Chris Berman, Super Bowl Week Is Here And Drive To 405 Recap

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Speaker 4 On today's part in my take,

Speaker 4 Chris Berman, the schwam, in-person, 80-minute unbelievable interview. We've been wanting to do this interview for a very long time.
It finally happened.

Speaker 4 Perfect, perfect way to kick off Super Bowl week. We also have the finale of Drive to the 405.
The boys made it safely. We'll recap with them.

Speaker 4 We have some Super Bowl week thoughts, who's back of the week, all of it. Great, great sh.

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Speaker 5 No place to hang out on washing,

Speaker 5 and I can't blame all on the sun. Oh no, we're gonna rock down to Elite Track Avenue.

Speaker 5 And then we're taking higher.

Speaker 5 Oh, we're gonna rock down to Elite Track Avenue.

Speaker 5 And then we're taking higher.

Speaker 4 Pardon my take, presenting my Barbara Sports. Welcome to Pardon My Take, presented by 1-800Flowers.com.
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100 flowers. Today is Monday, February 7th, and we are in L.A.

Speaker 4 Chris Berman on the show.

Speaker 4 You guys have made it here safely. I'm looking right now at Billy.
He's got a thousand-yard stare. Yeah.
How's it going?

Speaker 4 Give us the full recap, boys. Okay, so the vibes are currently high.
Overall, it was a great trip. I think everybody had a good time.

Speaker 4 Every road trip is going to have a little bit of hiccups in it here and there. Some adversity we have to battle through.

Speaker 4 big stakes as like maybe a big steak we can get to that in a second uh it was it was a great time and to billy's credit actually you know what this road trip was billy in a microcosm 100 because i'd say 90 of the time he was awesome and a joy to be around uh-huh and i think i feel like we got closer on this trip all of us did um but There was about 10% of the time when after doing like some serious work, Billy got us through a severe ice storm, got us into Memphis, did some really tough driving, stayed awake the entire time, wouldn't let me touch the wheel.

Speaker 4 He's like, no, I got you to worry about it.

Speaker 4 After about two days of that, Billy needed to go on another little rum springer. Billy needed to have like a little mini vacation in the middle of the road trip.

Speaker 4 So he did the steak challenge in Amarillo at the Big Texas. Crush steak, right? Well, Billy, don't answer that.
No, let Billy answer. He wants to answer.

Speaker 4 He's got the words in his mouth. The video is coming out tomorrow.
I don't want to say that. But just give us a,

Speaker 4 I'll put it this way. If Billy had absolutely dominated the stake, do you think that maybe Billy would have found a way to start talking about what a great job he had?

Speaker 4 You think he would have FaceTimed me from the stake. Being like, look at this.
Look at this. Aren't you proud of me? Billy, you don't have to answer any of this, by the way.
No, I mean,

Speaker 4 the toughest part of the drive was probably Cincinnati to Memphis driving while. I thought it was the stake.

Speaker 4 Well, then, when we were going on the road, that's when the ice storm had gone through all the areas. So we were driving at times through about two to three inches of just pure ice.

Speaker 4 I've grown to really, really appreciate Billy's excuses, by the way.

Speaker 4 Billy is a fucking artist when it comes to excuses. Yes, no, he is.
He is so good at them.

Speaker 4 Like just reading the blogs that he wrote, every night he'd get back to the hotel, write a blog, and then usually he'd like pass out in the middle of the blog, and he'd be like, but there would always be an excuse for why he didn't finish it, which was

Speaker 4 usually like, so I was going to finish the blog, but then I was on my bed, and then I didn't remember anything until the next day.

Speaker 4 It's like Billy invented falling asleep. Which is totally understandable.
Being on the road is like very tiring. Very like physically, your body's tired.

Speaker 4 I know you're a young, young buck, but so the steak?

Speaker 4 So, I mean, we had a great, honestly, it was

Speaker 4 the best road trip I've ever taken in my life. It was so much fun.

Speaker 4 Across the country. A couple.
Okay. Not across the total country, but big sections of it.
This is number one.

Speaker 4 And it was awesome. I'll put it this way.
On our way into Hollywood, in the last maybe like, we were doing fractions the entire time, by the way, to make it go by faster.

Speaker 4 I think it was like the last, we were 219ths of 220ths of the way all the way to the hotel. And Billy goes, you know, I actually think that this road trip changed my life.

