Pass and Great Interview. We touch on the A's with him.
PFT, are you ready for your redemption? No. The chill calendar.
Hot C, Cool Throne is presented by Coors Light from David. Oh, yeah.
You got it. You got it.
Dude, he's hot face. You it you can do this buddy for people who are watching you got this like there was a lump in his throat when he realized that he had to go back to the calendar come on hold on hold on hold on slow cap that was a much easier door light That was a much easier door.
Light work. We got a glass slipper in this one, boys.
Definitely not Oakland's. Dominated that.
All right, so Hot Seat Cool Throne is brought to you by Coors Light. From day-to-day annoyances to the big stuff life throws your way, it's easy to get worked up, but there's a better way, a chiller way.
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Choose Coors Light. Get Coors Light delivered straight to your door with Instacart by going to CoorsLight.com slash take celebrate responsibly Coors Brewing Company Golden Colorado Hank my hostie is fanatics we've talked about it a few times but it's starting to bother me now that I'm watching a little more baseball just like not being able to read the pitcher's jersey and it seems like every single night there's a new example of the jerseys just being pieces of shit.
Seeing it in person, I was like, those are really small words. The Nationals, they have the first base coach had different colored gray top and bottom.
Yeah. The Yankees pitcher who was sweating, he just sweat through his jersey completely.
The sweat seems to be an issue for the road uniforms. And I just feel bad for the fans because if you order, it used to be like if you order the most expensive jersey, it comes stitched, it comes everything.
And the ones that the fans are getting are also shitty. It's reached a point where- I don't know what the- They're on the hot seat.
They have to solve this. Yeah.
Now, if you want to get a good jersey, you have to order a knockoff jersey online. And it comes and you're like, wow, this looks awesome.
You have to order an old jersey. Tom Layer, one of our great producers here at Barstow, had a perfect tweet when the Mets and Brewers were brawling.
And there was a screenshot of McNeil, Jeff McNeil, going crazy. And he was just like, it's so hard to look tough in these jerseys.
Because look. Yeah, I saw you you have size 8 font.
It's so small. You can't be a tough guy in that.
Cannot. The side-by-side with Jason Kelsey and Fletcher Cox throwing out the first pitch was tough because Kelsey was rocking the old uniform.
Cox was rocking the new one. Yeah, and you saw it.
And you're like, wow, Kelsey looks way stronger. The Cubs had the Cubs logo, the secondary logo patch on some players had it on their right.
Some players had it on their left. That's bad.
It's crazy. Crazy.
Crazy. Hot seat.
And then my cool throw in his Big Al. Yeah, he's back.
Kid from Jersey, Little League World Series a few years ago said, my name is Big Al. I hit dingers.
Okay, I don't want to Bosco you, but he never made it to the regionals. Little League World Series coverage.
He never made it to Williamsport. Yeah, you're right.
He gets very upset when people say that because they're like, he never focused. You made it on TV.
You celebrate this kid and he never made it to Williamsport no it's hard were you on TV yes I was okay so that's impressive you gotta get those highlights that I have yeah you have highlights we need those one for three with a ribby did you do a camera thing what do you mean like my name is Max Alente I love to come to this fucking place I can send this to you I'm Big Max and I drink Sody's my name is Max Alente. My favorite player is Shane Victorino.
Wait, just pull it up. Pull it up.
Pull it up. Pull it up.
Send it to yourself so we can watch that. I haven't seen this.
He sent it to us. Yeah.
Pull it up. You never told us that.
Max Delente. I like two sodas and get it angry.
All right. My name is Max Delente.
I like second place. My name is Max Delente.
I'm never cutting my hair after this video. And I'm going to grow into some big meaty clappers.

Yeah, Big Al's skinny now.

Yeah, he looks like he's skinnier than he was in that video,

and he hit a home run in his high school game.

Yeah, yeah.

He was jacked up.

I think he's just a little owl now.

Yeah, he is a little owl.

Oh, yeah, I remember watching this.

Weird owl.

All right, play it again.

You were cute.

Big Diddy.

Delaney?

Yeah, what?

Were you saying your name wrong?

I don't know.

I swear to God, I used to say that because I thought it sounded more Italian.

Delaney?

Yeah.

It sounds Irish.

You kind of had that I look like I'm going to cry. Delaney? I look like I'm going to cry face back then too.
He has rest and cry face. Max shared something interesting with me the other week.
We were talking about soups. Did you know that in Philadelphia they eat turtle soup? Like actual turtles? Like turtles.
They eat turtles in soup. Snapper soup.
Max's dad eats turtle soup like three times a week.

Red snapper?

Yeah, I actually have an update on that.

I talked to my dad about that this weekend, and he couldn't fathom that other parts of the country don't eat turtle soup.

Well, here's the thing.

It is funny because you would think we eat all types of meat,

but I think it's because turtles, it's probably tortoise and the hare. Probably did enough good PR for them.
Yeah. Franklin.
Yeah. They're all in children's books, little bunny rabbits, little turtles that they've skirted our appetites.
Yeah. Yeah.
But if you were in the wilderness, bunny you'd think is fair game. I would never think if we get a turtle, we can eat no they swim around the mud although yeah but think about it bunny i'd be like let's get a bunny we can we can catch a bunny and then we can cook you can't catch a bunny no probably not no you could catch a turtle i would go for the river and just catch but that thing is you could catch turtle with my bare hands easy catch a turtle not easy to eat a turtle though it's like lobster no just crack it over a rock like a yeah smash but yeah turtles giant gusher turtles and bunnies they've gotten great whoever did the pr on turtles and bunnies chickens chickens though got great pr and we can't stop eating chicken do they have great pr they do they're little red hen no i don't think that's good pr that's.
Oh, yeah. Did she say the sky is falling? No, that's not good PR because they're not cute.
Yeah. Turtles and bunnies are cute.
Turtles are just so slow that it seems unfair to you. Right.
They're just like, well, I'm going to get there eventually. Yeah, there's a bunch of guys in the 1600s in Pennsylvania.
Let's go hunting. Yeah Yeah.
Just walk outside and they walk slowly after a turtle and got it.

Yeah.

It actually is like the easiest thing to catch, I would imagine.

Yeah.

Turtle.

My other cool throw was Rajon Rondo.

Oh, yeah.

Retired.

Didn't know he was not retired.

At least I thought he'd been retired for three years.

Yeah.

I thought that was NBA Central when I saw that.

That kind of rules, though, to just be like a drop of retirement when everyone's like what you were retired yeah but yeah shout out to rajon rondo great career all time great yeah we actually had a funny were you with me pft when we were in indianapolis and we saw uh blake portals uh agent and we were joking we're like yeah remember when he retired just accidentally on the show he's like yeah that caused a lot of problems yeah like we got a ton of people hitting us up for a comment and like interviews and blake blake just said like no i'm only talking to part of my take that's awesome he rocks yeah good for him yeah uh okay your hot seat cool thrown uh my hot seat is usps the postal service okay because they're seeing a big big uptick in traffic via Cooper DeGene. Oh, yeah.
So Cooper DeGene. He's trihard.
Cornerback at Iowa. Gritty guy.
Hard worker. Coach's son.
Coach on the field. Plays the game the right way.
Smart. Ham and eggs.
Shifty. Gritty guy.
Sneaky athletic guy. Yep.
Tough. Tough.
He's a tough guy. First one in, last one out.
Yep. So he's recovering from a leg injury.
He had a broken leg. And he has sent a letter to every NFL team informing them that after suffering the broken fibula in November, he has now been cleared to return to all football activities.
He's going to do his own workout April 8th at Iowa. He's going to do on-field testing and position work without any restrictions he sent a letter to every team in the nfl i need to know was this letter written was it mailed was this an email if so adam schefter reporting it as a letter not the correct story um whatever it is one nfl franchise is going to absolutely love this guy everyone else is going to be like fuck this guy yeah i saw that It's a try-hard move, but you got to try hard.
Yeah. If you're applying for a job, you have to stand out somehow.
Yeah. How many other defensive backs sent a letter? None.
To every GM? None. My cool throne is women's college basketball.
Oh. Because it finally made it.
As we talked about at the top of the show, big matchups, but it didn't officially make it until Bob Ryan weighed in about it.

Oh, yes.

And Bob Ryan had this following tweet after the Iowa LSU game.

I applaud the greatness of Caitlin Clark, Paige Buchers,

Angel Reese, and Juju Watkins, et cetera.

