Jake Arrieta, NBA Playoffs And Monday Reading Is Back

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 have a great guest, great interview, Jake Arrieta, former Cy Young, champion, world champion, talks all baseball. I think he'll be a guest going forward talking baseball because it was great to talk to him.
some cool stories.

We also have the opening weekend of NBA playoffs. Ball is life.
Some awesome games. Even games that were blowouts were awesome.
I don't know if it's too late to say this, but crowds being back. It's fun.
Crowds all the way back. Is this the first time that the crowds have been officially back in the nba it was like halvesies last year for the first this is i think yeah no you know what it's going to be when toronto fans come back for nhl playoffs at that point we have to stop crowds are back yes crowds back um we're going to talk a little kairi uh who's back and then we got a monday reading ever had one of those days when it's just too cold to keep working?

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Oh. And then a lot of stuff work to be done No place to hang out or wash in And then I can't blame all on 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 Avenue It's part of my take presented by Barstool Sports.
Welcome to part of my take presented by Helix Mattresses. Go right now, helixsleep.com slash PMT.
Get $200 off your mattress order and two free pillows. Today is Monday, April 18th, and ball is life.
NBA playoffs, baby. What a weekend.
Great start. The game that we're all looking forward to was the Bucs.
Excuse me, not the Bucs. The Celtics and the Nets.
That's the womp bet. Everyone here is invested.
Jake probably more so than anybody else, where we'll have to take a full tin of dip if there's a womping and nobody want anybody really really it was just a great game it's it's I'm excited to watch the rest of the series Hank I'm curious to know your thoughts I know that you probably went from like being super confident to being like oh shit the sky is falling to being like oh shit great job I'm glad that we won that one but still a little. Yeah, you had a moment where it was like, this could be a very bad loss

because the Celtics were cruising.

Celtics were cruising, and then Kyrie dominated in a way that you haven't seen

since he was on the Cavs, and it was just like, this is the worst.

He was talking shit before, and he's backing it up.

He's hitting every single shot.

The Celtics blew a 13-point lead.

They had to execute perfectly at the end of the game, and they did somehow,

and it was an unbelievable finish. So can I ask a question about Kyrie because it's going to be the big story going into Monday.
Yes. Where do you stand with him? Because from a neutral party perspective, and I think PFT probably agrees with me, I love every second of it.
At this point, it feels like it's fair play across the board. If you miss the game, Kyrie at halftime, someone called him like a bitch, and he said, suck my dick to a fan.
He said, suck my dick, bitch. Suck my dick, bitch.
He was giving fans the middle finger. He was giving fans the middle finger behind the head, which was a super sneaky, great move.
He was doing the cry face. And what we like in sports, he was backing it all up up and he was playing out of his fucking mind and at the end of the day as long as it like doesn't cross a line i think this is great for sports i think celtics fans should boo the fuck out of him should hate him with the fire of a thousand sons and kairi should do everything back to them and that is what sports is all about.
I fully agree.

I mean, it's like you want the villains to embrace being a villain.

He's embracing it.

Sort of.

Sort of, but it's like as long as he doesn't get mad now,

he's like, I don't like being called a pussy and a loser.

And now obviously that's all anyone's going to do.

But yeah, if he's going to back it up, it's war.

It's war times.

All is fair in war.

Yep.

Period.

That's what they say.

I think that Kyrie is actually, here's what's going to happen, because I do agree with Big Cat's take that it's all good. Like, I like the dynamic.
And I actually think that Kyrie likes the dynamic, too. He said, so after the game, he did say, like, would people start yelling pussy and bitch and fuck you? There's only so much you can take as a competitor.
What does he think is going to happen after that? Wait, wait, wait. He's like, nah, fuck that.
That's the playoffs. It is what it is.
I know what to expect in here. I'm going to give that same energy back to them.
And then after that, the quote that's not being, because I watched his press conference, and they're taking that quote, and now the media is like, it's so disgusting what's happening with the fans and Kyrie. After that, Kyrie said it was fun going back and forth.
He said embrace it. Yeah, he said embrace it, and he said it was fun.

And I love that.

That's awesome for sports.

It's good.

People are always like, oh, I miss the days when players and teams

hated each other and hated cities.

Well, guess what?

That's what you're getting right now.

We're in the middle of a player in a city hating each other,

and also that translating into great basketball on the court.

And Kyrie's having fun. I'm just worried that what's going going to happen is since all these quotes are being taken out by the media people are going to be like they're going to turn Kyrie into like a big victim and everything and then turn and then turn the Celtics fans into like the big bullies the media doesn't like the anti-vax guys well here's the thing it's a media it of rock and a hard place.
The media also likes the Ramadan fast guys so it's like

Kyrie's got everybody all fucked up

I really do think that they're

going to make this a thing where they're going to

vilify Hank's beloved

Boston fans. Well that's easy

that's what you do it too. Here's the thing

here's all I'll say. I'm defending you right now

though Hank. Here's all I'll say is that I think

that's out the window again until

there's a line crossed I think it's

I don't think there's going to be a vilifying

of either side because Kyrie's literally giving the finger to kids and families, which I'm cool with. I want that to happen.
He's telling people to suck his dick. I think that makes it a little bit harder for people to be like, poor Kyrie.
Also loved that Kyrie, before the series, said, so giving the energy to what the fans are doing, that's not where my attention is.

And then he walked on the court, and that was like, again, he backed it up in play.

Like, if he sucked, I think that you'd have a different story where it's like, oh, the fans got Kyrie off his game.

He wasn't playing, you know, up to, you know, the level that he should be playing, especially because the Nets need him at that level.

But he was incredible, and it all was good. Like, I second of it.
I just want more of it. That's what sports are all about.
Guys, fans hating a certain player, a player upping their game to stick it to the fans, and then, of course, Hank, you end up winning the game with Kevin Durant, who didn't have his best game, losing Jason Tatum with two seconds left. And after the Celtics missed a million layups, they win with a buzzer-beater layup, which doesn't happen very often.
Jalen Brown scored right away on the two-for-one possession that they had to have. That was an easy layup somehow.
And then the Celtics played unbelievable defense on Kyrie and KD in the possession right before they won. And you made a great point when we were just hanging out before the show.
You're like, old Marcus Smart takes that three. And he would have.
He definitely would have taken that three. That possession at the end there with Marcus Smart, that's the give and take that you have when you have a certifiably crazy person on your team.
Because sometimes he'll make a stupid play and it'll just completely ruin it. This was honestly like, it was a borderline stupid play the way that it all unfolded.
That's clearly not like what they had drawn up. But he's so crazy that he's the only player in the league that's crazy enough to make that play.
Yeah. And get the ball to Tatum.
I also think it's not even old Marcus Smart. It's like you could the same thing could happen next game and he might do it.
Yeah. Yeah.
That was just we got. But it was a great game one.
It is the series that everyone will be talking about because it's definitely, like, the Nets are not a usual seven seed. Like, that's the thing is their star power doesn't make them annoyed.
I doubt there's been a time where a two-verse-seven has been close to a pick-em in the series. And, yeah, we're going to go on next Monday in Brooklyn.
Now, the Celtics are one win away from avoiding a whomping. They are, yes.
So we'll see. But I don't think it's— Now, the first serve goes to the Celtics in the whomping.
I think they held serve. This was a lucky revenge game.
The leprechaun was out for blood. But I don't think that, Hank, if I were in your position, I wouldn't feel like super confident.
No, every game's going to be like this. They're two really good teams.
But winning the first game, you're more confident. That would be an extremely deflating loss.
The Celtics have lost, and I'm sure the Nets and the Nets fans are like, fuck. Yeah, I think game one for the Celtics was a must win.
They had to have that one. They had to have that one the way it played out.
They couldn't lose with a 13-point lead and blow it with Kyrie hitting every single jumper to beat them. That would be soul-crushing.
Going into the game, neither team had to win it. But the way the Celtics were going to lose it would have been very, very bad.
All right, so we should just—I mean, there was great basketball all around. I don't know if we could start with Saturday afternoon.
Luka not playing is a huge bummer because I think I've come to the conclusion, and I don't know if we have Jazz fans that are fans of this show. Maybe a few.
I'm so sick of this Jazz team. I want them out of here.
Yeah, they're like the climbers. They're sick of each other.
Yeah, they are. They hate each other.
This is the one series that we told you you did not have to pay attention to if Luka's not playing. Right.
He should be back. It's going to be boring.
But even when he comes back with a calf injury, he's not going to be Luka. He's going to be lowercase L Luka.
But they almost won. The Mavs almost won, and I'm just – I don't know.
I just want – it feels very reminiscent of that Clippers team when we were like, get them out of our face, where it's like, I just don't want to be told that Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley and Donovan Mitchell are going to have an extended run in the playoffs. Just get him out of my face.
How much is Mike Conley getting paid right now? Is he still on that huge contract? And when he got signed, everyone was like, that's a key piece. Good for him.
So I want Luka to come back and do some fucking cool shit. I think it's a perfect team for Utah.
You get to have a team that's good during the regular season, go into your little corporate events, your youth group retreats to the games, win most of them. Three years, 68 million.
Pretty nice for Mike Conley. This is year three, though? This is year three, I think? No, this is year one.
Oh, this is year one? And they don't even have Joe Ingers anymore. He was like there.
He was like the lovable. I liked him a lot.
him a lot you're right uh mike conley former teammate of mark titus yep be interesting to see what like how much money mark titus's teammates have gotten over the years amount yeah i mean evan turner's over 100 million alone greg odin i heard greg odin's now an assistant coach um somewhere in indiana i forget what school he's at well he's making money. He was a grad assistant on Ohio State for a while there.
And he should, my rule should be allowed, he should be able to play for the Buckeyes. That would be awesome.
Yeah. Greg Oden was playing for the Buckeyes.
The T-Wolves, I now am rooting for the T-Wolves to go to the finals just to see if we can get crazy protesters at every NBA city in America. That was because we had another one.
We had a we had someone who a woman who chained herself to the to the basket and stop the game. Same same deal protesting Glenn Taylor killing a lot like this guy.
This guy. Do you think these women that are like gluing themselves and chaining themselves to the basketball, to the hoop, were they relatives of the chickens? I don't know.
They're very upset. I think they're pro-bird flu.
It's crazy. That's what it sounds like to me.
It sounds like what they want, instead of exterminating the chickens that are sick, is for the chickens to go on and infect other chickens. They think that not enough birds got killed.
Like I would probably, if, if Glenn Taylor killed a family member of mine, I might glue myself to, to the baseline once. I don't know if I'd go to game two.
I don't, I don't know. Like it's very Minnesota nice the way that they're doing it.
They're like, we're going to cause a scene, but real briefly, we don't want to really interrupt the game. The chain kind of upped it because the chain, they had a little trouble getting the chain off.
So the chain kind of upped the deal. I don't know.
I'm excited to see what they have planned next. I don't know.
I don't know where you go from here. Now, are they working together or is this just like a copycat? I don't know.
And they also like they're going to blow through their budget. Yeah.
Like as if the T-Wolves progress, it's going to be tough to keep this budget going where they're buying like the best seats in an NBA playoff game just to get kicked out. So I'll say this.
The first one was funny. The second one also funny because she looked like Janet from The Sopranos.
The third. Janice.
Excuse me. Hank, she's the one that got into a fight with Tony at the dinner table because she used to.
Her sister. Blow a bunch of guys.
But if it happens a third time, I actually think I'm going to start to be sympathetic to their cause. I'm going to be like, yeah, that guy did kill a lot of birds.
That's how it works for me. If you do it three times, then I'm like, wait, something's up here.
They must have a very good point. Oh, see, I'm going to go reverse and be like, Glenn Taylor, you should just execute a bird live before the game.
Like at center court, if he just comes out and just chops off a bird's head and be like what do you want me what do you want from me now bitches i'm i i shudder to think what they'll do at commander's games with carson wince as a quarterback if they're anti-bird murder yes there we go link that in yeah he hunted all those ducks yep exactly um yeah that game was awesome anthony Edwards is fucking awesome. I don't know.
Like, this is... We shouldn't overreact to every game won because I do think the Grizzlies will have an answer for this, but it was just really fun watching everyone make the jokes about the Timberwolves winning the championship and thinking there was going to be a letdown spot and there was no letdown spot.
No, I mean, the Timberwolves, they've got momentum. I'm a believer in momentum.
And I am going to do the thing where we take game one and blow out our proportion. Yeah, and Carl Anthony Towns, you know, he's...
So the other note of this game was ESPN's audio went absolutely haywire, and, like, I thought my TV was blowing up. And then they had Stephen A.
Smith and Greeny call the game for like half a quarter from the Brooklyn studios and Stephen A. Smith was just bashing Carl Anthony Towns he's like he literally was just doing first take for a live game but Carl Anthony Towns I something about him he just like when he fucks up he at least like twice a game he'll throw a pass into the fifth row, and he'll look around at everyone like it was someone else's fault but him.
You're like, what's going on here? He also has a great perplexed face. Yeah.
He's really good at it. He just looks around like, what? Remember when Russell Westbrook missed that three this year, and he was looking around like, I can't believe that's an NBA shot.
It's like a tennis player looking at their racket like, is there a hole in this? Yeah, he's super good at looking confused. I love the fact that ESPN, anytime they need something, they literally have a Stephen A.
Smith button that they can smash at any given time because he's paid, what, like $10 million a year? That means he's just on retainer. Yeah, him and Greeny.
If there's a microphone that needs to be screamed in 24 hours a day, you put up the bat signal and he comes in swooping in and i i fucking love it and having him match up the greenie is so funny because greenie knows who the alpha yeah oh yeah whoa he's i don't is there ever been a situation where greenie's been the alpha no greenie is the alpha that's what i'm saying like greenie knows that he's calling the shots steven a smith is lucky enough to be around him greenie and steven a smith are like heart surgeons where they just have a beeper at all times. They're like, oh, we need you in the studio.
We got to have you talk. We got to have you fill an hour real quick at like 11 p.m.
Well, for Stephen A. Smith, it's very easy.
It's like plug and play. If he doesn't know anything about what's going on, he'll just like pick one guy and be like, that guy's a disgrace.
Yeah. And then he'll just talk for like 30 minutes about what a disgrace he is.
It was great. It was a great television.
Yeah. And then we had the Sixers, who I feel like most disrespected teams going into the first round.
Heat number one by far. No one's talked about the Heat, myself included.
I'll put my hand up on that. Rest in peace to Cavs, by the way.
We didn't cover that. Oh, yeah.
I do think they would have beat they definitely would yeah they definitely would have beat the heat and then sixers i feel like are sneaky second because everyone was like oh if you're looking for an upset it's like the upset we do in the bracket go if you're looking for an upset it's the raptors over the over the uh sixers and then tyrese maxi happened which i have a couple stats that are pretty awesome. Um, only, uh, Only a Philly, I think it was like NBC Philly, wrote the article.
And the first, it was like, look at these crazy stats from Tyrese Maxey. So he scored 38 points.
He's the third youngest guy to do that in an NBA playoff game, Magic and LeBron being the two youngest. So that's pretty good company.
But the big stat they had that led the whole article was Tyrese Maxey scored 21 points in the third quarter, 12 minutes of play, which is more points than the last 100 minutes of Ben Simmons in the playoffs as a sixer, 19. I love that.
I just loved it. Keep going back to it, yeah.
Just like, this guy's awesome. Let's bring up Ben Simmons.
Yeah, keep going back to it. I appreciate that.
I mean, it does serve to highlight just how ridiculous Ben Simmons was at the end of his tenure in Philly. Like, you lose track of what a circus it was, especially because of the way the last year has played out since then.
But, yeah, I mean, that's a great use of perspective. Yes, and it also was one of those games that, like, the Sixers won it, and I don't think –iid wasn't full-on Embiid.
He wasn't Hulk Embiid. He had like 17, 18 points.
19 points, but he was not great shooting, and so you've got to feel pretty confident if you're a Sixers fan watching that being like, oh, yeah, Harden and Embiid weren't – it wasn't like your stars beat them. Tyrese Maxey beat them.
Harden wasn't bad, though, but I can't figure out if that's a case of having the lowest possible expectations for James Harden and him barely surpassing those. I think he went like four for seven from three.
Yeah. So he made a few outside shots, which he hasn't been doing recently.
And also maybe it was just Rusillo poisoned our brains. Yep.
And telling us. It would be very funny if James Harden just had like the playoffs from hell this year and just dominated everybody.
He got the MVP over Chris Paul in the finals. Actually, I'm rooting for that now.
Maybe even let Chris Paul win the finals and have Harden win the MVP in a losing effort. That would be hilarious.
You just have to tip your hat. Harden also showed up with one of the craziest jackets that I've ever seen that had it had just two puppets attached to his jacket and i guess it's something you could actually buy at gucci um i yeah i think they just make it for james harden he's got a guy yeah he's but then they like put it on in the store so they're like no no everyone can wear this i bet that there's a guy at gucci that's like making stuff for james sardin just doing it as a joke like if i tell him that this is cool he'll believe it's probably that other gucci what is it the paolo gucci yeah the brother that got kicked out of the family that nobody liked yeah it's probably him that's the guy that's making it look like a a costume where it's like all right i have a jacket that actually is a real jacket and then then I just have, like, I over-ordered BarkBox toys.