Speaker 4 And I was like, in what way? And he started to answer. And then me and Bubba were like, actually, Billy saved that part.
I want to know how Billy's life has changed.

Speaker 4 It unlocks something in my brain that I don't think will ever go away. Which is

Speaker 4 discovered a lot about myself. Which

Speaker 4 anything specifically? Just Wild Bill.

Speaker 4 He's great on the Wild Bill Bill. He's like the kid who goes away for six months for

Speaker 4 school. You started abroad.
Now you're Wild Bill. You got the cowboy hat.
I like this. I would like to meet Wild Bill.
Yeah, no, Wild Bill was a lot of fun. And credit to Bubba, too.

Speaker 4 Bubba got thrown in last minute. Well, that's 100% his fault.
Correct. He had an awesome time.
But Bubba had a good time, too, I think, in Snapchat, Steve, Steve Romano,

Speaker 4 he was also a great partner.

Speaker 4 We had solid vibes for most of the trip until the part where Billy got drunk and got off his lease for a little bit.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 that was a little bit tough, but you know what?

Speaker 4 Billy snapped back after he went on his Rum Springer. He was fine for the rest of the drive.

Speaker 4 I thought that was a very funny visual when I read the blog, Billy, of you just getting drunk on purpose so you didn't have to drive and then taking a piss every 30 minutes and having Steve throw out your hot piss out the back way.

Speaker 4 That's like

Speaker 4 road tripping. Like, that's an awesome.
That's a great part of road tripping. But I think

Speaker 4 we had such high positive vibes. There's no energy vampires in the car.
Everyone was going like balls to the wall. We got in situations like we were in Memphis, right?

Speaker 4 And we pull into Memphis after white-knuckling it through sheets of ice. And the Tennessee power grid had gone down.
And we were running out of gas.

Speaker 4 And because there was no power at a bunch of the gas stations heading into Memphis, there was a possibility that we were not able to get gas to get to Memphis.

Speaker 4 And we ended up rolling into Memphis, barely skirting by, having to find a gas, the only gas station with power in like two counties. We ended up late into Memphis, and all of Memphis had zero power.

Speaker 4 So we finally got to the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid. It was amazing.
Absolutely gorgeous. I mean, PFT, PFT had a gift that was left for him.
Yeah. So I should probably explain this because I'm not sure.

Speaker 4 If you did happen to read Billy's blogs, he did a great job recapping.

Speaker 4 I I got to the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid, which is better than the pyramids in Egypt as far they put fucking lakes inside of a pyramid.

Speaker 4 It's a wonderful magical place. We go up to the lodge, which is also beautiful.
I go into my room. Great room.
Amazing room. All the bells and whistles.
But I open the door and there's just a giant...

Speaker 4 Trail of rose petals as soon as I open the door. And it leads directly to the bed.
And on the bed, I see a Victoria's secret bag, a bath and body works bag.

Speaker 4 I see a giant stuffed animal, and then chocolates.

Speaker 4 And I thought to myself, Wow, this is really nice of them for them to put this out for me. I thought maybe they were playing a joke, maybe they're AWLs, right?

Speaker 4 Maybe that would be they would like an AWL doing that would be objectively funny for me. So I'm like, Did the Spearman knew you were coming?

Speaker 4 Yeah, they knew they knew we were coming, and they arranged a tour for us and everything like that.

Speaker 4 And so I go in, I start checking the bags, and I pull out the Victoria's Secret bag, two really nice sports bras,

Speaker 4 a pair of yoga pants, some workout leggings.

Speaker 4 and i was like this is very lovely i'm glad that they gave me these things and uh then i walk into the bathroom more rose petals in the bathroom it says the one spelled out rose petals on the ground oh no in the bathroom and there's another gift bag on the bathroom counter in there i open it up i go through it it's got two jars of weed and two special things rolling papers and i was like wow they really they knew i was coming this is awesome and so

Speaker 4 not a drug guy

Speaker 4 And then

Speaker 4 please put that in. And then I walk out to meet the guys going downstairs to try to find food.
Found Billy, found Steve.

Speaker 4 And I was like, Bubba, you were already downstairs, right, at that point? Yeah. So I grabbed these guys.
I was like, come check out the room.

Speaker 4 I'm going to do a cribs real quick on my room because they decked it out for me. I bring Steve in, start showing around, start like bragging, like, look out, look at the hook up here.
And then...

Speaker 4 I think Billy sees the bag that's behind one of the chairs in the room. And we have this all on the table, put out a vlog of it.