But in fairness to their predecessors,

I don't see a better point guard than Dawn Staley

or a better post player than Lisa Leslie. great women's basketball skill set is not new you have not officially made it as a sport until bob ryan hits you with a back in my day the players are better so this is the highest compliment that bob ryan can give the game of women's college basketball by saying it's actually not as good as when he was watching and and just flexing on everyone that i've been watching for a long time also the back in my day here isn't even back in bob ryan's it bob ryan was old yeah when lisa leslie was like 50 years old old older yeah and don saley were playing we it was a one two combo because it was bob ryan and then it was revelle saying still believe caitlin clark could have gotten a better deal for herself and a better deal for us sports fans if she returned to iowase going to the wmba she's got a shot to change wmba but it's still a long shot just the perfect we watched an awesome game we should celebrate it well actually and then fuck you and then people were replying to him basically calling him a clown which revel has to be used to that by now that's yeah default he probably has the clown emoji muted on twitter definitely so people were calling him out and then he said it's not a great deal for us sports fans even in the replies so i don't know what ravelle means by that a sports sports fans yeah we deserve better we do we do we demand better all right my hot seat is um we didn't talk about it on on monday but it happened late sunday night uh russell Westbrook getting into an argument with a Charlotte Hornets fan wearing a balloon hat, a grown man wearing a balloon hat.
Now, Russell Westbrook has been very clear that if anyone calls him Westbrook, he will confront them, and I respect that. But Russell Westbrook also has to realize that you are in an argument with a Charlotte Hornets fan, fan grown-ass man in a balloon hat never get in a fight with someone who has nothing to lose yeah that guy has zero to lose in life yeah he's a diehard hornets fan in a balloon hat he has nothing there's uh there's a great quote that is completely proven by this video never get into an argument with a fool fool because from a distance, no one can tell the difference.
Yeah, and as you watch this video, you're like, he's two fools. Russell Westbrook, excuse me, I almost said the B-R-I-C-K word.
Russell Westbrook looks like a much bigger fool than the balloon hat guy because he's arguing with the balloon hat guy. And I just, I don't want people to antagonize nba players but it would be funny if we could just see like how ridiculous of a costume someone could get in an argument with russell westbrook wearing yeah just just keep upping it a guy in a literal balloon i feel like if you wore a balloon hat the malice at the palace doesn't happen yeah the guy that slows down.
Yeah's like oh a little bigger target it was this guy also seeing the balloon fly off with a punch would have been awesome awesome it just floats up into the stands yeah but can we get like can we get a russell westbrook arguing with a furry yeah we could probably do that my little uh brony the my little pony bros yeah that could definitely also happen maybe someone who's just actually naked i don't know if you'd want to fight a naked guy. That's also a great way to get out of a fight.
Just take all your clothes off and try to fight. But it would be funny to see how far, because he will argue with anyone, including balloon hat man who's a Hornets.
The Hornets fan is definitely the saddest part of this. Do you think he would get it? Like the balloon hat is like whatever.
He saw a balloon hat, he put it on. Being that diehard of a Hornets fan, you got problems.
Do you think he would get into a fight with somebody wearing a Russell Westbrook jersey? Yeah. Yeah.
That would be great. I think there's no limits.
And then my cool throne is Adam Schefter because Schefter finally got his revenge for the whole Aaron Rodgers saga, lose my number at him, all that stuff. Schefter, I didn't even know this was a thing, but Schefter tweeted, Jets QB Aaron Rodgers earned $81.14 through the NFL's performance-based pay system, the lowest amount among all NFL players last season.
I didn't even know this was a thing. It's kind of cool that it is, but the system rewards all NFL players based on their playtime and base salary.
If a player has a low base salary but plays a significant number of snaps, he earns more through the system. With Rodgers having the opposite, a high salary and playing just 30.33% of snaps due to his torn Achilles, his total amount came to $81.14.
That rocks.

That was Schefter getting it

back, and he did it with facts.

There's a reason why he did it to Aaron Rodgers

and not to DeMar Hamlin. Yeah, I want to

see the DeMar facts. How much did DeMar get paid last

year? Yeah, this is a cool system, though. If you

if you're on a shitty contract and you play a shit

load of snaps, you should get more. Yeah, I like it.

Yeah, but good job, Schefter.

I know he was smiling when he sent that off. Jake, your hot seat cool throne my hot seat is studying uh a student at nc state emailed a professor saying he's lit af right now and asked if he could move the test to wednesday and he did smart the professor was like this is awesome this is possibly my favorite email of the year you've convinced me yeah i like it that's that's really strong usually strong work.
Usually those don't work. And great job.
You not only helped yourself, but the rest of the class that was too cowardly to send that exact same email. Lit AF.
Lit AF. I always hate the stories this time of year from professors that are like, we're still in school to go to school.
Yeah. You have to come to class every single day, 9 a.m.
I don't care if there's a parade. Although do think this is very specific like if it was like Duke or Kentucky or Kansas I feel like the professor has a an ability to be like we expect to be here yeah you know what I mean like NC State you have to let them take the test a day later because no one expected this run whereas a blue blood you like listen we don't we don't celebrate final fours we celebrate championship kansas i could see it happening because it's the biggest thing there yeah duke definitely not yeah also if i was a professor i just wouldn't schedule an exam for the three weeks of the tournament because you never know well but if you're nc state yeah you didn't even think you're gonna be in the tournament yeah yeah yeah yeah uh my cool thrones no hitters the.
And this time it was one person. Again.
They did it again. They've thrown a lot of big no-hitters.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm so over no-hitters. Remember when no-hitters used to be, like, they'd even go to bonus coverage? So I'm over no-hitters, but I can pinpoint exactly when it started.
I think it was the start of last season.

Oh, I think I've been over.

Oh, yeah.

You're right.

I became over no hitters.

It was right at opening day last year.

Opening day, 2023.

I was like, no more no hitters.

Yeah.

This is pretty crazy.

Since June 2022 via Jason Stark, Astros, four no hitters.

The rest of the league, three.

Oh, so that's a big one extra one.

Including postseason.

Yeah.

That's important.

Yeah. Okay.
Let's talk some more baseball. We got Jeff Passan on.
Awesome interview with him, PFT. You got a quick word from our sponsors before we get to Jeff.
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Now here's Jeff Passan. Okay.
We now welcome on a very special guest. It's Jeff Passan from ESPN talking baseball.
Jeff, first of all, thank you so much for joining us. We've wanted to have you on the show.
We're light on baseball coverage. so this is something that we've wanted to do uh and have you on so thank you for joining us we want to do a little baseball preview with you um talk about a bunch of different things but i think we need to start where everyone is thinking right now can you tell us when we're going to get an answer to shohei otani's situation i? I think it's going to be a long time.
And here's why. This is such a tiny little speck of a much larger investigation that's going on right now into this alleged illegal gambling ring in Southern California.
And there are ties to Las Vegas and there are ties to casinos and there are ties to all sorts of other things involved here. And because it's such a small thing, I understand like it's a big headline because it's a big name and Shohei Otani and like international man of mystery.
And we don't know a whole lot about him to begin with. And now our insight into him is that he's, you know, from his account, $500,000 wire transfers, like at least nine of them being sent to, you know, this bookie.
And maybe it was his translator and the money got stolen from like, it's a it's a patently ridiculous story. But in the grand scheme of things, it's just a tiny part of the bigger one and because major league baseball doesn't want to

step on the toes of federal investigators its investigation is more or less going to be going parallel but waiting until the end of the federal investigation and because of that it could be a while till there's any sort of i guess resolution is is maybe the right word but more. Yeah.
Because this thing is still so opaque and so odd, and there are so many unanswered questions at this point. And I think that's the issue that everyone has with it.
Like, what's the fucking truth? Right. Yeah.
That's smart by Major League Baseball, by the way, to wait for the federal investigation to happen. They get to play it as slowly as possible.
But you're right. So it's a tiny speck in that investigation.
But also, Shohei's saying that there's been a big crime committed against him personally. So that's another investigation that could happen.
But to my knowledge, there haven't been any charges pressed against him for the crime against Shohei. Is that true? You are correct, PFT.
And that's the part of this that's really confusing to us as reporters right now trying to figure this out. If a crime is committed, generally authorities are involved and they get looped in and they get told what the alleged crime was and they start investigating it.
Now, Otani's camp has said that they've referred these allegations to authorities. They just don't say which authorities they've referred them to.
And until we get a sense that there's an actual investigation going on into this alleged massive theft, why should we believe that there was a massive theft? Because Shohei Otani says so, because there's incentive for him not to lie?

Sure.

Like, if you go out in public and say, I got stolen from, there's no reason not to believe

you.

But we'd like to at least verify that.

We haven't been able to figure out at this point which agency is investigating, if any,

Ipe Mitsuhara, the translator.

And that, to me, is the confusing part.

That, to me, would answer a lot of the questions.

Like,

Thank you. agency is investigating, if any, Ipe Mitsuhara, the translator.
And that to me is the confusing part. That to me would answer a lot of the questions.
Like if we know who's looking into the alleged theft, then all of a sudden we realize, okay, yeah, this isn't just Shohei Otani's word. This isn't just his lawyer or his people going out and saying he got stolen from the cops are actually looking into this uh which don't know which cops if any at this point are looking into it and what they found right right the whole story and i mean add in the fact that he is the face of baseball i would assume that it would be held it would be dealt with a little bit differently if it was a journeyman player and this had happened.
They have to obviously be very careful with this. Okay, so I'm waiting for the forensic accounting.
That's what I'm banking on. I didn't even know that.
Big forensic accounting guy. Yeah, I didn't even know that existed until this story happened.
I was like, oh, shit, that's a job. Okay.
Isn't that what Ben Affleck did? Oh, when he was just killing people? Yeah. The movie, the accountant.
He had autism and he was just killing people. A forensic accountant is an accountant that has a gun.
Yeah. That's exactly what it is.
Okay. Got it.
It's a hired hit man. All right.
So in terms of this season and a little preview, I read your story about the fact that this is a weird spot for baseball right now because the playoffs have expanded, but also the collective bargaining agreement has changed. Now, I'm not very smart.
I understand the playoffs expanding part. Yes, thank you.
I am not because I read it and I was like, I just couldn't understand it. Can you explain it to me like I'm five, how the collective bargaining agreement has now made it so that more teams feel like they have a chance to compete and get into the playoffs.
So let's look back at the last three Octobers. The team with the worst record in the league, three consecutive years among playoff teams, has made it to the World Series.
And so what that suggests to teams is October baseball is a complete crapshoot. You know, this isn't like the NBA or the NFL that quite often it's pretty chalk in the playoffs.
Like, you know, if you have Patrick Mahomes, you are probably going to be making it to at least the AFC championship game unless you just have a complete garbage roster surrounding you. And even if you don't have a wide receiver room that's worth a damn,

you still can go and win a Super Bowl.

In Major League Baseball,

your regular season record,

you know, the Baltimore Orioles won 101 games last year,

got bounced early.