Let me just throw a couple things on this.

Yeah, staple Gumby to it and tell them it's cool.

Yeah, and then Saturday night,

we were reminded that the Warriors are fucking awesome.

Yep.

And Jordan Poole is really, really good.

Warriors are back.

When I said that, like, don't be surprised

if this Nuggets team does something.

Oh, oh, I thought you also said surprised with the Warriors. No, no, the Warriors are my pick out of the West.
I like that. They're my pick out of the West.
The Nuggets were my don't be surprised if they do something in the playoffs, which is just, again, me saying making a pick without ever having to be accountable for it. But it does all hinge on the fact that they have two other star players that are out.
And today I saw an article that Porter is thinking about coming back. Oh, but again, this has been like twice a week in Denver.
If you need an article that needs clicks or needs attention, just be like Porter's thinking about coming back this week. Yeah.
He's been considering coming back for about four months, three months now. Yeah.
It's I've just kind of accepted the fact that it's not going to happen. And the Warriors do have the ability to flip the switch.
I'd officially like to, can I switch permission to switch my pick to the Warriors, just become a Warriors podcast? Is that okay? I mean, the Suns are beating the Pelicans pretty badly in the first quarter here. Is that okay? I do think – My Warriors box is my official pick.
I do think we could say that people forgot about the Warriors. Even though nobody really did, it's right at that stage of them kind of being talked about a little bit less that we can now hold the banner and be like we're the ones that never forgot about you guys and I wanted to there was a big storyline because Steph came off the bench because he had been injured and everyone's like look at this stuff coming off the bench and usually I'm cynical of these stories that get forced down our throat but I was like you know what that actually is very cool yeah LeB would never come off the bench.
How many minutes did he have? He had a shitload of minutes. He had a shitload of minutes.
But Jordan Poole was able to, like Jordan Poole had an incredible game and a lot of that because he started and was, I'm just going to give Steph the credit that he deserves in that moment because it is like one of those stories that we probably made too much of a deal about it. But Steph Curry, if he wanted to start with one leg, he would start with one leg.
You know what I mean? Like he calls the shots. So how does that work in terms of six-man-of-the-year voting? If Steph Curry were to come off the bench after, like sit out the first two minutes of the game and then play for the rest of the game essentially, could you be six-man or is it the guy with the six most minutes? I don't think you can be six-man just for the playoffs.
No, no, I'm saying in the regular season. That's what I'm saying.
Well, Manu used to have starter minutes, but he would come off the bench. Speaking of the awards, there's no bigger loser than the guy who's still arguing MVP awards as if the votes haven't been cast.
Like going game one, oh, and Bede had a bad game one. He shouldn't be the MVP.
It's like, dude, it's over. It's already been done.
Do you think that there's an element of the Sixers playing their games in Canada that makes us forget about their performance more? I always feel that way. Like if it's against the Raptors for whatever reason, I'm always more likely to gloss over in the early rounds.
I don't pay as much attention to that. I don't know.
That probably says a lot about my internalized xenophobia. But I'm like, yeah, the Sixers.
Here's the best thing I can say about what the Sixers did. They handled their business.
Here's what I think you're getting at, and I agree with this point, that the the raptors really got screwed with kawaii not coming back because teams that don't get to defend their titles yeah they don't last in your brain the same way yeah that was an awesome team right that raptors team felt different you want to feel old no you gonna tell me how time works yeah that's riley curry no way are you serious like a full-blown adult they showed her in the game and i was like wait what yeah it was uh i mean that is how time works children become uh you know i i don't know if she's a full teenager yet but like children get older no she can't blows our bridge yeah she can't be a teenager but still i mean you, I mean, we remember when she was two. It's like a grown up outfit.
She's got like zippers and stuff. That's like a track suit.
That's not something a nine year old wears. But it's just, she has a podcast? No, I'm saying like.
We were podcasting when she was super young. Yeah.
I mean, the Warriors in 2015, that's when she showed up on the stage and, you know, was ripping the curtains down. Well, she's a front.
She only came out after wins, and she wouldn't be there to address the media after losses. Yeah, but the Warriors are good.
And then, Jake, your heat handled business. Yeah, the most disrespected one seed in the history of basketball.
I'd agree with you. It's one thing, like I think it was the Hawks a few years ago, where people were like, they haven't been there before.
These guys have been there before. So it's not like the pressure in the top seed should be scary.
Bubble. Bubble.
That was a little bit different. Jake, you're in a room full of LeBron haters.
If we concede that he'd have been there, then we also have to concede that LeBron won the title. Not necessarily that.
Spolstra. Yes.
Spolstra has been there. Spolstra has definitely been.
Haslam. Been there.
Kyle Lowry. Kyle Lowry.
Been there. Yes.
Duncan Robinson. Maybe the best basketball playing podcaster in the history of the medium.
Unreal. He is putting it on for all representation matters.
And watching a podcaster do what he did today. I see him up there and I'm like, I can do that one day.
That could be me. I believe that, yeah.
27 points. Until I saw him do that, I was, well, no, CJ McCollum, probably the best basketball playing podcaster.
That's true. But seeing Duncan Robinson do it, it felt like I finally was like, oh, someday I can grow up and go eight for nine in an NBA playoff game from three.
I love when he hits his sick, like, off-balance three-point shots. He's the best.
I like watching him play when he's dialed in, but when he's not, it's very sad for podcast. I don't claim him when he has an off night.
Also, P.J. Tucker.
That's when he podcasts too much. He podcasts? Oh, P.J.
Tucker's been there. Yeah.
Got it. That's true.
He's a dog. Defending champion.
He is a dog. That is absolutely a fact.
One last thing about the Celtics-Nets game. Hank, Tatum doing the look at my hand is the coolest thing ever.
When he does an awesome play and he looks at his hand, I think that's one of the coolest celebrations that you can do. And his son.
I mean, obviously, I'm biased, but his son is cute as fuck, and he's in and around the team, and he's like the mascot for them. He's Riley Curry.
Deuce. Wow.
Deuce. Deuce? Deuce.
Deuce Tatum? Like, he'll be on the sidelines, and Marcus Smart will be inbounding the ball, and he'll try and be punching him and shit. Deuce Tatum's a character that Jean-Claude Van Dam played in like 1994.
I'll send you these pictures. They're fucking badass.
Roadhouse 2, Deuce Tatum. Wow.
Pain don't hurt. All right.
That is some Team of Destiny shit. Deuce Tatum.
Yeah. And then the Bulls totally gave away a game to the Bucs.
You know what that was, though? I think we all forgot about game one Bucs being a thing. Yeah.
Because if yeah because if you go back last year i looked this up actually if you look at what they did in the playoffs the last two years i think they've lost all but one game ones so i think they're like they're one in six and game ones over the last two years and they and when they lose they usually get smoked so if you're going on like historical context this was this was the chance that you had to beat them. And the Bulls have a little game one.
I can't remember if we did it twice. I remember, obviously, one time when the Bulls went down to the Heat and beat them game one in the Eastern Conference Final.
And then the Heat gentlemen swept them. So Bulls have some game one mojo.
But, yeah, that was a game. My expectations are very low.
I've seen some people being like, dude, you're being so down. I watched the Bulls.
Like anyone who's watched them has known that they have been one of the worst teams in the NBA, not just in the playoffs, the last two months. They played a lot harder tonight than they have against good competition in the last two months.
They just shot like shit, and a lot of that's Drew Holiday just being incredible at defense. But that did feel like a winnable game.
There's not a lot that you can do against Giannis, though. You double-team him, and then it's two passes away.
But Vuc, DeMar DeRozan, and Zach Levine shot 21 for 71. You can't win like that.
No, not great. You can't win like that.
So I just went in with very low expectations. And then the third quarter happened and I was like, ooh, could we fight here? And then you lose that way.
It feels like that was going to be one of our best shots in this series. Yeah, for sure.
Hank, did you want to do your embrace debate real quick? Yeah. We obviously talked about him a little bit earlier with the Heat stuff, but LeBron has been live tweeting all the games in the NBA, and I was just sitting wondering because on NBA on TNT, they kind of call him out.
They go to him into coming on and stuff, and this is kind of the first time that he has not been in the playoffs at all. So my embrace debate was will we see LeBron on the desk as like a panelist at any point during these playoffs? I don't think so.
I really don't. I think that LeBron is—do they let you drink wine on the air? Yeah.
I think he's— Chuck and Kenny? LeBron is actually becoming more relatable as he's doing this from home. And he's getting older.
Because he's experienced exactly what we all are doing while we're watching these games, which is getting drunk and tweeting while watching it. So lebron's like hey this kicks ass so i was thinking about it i actually think we could see it but i'm in a weird way i think it might be espn not tnt anything anything i think because think about it either yeah greenie is the consummate like you come on this show i won't ask you a single hard oh no, no, Greeny will have eight inches of LeBron tickling his uvula.
Stephen A. Smith has never been, like, Skip is the LeBron hater, not Stephen A.
Smith. Stephen A.
Smith isn't a full-on LeBron hater. I feel like that's a soft landing spot.
He could even have Magic come on with it. I think that it would be more likely that it would be espn than tnt they should actually let him do like his own manning cast style thing from his house just like him and his daughter drunk on the couch yep just watching the games and talking about it yeah i would watch that yes of course but yeah he is he's trying to get in the mix and uh i think the problem is he probably like scheduled his his like month-long vacation for after the finals never thinking he wouldn't even be in the playoffs his family's probably never seen him in may yeah so and like his kids are still in school so he's got to sit there on his couch and just be like all right this sucks but yeah i would like to see him on espn that'd be fun i mean i think even the biggest LeBron haters would still watch.
Of course. Because we would take them out of front of them.
Because you need ammo. And that would give you a full clip.
It would be incredible. Any other first game, first round notes? I'm trying not to overreact to the first games, but it is very much.
You did change your Warriors pick after one game. Yeah, I did.
I won. Well, I don't know if you saw, but I put 67 units on that game.
So I'm up 65.9 units on the playoffs. That's pretty good.
Yeah, no big deal. So I was very happy to watch them.
I think that's a smart move, honestly. The Warriors, people forget they're still the Warriors.
Yeah. I think, Hank, you've forgotten that they're the Warriors.