Speaker 4 And I'm like, oh my God, whose bag is is that and there were crocs and dirty laundry hanging out of the bag and then we look around we're like

Speaker 4 this is not my room yeah they double booked my room and some guy is trying to get laid so the hardest yeah no one has ever tried to get laid harder than this guy was trying that night early valentine's day honestly it was a little he was coming on a little strong yeah uh but so billy starts freaking out yeah he's like tweaking out he's like

Speaker 4 wild bill yeah wild bill

Speaker 4 we'd gotten into the part of the country where everyone routinely carries firearms Right, but you are Wild Bill. Right, but

Speaker 4 if a guy walks in. No, no, he wasn't Wild Bill yet.
No, he was a Wild Bill pre-Order. Where did Wild Bill? Oklahoma.
We got to the gas station in Oklahoma, and

Speaker 4 it was very apparent that it was a buy-a-fun hat part of the road trip. Once we got past Arkansas, but then we were...
So, yeah, I thought

Speaker 4 if a guy was with his

Speaker 4 significant other

Speaker 4 comes in and sees the three of us just like smoking his weed.

Speaker 4 You know, he walks in, he just starts. Trying on his yoga pants.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so Billy thought we were either going to get fucked or shot if we stayed in that room.

Speaker 4 There's a chance that they come back into the room and the guy's like, wow, okay, I guess it's a bigger party than I planned for.

Speaker 4 So then we found out because there was also a big part of my take basket that they had left in the room for us. So you see where the same room? In the same room.

Speaker 4 So you see where my confusion comes from. Yeah, that's where you got set up.
Yeah, so that was like a minor setback. And then we almost got killed in Memphis.

Speaker 4 Well, the thing is, we pulled, we were trying to find food, but no one was serving food because there was no power. But we saw Hooters and the Hooters was as PFT described it a mirage in the desert.

Speaker 4 It was the only place open. I mean I'm dead serious.
The only place that had power in Memphis was this Hooters. Westie's was closed for locals who know.

Speaker 4 Shout out. Well that's the we didn't even go there.
I don't know. No, Billy's shouting them out.
But Billy's closed. It's a Memphis local.

Speaker 4 You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 4 For those who

Speaker 4 know, know.

Speaker 4 No, but like Westie's, everyone in Memphis is like, go to Westie's because it's open till 2 a.m. So if you're looking for late night food, they're all probably thinking why didn't you go to Westie's?

Speaker 4 Westie's was closed and they never closed. There was so many, there was at least a dozen people who were mad at that point of the podcast right there.
They're like, what the fuck?

Speaker 4 Why didn't you go to Westie's? Exactly. But anyway, show up at Hooters and we meet an AWL who also sees that Hooters is also closed.
And we were talking to him, like, where should we get food?

Speaker 4 What should we do? And he says, maybe if you want to try fast food, go down this one road. And if you want to buy beer, there's,

Speaker 4 don't go to the first gas station, go to the second gas station. We're like, okay, fine.
So we head down the road. We're into the first gas station.
By accident.

Speaker 4 We're realizing that we're probably not going to eat that night. So we might as well just pick up some beers and try to get some calories that way.
Yep. Yeah, it was about calories.

Speaker 4 That's Wild Bill move. Classic.
Classic movement. Wild Bill didn't show up yet.
No, I think that's the beginning of Wild Bill. So if you look at beer, if you look at Cozolitis, it's made of wheat.

Speaker 4 That's in bread. Yep.
It's made of yeast. It's like you're eating a sandwich.
Sneaky protein in beer. Yes.
Yes. Sneaky protein.

Speaker 4 I've also grown to appreciate how often Billy puts the word sneaky in front of things that are just like extremely apparent. Like when he's like, I was just going sneaky 110 miles an hour.

Speaker 4 Low-key.

Speaker 4 Yes, keep going, Billy. So we are in a camo, a Chevy Silverado, a very amazing truck, a truck that people would do a lot of stuff for.
It's a truck truck. Which I think it's yours now.

Speaker 4 Really?

Speaker 4 No, so we show up. So the gas station.
I'm sorry that Billy thinks it's his truck now. The gas station looks very nice, like newly done, like not an old run-down gas station.

Speaker 4 It looks like fairly great new speedway. Yeah, like good shit.
Like, you go in there, and like, there's all sorts of tobacco products, there's also sort of energy drinks.