Atlanta, two years in a row,

100 plus wins, bounced by the Phillies.

Dodgers, bounced by the 84-win Diamondbacks

who finished 16 games back of them.

What that says to teams is, as long as I got like a lottery ticket, as long as I got a chance in the postseason, that's all that really matters. And so instead of playing for those 100 wins, teams are content to go out there and spend enough money to go and play for 85 or 86 or 87 wins and hope that they catch a heater.
And so what has happened, even though there's immense payroll disparity in baseball, you've got the Mets, the Yankees, and the Dodgers, all with payrolls over $300 million. And you've got nine teams above the luxury tax threshold.
And then you've got nine other teams that are a hundred million plus

dollars below that luxury tax threshold. Like you've got this enormous payroll disparity, but you only have four teams really in the Rockies, the White Sox, the Nationals, and the A's that don't really have much of a chance.
I mean, let's look at the Pirates. Like the Pirates have a low payroll.

They have a young team and they have started 5-0 this year. And I understand a 5-0 start in baseball, you know, it's like two or 3% of the season, but at least it shows like they have the opportunity to be competitive.
And in Major League Baseball in 2024, guys, you don't have to be great. You just have to be competitive and get to october and then once october comes anything really can happen yeah i'm still i'm upset a little bit with the nationals i can't be too upset with them because we did win a world series just a few years ago so that buys me like 10 years of goodwill for them but the the other teams that you mentioned particularly the a's we've stumbled across a um in a market inefficiency in baseball.
We have a betting algorithm that we figured out, which is just bet against the athletics every single day. And it seems to be pretty profitable thus far.
But on behalf of A's fans, what the fuck are they even doing with their team? They're trying to move the team. The owner is not trying to be competitive at at all in fact he's like trying not to be competitive they sent uh ruiz back to triple a they benched their all-star from last year word on the street is they did it because they were wearing protest bracelets which we stand with those players if they were in fact wearing the last five bar bracelets um if if you're the oakland athletics how is this not a crime to just not even try to be competitive in the sport? Like, what's the motivation for the other owners to be okay with certain teams not even trying to put forth a competent product? Because the second that there are constraints that are put on one team, all the other owners worry that it's going to be put on them if at some point they try to move a team, they try to lose games to get higher draft picks, et cetera, et cetera.
Like owners, owners never, I mean, think about it. Like billionaires don't like regulations.
Yeah. And that's essentially what you're asking for here.
And it's a really reasonable thing because I'm sorry, but as somebody who grew up in Cleveland and who worshiped the movie Major League, I never thought I would see it in real life. That's exactly what's going on here.
They are sucking as bad as they could possibly suck in order to facilitate a move that shouldn't have necessarily been made in the first place.

And I think that like the saddest part of this whole thing beyond Oakland getting its last professional franchise ripped away from the city is poor Las Vegas inherits the A's of John Fisher. Yeah.
Like there is, oh, I can't, I can't wait for all of the excitement when a complete horseshit franchise with an owner who has proven for five years going on once they get there that he does not care. That's what we want to have as Las Vegas fans.
That's what's going to draw us out to the ballpark. It's just backward.
And it shows you like when there are poor incentives in place, this is the this is the consequence of that. Like this is the upshot of of there being incentives to stink and be rewarded for it.
And, you know, in the last collective bargaining agreement, I think MLB did a did a better job of disincentivizing tanking. You know, they put a draft lottery in place.

If you, if you have a player who is a top hundred prospect who comes and wins rookie of the year, you get an additional first round draft pick. Like there, there are things there now.
No, it's not, it's not perfect, but it's better than it used to be. The A's are just like, I don't care.
Our draft pick is going to get moved down because we've sucked for so long. Okay.
Like, it's just, you know, it's unfortunate that owners didn't take a stand on this and that their self-interest got in the way of the greater good of the sport. Is there any hope that the A's don't move? Because it does feel like Vegas, so it it's not it's not dead.
You know, there there's a there's a group of teachers, for example, who are trying to say, hey, the hundreds of millions of dollars that you are spending on this stadium that you are gifting to a billionaire. Yeah, that should go to kids.
Yeah, that should go to education. But it's a you know, it's a, you know, it's a last ditch effort.
Like in all likelihood, it's probably not going to work and this is going to happen. But here's the thing, guys, is as badly as the A's have screwed up their on-field product, they have screwed up in many other ways business-wise too.
They have been trying get a stadium deal done in oakland for upward of 20 years now and haven't been able to so the notion that they're going to be able to land the plane here uh and and move things to vegas it it's not a done deal it's just that all the momentum is going in that direction yeah so we're rooting against the obviously john fisher we hate him i'm pro teacher pro-kids. This is a pro-child podcast.
Yes, yes. Okay, so other question about the disparity.
And maybe you can tell me this is crazy to think, but I have the feeling that if the Dodgers keep losing in the playoffs the way they have, they're going to try to change the playoffs because we've heard the rumblings where they play a five-game series and they're like, this isn't fair. We should be in the playoffs still.
Is that a real fear of mine that they're going to try to tinker with it because they're going to basically say these teams, like you mentioned, the last place team to make the playoffs has made it to the World Series. Is that going to happen? It's certainly possible after the 2026 season when they get into new collective bargaining discussions.
Because remember, it used to be just a one-game wildcard. Now they've expanded it to a three-game wildcard series.
It's like to Major League Baseball, more playoffs is never a bad thing.

When you have a sport whose national audience has dwindled to the point that MLBs has,

where it's become like a completely regional sport

that has a postseason that some people watch,

but a fraction of what used to,

still more eyes are on those playoff games

and more playoff games equals more TV money and more tv money is a good thing when the tv money that you have right now isn't necessarily going in the right direction so i absolutely could see that now you can make the argument big cat like you want your postseason to closer represent the regular season right And the easiest way to do that is to have longer series because over longer series you know it's not quite as small of a sample and the the weird shit that happens in baseball may not happen quite as much as you would have in a three-game series so uh if if that first round were to expand to five it wouldn't surprise me I don't know if it's it's for the sake of the Dodgers, though. I think it's for the sake of when you have people saying, hey, what's the point of the regular season if you win 100 games? And then like, you know, that you can get bounced in the playoffs.
It's a reasonable argument. It's just that if the Dodgers weren't choking things away in October, the Braves weren't choking things away in October, then the discussion wouldn't quite focus on them the same.
Yeah, yeah. What about the Yankees? Because it feels like this entire postseason discussion is all for naught because the Yankees are just going to win everything for the next five years.
Hmm. Definitely not.
No. We say hard no on that.
Juan Soto does look – here's my problem with Juan Soto being on the Yankees.

He's too fun of a player to be on the Yankees.

Like I want somebody I can hate on the Yankees,

just ruining everybody's dreams.

Juan Soto is a very difficult player to root against.

Do you hate Aaron Judge?

Yeah, I kind of hate Aaron Judge.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that because he's very large and intimidating and if I was that big I would be an all-star too I would hit 70 home run I didn't like when I didn't like when they they celebrated that home run ball that he hit like it was the uh the major league record yeah which was the dumbest thing ever yeah I guess I don't really yes I hate Aaron Judge but the Yankees aren't as hateable overall as I would like them to be.
But it seems like they're built to be just a powerhouse. And I feel like we did our season preview, not our preview, but our picks.
And I wish I could go back and change them and just say it's going to be the Dodgers and the Yankees. You can.
It's going to be the Dodgers and the Yankees in the World Series. But what would be the – I would be okay with the Dodgers-Yankees World Series.
It's been a long time since we've had one of those and in the Yankees, let's remember like their last world series win was in 2009. Like Yankees fans.
I, I mean, I understand they've had 27 championships, right? So they can rest on that. And there's no complaining about that, but 15 years for a fan base that every year comes into the season thinking we need to win the World Series.
It's totally World Series or bust. Like Yankees fans right now are salty.
I mean, they wanted to get rid of the general manager in the offseason. They wanted to get rid of the manager.
Like this was a seminal year. And then Garrett Cole gets hurt, you know, the best pitcher in baseball for at least two months and I wasn't quite as bullish frankly coming into the season on the Yankees I worried that they were too old I worried that their pitching wasn't deep enough but these first five games they've looked awesome and the fact that they have come back especially in sweeping Houston which the the day after they play the Yankees they go out and throw no hit hitter.
Yeah. I mean, it shows you like this Yankees team means business right now.
I just want to see it continue. And not on a personal level, but on a I'm still not fully in that the Yankees are a juggernaut.
I think the Dodgers are a better team. I think the Braves are a better team.
And I picked the Orioles in the American League East. And honestly, I still think the Orioles are a better team than the Yankees.
Yeah. Yeah.
They're a very fun team. Yeah.
What Jeff, what's the next money ball? What's the next thing that front offices are doing that is different that might be at the head of the, you know, the tip of the spear here where it's like in 10 years, we're going to be like, oh, that what they did was genius. And they won titles and they had such success.
What's the next like marketing efficiency in baseball that teams are now going after? Cheap plug here. Back in 2016, I wrote a book called The Arm.
And it was about the idea that Major League Baseball every year wastes about a billion dollars on pitchers who are injured. It's not quite that, you know, it's not quite that.
It's a lot of money that they spend on guys who get hurt. And, you know, when you see the number of pitching injuries that there have been this year, the number of big name guys who are out because of arm injuries, figuring out how to keep pitchers healthy is the holy grail of major league baseball.
And the first team that can truly figure out how to do it is going to win championships because of it. Now, the problem is, I don't know if that's an achievable goal, right? Because all of this starts in youth baseball.
All of this starts when you're 12 and 13 and 14, and you have some dickhead coach who's going and throwing you out there much more than he should. So this is a problem that, frankly, a lot like concussions.
It's not the same thing because concussions, it's a life or death thing, but it's similar to concussions in the fact that it starts at a really early age and then manifests itself when guys get to college and when they get to pro ball and when their bodies get bigger and they're throwing harder. Figuring out how to save arms, it's not just individual teams.
Major League Baseball as a whole is taking this on because I think they realize just how big of a problem this has become. So is there one front office that you know of that feels like they're being very proactive or one front office that you're like, this group of people, they're doing something that could eventually lead them to the right path of figuring this problem out? I mean, in terms's interesting you you look when you look for something like that you're looking for the teams that do process the best right because this is going to be a very process oriented thing if they can figure it out you know there's not going to be like some mad scientist who's just sitting back there and goes aha i figured out how to do this i i was looking at spreadsheets and this tells me no this is a combination of doctors of trainers of performance folks um you know analytics like everyone is trying to get together to solve this and when you look at the teams that have understood and developed good pitchers you think that they would be able to apply those same principles to pitching injuries as well.
And that's the Dodgers, the Guardians, the Rays, teams that are very, not just analytically inclined, but understand that when you're approaching a problem, you have to do it in a very uniform way to try and get the best solution. Yeah.
What about this, Jeff? What if, what if some teams just started doing preemptive Tommy John surgeries on every pitcher that they drafted? Well, PFT to, to quote from my own book, the greatest predictor of a future arm injury is a past arm injury. And if you have surgery, you are far likelier to have a surgery in the future because of it.
So I love the preemptive Tommy John surgery idea, but you're a moron. Okay.
All right. Listen, there are no wrong answers except for that one.
None. Of course.
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Okay, similar to the question about who's going to, what's the next money ball? I love thinking about the teams that are on the rise that have the young like rosters that people don't know about yet. Obviously the Orioles people know about, but that was a couple of years ago.
They started to put it all together. That evolution is one of my favorite parts of baseball the year before they become real good teams.
I've always said that the 2015 Cubs were one of my favorite teams because they completely overachieved. But what teams should we be looking at this season that they might be a year or two away, but they're going to play some really fun baseball and they're going to have some guys that people are going to want to watch? I love the Cincinnati Reds.
And we saw a little of it last year in Big Cat, like you see it with the Cubs. This is a dangerous team.
They hit a lot of home runs. And whether it's Spencer Steer, Christian Encarnacion, Strand, Eli De La Cruz, Matt McLean is going to be an all-star.
He's out for the year with shoulder surgery. Noel Vimarte out with the PED suspension.
but someone like will benson you know he was with cleveland for a long time never never got a crack