I made them my pick to go to the finals.

Yeah, that is true.

You're forgetting, though, Hank.

You should welcome people onto the bandwagon.

We're waking people up.

I think I can change my pick this early because we haven't even completed the first game of the first round.

And, yeah, I won a big bet on them.

Wait, does that mean I can rescind my whomping? No, the whomp bet is set in stone. Why are you feeling a little nervous about it? No, I was just curious.
I didn't know how the retractions were after game one. The Celtics might be decent.
No, I can't believe I got dragged into this. Oh, I can.
I'm sorry for making you part of the team, too. Yeah, content, baby.
Let's do it. Dude, you think the AWLsls want to see me pft or hank put a fucking horseshoe in no way nope you doing it that's that's ass that's yeah you'll be you'll be spinning you'll be puking you'll be on the moon i think you're gonna puke in under three minutes if it happens anything for that might come Mike what come why those yeah okay that was really weird that yeah that kind of ruined the Jake Hank Hank thinks that Jake will come I don't think that'll happen I think a lot of things could happen but you've never done I mean for you that is true I mean Hank's been on a heater recently.
Imagine if Jake just nutted. Yeah.
He was like, called it, cash those tickets. I don't think anybody's ever come from having an entire, a Wampus cat of dip in your mouth.
Billy, what are you going to say? To specify, it is a four-finger dip, so it's not the whole can. You just did three fingers with your hand.
This is four with a thumb. All right, so three fingers and a thumb.
Yes, that is the Wampus Cat grip of the dip. Okay.
I love it. And I will be doing a Wampus Cat if it goes to game six or seven, just so there's a definite Wampus Cat.
You just want to do it. Oh, nice.
That's actually a great team player. I will participate.
No, that's huge. Yeah, so there will be a Wampus Cat.
Because we didn't want, like, if we're doing a second take on the whole series, I think it's going seven. Like, that was a great game.
I wanted to go seven. Back and forth.
And it looks like it's going to be a series that has, like, the makings of an all-time series just based on game one, which I said I wasn't going to do. So I appreciate that, Billy.
Way to step up. Way to step up.
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Barstool Golf Time app now. My who's back of the week is Jordan Spieth.
Oh, yeah. Big winner today.
I was looking at him. I thought it was his first win since 2017, but he actually won one last year.
But still, there's a four-year gap, five-year, including this year. But won the RBC Heritage in a playoff.
He's back. He seemed like he fell off a little bit.
Sometimes with golfers, they are super, super hot, and then once they fall off, they kind of never make it back. Yeah, they get mentally broken.
Did you see what was up with his wife running up to him after he won? His wife was carrying their baby in one hand and sprinting down the fairway. Like with Sean McCoy? Yeah, like carrying like a loaf of bread and the baby was just like bouncing all over the place as she was sprinting down to him.
It was terrible baby security. So I, as someone who carries a baby you find like the grooves in the baby and you're able to carry him one handed like that.
You gotta watch this clip though because looked like she was doing a drill and somebody was going to reach out and just slap that arm. I know if you just watched, like, security cam of me carrying my baby, you'd be like, oh, dude, that baby's about to fall.
It's like, no, I got it. No, you got it.
No problem. Because, you know, three points of contact.
I got that baby. She was hanging on to it like a – yeah, LeSean McCoy is actually a great comparison as to her baby- baby carrying technique.
All right, that's your who's back? Yep. Any more? For who's back? Okay.
I got two. I brought two to the team.
Oh, wow. Oh, I didn't know what you were doing.
I got five. I just...
Billy, extra credit, Billy. I actually did six, but I'm just going to do one.
All right, who's your who's back? So I can keep the show moving. My who's back of the week is staying hydrated, specifically Russell Wilson staying hydrated.
What were you thinking, Hank? Your neighbors? Oh, no, no. Did you go talk to your neighbors? No, I didn't.
I thought you were going to be a converted waterist. No, I might be a waterist.
I might be a water guy now. I've been drinking a lot of it recently.
It's good stuff. But no, it's Russell Wilson has a new house in Colorado, bought it for $25 million.
It looks like a nice place from the outside until you look at the specifics of the house. It's four bedrooms and 12 bathrooms.
He's got 12 bathrooms in his mansion with only four bedrooms. My only thought is because he's the big Nano Bubbles recovery water guy, he must stay so hydrated that he can't be more than 100 feet hundred feet away from a bathroom i also like that's kind of sneaky genius because you like if you're if you're that if you're russell wilson you don't want friends and family crashing you'd be like i got four you how many if you listed russell wilson's new house on airbnb what do you think it would say that you could sleep because you know how airbnb will be like four bedrooms, it can sleep 25.
It's probably nine because you've got the master bedroom, then you've got a theater, but then you've got two others. Like lounges.
You've got the mother-in-law shed in the back for Future to stay in whenever he drops into town. There's no way.
They could definitely sleep comfortably 20 people, but it's smart to be like, nope, sorry, don't got any more bedrooms. Four bedrooms.
That one's actually my film-watching room. Yeah, we got a full-court basketball, but we don't have enough bedrooms.
This is my massage room. Yeah.
Not for sleeping. It does have a bed, but it's not for sleeping.
But yeah, nine-car garage, four beds, and 12 bathrooms. And maybe the most irritating part of his entire house is the basketball court that he has inside.
It's like a squash court that was converted into basketball. I want to go full.
So it's got, yeah, it's a half-court basketball, but not just half-court. But it's also not even wide enough to have anything.
It's basically the key. You can practice foul shots in there.
You can play knockout in there. But you can't actually play.
Which is fine fine like if if one of us had that that'd be the coolest thing ever but if you're russell wilson and you buy a house for 25 million i want the full court yep i want a full court oh i want not only i i i'll go one more i want the full court but i want it to be like middle school where you can drop fucking rims all around you can play with you know there's six rims you got yeah you got six of them two of them you can lower down yeah to eight feet if you want to do a dunking contest yeah give that play play you could have a fucking aau camp in your in your house i would get i would get a giant scoreboard that's suspended from the ceiling that i would keep track of during my own like pickup games that i've had there did you see i've the horn, the buzzer. I have like a sound system.

Yeah.

It's sweet.

Denny Hamlin has that.

Like that's how you got to do it.

Did you see by the way that guy, it went viral.

He has a Jumbotron in his living room.

Yeah.

Total dudes rock moment.

That's awesome.

Like no, that has to be the most annoying thing to have like pretty much every day of the

year.

Yeah.

Except maybe Sundays.

And then you're like, this is sick.

That is.

And then your friends leave after watching games there on Sunday.

They're like, damn, that Jumbotron was... Did they really have to play Pump Up the Jam during the third quarter? No, it's an awesome thing for friends to come over and experience.
But then you have to live in a room that has a Jumbotron hanging from the ceiling when you're just trying to watch Schitt's Creek. Like, yeah, why is my fucking uh electric bill similar to growing like you know seven acres of weed what the fuck is going on it is sick though yeah it was dude rock all right my who's back so i have two uh one is each row he threw some gat i love each row because each row is uh the quintessential i think most athletes are like this but no one embodies it quite like Ichiro where you know how it's like you don't retire, the game retires you.
Ichiro, I think he went and played in Japan after he retired. Well, he came back, and then he went back and played in Japan.
He wants to just play baseball until he's 100 years old. It reminded me so much when he went out of the mound how awesome those like early 2000 mariners jerseys were yeah so clean yeah and he came out full full kit which would normally be like what the hell is this guy doing but then he threw gas 93 miles an hour oh they had the gun on the gun on i saw it looked like he caught the corner maybe yeah he was throwing gas and then my other who's back we haven't talked about him, but Baker Mayfield, I think we missed it in the mix of all the playoffs starting, but saying that he would like to go to people's work and boo them.
I say that's acceptable. Yeah.
Well, and I would say that Baker, if I was making $20 million a year, I wouldn't be bothered. Yeah, well, probably not, but that's not Baker.
I don't think so, yeah. Baker's never, he's always been bothered by everything.
Yeah. He should actually, he should take that out on Deshaun.
Deshaun Watson, just boom at practice. Yeah.
Is he going to, he's not like going to show up for workouts and stuff, right? I don't know. That would be very awkward if he went into the season as like the backup quarterback on the Browns.
Yeah. Where is he going to go? I guess he's got to wait till the draft.
Yeah. You never know.
You never know. That was the podcast.
What? Oh, he was on You Never Know? The You Never Know podcast. With Mike Studd? Yeah.
Who is not Mike Studd anymore, right? Just Mike. Just Mike.
Shout out Mike Studd. Yeah, just Mike.
Just Mike. You never know.
Yes. He's an OG.
Yeah, we've known Mike forever. The video, I mean, they're sitting on his couch, and the video of just Mike's dog was sleeping in the background, like rolling around.
So that's what everyone was commenting on. So it was like first take, you're watching Baker Mayfield, you just see his dog in the background.
I mean, that's genius by Mike. Yeah, dudes rock.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, his dog's nuts.
It was like spread eagle on the couch behind it. Like Paul George.
Like Paul George, yeah. Baker just has his elbows in it.
Yeah. How about Paul George? Genius.
I didn't even know they were testing for COVID anymore. Just Paul.
He's just like. Paul was driving on the way to the stadium.
He was like, you know, I'm going to swing by CVS real quick. Pick up a PCR.
Just in case. Spit on this.
Yeah. Playoff PCR is what they're calling him.
Yeah. Just maybe a little red ink.
All right. I'm out.
No one can make fun of me. I mean, he was genius.
He's smart. I don't think he was going to do anything this postseason that would have even begun to change the narrative about him.
He probably called up Kawhi and was like, so? And Kawhi was like, nah. He's like, okay, cool.
Yeah. I'm out.
Kawhi's going to be back like February of next year, I think, and that's when playoff people will be like, okay, this is the year. It never felt like this was...
You know what? I'm glad that he did that because I don't even think I could have mustered up the energy to enjoy a playoff P, playoff L. It wouldn't have been the same.
I had no expectations for him. There's no buzz around him.
Next year when Kawhi comes back, then we'll be like, okay, this is a Clippers year. It'll be so much more satisfying to watch him lose.
So thank you, Paul. God bless Kawhi Leonard because I think this is by design, but there's never been a superstar in any league that you just forget exists for great lengths of time.
And I think that he enjoys it that way. He's a slow healer.
I think he'd rather us just forget he exists, but it's happened multiple times in the last five years where're like oh kawaii yeah yeah what's he up to i mean the beauty about nba contracts is that you can do stuff like this you can just straight up like what zion's doing yeah you just be like i you know what i think i'm gonna burn a year off my deal and not play that and everyone's like well shit we didn't think about that when we did the cba i guess it got us by the balls now that that zion statement i had some big time derrick rose flashbacks when the the exact wording was zion and his team disagree with the pelicans assessment of his injury i was like oh boy that's never good i mean that's the start of the end if you're zion strictly from like a business standpoint it's a smart move what he's doing you would rather that if you have a player on your team that that you draft first overall to be like the future of your organization you'd want that ideally to be a guy that wants to play and wants to help his team win but from a business standpoint there's really nothing that's stopping him from just being like no I don't feel like coming back right now right and then disagree and then getting another year closer to a big max contract I just imagine that conversation going downward and I actually do side with the players more often than not because team doctors are employed by the teams and their literal job is to get players to play through anything but just having like the idea that they're sitting down in a medical office and the doctor's like so zion you're 100 and he's just like disagree uh-huh was it nope was not playing derrick rose's cousin no his brother his brother yeah he's like well my brother my brother doesn't think so it was just not it was it was never like as overtly as this one was just straight up nope we disagree but it was just bad all around like he could come back but doesn't want to come back, but they don't feel he's healthy, but he is. Who knows? I will say that I've heard players' interviews, and we've talked to guys, football players especially, where they're like, yeah, team doctors will just lie just to get you back out there.
Yeah. So I should walk that back.
I will side with Zion, even though it's frustrating. I understand it and even if if he is doing a thing where he's just like i want to get a year closer to getting a big contract right and getting in a position where i'm being paid a shitload of money as opposed to just like a decent amount of money i understand that from a business aspect but also if i was like a fan of the team yeah no that's it then i'd then i'd be like god damn it please play i i've been looking for i went out i bought your jersey the day you got drafted this was something that was very excited about and now it's not happening i would be disappointed if i was in that position exactly from afar i side with zion in this but i know that having lived through it i was like derrick please fucking play yeah and pelicans fans have every right in theory i think that this is a good thing.
When it happens to me, I'm very mad. It's like communism.
Yeah, right. I didn't sign up for this.
Alright, Billy. Someone has to do it.
My who's back is Jesus. There it is.
Good point. Someone did have to do that.
I'm mad that you took off your Easter shirt. You looked so handsome.
I was stunting. Billy, you got an Easter haircut.
It's good when you dyed the... Tips invisible.
Tips, Easter invisible. You shaved for Jesus? Did you get any cash? Did you get any presents? No.
Did you get any chocolate? I'm part of the... I'm in the time in my life where there's no little kids in my family yet.
So all the holidays kind of don't have a childish childish vibe anymore that's yeah so you don't have a kid yeah yeah you guys hurt fucking yeah gotta work on that anyway you'd be a good dad billy i'd be hyped to be uh not yet no but you would be a good dad i'm saying that right now i appreciate that yeah i think what he's a great dad whitey's very well behaved dog yeah you got you got good dad i did i did hang out with whitey a little bit this weekend and you can't tell a lot about a person from how their dog behaves and whitey is just like this little tiny meathead that just runs around not really making any sense with what he's doing it's perfect and very well behaved though yeah it's basically like billy so my other who's backs are football ish oh yeah football's kind of back. USFL.
Yeah, Jeff Fisher. Looked awesome.
Back. He looks like in shape.
He was just looking good. That's the extent of the USFL coverage I had was I just saw Jeff Fisher.
I was like, that's cool. Oh, and Paxton Lynch.
Fuck that guy. Yeah, Paxton Lynch.
Fuck him. So he had a pick and a fumble after coming back in.
And there were bad picks and bad fumbles too. I know you still hate him for that Memphis bowl game.
Most importantly though, Kyle Sloater finally started in a regular season professional game this weekend. And? He won.
Nice. So I actually had a future down on whatever the team, New Orleans Breakers, I think.
Yeah, sure. You could say any name.
I don't know. There's like a Bandits that's in there somewhere.
Yeah. But it's very funny to see these teams that no one's ever seen play before, and then they have odds as to who's going to win the regular season championship.
It's like, how does anybody have any idea what's going to happen? And is this season even going to make it to the end? I just know that there was a moment. I saw Jeff Fisher pop up in my timeline.
So I put it on one of my TVs and it was halftime and it was Jeff Fisher and Todd Haley. And I was like, Oh, this is sick.
And then I still didn't watch. Yeah.
So I'm just, I, I love football, but spring football just doesn't, I want, I actually, you want to know what's sick. I actually watched some spring football games and I wouldn't watch the USFL.
Like I a little bit of Georgia's spring football game. I watched a little bit of Ohio State's.
Shout out Vandy that can't even get a win in their spring football game. They tied.
How bad is that? They tied. 32-32.
You can't even get a win in your spring football game. The kicking game is awful in the USFL.
Miss Field goes left and right. One of the kickers was Zach Galifianakis' cousin.
They made sure to say that. Also, in other non-NFL football news.
That definitely was brought up in some big meeting. They were like, who do we got? Well, we got Zach Galifianakis' cousin.
That's going to do real well on social clip. Terrell Owens scored a touchdown in the fan-controlled football league.
Yes, yes. I saw that as well.
At the end of the game, garbage time. Also, guess who else is back? Swedish House Mafia.
Just dropped an album on Friday. First album in 10 years.
Whoa. Swedish House Mafia might be not as big of a deal in your life as it was in mine, but Swedish House Mafia is pretty awesome.
Billy, ten years ago I was way more drinking age than you. You were twelve.
I was at middle school dances listening to Swedish House Mafia. What's the biggest impact Swedish House Mafia has had on your life? Greyhound, the song.
Your cardio. If you want to get through a run, listen to Greyhound by Swedish House Mafia has had in your life? Greyhound, the song for cardio.
Okay. Nice.

If you want to get through a run, listen

to Greyhound by Swedish House Mafia. I'm going to

check it out. I'm going to do it.
Love it. Then my last

who's back is Bigfoot. There's

been pictures of a Bigfoot sighting.

I've tracked it down. A lot of states are claiming

that the Bigfoot was seen in

their state, but I've tracked it down to

Ohio. There was some Bama

people claiming that they found them in Bama, i know that this is like getting shared as misinformation i there definitely is pictures of what looks like a bigfoot but i'm not sure exactly where the bigfoot was seen but you just said oh wait you just said ohio so that's that's the first title yeah that was the first post in ohio building the banner's a lot of misinformation out there, but I just wanted to correct it and let you know that Bigfoot is currently in Ohio, not Alabama. Well, it's a Sasquatch.
It looks like a full-ground Sasquatch. How tall? I'd probably say 6'6 to 7 feet.
And what do you think they eat? I think they eat vegetation. I think they're huge.
Maybe a little omnivorous diet, but mostly heavy greens. That's how gorillas get their mass probably some sort of gigantopithecus but uh why would they choose ohio i feel like there's tons of greenery all right okay good highway system good enough for me yeah yep might be a buckeyes fan yeah anyway those are my who's backs thank you all right good job bill my who's back of the week is Yes.
In the name of walking someone with the bases loaded. Oh, yeah.
Corey Seager intentionally walked with the bases loaded. The Rangers still won the game.
Mike Trout's reaction was so funny. The Angels.
Yeah. Mike Trout was like, why are we doing this right now? It was also like the third inning.
Yeah. This isn't Barry Bonds.
Bottom of the fourth in a 3-2 game. One out.
There was also what I think is the most electric call in sports, the walk-off walk. Yeah.
That happened in the Orioles game, right? It was Orioles-Yankees. Yeah, the Yankees.
Aaron Boodman, she got tossed after the game was over. We got to hear John Sterling's call on that.
Yeah, strike three. That's an easy one.
I love a walk-off walk-off. And we're going to extras.

People, like the way that the stadium reacts and the players on the field,

like jumping up in the air, sprinting out on the field after a walk.

Amazing.

And then the umpire always sticks around to make sure he touches his own plate.

Yep.

Attention to detail.

Yep, you have to.

The umpire in that spot is similar to the ref counting threes in the three-point contest.

But, yeah, this is a crazy, crazy incident here. I really want to get John Sterling's call.
Damn. Damn.
Can you find it for us? I can look for it, yeah. He probably was so confused.
Like, how can the game end on a walk? Alright, let's get to, speaking of baseball, let's get to Jake. He had an awesome interview, and we have a sponsor before.
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Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest, one of my favorite baseball players of all time. He is a world champion.
He's a Cy Young winner. It is Jake Arrieta.
Jake, thank you for joining us. And I truly mean that.
We can get into my Chris Farley, Paul McCartney type of questions later. Yeah.
Because I went down memory lane before this. And yeah, it's going to be Chris Farley, Paul McCartney at some point.
But good to see you. Let's start with this.
So you not pitching right now are you do you want to announce your retirement are you officially retired well I haven't signed the papers man but I'm I'm done you know it's it's it's time for me to step away from the game uh at some at some point the uniform goes to somebody else and it's just my time really you know what's funny too is carl texts me and we're kind of talking a little bit uh throwing some ideas around for the for the future and i go man hey i just signed with the tokyo giants and i get like radio i get radio silence from him and so i text him a few days later and i go man i was just i was just fucking with you so uh everything's good and then team in, a team in Mexico, I don't remember the name, but they sent me an email and a bunch of texts like, Hey, we'd love to have you while you're looking for a job. You know, we've got these guys on the roster.
I'm like, dude, I'm not going to Mexico unless I'm drinking pina coladas. Like I'm not, you know, it is what it is.
So yeah, man, I'm, uh, I'm done. Okay, so obviously last year didn't go great.
We can address that real quick. I'm very curious.
I was happy that you were back with the Cubs. Like I said, you're one of my favorite baseball players of all time.
How was it, though, with David Ross as your manager last year who you played with and then having to have that difficult conversation like, hey, this might be over. Yeah.
You know, having David as a manager was great. Look, I don't know if there's anybody else that I'd rather play for.
The field general goes out with a home run and his last at bat in the World Series, right? Like, he's my guy. He's one of my guys.
So regardless of what has to happen behind the scenes with, with my performance or, or where the team, the team stands like that, that's just part, that's just part of the job description, right? It's a difficult, I mean, we had an, we had some emotional moments, right? Like I was, I was at a point where I was doing everything I possibly could to make things work. And, you know, unfortunately, and I came to this realization around the 19 season, towards the end of the 19 season, that, man, look, my body feels amazing.
But the old whip, it's just, it doesn't rotate the way it used to. whether i like it or not that's just kind of where things were going you know and it got to a point where i just couldn't feel my arm in in space at release and it was most dramatic on my my curveball and my change up right like i was hitting guys with change ups and those are two pitches where i could i could throw where i wanted right velocity was not the issue i was still you know 91 94 i could not physically feel where my arm was at at release you know and trying to trying to keep it going trying to provide for for the organization and for a fan base and for you know for my teammates my teammates, you know, and doing what I did in Chicago before, like it sucked to be in that position, you know, to go from warming up before games and hearing the fans in the stands going nuts and kind of knowing that I was going to dominate.
And then last year it's like, Oh, hopefully he gets to the third inning. Right.
So it, it sucks it sucked. It did suck, but it is what it is.
There's no script that you can, like, look at and say this is how it's going to play itself out. It just – it happened that way, unfortunately.
But, you know, we're here now. It's all good.
I don't regret anything, you know. Chicago is my city.
It always will be. But, yeah, would I have liked it to go a little bit better? Sure, of course.
I don't regret anything. Chicago is my city.
It always will be.

But yeah, would I have liked it to go a little bit better?

Sure, of course.

I would have liked to see it through last year with the boys all year.

But hey, man, I had a seven.

So what are you going to do?

It's the way it goes.

Yeah, and at your best, you were filthy.