there goes to cincinnati and is playing a pretty damn good center field for a really big guy right now because tj friedel's on the shelf so like that's three good bats that are out and cincinnati's still winning because of their hitting and they just have a lot of. And when it comes to pitching, you know, I almost look at it like the Royals once upon a time before their championship had like five really good left-handed arms.
And pitching is such a crapshoot that if out of five guys, you can get like a good starter and a good reliever, then that's a pretty good outcome. Some of these other organizations have done better at developing pitching, frankly.
But I look at Cincinnati and they've got like seven, eight big league rotation arms right now. If they can get three good pitchers there, they're going to be a problem in that National League Central division for a while and while while that division right now doesn't look the greatest Cubs are going to be good soon because I think they're going to start spending some money this winter and they have one of the three best farm systems in baseball so they're going to be good um I I just can't imagine the Cardinals continuing to be as mid as they have been for a long time.
I don't think the fans are going to stand for it, honestly. Pittsburgh is on the come up.
It's not just a 5-0 start. Paul Skeens is coming soon, and he's going to be probably, as long as he stays healthy, he's going to be one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball for a while.
And Milwaukee is just constantly solid. Like they're, they're a process team that does the process well.
And so the NFL central has a chance in the coming years to be really, really good. Yeah, I agree.
I mean, it was not too long ago that we had, I think that 2015 year where it was, you know, the pirates won 98 games, the Cubs won 97, The Cardinals won 100 um yeah and the Cubs also they spent they saved all their money on the pyrotechnics for opening day so they're gonna be able to spend it on free agency so that was good how can you do that well like how can you just is there any explanation for how it can be so bad I I don't know the explanation here's the my only take when I saw it, because it was at the game yesterday. I got there a little bit after they had this incredible, I don't know if you saw it, PFT.
I'm looking it up right now. It was one of the craziest pyrotechnics I've ever seen.
All I said to myself when I saw that video was, thank God, thank God the Cubs won a World Series. Because that was old Cubs that would have been a front-page story.
I don't know if you remember, but it was like 10 years ago when Ron Santo passed away, and they had a bunch of kids sign a card, and then a reporter found the card thrown out in the trash, like in the dumpster outside Wrigley, like immediately after. So they used to do all this shit.
It was one of the worst pyrotechnics ever, but thank God they won a World Series. I think you can get away with it when you win a World Series recently.
You can't stop laughing. They keep coming out of the dugout and then they only have two of the sparklers working and then one of them doesn't even really work that well.
It was so pathetic. It's not good.
At that point, you just got to not have sparklers at all. I kind of like it, though.
It's just like we had to do something to make it feel different. It is different.
Yeah, I'll give you that. It's quite something.
It's definitely different. Yeah.
Speaking of young arms, Yamamoto out in L.A., he stunk in his first appearance. He was really bad.
Second appearance, pretty good. So where are we at? Are we, if you're a Dodgers fan, if you're in the Dodgers front office, are you not concerned at all with Yamamoto? You just chalked that first start up to nerves and you think, okay, this guy's as promised, he's going to be great for a number of years.
Yeah. They're not going to give $325 million to a guy who they're going to be out on after one start, but them giving $325 million to a six-foot-tall right-hander, there's a lot of risk involved in this contract, especially because he doesn't do things the way that pitchers do now.
If you're a pitcher in 2024, the goal is to get as strong as you possibly can and to throw harder than everyone else. And the way you do that is in the weight room.
It's in training your arm. Yoshinobu Yamamoto does things completely differently.
Like, have you seen the javelins that he throws? No, I actually have. Yeah, it's crazy.
So he goes into the outfield and he throws.

They're not like real jab, like stab you in the head javelins. They're like the it's almost like a like a combination between a real javelin and like a nerf one.

Yeah.

And he goes and throws these things and he does stretching and yoga poses and handstands.

And he just has this extremely functional strength that reminded people in the Dodgers organization of Tim Lincecum. That's the comp that they're making on this guy, because when you look at him, he's not a big guy.
He's not like a traditionally strong guy. He just makes his body move better than anybody else out there.
And that's what they're banking on. And it's the sort of thing that, listen, like we're all older now.
We may not be professional athletes, but we realize that your body creaks a little bit when you get into your 30s and your muscles don't work quite the same. And to sign them to a 12-year contract, they did that because he's only 25.
Right. And they're spreading out the risk over multiple years.
But, man, when you get into your 30s, that sort of regimen, I will be very curious to see how that plays as he ages. Because it works now.
And it works really well now. And I think he's going to be really good now.
But long term term you do wonder how his body is going to react to that do you think uh major league baseball from a front office perspective has kind of figured out Japanese baseball and the fact that there's they feel a little more confident getting these guys because there was a time when it was you know Daisuke, Rabu, Kaz Matsui some of these guys Fukudome like they they were good but they were not what everyone kind of thought they would be. And then you have Shohei and, you know, even the Cubs yesterday, starting with Imanaga, who was great.
Like are teams more confident when they bring a guy from Japan in their translation to MLB? 100% and that is strictly because of the data that we have now. Like you're able to take every characteristic of a pitch that a guy throws and compare it to people around MLB and see the effectiveness and translate it accordingly.
In the past, you were just going on eyeballs. Like you were just going on the word of scouts who said that, Hey, I think this guy is going to be this, and we're going to go out and bet on it.
Now they bet on the numbers of scouts who said that hey i think this guy is going to be this and we're going to

go out and bet on it now they bet on the numbers and you know in in the case of imanaga um i think his health and and the long-term uh viability of the shoulder and elbow was the only reason that he got 53 million dollars there was an expectation that he was gonna be a nine-figure type guy because the stuff even though like we just look at on screen when a game's going on at a fastball that's you know top it out like that last pitch he threw was 93 right and it was it was down the middle but the characteristics of his fastball even if the velocity is not there play really well you know he gets a lot of induced vertical break, which in a non-nerd term essentially means the ball has carry to it so a normal fastball right it as as a hitter your eyes are trained to expect a fastball to drop a particular amount before it goes to the plate when you have a really high vert, the ball stays up on a higher plane for a longer amount of time. And that's why you see swings underneath those fastballs.
And so because the pitch characteristics of Imanaga were so successful, and because the metrics say that this guy's stuff is going to play, teams are a lot more confident that what they think they're going to be getting in terms of performance, they're actually going to be getting translated to MLB. That's interesting.
Yeah, interesting. I like that.
So with the World Series last year, Diamondbacks, Rangers, it felt like the Diamondbacks came out of nowhere. We are seam heads.
We understand that Dan Heron turned that coaching staff around. By the way, can we talk about Dan Heron for a second? Yes.
He is the best. The best.
The best. He is one of my favorite human beings in baseball, and getting to see him in the World Series last year, it brought joy to me because nobody deserves it more than that guy.
Yeah, he deserves all the credit. So now this is a Hall of Famer.
We're still working on his case. He had the best postseason something.
Yeah, ERA. ERA of all time.
Six innings or less or something in the World Series. We got a bunch of stats, Dan Heron stats.
We're going to get them compiled and we'll get you voting for him. He should be in the Hall of Fame, yes.
So this year, are the expectations for the Dimebacks, are they a legit contenderender again because it seems like they kind of came out of nowhere last year nobody expected them to reach the world series is that now the expectation for the diamondbacks it should be they just happen to play in a division with a team that spent a billion dollars this offseason and so any headline that the diamondbacks were going to generate uh you know the the Dodgers, they just wash over everything. I mean, they're like an unstoppable juggernaut who also, by the way, got swept by the Diamondbacks in the postseason last year.
And the Diamondbacks, by the way, like they're a better team this year than they were last year. They go out and trade for Eugenio Suarez.
They resign Lordorial they sign eduardo rodriguez uh they they get jordan montgomery on an absolute steal like we saw jordan montgomery carve in the postseason last year like he's a guy who's got big balls and wants to pitch when it matters and to get him for a one-year 25 million dollar contract and to pair him with with heron and Brent Strom, you know, guys who both pitched in the big leagues, both were really good pitchers in the big leagues, but also have embraced numbers in a way that Montgomery has too. Like, it's a perfect pairing, I think.
So this is a better Diamondbacks team than last year. That division's just nasty.
Like, the Giants spent a lot of money this offseason. Got jung-ho lee from korea he's been really good to start got jorge soler got blake snell toward the end of spring training and matt chapman as well uh they're a much improved team uh san diego sucked last year i think they're going to be better this season like there are four uh potentially excellent teams in the national league west and i don't anticipate like all the wild cards coming out of there but it wouldn't surprise me if two of the wild card teams in the national league came from the west yeah and the other side of that world series the rangers um have the opportunity i guess every team has this opportunity after they win a world series but when when was the last time we had a repeat? Was it 1999? 99 to 98, 99 to 2000 when the Yankees went back to back to back.
There has not been one this century. Yeah.
So do the Rangers, do they have a chance? Are they well positioned? Would you expect big things out of them this year? I'm going to be able to answer that question better, I think, in August. And here's why.
Right now, what the Rangers have is a devastating offense. Marcus Simeon at the top of the order, Corey Seager, who's just as clutch as it gets after that.
Wyatt Lankford, who at this time last year was playing for the University of Florida, is near the top of the lineup right now. And the Rangers stole him in the draft with the fourth overall pick he is really really good like the comparisons from scouts have been to mike trout he's not as good as mike trout but he has like that linebacker build six foot six foot one 225 pounds just like a ball of muscle and he can hit the ball really really far um they got a full year

evan carter and i can go on and on about their lineup the reason i want to wait until august

though is because they have three pitchers right now who are on the injured list who were expected

to be back by then to grom max scherzer tyler molly and jacob de grom and de grom is uh you know

scherzer like he's going to be effective he will be fine it's him and and verlander they're just

Thank you. jacob de grom and de grom is uh you know scherzer like he's gonna be effective he will be fine it's him and and verlander they're just freaks who pitch into their 40s and still find a way to be power pitchers then uh molly's coming off tommy john surgery and uh has been solid like an innings eating type guy but to grom when he's healthy guys is the best pitcher on the planet.
Um, and, and having him back in that rotation down the stretch and knowing that you're not going to have too big of an innings limit on him because he doesn't have to pitch the entire season. Like the fact that you can crank him up in, uh, in August and September and send him out there in October.
If Jacob deGrom is all well and good this year, the Rangers, I'm not sure that they become favorites again, but I'm not sure either that there's a better team in the American League. Yeah.
By the way, I looked up a preemptive Tommy John surgery. You called me a moron.
Yeah. There are a lot of people that have thought about this and discussed it, so it's an actual conversation's more morons well absolutely they're morons too they're all on message boards so um but a lot of people are talking about it oh yeah you got morons backing you up um you mentioned a name there jeff that i wanted to bring up and i was thinking about it yesterday when i was at the cubs game and i saw chris bryant and it made me sad that chris b Chris Bryant was it's kind of fallen off and he also went to an organization that has not had success and he's almost lost but Mike Trout will we ever get to see Mike Trout play in the playoffs will Mike Trout

ever be either freed from Los Angeles or uh maybe they put a team around him because it's crazy that

we're this deep into Mike Trout's career and he is such a surefire hall of famer and we still don't

I'm going to go ahead and get it. Or maybe they put a team around him because it's crazy that we're this deep into Mike Trout's career and he is such a surefire Hall of Famer.
And we still don't have that like seminal Mike Trout playoff run. Yeah, because Mike Trout's one playoff series that he's had over over a career that is now in its 14th season.
Like that's a that's a ridiculous thing to think that you can have a guy who is a first ballot inner circle hall of famer. Like when you talk about the greatest players of all time, Mike Trout is going to be in that conversation.
He's had one playoff series. It was against the Royals and they got swept in three games.
Yeah. It's as ugly as it can possibly get.
And it just shows you how baseball is different. And I think that it's one of the things I love about the game that you can have the two best players in the sport and you can make a pretty damn good argument that Shohei Otani and Mike Trout were the two best players on the same team and that team is still garbage and has been garbage for a while now uh building around him I don't see it and here's why I don't see it because the Angels are a fundamentally broken organization starting at the top I don't know if this is the same in capped sports like when you have a terrible owner in football can you still win no yeah you can i think if you have a great quarterback yeah terrible terrible owner no bad owner yes definitely okay all right that's fair um arie Moreno last year had the opportunity to do something that would have changed the trajectory of this franchise.
He could have traded Shohei Otani near the trade deadline. In fact, the Angels front office was going around soliciting trade offers for Otani in hopes that there was one moment of weakness from Artie Moreno where he said, you know what? Fuck it.
Go do it. Trade him.
And they wanted to have offers ready because if given that opportunity, they knew that 10 minutes later, he might change his mind and that the window was that minuscule to go out and get this deal done, which would have brought back. I mean, I'm not exaggerating.
You're like top 10 prospects, like a huge, huge return that would have allowed this team to weather this transition better. Instead, what Artie Moreno chose to do was to build around shohei otani and to add lucas giolito and to go out and trade for guys uh to add to a team that was fundamentally flawed and that anyone out there who knows baseball knew was never going to make a run yeah it was never going to amount to anything and what happened in the process is that an already mediocre farm system got gutted completely and now they're they're in a position where they don't have i mean don't have really any good prospects you know i think they're the 30th ranked uh team in terms of farm systems by kylie mcdaniel at espn uh they Their major league roster has a few guys.
They have some interesting guys on it, but in a division like the AL West that has the Rangers, the Astros, and the Mariners, the Angels aren't competing there. And they're also not willing to go over the luxury tax threshold.
So when you don't have prospects, you don't have a reasonable big league roster, and you're not willing to spend money, explain to me how you're going to be any good. The answer is they're not.
And so because of that, Mike Trout has been enormously patient and he desperately wants to win in Los Angeles. He so badly wants to have a good team in orange County that, uh, that allows him to, to complete his story, right? His story.
He wants it to be the guy who stayed with the franchise for his whole career. You know, he's, he's somebody who that matters to, but the intersection of that desire to remain with the team, with the desire to be able to walk around with a big fat ring on his finger.
Like those two things are buttoned up head to head right now because the man's not getting any younger. Yeah.
Time is wasting away. And at some point you would have to think that his desire for a championship is going to overwhelm that desire to stick around with the angels.
So free Mike Trout, free him. I just want to see him play playoff baseball.
I want to see him hit balls a million miles. That home run he hit the other night was incredible.
Max, our producer, wants him in the Phillies because he's obviously a Philadelphia guy. So maybe we get that.
Speaking, by the way, of that home run, are they juicing the balls again? I hope so. I think they are because the overs are 66% in the first week of the season,

which obviously small sample size,

but you also got some really bad weather games where they're not conducive to runs.

Right.

I'm hoping they're juicing the balls again.

Like, why wouldn't they?

I mean, pitchers would complain.

Yeah.

I remember talking with Justin Verlander at an all-star game a few years ago, like when they were like, when the balls were really flying and he just went off and the problem with juicing balls is major league baseball. Like we're always on the edge of an integrity problem with the sport after the Astros.
Like, is that not the lingering consequence of what Houston did?

It's that we always are going to wonder, are things on the up and up with Major League Baseball?

So in the wake of the trash cans with your biggest star by far enmeshed in a gambling scandal, do you want to be juicing balls?

Like, do you want that to be the storyline there? I'm okay with it, too. Maybe Shohei just needs to bet overs and he gets out of the debt.
Yeah. There we go.
We solved all the problems. Maybe Shohei being on a team where it's profitable for him to win if he bets on his own team.
Maybe that's good for the sport, too. Maybe he was $4.5 million in debt because he's betting on the Angels every day.
Yeah. I want the balls juiced.
I want to see the balls. I want to see dingers.
People like dingers. With baseball, it's like the most important thing to the old timers, to the custodians of the game, are the numbers.
And so you wouldn't see this. You wouldn't see anything in basketball if points are up in basketball.
But nobody's complaining about it, right? Everyone's like, okay, more points, good for the game. In baseball, it's it's like well you can't make the balls easier to hit because babe ruth you know like what are those what do all those numbers that i grew up loving mean yeah if the new numbers are way bigger and i think baseball needs to just embrace or not they need to reject that and say you know what screw it if the balls are juiced the balls are juiced that these are the.
Yeah. I think, honestly, I do think a new generation of baseball fan is looking at it from that perspective more than the numbers or everything, because the numbers have just been so skewed.
And beyond that, we need to look at numbers by generation, not like baseball is this one enormous continuum that you have to judge on like i'm sorry but babe ruth wasn't playing against like black players dominican players venezuelan players the the 60 you know the 60 home runs the 61 home runs that were hit back in the the 30s with ruth uh or the 20s with ruth and the 60s with Gehrig, like completely different. It was just a different game entirely.
Babe Ruth was going against guys who worked day jobs in the offseason who threw 85. Right.
If you had Babe Ruth playing baseball today, right now, he would stink. Now, you give him, no, it's true.
You could give him a, you could give him a year to train. Right.
And I think the, you could give him new equipment. So he's not swinging like a three pound bat up there.
And I think if you gave Babe Ruth, this guy with immense physical talent, the ability to adjust, then he would be a really good baseball player. But if you took 1927 Babe Ruth and dropped him into the big leagues today, he'd be down in AAA.
Yeah. He was eating like 14 hot dogs a day and drinking a pint of whiskey every day.
A real man's man. I was going to say, it sounds like an awesome life.
Yeah. So off of that, Jeff, I was curious because you our generation you're we're all similar age and you have entered you know your career has been incredible entering into this game and the way it's covered by older guys and some people who are a little curmudgeony you had a famous you you you boycotted your hall of fame vote one year is that correct yeah? I did.
I still have not voted for the Hall of Fame.