Actually, we always have this debate on the show when we talk about baseball pitching. Is it better to be filthy, dirty, or nasty? And which one were you? I mean, I was all those.
I was all, I was all those, man. You know, I just really, it really was for a while there.
And especially that second half in 15, I was, I just did a podcast and I was talking about how you go from one start to the next. And like, I would forget the one before because it's, it's over, right? Like I was so focused on not the numbers, but just like getting 27 outs.
Like that was literally what I thought every time I took the mound is I'm getting 27 outs and everything clicked. I mean, the stuff was always there, right when i was in baltimore i was 93 98 with with all the movement just without the command right so being able to like kind of put it all together uh having having the mound presence the demeanor uh the the filthy stuff the dirty stuff the nasty stuff and then also the it, right? It just all kind of clicked.
And, you know, for three or four years there, you know, things went pretty well. So I don't know that much about you personally, but from what I've gathered watching you pitch, you seem like a guy that on game day you're a psycho.
You turn into an absolute, like, you know, like Max Scherzer kind of has that vibe where, you know, when it's not his day to pitch, he's the nicest guy. People hang out with him, shoot the shit, whatever on game day.
Absolutely dialed in. Is that a fair way to describe you? Yeah, I think, you know, once it got to about an hour before the game, I wasn't really the easiest guy to talk to.
And it wasn't because, you know, I didn't like you or i didn't want to have conversation like these were in right airpods were in or headphones were on and i was just going through my routine and like i just wanted to beat you so bad that like i i didn't have time to even say hi to you right like and from the outside from the outside looking in, I talked to guys about this all the time. Like when we, they would play against me, like, Oh, like, you seem like a dick or like, you're just not, you're not a nice guy.
Like you said with max couldn't be further from the truth. Love max.
Right. But like, there's something about those, the highest level of competitors that whether you're pitching against somebody you don't know, or your best friend, it doesn't matter.
Like I'm doing anything in my power to beat you. And then afterwards, Hey, let's, we'll grab a beer.
That's like, whatever, however it plays itself out, but there's a place that certain guys go to, to kind of dial everything in, maintain that focus from start to

finish, because I was, I was guilty of this early in my career, having, having pretty good focus,

but having that lapse and, and, and concentration, even, even if it was briefly, right. Just for a

brief moment, next thing, you know, you give up four runs, right. And that's, that's a, you know, that's giving credit to the opponent, right? They make a lot of money, too.
They're really good. So if you have that last focus, even for a little bit of time, you risk getting your ass kicked, right? So that's kind of why I was always dialed in the way I was.
So between those Cubs teams, when it was you, Lesterester and there was also a year or two when when Lackey was on the team who was who was most like don't fuck with that guy before a start because I would actually as as psycho as you've seen before a start I'd still probably put my money on John Lackey because he's just a scary dude but those are three dudes that like you don't want to fuck with while they're on the mound and also before they're on the mound. Man, that's funny because you're spot on with lack.
But, I mean, it couldn't be further from the truth if you actually hang around him. He's the biggest goddamn teddy bear on the planet, right? I mess with him all the time and and less less do the same way but on game day you're you're right though like in and lackey would always say this he's like i wasn't good enough to not go to that place right he's like i didn't have the 97 to 100 right i like i was just he's like i'm a normal white guy with decent stuff and i throw strikes so i had to be that like asshole kind of kind of vibe right on game day but uh i mean lester had a little bit of that in him too right like if he if he had a rough rough inning or something like that you didn't want to be in the way as he's coming down the steps yeah yeah what about uh like the umpire interactions that you guys would have? Because that was another

thing with Lackey. I always thought that he

would have certain games where he would

almost bully the ump to be

like, hey, this is what you're going to call.

Would you feel like you'd be able to do that?

Once you establish

yourself as a premier

pitcher, did you think that maybe the umps

gave you more respect or

explain things better in between innings? I think lackey had the shortest leash with umpires lester was probably two i was i was three i gave i would typically give the umpire like two or three before i started chirping at all yeah but i i wouldn't say anything and then when i would i would like scream at them like you know just say hey like i've given you three or four like you need to figure it out you know and and when you would do that you would notice that the umpires would typically let that slide right because they know when they they miss some pitches right like if the guy i understand if the guy's setting up a foot hit the glove, like that's a ball, right? But if I'm, if I'm in the zone, I'm hitting the glove repetitively and you keep missing the same pitch, then I have to say something. Right.
And it's, it's not to be disrespectful. It's like, Hey, I'm, I'm working my ass off out here.
This is not easy. Like if I execute in the strike zone, you got to raise the right hand.
Like that's, that's kind of what it came down to. I mean, John would, John would, I mean, from the get go.
Right. And I think he had several of these moments, but he's like, you know, if you miss, you can't miss the first pitch of the game as the umpire.
Like what, where are you at? You know what I mean? Like first're gonna you're gonna ball me on a ball down away so uh lackey shortest leash lester second me i think i i gave him a little bit more leeway yeah i used to love watching lester pitch it always it boggled my mind but it was also kind of funny to watch from an outside perspective um when he would try to throw the ball to first base whether it was on like a or to the pitcher or if it was a pickoff attempt. I have to assume that you guys, you know, like spring training, you work on that sort of thing.
Would he be able to do it in spring training? Man, he would. Like he would go out there, you know, we would say we'd stretch at 830, 9 o'clock.
He'd go out there with one of our infield guys or one of the pitching coaches. I mean, even Rizzo would go out there with him, bucket of balls, work on throwing the ball to first base.
Just one of those things, man. He did not like throwing the ball over there.
And I'll kind of equate it to, like, me trying to throw BP to my son's team, like, last year and the year before, when they're, like, just starting to be able to, you know, hit a little bit. Right.
But I can't throw slow. And it's the same thing.
Like, dude, I just real quick story. My son's last game of coach pitch, we lost because I struck five guys out and I hit three.
Like trying to. And you know what? And the parents on the other team are like, who is this guy?

Why are you letting this coach throw?

You know, but it's one of those deals where it's just,

we're not used to lobbing the ball. Right.
And so it's just one of those things.

Go back to the, to the little league thing.

Like you're only pitching to your son's team and then the dad of the opposing team or whatever is a guy that probably didn't win a Cy Young no I don't think so was there any of the five strikeouts that felt good because I feel like there's probably one kid that you were like I don't really like you know like that felt good like that I put that pitch perfect that that was a good strikeout. A hundred percent.
Now that you mentioned it, it wasn't even,

it wasn't even necessarily where the pitch was just,

maybe the kid was like a little shit, you know,

you get, you get five pitches, right? So, um, whatever,

whatever the result is like, okay. All right.
Um, okay.

That's three pitches. I get two more Jesus throw one of these down the middle

so the kid can hit it. No, I missed.
Okay. This is the last pitch.

Thank you. like okay all right uh okay that's three pitches i get two more jesus throw one of these down the middle so the kid can hit it no i missed okay this is the last pitch there's a lot of pressure there's a lot of people watching and i hit him like oh my god all right well you know what that's it and when you get hit you don't get to go to first like you just go back to the dugout so it's even it's even worse that's so fucking funny you know that's messed up yeah so like uh and look love love lester death yeah uh one of my guys i don't understand why more people didn't steal off of him i know i mean it's kind of like out of respect sometimes they would take like 10 15 foot leads knowing that there was nothing my favorite thing that he ever did you remember remember when he threw his entire glove to first base? Yeah.
The ball was actually stuck in his web on that one. But then he did have a he picked a guy off at least once or twice where he just bounced it to first.
I think it was against the Cardinals. It might have been like Tommy family enough or something like that.
But yeah, I I mean guys sometimes have that I've seen it with people in the past that just physically can't do it unless they're throwing it at max effort that's that's that's incredible so all right so I'm gonna do my Chris Farley thing because uh obviously I was a huge fan I was at a bunch of these games because I had season tickets but so for people to who don't know the context here, Jake had a stretch, a five-month stretch from 2015 to 2016. I looked it back up, and I was like, even looking it back up, even though I lived it, I was like, holy fuck.
You went 26-1 in 28 starts. The only loss that you had was when the Cubs got no hit for the first time in 50 years.
Literally the only time that Jake Arrieta lost a game was because the Cubs got no hit the first time in 50 years. You had two no hitters in that stretch.
You had 162 in a third innings pitched, 26 earned runs, and 200 strikeouts. That, for my money, I remember going to the one memory I have that's very vivid is the 20th win that season in 2015 against the Brewers when you pitched nine in and shut out.
And it was like this feeling that every time you started, it was a legitimate question. Will he get a no hitter? And I have to ask, like, did you, was that just the coolest feeling in the world to get up there being like, I know there is nothing these guys can do to touch me? That was a mindset.
And it was, yeah. I mean, the best part about that is what I was able to, you know, because we were, we were progressing to becoming, you know, that World Series contending team.
Right. when I got there in 13, you know, it was still just like a team full of, uh, you know, some one year deal guys, young players, the revolving door 14, you know, I think I had like a two, four, two, five ERA.
I had a real nice season. And then we had some draft picks that were ready in 15.
We signed, we signed Lester. Then it was like, holy shit.
Like we got Schwarber. We had Addison Russell.
We had Chris Bryant. We had Javi.
It's like, damn. And they're all ready to go now.
That's, that's one of the rarities of it. You know, and you give Theo credit and the, and the rest of the front office for drafting so damn well to get this group of guys ready at the same time.
Right. Crazy.
But yeah, man, like I just the delivery was was on point. The the health obviously was was paramount.
Right. Just being able to go out there every five days.
And every time I went out there, it just led to more confidence. Like each and every time I went out there, like you said, I expected to get 27 outs or I expected to at least be in the eighth inning, right? With the team having the lead, you know? And yeah, it's, and I, a lot of it was a blur.
And I think that's, that's because I was only focused on my next start. Right.
And then once that start was, was passed, doesn't matter anymore. Now we got to do this.
Right. And I wanted, I wanted so bad to be a part of the group of guys that erased that 108 year you know drought we all did right and all being being able to provide something unique to that team and this is something i mentioned uh in the podcast i just did we had the same starting five all year like how many times has that ever happened right like i i'm sure it's it's probably happened maybe like decades ago but can you remember back to another team that had the same starting five from from the end of spring training to throughout the world series yeah it was it was crazy it was the whole thing the ride and like you said the the 14 season led into the 15 season i don't know if this moment.
I've told it before, but I was lucky enough to hang out with you guys during that. After you guys had clinched, we were at Country Club, and it was before the Pirates wild card game.
And I was like, I'm kind of nervous. And you looked me dead in the eye, and you're like, we're winning that game.
And then you went out and pitched nine-inning shutout. And that was like how locked in you were.
You looked me – I was so scared when you looked me in my eyes. I was like, you had a glass of wine and you're just like, we're winning that game.
I'm not – we're winning that game. That's a fun story too, man, and it kind of goes a little bit further.
So we're on the flight to Pittsburgh. And, you know, there's – guys are nervous.
I know I'm pitching the game and me and Dex start you know start talking and um you know he's like it's a big game and nerves are kind of there and I told him I said give me one run right that's all I said I said you give me one run we win the game and kind of same thing that that you know i told you i'm kind of walking up and down you know the rows of the plane i think i had it you know i think i had a beer in my hand and just telling everybody the same thing because i knew i knew people were nervous right like no i i got you we we get one run the game's over and sure enough shorber goes out there and hits a lead off homer yeah right like and then that was and then you know dex came up to me and i i go hey that's it it's game game's over and shorber i've heard the story that shorber went in the tunnel after he hit that home run and just screamed to himself suck my dick pittsburgh and oh he does that that's that's his thing man and he uh i mean he did the same thing um shit game one of those games in cleveland right like he's just screaming it on first base right that's you know and it'd be it would have been awesome to have that same group uh forever in chicago but i mean, had he not loved Schwarber, he's – and I tell the boys in Philly, like a lot of – like Miles Teller is a good friend of mine. He's like, hey, what do you got on Schwarber? I go, bro, you guys couldn't have signed a better guy.
Yeah. Right? Like if you like a leadoff hitter that's going to hit you 40 home runs, you know, in front of Harper.
And that's's a nice lineup by the way yeah yeah it is yeah and that's a nice lineup yeah he schwarber's one of those guys we're lucky enough to meet a lot of guys but he's one of those guys i've gotten to know and it's like i genuinely just root for him no matter like he could be on any team even maybe even the cardinals i might even still root for him personally we're just saying he's easy yeah he's easy to to root for, man. And he's just like he fits in anywhere.
He's just a baseball guy. You want him on the team.
He's good in the clubhouse. He's funny on the flights.
Like he's just one of those guys, right? So wherever he goes, like you said, he's easy to root for. There's also something that's just awesome about kind of a big boy mashing taters, just like dogs yeah he's thick man he's thick yeah and he moves deceptively quick too for his size yeah he's pretty athletic yeah he is he is he's like a propane tank with ears he's i the other story i tell i don't know if i've said this one i you might have been there too i was uh like i said i was very very lucky to be able to hang out with you guys during those years.
But I think it was Rizzo's event, and we all went out to dinner, and Schwarber was eating a salad, and he was just like, fucking Theo says I got to lose 15 pounds. And he was like, I've never seen someone so sad about having to eat a salad at a steakhouse.
And that was like, you could feel it. It was great.
It was like, you're a dude. You're dude you're just a guy yeah yeah i mean he he's gone through those little periods where you know he had he had the knee uh the knee happened in 16 and i mean he busted his ass like like i've never seen before to get i mean to come back right like the way he did and you know we had uh you know josh katt was the uh was the owner of a company called kitsch fix and i think they're probably still still big in chicago but he would you know we kind of fuck with shorber but they would always put like this big bag of pre-made meals on his chair right like this is this is what you have to eat whatever but um i think i think he's gonna rake either way yeah whether he weighs 220 or 240 don't matter he's gonna hit yeah yeah i remember talking to him uh when we went down to spring training one year and he was talking about his his prep and how he came back from the knee injury and part of that process was he just went out stood in the batter's box while they had a pitching machine fire 100 mile an hour fastballs he He just stood there for hours on end tracking them with his eyes, not even swinging.
That's the most psycho shit I think I've ever heard. That's almost like a meditative state that you put yourself into.
That's one of those little things that you hear a great player do that you're like, oh, shit, why didn't we ever think about that right but that's how that's how you put in you put in the work and you and you get those those reps in you know when you have a torn acl right so fuck more more power to him for doing that and obviously paid off and yeah it was not not only a huge uh contributor contributor i mean during that run but in in the years that came after that and you know you just look what he's done in any lineup that he that he's going to hit it right he's a guy a guy that can that can hit lead off and and do that sort of damage you you don't you don't see it everywhere yeah we had him for like six months in dc and i was so happy to be rooting hit like 100 home runs that one weekend it was awesome um so yeah yeah so let's talk about baseball today um because now you're on the other side who's your favorite pitcher to watch and why oh i mean it's such an easy question if everybody on the planet doesn't say jacob de grom i mean they're not like you know what i'm saying like i've told people this for a couple years i think think he's the best starting pitcher to ever put on the uniform. Wow.
If he can stay healthy, right? And I hope him and Scherzer are on the I.L. currently still, correct? Yeah.
Which is such a shame. I think Scherzer's off, right? Yeah, Scherzer might be back, but DeGrom is, yeah.
So our game needs both of those guys, but most importantly, DeGrom. I mean, he's just – if you get to watch him in person, just what he's able to do with the baseball and what – and when he came into the big leagues, was it 2013 or something like that? Yeah.
So his average fastball velocity was around 93, maybe a take it's gone steadily up since then and now he's sitting 99 like averaging like it's just it blows you away to see what he can do as a starting pitcher so i think he's just i think he's in his own league right um and i i hope he stays healthy for another 15 years because if he can do that i think he'll'll be the best ever to do it. Yeah, I saw him live last year.
I bet the over on the game, and I think that was the game where we went out there and struck out like 16 people against the Nationals. It was the most dominating performance I've ever seen from a pitcher.
At some point halfway through, I said, you know what? Fuck it. I'm here to applaud greatness greatness and it was it was awesome to see it's it's a thing of beauty man i mean to watch a starting pitcher not only command the baseball have the mound presence but to to do it at that's that type of velocity right i mean he throws 98 to 102 you know and and why the catcher's, it's like it's there at 102, which is just a wild thing to witness in person and to watch him do it for 100 and something pitches and to also hear that now that his mechanics are as refined as they've ever been, like that's a scary so look i i i wish him all the health i hope i hope uh he gets back out there as soon as possible because man i just i love seeing it we're going to get back to jake arietta in a second before we do hello fresh is here to tell you about their pre-proportioned ingredients to your door so you can get convenience without skimping on quality skip the trip to the grocery store and don't waste money on excess food.
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Use promo code PMT16 for up to 16 free meals and 3 free gifts here's more Jake Arrieta I've got a hypothetical for you because I think we talked about what it would be like if an average person faced off against Jacob DeGrom I'm not going to ask you that but I will ask you at the peak of your career so we're talking like late um if i stepped into the batter's box against you and i had you throw a hundred pitches do you think i could lay down a bunt no not even a bunt a bunt fair yeah fair yeah i mean not like reach first pace but just make contact the ball's fair territory no there's just so many things that i would do like i'd throw you like high sinkers at your hands that it probably fell off your fist into your face i would you know i would throw you like i'll throw you the what you probably couldn't get the curveball down either but that would probably be your best bet right throw you a low curveball and just kind of kind of throw the bat at it i i don't i don't think so man i think if you threw me a curveball i would i would bail out of the box every time you could throw me a hundred straight curveballs that would start coming at me and i would never learn my life i would just bail out it's a hard thing to do i you know and eric my buddy we just did a podcast he goes well how long do you have to react you know is it like a second or a little more than a second i'm gonna do it it's like a two tenths of a second right right like by the time you you think you're gonna swing it's already too late and that's why i told them like it's that it's that much more impressive with what hitters are able to do with the velocity where it is in the game today because you almost have like at a hand you're either swinging or you're not. Yeah.
You know, it's just, I don't know. Another hypothetical, reverse it.