It's been like five or six years now.

I love that.

So what has the pushback been by guys that you see in the press box and some of these older guys who are adamant that steroids,

we should just pretend it didn't happen?

It's like we're with you in that.

No, it happened.

It actually saved baseball.

Let's stop pretending that it didn't

happen um have has it been weird or awkward for you in those moments where it's like you're kind of a new generation and speaking for a new fan base guys our age going against some guys who are like no we have to keep baseball sacred which is so stupid i you know i think i was really lucky because I started doing this when I was 23 years old.

Like I, you know i think i was really lucky because i started doing this when i was 23 years old like i you know i i got hired at the kansas city star to be the national baseball writer because another guy turned the job down because he wanted an extra week of vacation that they wouldn't give to him and uh i was single and i didn't make much. And my editor at the time knew that he could kick my ass and make me work all the time and I wouldn't say anything.
So that's how I got started. And I think because I've been doing this for 21 seasons now, the older guys in the press box, it's like, I'm a veteran at this point.
I've been doing this for a while so there's not a whole lot of pushback i think there's like there's there's mutual respect like when you do anything for for 20 years like it it's tough to stick around in any job for that long at this point so i think i think they respect my opinion because not just the tenure, but because there's logic behind it.

Right.

I found the way that the Hall of Fame handled steroid users to be appalling. And I found it that way because it was rooted in this halcyon notion of what baseball is.
Baseball is green grass and baseball is a hot dog at the ballpark and sitting there with your arm around your kid and going, Hey, old pal, we're going to have a good day at the ballpark. No, baseball and the hall of fame, especially is not that the hall of fame is a museum that should celebrate the good, bad, and ugly of the sport.
And if you're going to honor the best players in the game, you can honor them while still acknowledging their misdeeds and the issues that they have. Barry Bonds is the best hitter I have ever seen.
Honestly, it's not even close. Barry Bonds, on account of the accomplishments that he had even before he started using performance-enhancing drugs, is a Hall of Famer.
So are you telling me years at the end of a career are going to essentially nullify and erase the incredible things that he did before that? It didn didn't make any sense to me and the the moment where i decided to stop voting and i'll just say this like it makes me sad that i don't vote because there are some cool things in this job and that time like when i filled out my first hall of fame vote i was so proud i was like i've done this long enough to earn the privilege to do this and to be part of something that, you know, it's an important thing in baseball history. Like if you're a hall of famer, that still means something.
So to not vote, it made me sad, but, you know, Joe Morgan sent out a letter through the hall of fame and it was an email. It was like a thousand words, if I recall correctly, essentially saying why players who have used performance enhancing drugs don't belong in the Hall of Fame.
And you want to talk about like the epitome of moralizing and excluding people who don't align with what your thoughts are on what something should be, that to me is antithetical to a history museum. A history museum is a place that should welcome all, even if it is ugly as it gets, because we learn from history.
And that's how, as human beings, we understand the world by looking back and seeing what things were like so we can understand how to place them in the present context yeah very well said i mean our our the the short version of what you just said very eloquently is i think i speak for pft and i uh the steroid era rocked it was fun it was fucking awesome it was it was fantastic it was it was the last time that baseball was baseball was nationally relevant. Yeah.
Yeah. The Maguire Sosa chase.
That was appointment television across America. Jeff, I had one last question.
This has been awesome. We're definitely going to have you back on later on in the season.
So my last question is Roback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K dot com.
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Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, all at Roback dot com. Promo code take 20 off your first purchase q-zips polos hoodies joggers shorts all at roback.com promo code take my last question uh a personal question you got your back blown out by a tree i sure did how how so for people who don't know who don't follow baseball jeff works constantly he's always present there was a there was a time was it last summer where you were kind of absent for a little bit, and then you pop back up and you're like, hey, guys, just a heads up.
A tree fell on me. I'm working through this, but I broke my back.
Like, how and what? And are you okay? I am okay, so thank you for asking that um okay so i'm living in uh like suburban kansas city and you know our neighborhood it's a town called prairie village and it looks exactly like it sounds like there are giant oak trees everywhere very bucolic place and in our front yard, there's like a probably 7,500 foot tall oak tree and a huge storm just like blows through town. And off of the oak tree, all of a sudden, like you hear a snap and this huge branch goes down.
Now I'm not that big of an idiot to be outside during a storm so i'm like looking

through my front window like holy shit that like thank god i wasn't out there but a piece of this this branch which was really like the size of a normal tree uh landed on my neighbor's truck and And so, God, I'm going to sell my wife out here.

I feel terrible.

But so our power is out.

And my first. And so, God, I'm going to sell my wife out here.
I feel terrible.

So our power is out.

And my first instinct is not to go and help the neighbor.

It's to go and find an internet connection so I can book a hotel that night.

Because I didn't want to sleep in the middle of summer in Kansas City when it's hot as shit in my house. So my next door neighbor somehow still has an internet connection.
I go over there and my wife says to me, she's like, hey, lazy shit, come out and help with the neighbors. I'm like, fine, fine, fine, fine.
So I go outside and my next door neighbor has a chainsaw. And let me tell you, there's been this axiom that I've heard throughout my entire life, and it's that Jews don't do yard work.
And there's a reason that we shouldn't do yard work. It's because we don't understand what happens when chainsaws are being used, right? My neighbor cuts a branch and all of a sudden this, you know, this limb that is about 25 feet up in the air, it starts to roll.
I didn't know what a rolling tree meant because, you know, I don't do yard work. But by the time I realized that this tree was falling and it was about to hit me, I turned around and tried to run.
But again, 43, Jewish, not the most

athletic guy in the world. I could not get out of the way in time.
And by the time it was all said and done, I was pinned to the ground underneath this enormous tree and had broken the L1 vertebrae my back and i knew like i stood up and it was pure adrenaline like i didn't realize at the time that i was a foot away from being paralyzed i was you know 18 inches away from it hitting my head and killing me um i got very very lucky and had really good medical care uh and that night um i gotta thank the doctor because he introduced me to ketamine and let me tell you like medical grade ketamine it was it was it was that that night that i broke my back i was sitting in the hospital the doctor gave me ketamine i ordered uh Taco Bell to be delivered to the hospital at 3 a.m. Nice.
And I watched wrestling. And it was one of the best nights of my life.
It sounds incredible. Oh, my God.
That's a wild story. I'm glad that you're okay now.
Thank you. But at the time when it's like, oh, a tree fell on Jeff.
Everybody was like, what? Yeah, huh? That doesn't make any sense at all. But, Jeff i have one last last question for you i did a little research on you i want to give you the opportunity to explain this um i heard a story that you had a really excellent senior prank when you were in high school yo how did you hear about that one i i i got dirt on you jeff i got dirt on you, dog.
Clearly. This is like some Nardwar stuff right here.
Have you seen it, by the way? Have I seen the senior prank? Oh, yeah. It's on the internet.
No, no, I haven't seen it. So it most certainly like is out there if you find it.
This is going to sort of tie together a couple stories um so where does it start somebody in my journalism class senior year i don't remember if it was me or a friend but we thought hey wouldn't it be hilarious to bring a stripper to school and the answer is actually yes it would be um and and so as senior year is winding down the beauty of journalism class is that we were allowed to go down to the teacher's lounge and use the phone there to make calls for stories and so i went down to the teacher's lounge and used the phone to call up um local establishments and see if if there was a lady who might be willing to come to a school. And, and in fact there was, and I, I had arranged.
So it was our principal. He was a, he was like new principal that year.
And I had arranged for him to sit in like the senior commons area where all the seniors eat at the school. Like the nerdy kids that said, Mr.
Steyer, it's your first year here. We just want to have like, have a good time and sit around with you and celebrate your first year.
And so it was like, it was, everyone was involved in this from like the nerds to the football players, everyone in between. And the plan was for the stripper to come in, dress like a teacher and go up to him and say, Mr.
Steyer, I'm looking for the anatomy room. And he would say, we don't have an anatomy room.
And then she would say, well, I'm the anatomy substitute. And he would say, we don't have an anatomy class.
And then she'd say, well,'m the anatomy substitute and he would say we don't have an anatomy class and then she'd say well i guess i should give you one then and then like i would hit the music and the whole thing would start so uh go to the back of the school um sneak her in the problem was this was before like Venmo or anything like that.

And before I had any money. So I had to go around like soliciting donations from people, you know, people were given like a dollar or two at the time to get the fund to pay for this to go on.
Well, when you tell a lot of people that a stripper might be coming to school, they tend to tell other people. And so word had circulated around and the whole, like, this is like a 1500 kids school in suburban Cleveland.
I would say like almost half the school was in the area just looking for it. And a bunch of teachers were around too.
And they were trying to nullify this as best they could. Thankfully, some football players, I think, started a fight as a diversion.
It wasn't a real fight, but it was to get all the teachers off the scent. And I was able to sneak her back into the commons.
Well, she walks up to the principal. Immediately, he knows.
Immediately, he knows exactly who it is. Grabs her by the wrist, takes her over, like toward the weight room and into the gym.

And a mass of people start rushing over.

It's like, I'm not going to say it's a riot because it's like suburban Cleveland, a bunch

of white kids going over there.

But it was, it was like a, it was like a Woodstock 99 riot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and, and so they end up going over, uh bring her out uh three cop cars pull up um yeah like this was a deal i i ran to the strippers that would be great i ran to the bathroom i had a list of everybody who had given me money and so i needed to get rid rid of the evidence. So like I burned the list in the bathroom.
And that day I'm worried because we're supposed to pick up our caps and gowns after. And I'm wondering if word is going to get back to the principle by the point at which I'm supposed to pick up my cap and gown that I was the instigator behind the stripper kerfuffle.
And I grabbed my cap and gown after I tell him my name. And I was like, I Usain bolted out to my car because I knew if I had that cap and gown.
And as I'm like the coup de grace of this whole thing, I'm walking across the stage and I go up and I shake the principal's hand

and he leans in and says, I owe you one.

And you can see on the video that my parents have,

like I have this big smile on my face and I feel really good about that.

And do not regret it one bit.

You know who deserves credit?

My mom.

And here's why. That morning she comes down and is going to work and sees this enormous stash of cash just sitting on the table.
And she's like, what's that for? I was like, well, we're doing a prank and we're going to bring a stripper to school. And she says, are you sure that's a good idea? And the answer, of course, is yes.
And you know what? She let me do it. Yeah.
That rocks. She let me do it rather than like, if my kid tried to pull that these days, I'd be like, no fucking way you moron.
But my mom was willing to let me do completely stupid things. And all of this is memorialized in a camcorder video that was taken and uploaded onto youtube it's have you have you seen those videos on tiktoks like school back in the 90s was so cool yeah it's that it's that video actually oh wow and and that also includes uh the aftermath of the stripper being taken away and all the kids getting pissed off about it i'm gonna have to watch this video that sounds awesome it also sounds like your principal recognized the stripper yeah it was like yeah not you and that's why you didn't get in trouble his name like oh man i didn't know this was your job that's crystal why are you here oh man well jeff this has been awesome man like i said we wanted to have you on for a while, and I'm happy we did it.
And we'll definitely have you back. Talk more baseball.
I look forward to it, and I apologize for my rambling stories there. No, no.
Listen, we interviewed Bill Walton. No one rambles.
So when you have that as the bar, we can handle it all. Thanks so much, Jeff.
Appreciate you guys having me. Thanks, man.
Have a good one. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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Okay, let's wrap up.

We've got some FAQs.

By the way, I had a question that just popped in my head.

How much money do you think Liver King's spending on Twitter ads?

A ton.

Infinite. Everywhere.
It's crazy, man. Pussy in bio.
It's nuts. I just can't get away from him.
He might, or it's either that or he's the only person that actually is paying money to advertise on Twitter. That also could be it.
Yeah. He's everywhere now.
Yeah. Well, he admitted to using steroids, said that he would stop using steroids, and now he's definitely not using steroids, right? Definitely not.
That was the funniest apology ever when he was like, I've let my fans down, I've let the primals down. There's a ton of people who still follow what he's doing, right? I'm sure.
Yeah. Future congressman.
A lot of Billy footballs, yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Hey, PMT.
Since the new studio is completed in Chicago, are we going to see the return of Larry the Gambling Goldfish? Oh. I would love to see this tradition brought back to honor the legendary fish that came before.
I would. There's one legendary fish.
Yeah. What do you mean? Six were kind of duds.
Yeah, the one that you have on your thigh. Ish.
I still can't get over the fact that you got the dead goldfish's body

tattooed on your thigh.

Yeah.

And I can't believe you kept it for a while.

You would have brought it up every show.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

I actually, if anyone knows any tattoo removal places in Chicago,

I got to finish it out before the summer.

Yeah, we might bring Larry back.

Larry was a legend.

I don't, the reason why we haven't done him recently

is because it's hard to recreate the magic that we had

with that one special fish.

All the time. before the summer yeah we might bring larry back larry was a legend i i don't the the reason why we haven't done him recently it's because it's hard to recreate the magic that we had with that one special fish also keeping a goldfish alive is very difficult for us and people were getting mad yeah whenever a goldfish died but yeah i would if we could have someone someone has to be in charge of larry and we have to have him living in a place that we could easily put a camera up to and PFT and I could just stand there and be like here's this week's picks I'm in what? Nah.
What? It's dumb. It's animal abuse.
It wouldn't make sense. What were you going to say? It's not even realistic.
What were you going to say? What if we could put him in the lottery ball machine somehow? Fill the machine up with water? But then every day he would just get... Yeah, I feel like he wouldn't survive one of those.
That thing goes in hot. But imagine if he got selected.
Yeah. You know what? You're right.
It is sick. I know.
I didn't say it. But yeah, I was just looking at it.
I was like, imagine. His guts would splatter all over the thing.
Yeah, they would kind of rock. Here's what I'm going to say to the AWLs.
My pledge to you is I am going to ask Paige, who runs our office, who's incredible, if she could get a goldfish and keep it alive. And if she says yes, then maybe we'll bring it back.
Memes. What do you got, memes What about a gambling turtle? Oh, I would be in for a gambling turtle.
But that also would take forever for him to do the picks. That would be very funny.
Has anyone done a turtle race? It's sick. Yeah, turtle races.
That's how I became a gambler. Wasn't it a rubber duck? No, it was a turtle race in Key West, Florida.
Won 100 bucks when I was 12 years old. If a goldfish dies, it's like, okay, it's a goldfish.
If a turtle died on our watch, turtles never die. Dude, this predates you, Max.
People were very mad about the goldfish dying. But could you imagine a turtle dying? Because we had a lot of goldfish.
People forget my sister, the only time she ever visited the office, she found dead laryngo. And then they got mad that I flushed it down the toilet.
That's what you're supposed to do with a gold. Yeah, that's exactly right.
If you flush a turtle down the toilet, it's going to turn into a ninja. We kept the second one in the freezer for six months.
We should actually get a turtle. I like the way that you're thinking, Mims.
I think this is a good idea because his pics would be very funny. We would just set up a camera and go live with it and be like, okay, we'll just wait until he makes his pick.
He could actually, wow.

It just never worked in the third office. We got one and we had Billy take care of it.

It was just, what if we got a turtle and when we taped the Thursday shows, we just have

for like 20 minutes or whatever it is, a picture and a picture of him just doing the pick right

here.

Yeah.

So while we're doing the picks, he's just doing his pick.

I like that a lot.

I like that a lot. I like that a lot.

And if he dips five games below 500, we eat him.

Yep.

I think turn him into soup.

We crack his shell.

I think turtles are so much more difficult to keep alive than golf.

All right.

So what we need is we need someone who has a turtle.

I'll take care of the turtle.

Okay.

Memes taking care of the turtle.

All right.

Memes taking care of the turtle. So memes, what we really should do is the turtle shouldn't live in the office.
It should just come in on Thursdays for his pick. What? This is Memes.
This is great. All right, so I like this.
So if we could set up, like, how funny would it be if we're doing our picks and then people who are... Because shout out to everyone who watches the show now.

I love that we have so many people watching the show.

But if you had a turtle just slowly in the picture in a picture while we're talking about the games, the turtle's making picks.

Yeah.

What about a mini horse?

Down.

It's too much.

Is that a pony?

It's too much work.

We talked about this before?

What?

Me and you?

I feel like our kid just asked us if we get a mini horse. I said down and you said no.
Ask your father. Yeah, we're down.
Anything that I don't have to worry about. I have too many things.
I have three kids, a dog, a Jerry, a Rico, a fucking Brandon. I have a lot of things.
What if we get a snake? A poisonous snake. I hate snakes.
I hate snakes. Actually, if we got a snake, I'd kill you.
That means your brain's gone. Like the most poisonous snake possible.
Okay, maybe then. Yeah.
No. Speaking of animals.
Turtles in though. Memes? Yeah.
Get your turtle. What are we going to name it? This I'm in for forcing memes to get a turtle.
What should we name the turtle? Football? Football is a good name. Football the turtle.
I feel like if it's going to be memes as turtle, it's something with an M. So like memes and...
Oh, yeah. Do we want to limit it to just football picks? Max? Yeah, we could...
Well, we could test them out in other picks. In other sports.
Memes and Max. Yeah, name him Max.
No, football. Football.
Name him Max. Football.
Max, no. Name him Max, because then we'll have to always be like Max, or are we talking about Max the turtle? No, because you're going to.
Like Max shit his pants. You're just going to be mean to this turtle if he's bad at picks and it's just going to.
Exactly. Max pooped himself.
Are we talking about Max the Turtle or Max the Human? Oh, we just got the ratings. Oh.
Tell me, did I like the game? Schefter tweeted it. Of course you did.
The most watched NCAA women's basketball game ever, 12.3. Okay.
Didn't beat the men's. What was the men's? 15 for NC State Duke.
Decent question. That doesn't matter, though.
That was on CBS. Yeah, that's true.
That's huge. Yeah.
Well, last year was like $9 million, so yeah, that's a huge jump. Shout out to the women.
And now I feel comfortable saying that was a great watch. I liked it.
Do you feel comfortable? I thought it was good, but I liked it 8% less than the NC State Duke game. I would have liked it a little more.
Yeah, if other people had watched it. Yeah.
What's the deal with the thing in front of Hank? Oh, yeah. You know you should know we actually had a uh a sponsor come in uh salesperson was walking them giving them a tour of the office and he saw that thing and was like what the fuck is that i had to explain to him what it was that's the octopus that we had when we did one episode of barstool van talk and so it's an octopus it's a dead octopus inside formaldehyde.
It's funny when you don't even explain it because we had Alex Crusoe came into the office today. He's going to be great interview with him coming Friday.
He's like, what is that? I said, it's an octopus. He's like, he just looked at me like, was you going to say anything else? Like, no, it's an octopus.
Yeah, we can probably move it somewhere else. We found it in a box.
And I was a box and i was like oh the octopus we'll put in the studio but we just haven't really found a better place we should drink it i thought about that earlier that's formaldehyde though so probably die probably we're old probably die or would i think you would die if you drank all that you would die what about like ed cooley's probably going to resign or he is going to resign? No, I'd say you would die. Okay.
A sip would be fine. How much formaldehyde can you drink? Hey, PMT gang, kind of serious question.
Is Pug okay? He's been the vet for what seems like weeks and our AWLs are genuinely concerned about his well-being.