You won Silver Slugger in 2016 as a pitcher.

You hit, like, 262.

If you were able to bat all year, what would your average in numbers look like?

That's a good question.

Not getting consistent at bats is hard, right? You're hitting once every five days, still working on it in between. So you want to think that your numbers would maybe go up a little bit or stay around the same and have a little bit more power, but then you're just facing so many more arms, right? There's so many more opportunities for, you know, for failure.
Even you go through periods where you're hitting them a hard and you're still getting out. So it might sound like the right answer to say my numbers would be where they're at or higher.
I just think I'd get, honestly, with y'all, I think I'd get exposed a little bit more, right? Because look. Yeah.
Because I can hit the fastball. Like, I was ready to hit the fastball at all times.
But if you got ahead of me, if you throw anything that resembled a strike, I'm still swinging at it. Like, that's why it's so much more impressive to see guys, you know, it's a 1-2-0-2 count, and you throw throw this bastard curve ball.
It's like, how do you not even flinch? Right. So I'm pretty sure the numbers would have, would have gone down in a full season.
So, so from a pitcher's perspective, like, and could you feel it when you're in the batter's box, would the pitcher take a little off, like take a rest almost when the, when the pitcher position comes up in the NL? Because I always felt like that would be when a lot of the hits happen where it's like, oh, maybe they're not throwing their absolute best stuff. They're taking not a break, but it's a different mentality than going up against Mike Trout when you're going up against a pitcher.
Would you feel that happen from time to time? With certain guys. And from experience, 90% of the pitchers that step in the box, it's like, all right, I'm throwing a four seam right down the middle, right? Right.
But when you have like, you have Adam Wainwright, you have DeGrom, you have Cinderguard, you have Scherzer, you have Grinke, you have Baumgartner. When you have certain guys, you just know the guys that can swing it, it right and if if i'm if i'm gonna be a dumbass and throw grinky like 93 down the middle he's gonna put a nice swing on it is it a guaranteed hit no but i'm i'm doing him a favor and i feel like guys were the same way with me right like the guys knew i could hit you guys know i could hit the ball a long way.
So a lot of the times I would get like a first pitch slider,

which is a fucking terrific pitch to throw me first pitch.

You know, and if you,

if I got into a two Oh count and you threw a fastball,

like it better be in like a decent spot.

Like, but that doesn't mean I'm going to hit over the fence.

It just means I'm going to put a really good swing on it.

Yeah.

I think maybe my favorite career highlight of yours is when you were batting. It's not even a start that you had or a particular pitch that you threw.
You stepped in the box against Madison Bumgarner, and you put a shot out into left field, and it's like a sea of black and orange out there, except for the dude that caught the ball. He's the only Cubs fan in the entire stadium, and he hit it like directly into his glove.
It was awesome. Can you walk me through like that at bat and how awesome it feels as a pitcher to hit a home run off a great pitcher like Madison.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, really cool story. You know, we're on the road, obviously playing San Francisco and, and trying to try to move past them to get to the, to the NLCS.
And at the time, Bumgarner had been, you know, he had like 20 scoreless innings in the postseason or something. Like he was – that was kind of during his run of being like, you know, this titan in the postseason and just kind of bulldog and hard to beat, right? So it was a pretty was a pretty exceptional game and he kept throwing me up and in, right.
Which is from the left side, he's kind of slinging it over here and it's kind of coming across the plate. I think he threw me two up there.
I think I swung a miss and I took one for a ball. He went like a might've thrown an off speed.
I mean, I got two strikes. He's definitely, he's coming up and in again, right? So, I sold out to the up and in.
If he would have thrown anything middle away, I mean, I'm walking back to the second. Right? But I happened to guess right, put a good swing on it.
And off the bat, I'm like, shit, that's going to either – it seemed to me like it had a little bit of top spin. I caught it pretty clean, but it was kind of a line line drive.
And so if you see when I'm running around first base, the ball had just gotten over the wall and I'm kind of getting after it to, to get on second base for a double. And I see it's out.
I go to high five Brandon Hyde and he almost like spins me around. Right.
And like a corkscrew and I almost ate shit. But, uh, my favorite reaction was Riz in the dugout, just kind of seeing it on replay, his reaction.
And then Dempster told me he was sitting in the stands during that game. And he said he just kept screaming, the Russians cut.
The Russians been cut. Right.
Because, you know, at the time, Bumgarner hadn't given up shit in the postseason for a while. So really cool moment.
But, yeah, I've got some cool moments as a hitting pitcher. One I'll tell you real quick.
So in 20 – this might have been 2016. We're in Arizona.
All the starting pitchers throwing like five grand. Whoever hits the first homer, the other pitchers buy them a watch, right? So I think Lester started game one.
I started game two. I'm facing Shelby Miller.
First at bat of the year, I had a homer dead center, right? So I won the watch bet very first, very first at bat of the year. And Lester, like, you got to be shitting me.
First at bat of the year? Like, I mean, they were pissed, right? But I think that's a pretty cool one, too. We have that same bat here, part of my take.
First guy that hits a major league. First guy to bench that.
First guy to bench that. Yes.
Who's the hardest guy to get out right now in major league baseball? Or maybe even if you're top three hitters, that you're like, those guys, they do something different than everyone else, where it's just a completely different beast when you're facing them. Top three right now.
Okay. Soto.
Yep. And some of this is from nightmares from personal experience for these guys.
So Soto just, I mean, he's 21 years old or 20, and just the advanced knowledge of the strike zone to go along with his ability as a hitter is amazing. Again, hopefully he stays healthy and plays this game for a long time.
He's good for the game. Ronald Acuna has to be in there.
Again, hopefully he can stay healthy. Awesome that he's back from that injury.
That injury was awful in Miami. Those two guys are phenomenal.
Who else, man? Let's go down to teams, where we got here. I I mean and when he's healthy I mean Fernando Tatis yeah like when he's dialed in like he's going to the opposite field you miss with spin inside part of the plate he's taking you to left or left center for a homer.
Good strikes on judgment. So, I mean, I think those are,

those are three good ones right there, but yeah, I mean,

I could probably come up with a few more, but those are, those,

those three are tough.

Was there any dude that you pitched against that might not have been like a

superstar or a name that we would first think of when we're thinking of the

great hitters of like the mid two thousands or, or the teens that for some

reason had your number, like one guy that was a thorn in your side uh there are guys like that man um i'm trying to think early in my career in chicago and then uh well i mean look joey vato obviously he's he's way high on the list but i could never really get him out i got him out of kind of kind of like maybe three times in that no-hitter in Cincinnati, but I just got hits. I gave up – and look, I love Eric Sogard, but I gave up a grand slam to Eric Sogard early in my career.
Okay, that to me, that sticks with me, you know? And that was, I think, 2010, 2011. Wait, when you say that sticks with you you like how often does it pop in your head uh when i'm telling stories like my little league team they're asking you know they think they think that like you're always like elite and just like the best there ever was i'm like dude no like i i give up i give up a grand slam to a nine, right? And it, you know, more than it should.
Right, right. I love that.
Yeah, and I'm going to text Soge right now, you son of a bitch. He's like, I'm thinking about that grand slam.
No, there – I'd have to look back, man. But there are definitely guys that would hit in that, like, you know, seven to nine spot that i just couldn't get out right and some of it some of it early in the career is just kind of lack of focus you get through the first five six guys and you're like oh i got them and then you give up you know you give up three or four runs yeah yeah um get a get a headline grab going one way that every uh like it's always good to drum up some sort of headline of headline when players talk about the shift for whatever reason.
What are your thoughts on the shift? Are we banning the shift? Alright, well, this is a tough one because if you talk to guys like Rizzo or you talk to hitters that only hit the ball to the poolside, they get pissed, right? They don't want the shift. And I hate to say that I kind of understand it, same time and rizzo rizzo has been good like when he's when he's behind the count he'll go to the opposite field yeah like he'll he'll he'll hit those little line drives like in front of the left fielder he'll take his base hits like what happened to what happened to that what happened to focusing on being as well-rounded of a hitter as you can i well, let me answer my own question.
I think that some of it is this advanced analytics and these guys just telling them to be one-dimensional. Like, we want you to hit for power and continue to try and hit for power regardless, right? Yeah.
But, I mean, runs come at a premium sometimes, right? Like, it's not just guaranteed that you're going to score five or six runs in any given game, right? Like I've been part of teams that went through stretches where they scored one or two runs in the course of four or five games. So if I can get some production, you know, even if it's a base hit to the opposite field, then that puts the starting pitcher in a stretch, right? Things can happen.
Pass ball. Manufacturing runs shouldn't be a lost art, right? So I understand the argument for banning the shift, but I also don't like the idea of having the greatest product in the world, the greatest product of the sport in the world, the highest level of the sport, telling guys that they no longer need to learn how to be multidimensional as a hitter, you know? So, and look, I'm not dead set on that.
I love having the argument. I love listening to guys kind of discuss why it should or shouldn't be done.
And, you know i i don't love it yeah i don't love the shipping band i really don't what do you think what do you guys i agree with you like beat the shift yeah beat the shift there's lay down lay down a bunt yeah i remember once laid down a bunt to that side and it's like and like you said if you can beat the shift with an easy single to the opposite field then you can't't shift the next batter. You know what I mean? With a guy on base.
So everything kind of changes. So yeah, I'm with you.
I think that it's gamesmanship and guys should learn how to beat the shift. And then they won't shift.
Because that's the thing is all these things are numbers based. And as soon as a guy can prove that he can hit it the other way, they't shift them that's a fact and i've seen you see freddie freeman drop it down i'm you've seen a lot of guys you know i think that we've seen max muncie do it right like if you're gonna leave that entire side of the field open bryce harper's done it right like guys will do it so maybe they just need we need to do it more often but then you sacrifice okay your biggest thump in the lineup potentially like being on first base so i i see that but there are a lot there are a bunch of lineups in the game right now that aren't just provide a power by from one or two guys yeah right like there's a lot of guys who can leave the ballpark with one swing of the bat so and getting guys on base is it's a big deal for for more pitchers than you think right a lot of guys don't like to throw out of the stretch and you would think at that level it's just it's just kind of part of the game whether you're in the lineup or the stretch stretch but the guy on first base or second base can with him right and if the guy gets a second base now you have to deal with mixing in different sets of signs and uh you know or if he's not stealing your signs he can see the grip in your glove and then you change like the way you position your hands like there's way more variables that come to play than you think so getting a guy on base it does more than just you know create a situation where you that will lead to runs right it puts more pressure on the pitch yeah and yeah that's interesting and on the outfield too and on the infield like everything everything changes up the small adjustments i actually think so yeah home runs are fun i love home runs it's awesome to watch our producer bubba has a thing like a kink where he just sits down and watches youtube compilations of monster shots which is awesome i get that but you know what small ball is fun i think small ball is fun when you get like guys stealing bases and you get like manufacturing runs like you were talking about that to me is why i started watching baseball and what i loved when I was a kid.
Yeah. It's one of those intricacies of the game that makes it one.
It, it requires like a, another level of knowledge to understand that. Right.
Like if you're just like a common fan of the game, like, yeah, you expect to see home runs and you expect to see 100 miles an hour and all that

stuff but like if you really love the game you understand like the complexity of it and you appreciate the complexity of it right like um gaining gaining an extra 90 feet right like is is incredibly important whether that if that guy can move from first base just to second base there's so many more things that have to be done now with that guy there. Right.
If this guy and think about the play at the plate on a base hit, if this guy, if as a pitcher, if I can't keep this guy somewhat close to the bag. Right.
If I allow his lead just to get a little bit too far out there, that's the difference between him being safer out at the plate right so there's so many things that have to happen um and especially if you have a young pitcher on the mound you want to expose that right whether he has he has you know a great demeanor or mound presence or not like things speed up when guys get on base so that's something that you know can't go overlooked yeah um all right so this has been awesome jake we appreciate it one last question it's the row back question you take 20 off uh your first purchase with uh the code take at rho b-a-c-k dot com 20 off your first purchase row back question uh so you you played in major league Baseball for a very long time. Can you give me the top three cities that the team would be most excited to go visit? Top three cities that you'd be like, whether it be the actual field or maybe the clubhouse or the actual city in terms of eating options, what are the top three that everyone was – and also, side question, did you believe that there were ghosts in the fister hotel in milwaukee i never saw one we actually had a ghost hunter find him we stayed in there okay yeah oh with that with that show those guys from that show no we just hired someone i just remember vj who who you know obviously very well used to say that like shout out to vj shoutay, the man.
He said that like half the Cubs wouldn't stay there. Man, I like – if there are ghosts, like I want to see them.
You know, I'd like to see it. I think the whole deal with the Pfister was the wallpaper was so shitty and old that when you stay – It's a weird place.
Yeah, you stay in a place like that, the wallpaper makes you think – it reminds you of like old horror movies from the 70s. No, 100%.
And you know what? The Vinoy in Tampa has kind of got a similar vibe. Oh, okay.
I don't know if you guys have been there. Yeah, so we would stay there when we play the Rays.
So good question. Maybe not necessarily in any particular order.
Obviously, Chicago's number one, let's be honest. You guys are familiar with that city.
I love San Francisco. It's kind of gotten a little weird you know over the past couple years but i mean the food the people watching being being close to the water uh a good friend of mine mark bright owns a restaurant called angler that is right there off of the water not far from from the ballpark it's a it's a must.
Last time I was there, it was me, Rizzo, Tommy LaStella, and Ian Happ. And we had, like, this, like, 20-pound, like, huge crab, right? And they tell me, I'm like, hey, how much is that? They're like, I think it's – this crab is probably, like, 200 bucks.
I'm like, all right, yeah, great, great. And then the bill comes.
It's like a $500 crab. I mean, if you're off by – and great and then uh the bill comes it's like

a 500 crab i mean if you're off by and it was fine we still loved it but like off by 300 bucks that's that's that's a lot that's a lot i mean we whatever but san france cool i love the ballpark um and just walking around early like being kind of elevated in the stands and looking out at the at the Bay. Really cool place.

I haven't been to Toronto in quite a while,

but I've always loved that city. Yep.
Um, the ballpark is, is that, but I mean, the city's, the city's great, especially if you're there kind of in the late spring, the golf is phenomenal, uh, stand down near the water. Uh, I think it's Harbor 60 is the name of the restaurant.
One of the best in the world. Number three, let's see.
And look, I'm not a giant fan of New York, but I love to go for like three or four day stretches. Yeah, it's the perfect city to do that.
I love to go there for three or four days. I like to bounce around, grab a coffee, grab a juice, and just go for a walk, man, whether it's through Central Park or going down to Soho.
You can spend a lot of money there, which is fine. And I love playing in Citi Field.
Obviously, Yankee Stadium is great. Yeah, so those three are great.
Those are good answers. Those are good answers.
Well well we we really appreciate you coming on and also a special thank you i i i know you probably it was like a blip for you but when you decided in 2015 that uh the shirt that i made the we are good shirt was going to be your warm-up shirt for every single game um that was huge that was huge and then there was a day where i was out in the bleachers because I had season tickets in the bleachers. And I think there was like probably like 70% of the bleachers was wearing that shirt.
And I think Rickets looked at it and was like, wait, what the fuck? And tried to sue us because he's like, you can't sell that. I was like, yeah, that probably makes sense.
We probably shouldn't sell it. Well, I don't know.
Well, I think you should really just maybe take the if you got to get rid of the Cubs logo, maybe you should bring that back. That's a great shirt.
It was. And you wore it every single – like, I think I only sent you one, but you just wore it every single – I wore it every day.
Yeah, every day. I cut it to a V-neck, big V-neck guy, sleeves off.
I mean, when I got to the field, shorts, sliders on, and then we are a good shirt every day. It was the best.
You would, like, do push-ups before games, right, to get yourself warmed up? It's just one of those, yeah. Well, that didn't get me warmed up.
It was just kind of one of those last, like, things that I would do before I would start playing catch. Because the warm-up was happening, like, hour, two hours before the game.
That was a little showmanship for the fans yeah that's what I figured I was like I don't think that doing doing shups on the field really gets you like an extra no yeah like if that was my only only warm-up just like six push-ups yeah I am also I don't want to bring up bad memories but I also am convinced the 2015 NLCS if you had worn sleeves it would have gone differently you were you were sleeveless that was like one of the coldest baseball games i've ever been to well you were just badass with no sleeves well look the if anyone can do it it's a starting pitcher because you're out there you're moving right every pitch right so you're you're you're max max effort or exerting seconds. You're doing it again.
In between innings, you go on there, you throw your jacket on, whatever. I just I've never liked the sleeve.
It just always screw with me. And then guys like that could wear those old school baggy sleeves that would come up over your hand.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like psychopath. So I just I would latherather some red hot or whatever and it was tank top and then jersey like that's just and it was like it was no joke like 40 degrees with like a 15 mile an hour wind i was like layers yeah yeah what was colder was game two in cleveland yeah yeah that was that was unbelievably cold you know but yeah that's just kind of kind of my I hated sleeves, man.
So I tried to stay as warm as I could so I could go out there in those sleeves. And you were never a guy that would put on – I always love it when pitchers would put on the warm-up jacket when they get on base.
It's like we're not even going to try to run here. I absolutely, absolutely hated it, really.
That I've always been against. I just think it's such a bad look.
It's such a great marriage. Really, you know, that I've always been against.

I just think it's such a bad luck, you know.

It's such a great match.

Well, hey, look, I can't take anything away from Greg, right?

He's unbelievable, but cut it out with the jackets.

Yeah, I love it.

I kind of love it in a weird way where a pitcher gets on base

and they're like, I really don't want to be here right now.

I would much rather be in

the dugout.

I understand not wanting to run the bases.

Especially if you

say you're on first base and

it's a full count. There's six foul balls in a row.

You got to take off. You got to come back.

You got to take off.

That's not where you want to be.

The Jackets got to go.

Are you really that cold

to where you can't wait a few minutes?

It's a fair point.

I'm sorry. that's not where you want to be.
But the Jackets got to go. It's got to go.
Are you really that cold to where you can't wait a few minutes?

Yeah, that's a good, fair point.

I've actually, we've talked so much.

I have one last, last question.

I was just reminded of game six in Cleveland.

Was it a little bit bittersweet going out there and winning that game,

knowing that Marlon's man wasn't in attendance?

I don't even think about that.

Really? That would be the first thing I would think about. You know he's fucking there, right? You see that, especially it's like, what do you do? You're the only guy in this color shirt.
Well, he didn't go to Cleveland because the fans attacked him there. It has nothing to do with the fact that you can't see behind home plate on television.
It's just he didn't like the people there, so he didn't show up. We were told, like, hey, when you leave the field or your family and friends leave the field, tell them to not have their Cubs gear on.
Which, you know. So Marlon's man was right.
Yeah. Marlon's man was right.
Especially if you're in a damn construction shirt. Like, you can see that from anywhere.
Yep. Yeah, So it takes sketchy, but hey, I love Cleveland.

I've had a blast there.

And it's funny when I get the question, hey, like early in my career,

what cities do you not like?

Yeah, I'd have a couple.

But now it's like when you play long enough, you have your spots, right?

Like you have the places you like to go.

You got your food.

You got your golf courses and you're good to go.

I love it.

I love it.

Chicago, San Francisco and New York.