If you guys have to make the decision to put him down, we understand.

We as award-winning listeners have to know right now if he's going to pull through or not.

Thank you.

Not Pug.

It's too early.

By the way, two tablespoons of formaldehyde would kill you.

Yeah, that would kill all of us.

So we have to have one.

Yeah.

You just get a wicked buzz.

Pug's fine.

He was dealing with an internal.

He's here.

Yeah.

Oh, he is? Yeah, I just got another garbage I'm doing He ate a chicken bone Did you eat a chicken bone or was it icebreaker's gum? Both Yeah both Pug lost a lot of weight though from his ailment He's looking good He's looking lean And we just put a bench press right behind his desk.

And do we know what's wrong with you, Pug?

Oh, yeah. It's garbage.

The vet gave me medicine. Doing better.

Pug. Do you have all your shots?

I did not.

Now I do. Okay.

Pug.

How are you feeling today? Doing good're doing better pug all right last one fun one hey pmt gang was there ever a point where one of you big cat and pft mostly thought about quitting slash leaving the show not no not really no i don't think it's ever happened closest is no we were like upset after barstool van talk but yeah i don't think we yeah it was never anything that was like imminent to happen and with contract stuff it's just something that you have to go through every couple years and then you just come back because you didn't want to leave yeah i don't think i'm trying to think i mean i've i'm i don't think i've even been close to being a free agent at Barstool, so that part has never been an issue. But, yeah, after Barstool Van Talk, we were upset, but I don't think we ever – I think after the JMU Wisconsin game – Well, no, that was I wanted to kick Hank.
Yeah, yeah. Big Cat wanted to just get away from Hank.
Yeah, that's all. No, I don't – Hank, how many times have you wanted to quit the show? I once suggested taking myself off the show back in the day.
And we said, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah.
That was crazy. That was a long time ago.
Because you wanted to be corporate, Hank. No, no, no, no.
I was just like, I was editing the show, and I hated listening to myself. And this is before Billy, before Max, before anyone.
So I was the one that was catching all of the, like, if you're not Big Cat or PFT, we fucking hate you. So I was was getting my head.
And I was like, if you guys want to, you know, I won't take offense. That's I think that's what I said.
I was like, I'm not, you know, I get it. You could probably put someone in that's more entertaining that people like better.
Like I won't take offense. And we said, fuck no.
Yeah. It was the fastest fuck no ever.
Aren't you glad that we did that? Very glad. Are you? You're welcome.
Yeah. Sure? Yeah.
Okay. We basically, PFT and I actually met about it, and we're like, we got to wait until the Patriots are bad.
Could have you. We got to wait this out.
Just a few. I think that was after the fifth.
This was like 2017. Yeah, it was before the sixth Super Bowl, so we had to wait it out a little bit.
Hank, are you a little bit nervous about this? Before the fifth Super Bowl? No. I'm excited.
It was after the fifth, before the sixth. Right so we had to wait it out a little bit.
Hank are you a little bit nervous about the Celtics? For the fifth Super Bowl? No. It was after the fifth before the sixth.
Right. And we were like we gotta wait it out.
They're gonna be bad and then they won another one. You should be nervous about the Celtics though.
I'm excited. Brooks Koepka always said if there's nerves to me I think that's excitement.
So like I am nervous but I'm excited, if that makes sense. Pressure is a privilege.

Yes.

I'm not nervous.

I'm excited.

You're not thinking about what happens if the Celtics lose in the playoffs.

No.

That's a loser mentality.

You're a fucking loser, so that's why you're doing that.

But I'm not thinking like that.

I'm excited.

We've worked so hard to get to this point, and now it's our time to shine.

Hank, I have more Stanley Cups and World Series than you since we started doing this show. I think we're tied in World Series.
Yeah, you're tied in World Series. Yeah, but more Stanley Cups than you.
Okay, sick. You root for the Cowboys.
Not anymore. You don't have Max to pick on though.
Well, maybe you will.

One of you guys. Yeah.

And beats back this year.

This year? I mean this week.

So that will, Max, are you going to get

your hopes up? Oh, what if

you beat them though? 8-1.

Hank, you'd have to

shave your beard. You'd have to

shave your beard. Say yes.
Right now.

Yes. If the Sixers beat, if the Sixers or the Bulls beat 8-1.
In a series. In a series.
Yeah. And if we sweep...
No. No.
Yes. No.
I'm not doing it without stakes. You already said yes.
You already said yes. You already said yes.
I didn't say yes to the Bulls. I didn't say yes to the Bulls.
The'm fine. The Bulls are probably not going to make it.
I'm all tangled up over here. All right, numbers.
40. If I get this, you have to shave your beard.
Eight. Fine.
If I get this, you have to shave yours. No.
Huh. 18.
Not so tough now, buddy. Three.
No, you're the one that just does these bets and those stakes. 12.
99, but. I mean.
20. There's no way that this is.
You guys didn't do a fucking bet for JMU Wisconsin.

Shut up.

I should actually say that every time we ever do a bet, everyone, you're like, do a bet,

do a bet, do a bet.

You guys, both of your alums played a game.

You're like, we don't care.

The game already means so much.

Did you come up?

I had a fucking meltdown.

It did mean so much.

Did you come up with a bet?

We tried to.

You guys were like, no, no, we're not doing a bet. I don't think you came up with

a bet. I'm so fucking tangled

over here.

God damn it.

God damn it,

these wires. Alright, what?

Let's name the turtle Tony. Tony the turtle?

No, what about Max?

What about football? Football's not a bad name.

Football's a pretty good one. Sports.
What about just sports? What about? What about sport? Ooh, sports the turtle? Sport. What about Mr.
Pear? I like it. Done.
Mr. Pear.
Mr. Pear.
Mr. Pear.
Mr. Pear.
Mr. Pear, I like it.
Yeah, we'll feed him pears. He'll have to go get the pear for the pick.
What about Mr. Yes, Mr.
Pear. Yeah, Mr.
Pear. Mr.
Pear Yeah we'll feed him pears He'll have to go get the pear for the pick What about Mr. Yes Mr.
Pear Yeah Mr. Pear Mr.
Cream No it's Mr. Pear Mr.
Pear And we'll just Yeah we'll I bet you we can get someone I bet you we can get like the Food coloring stamps And we can stamp the slices of pears With the different logos Yeah And that will be be that will be how he picks his games which pair mr pear and we should never discipline him never or we should really discipline mr whoa that sounded kind of like torture no just be like strict parents that no that sounds like you want to eat them that's the philly coming out memes i ies, I'm not saying don't do this, memes, but because turtles, I guess their shell is like their skin. It can be hurt if you pierce their skin, but it would be cool if you put a handle on them.
Yeah. Just pick them up.
I won't do that. Don't do that, though.
Or if you sew laces into the back of them like a football. Oh.
Mr. Pear.
No, Mr. Pear deserves better.
I fucking love Mr. Pear.
When Mr. Pear dies, I'm going to be very sad.
When Mr. Pear misbehaves, I'm just going to be like, Mr.
Pear. Mr.
Pear. Oh, Mr.
Pear. Tummy tacks.
Mr. Pear, you need to fix the door on the spaceship before you do the tail launch of it.
We're all going to kiss Mr. Pear and get weird turtle diseases.
All right, numbers. Mr.
Pear's going to rock. I mean, we're going to sell some shirts.
You got to get this turtle like ASAP. Mr.
Pear. Can you get this turtle like soon so we can have him start picking shit? Yeah.
Just go to Tin Lizzy. Yeah, I got to hit up my turtle guy.
Yeah, any turtle guys out there, let us know. Let us know.
I also need to find a dentist in Chicago. I've been meaning to say what is this? Is it a fucking Craigslist right

now? Come on, Max. Figure it out.

If you do temporary tattoo

removals, let me know.

You have an El Camino

that you're looking at.

Numbers. 40.

3.

77. 8.
18.

99 put.

Actually, say something. 20.
21. That.
99 putt. Actually, say something.

21.

That's the first time.

I kind of went off the rails.

91.

See you everyone Friday.

Alex Caruso in studio.

Love you guys. Take me on me Take me on me Take me on me Take me on me Talking away

I don't know what

I'm about to say

I'd say it anyway

Today is another day

To find you

Shine away

I'll be coming for your lover

To shine away

I'll be coming for your lover

I'm gonna be the dream of the new day Southern in the box I think Take on me Take on me

Take me

Take on me

I'll be the same

I'll be the same

I'll be the for you anyway You're shying away Love Take on me Take on me Take on me Take on the eye of the world Take on me Take on me Take on me Take on me Take on me Take on me Take me Take on me Oh Take a knee. Take a knee.