So you'll be voting for Biden again? What's that? Excuse me? Thank you, Jake. No, no, thanks, though.
Yeah, guys, it was a blast. You're the best, man.
We appreciate it. Hopefully, we'll see more of you.
No doubt. No doubt.
It was good being with you all. Jake Arrieta was brought to you by our great friends at shady rays i'm wearing shady rays right now they're the official sunglasses part of my take summer's coming right up it's spring it's sunglasses season it was nice it was beautiful outside this weekend was wearing my sunglasses the entire time and shady rays is the official partner part of my take and they're hooking you guys up they want to hook up the award-winning listeners to get your hands on a pair of Shady Rays.
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Okay, let's wrap up. We got a Monday reading.
By the way, I watched the Jordan Spieth video. The baby has every right to cry, but that baby was never going anywhere.
So that was like a – the baby is probably like, what the fuck, this sucks? Yeah, the baby did not have a good – The baby was never going. That ball, you could punch that baby out and it wouldn't go anywhere.
I don't know. Yeah.
There's some running back coaches watching that sweat right now.

Adam.

Okay.

This is brought to us by Billy.

Billy actually came out.

Billy, you want to do the reading?

Sure.

All right, let's do it.

This is a good reading.

Let me pull it up.

I found it on Reddit, and I forget what exactly.

Here, you send it to us.

I can send it to you.

Yeah, I'm pulling it up. Boom.
Perfect. Billy Football.
What subreddit? I think it is from the AITA, am I the asshole subreddit. Oh, nice.
No, it's from Relationship Advice. Nice.
Perfect. Okay.
Go. So I know this is a weird question, but my boyfriend likes to spend a lot of his free time digging a tunnel on some property that he inherited.
I haven't seen the full extent of it, but last I saw, it was remarkably deep under the surface. He spent roughly a year on it, and it's evident.
The front of the thing is deep, wide, well put together together at the front which is the only part that i've seen he's got cement beams electric lights even chairs and a small table time out okay time out real quick i obviously with the the table and everything but for a minute there i thought this was gonna be one of those joke posts like plot twist i'm married to my dog because like wouldn't that make sense that like my boyfriend slash my dog is just digging a huge hole or maybe it might be a guy that's got like a cosplay fetish where he likes to pretend that he's a dog and that's what he's doing there the the first thing that you mentioned that really caught my eye that I I don't remember reading about before is this is inherited land so it seems like I'm just thinking this might be a treasure hunt thing right off the bat.

Yeah.

Like maybe there's a will that's been left where it's like,

I'm going to leave you three riddles,

and that's the clue as to where the treasure is on the property.

Read that last sentence again about the construct of the hole.

The front of the thing is deep, wide, and well put together.

At the front, which is the only part that I've seen,

he's got cement beams, electric lights, even chairs, and a small table. Okay, this part, this is actually crazier that...
How do you have a tunnel in your backyard and not want to go in it? That she hasn't visited. Correct.
Because I don't think he lets her in. Okay.
I feel like this is a literal man cave. I'd like to go visit this.
Okay. I haven't gone into it, but it looked like the quality severely dropped as the tunnel went further.
Well, duh. You get tired.
That's how a tunnel works. Yeah, you want to make it look nice on the outside.
Yeah, you think like a coal miner? You think it's a fucking luxury bedroom at the bottom of that hole? Mostly becoming open dirt with some wood beams holding it up. My biggest concern is his safety.
I'm really worried that he's going to dig too deep and it'll collapse on him or something. Okay, she's ride or die.
Because her biggest concern is not, hey, my boyfriend just keeps going out every day and digging a tunnel. She just wants him to not get hurt.
Come back every day after he's done digging the giant tunnel. Yeah, like have fun with your little tunnel, just don't get hurt tunnel project she's i it sounds like they need to have a conversation like all this seems like it could be solved with her just being a normal supportive spouse and being like hey what's the deal with the hole yeah can you just walk me through it yeah are we getting some treasure because i'm in yeah what's what's your motivation here approach it that way okay i've tried voicing this to him, but he just laughs it off and assures me that he'll be fine.
Aside from safety concerns. That is...
No. No.
Whenever a guy says you worry too much, that means that you're actually in that moment not worrying nearly enough. Yeah.
That's every time I go pick up hoops, I'm like, my back is fine yeah i'll be fine i'll be fine so this hole is he digging it by hand is this a shovel situation it gets into it later okay aside from safety concerns there's also the fact that he doesn't really have a social life because of this thing oh yeah he does he's digging the hole and also probably he probably has bros helping him out with yeah has she clearly hasn't seen feel the dreams like if you build it they will come if if you one day are like hey guys want to check out my like mile long tunnel it's like that video if you if you've seen the tiktok of the dudes just digging a hole at the beach and then within like five minutes other dudes just stop by and they start digging yes if you if if a guy just if any of you and obviously New york city is a little different but if any of you at any point in your life were like hey i've been working on this tunnel for a year you want to come check it out the answer is yes no matter what guys love holes yes i'm pretty much the only person he still talks to outside of his job and he doesn't go out and do anything anymore it used to be dog it's a dog it used to be that he'd occasionally head out and do some digging on the weekends but now he spends almost all of his free time out there he still comes home but he barely spends any time with me and i know that he isn't doing anything but digging that damn hole in the ground this can't be good for his mental health but i don't know how to convince

him to stop he's always really happy when he comes back from digging which is why i haven't seriously tried to stop him before i think it's great for his mental health yeah it sounds like he's he's getting rid of all of his stress and negative energy in a productive manner on his construction project also just the idea of having like a task that you have to complete and just throwing yourself into it, that's good.

I also think that as men, when we're growing up, we're told that our lives will have so many adventures in them. Oh, I thought you were going to say we're told that you can't actually dig to China.
No. Well, I was told.
Maybe he's trying to find the devil. Maybe he's just digging until he finds Satan so he can kill him.
But I think that as we're growing up, at least I was under the belief and the assumption that I would have just nonstop adventures. Like you discover something and then you go on a treasure hunt.
Or we're told through cartoons and movies. And I think that guys just need adventures sometimes.
And it sounds like he's found his adventure, which we should be applauding this and encouraging it. Help wait does he drop a location going on obviously i don't think he's insane but i hadn't considered uh i had to swipe left to the new one and find my place obviously i don't think he's insane but i hadn't considered the mental health aspect of this and i just don't know what to do TLDR boyfriend spends all this time Digging a tunnel and I'm worried for both

His physical sane but i hadn't considered the mental health aspect of this and i just don't know what to do tldr boyfriend spends all this time digging a tunnel and i'm worried for both his physical and mental health i well physical no well i guess the tunnel collapsing yeah i guess that would be whatever that throw that aside it sounds like he's actually reinforcing it pretty well i think this guy is a genius like i what I... What do most people complain about these days?

Like, 2022, everyone's on social media,

everyone's living their life online,

everyone's looking at a screen.

This guy's found a way to beat all of that

by just building a never-ending tunnel.

It sounds like something that would happen on South Park.

Like, this guy sounds like Randy Marsh.

Yeah.

I could see an episode of Randy just decides

to dig a giant tunnel in his backyard. Or, now this just popped in my head, this could also be Elon Musk.
Isn't he a big tunnel guy? He's a big tunnel guy, yeah. He just never completes him? Yeah, he was digging that one to Halsey's house for a while.
Yeah. So maybe it is.
Could be Elon Musk. And this could be written by Halsey.
Yeah. No, she's too busy watching the playoffs.
She's a big NBA. By the way, she was firing off tweets.

She's very funny on Twitter when she's talking about basketball.

Yes.

It's the old meme of, like, guys will literally dig a giant hole in their backyard for years at a time instead of going to therapy.

Yes.

Yes.

It sounds like this is his stress relief right here.

It sounds like I would be more concerned if he just stopped digging the hole all of a sudden because then he's got all that pent-up hole aggression and nowhere to take it out on so looking in the comments one of the biggest remarks were that the greatest danger would be hitting uh pockets of natural gas yeah so if the tunnel doesn't collapse just he could hit some gases that would knock him out get a canary area though that oh natural gas but then they could be rich that should be the rest of their lives if he dies then guess what it means that he's probably found a tremendous source of energy yeah right i i he's fracking i understand that uh that concern but that's why they used to have actual canaries they'd keep down there in coal mines.

So the canary dies, and you're like,

fuck, I gotta split, this bird's dead.

So that's what she's gotta do, is she's gotta buy a bird.

Buy him a bird, problem solved.

Also, there's- I wanna go help this guy.

Like, if we could figure out a way to find this guy,

pardon my take, road trip.

Yeah.

Absolutely there.

I also think, like, this could be a long,

elaborate, just, like, suey thing that he's doing

where he's just like, I'm going to dig this hole until I die.

He's building himself a tomb?

Yeah, just death by hole.

Have you guys ever seen Lovely Bones? No.

Nope. Well, there's a dude who dug a hole

and he did bad things in it.

Oh, you think he's got

Buffalo Bill kind of shit? He's got a hose down there?

He's got... yeah.

Yeah.

Alright, so if that's the case, then cancel the road trip. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH would have to stay back in the car.
That's all we got to do. Jake.
Yeah, Jake. And then if we don't come back, then just call the cops.
Save the children. This could be us actually saving maybe hundreds of lives.
Or us having a great time. This guy's awesome.
I just want to at least talk to him. Let's get him on the podcast.
Dude, he's got a table with chairs, so you could definitely play some drinking games on it. He's building a bunker.
So, yeah, what does he have the multiple chairs there for? It sounds like he's already having dudes over to help with a hole. Yeah, when his friends show up.
Yeah. He knows that eventually this will be the biggest attraction in his town.
This honestly sounds awesome. Yeah.
I'm thinking of being a kid going out in the backyard and just digging, finding rocks and shit. Yeah.
That was maybe the best time I've ever had in my life. I would love to dig a hole right now.
Every day. Let's go dig also don't need a gym membership fucking digging a hole is hard work it's a great workout yeah there's no better tasting drink than like an ice cold lemonade after you've been digging a hole little little dirt under your fingernails we're in we're in jake what are your thoughts on on hole gate if i see a hole going down down in there won't help much.
Yeah. Just like stay away.
You're not a hole guy. Yeah.
Not a caveman. Any holes.
Yeah. Can't get worse.
In the hole? It could get better. Yeah.
What if there's gold? Then there's gold. Yeah.
Feels good. What if we're being bombed? True.
You raise good points. What if there's a tornado? Yeah, what if this is a shelter he's building? This reminds me of the song that Billy was playing right before we...
Go ahead. He attempted the 72 on Steak Challenge, which is called...
The song's just called Diggy Diggy Hole. And Billy, we were driving down the street in like...
No, it was in Arizonazona because billy was like hey do you want to hear a viking metal song about digging a hole i was like fuck yeah put it at the end of the show yeah yeah toss it on here diggy diggy hole diggy diggy hole it's actually hilarious it's by this italian uh band that dresses up as gnomes and they just sing about like digging a hole and they like perform as gnomes not gnomnomes, dwarves. Put it at the end of the show.
And please, someone, if anyone is listening to this and knows Hole Guy and wants to reach out, we'd love to have him on the show. And then go visit his hole.
And help him with his mission. Yes.
All right, numbers. Five.
Give me a 37. First tennis player ever on Wednesday's show.
70 minus one. 25.
22. 25.
None of us have gotten in a long time. 37.
Say that again. 2.
You've never gotten in. 3 out of play.
Come down. 63.
You've never gotten in, Hank? Second time 63 you've never gotten an egg second time you've wait we've all got except Hank I don't know that you definitely had it before Hank we talked

about it's like a week ago that's like the worst streak ever damn you suck at

this yeah I do Love you guys

Chimpanzees regularly hunt monkeys

Whoa Thank you. The End Take it, take it, make it so straight, come on brother, sing with me I am a dwarf and I'm taking it home Take it, take it home, take it, take it home I am a dwarf and I'm taking it home Take it, take it home, take it home The sunlight will not reach this low Break deep in the mine Never seen the blue moon glow First one's eyes alive Feel the glass and dance on me Stop your bellies at the feast Stumble home and fall asleep Dreaming in a deep.
Born on the ground, grown inside of you. The earth is a great, though the mountains shall become a tomb.
Face us on the path of fear, you will need your doom. We do not fear who lies beneath, we can never dig to deep.
And I'm taking a hold Taking, taking hold Taking, taking hold

I am a dog

And I'm taking a hold

Taking, taking hold

Taking a hold Thank you. The End Thank you.
Take me, take me home I am a ghost and I'm taking a home

Take me, take me home

Take me, take me home

I am a ghost and I'm taking a home

Take me, take me home

Take me, take me home

I am a ghost and I'm taking a home

Take me, take me home

Take me home Take it on.