Speaker 4 An extensive beef jerky selection type of gas station. That's what it looks like.
So, we pull up and you know, we're like, oh, does this look like this is this looks like a good gas station?

Speaker 4 This must be the second one. So, we get out of the car, we walk in.
You know, the gas station was

Speaker 4 like, you know, it looked like a

Speaker 4 worst gas station. How would you describe it? it was the worst gas station i've ever been in my life everybody inside pilot jay to

Speaker 4 yeah everyone inside

Speaker 4 was like wandering around like they were zombies uh there was a guy that was getting cash out of the atm actively like looking over his shoulder look away typing in like his pin number into the atm making sure that nobody was coming up behind him we probably should have left we did not uh we started checking out getting all our stuff and everybody by the way was in this gas station not buying anything just hanging out hanging out and waiting at the counter billy thinks that they were selling something else in that gas station uh not a narc not a narc not but look we did look like big-time narcs though we stuck out like sore thumbs and you know

Speaker 4 there was like some guy started whispering in pft's ear at the register he called me a bitch

Speaker 4 called me a hoe yeah he called pft a hoe and then he went and walked to one of the older gentlemen who were was hanging out by the side of the door said you use security use security and then it's like why is he asking if that guy's security?

Speaker 4 Because he's trying to figure out if, you know, anyway,

Speaker 4 we got there pretty fast.

Speaker 4 So the security guard at that point shrugs his shoulders and takes a couple steps back, meaning like he's, he's, he's letting them know he is ready to look away at any given point.

Speaker 4 So then we get our shit, get out into the parking lot. Billy's freaking out.

Speaker 4 No, no, you, no, no, no.

Speaker 4 I was cool, man. I was eagerly.
I had to come because he was like, I got to see. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I was like, wow, Bill, yeah, members rattled.

Speaker 4 Billy was saying, like, this sucks because I can't get into a fight tonight because it's still within a calendar year of fighting jose can say because your hands are weapons my hands are still registered as a weapon no that's why so no we're going we're going we're walking to the truck and like i'm just like looking over my shoulder just making sure because i had a feel if you if we'd stay there any longer probably a couple phone calls would have been made and we probably would have gotten carjacked because once i went back to the bar at uh the bass pot pyramid i was like look man we were at this and the guy was just like you're lucky you didn't get carjacked because that happens all the time in that kind of truck and like anyway we um The truck, to be fair, probably gave off signals that we likely carry firearms.

Speaker 4 Well, no, but they couldn't see it. No, they didn't.

Speaker 4 Right. So

Speaker 4 you would have been fine.

Speaker 4 When we were getting into the truck in the gas station, all of a sudden, two vehicles pull off. You hear a skirting noise.
And like, we're just like, what the fuck? Like, how would you describe it?

Speaker 4 It was

Speaker 4 attentions were high. Like the noise in movies before a drive-by shooting occurs.

Speaker 4 So long story short, we got out of there and we're fine. No harm, no foul.
But then the next day, we discovered that there was a leak in our tire. There was a nail.
Billy hit a nail.

Speaker 4 Not damn it. It's not Billy's fault.
He's called you. But he did, for the record, drive directly over a nail.
And we were trying to find a place to get a change.

Speaker 4 There were no places in Memphis, except we found this one spot that was in...

Speaker 4 a very bad, bad area. Like the buildings around it had been burned to the ground.

Speaker 4 And the only person that was outside was like this 65-year-old prostitute. And it was like 20 degrees outside.
Only person working in Memphis. Yeah, so cold.
It was credit to her.

Speaker 4 And so we're like, you know what? Let's just go over the bridge to West Memphis, see if we can find a place there. We find a place.

Speaker 4 Then we have to walk to a, we did a simulated hunt in Memphis, is what we said. We had to walk down the street and find a sonic and then order at that.

Speaker 4 Fortunately, we got everything squared away, hit the road. No more major hiccups after that, except for Billy getting drunk.
And then we did. Well, that was Wild Bill.
That was Wild Bill.

Speaker 4 That was Wild Bill.

Speaker 4 I think Wild Bill doesn't doesn't... That doesn't count.
Now, as far as the steak challenge goes, which, again, we won't spoil, but go watch the video that's coming out. Billy.

Speaker 4 All I wanted to know is better or worse than the Hot Wing challenge. Better.
Better. Way better.
He didn't even finish a single wing at the Hot Wing. Well, that's, I mean, you know, way better.

Speaker 4 I would say like 20 ounces would be the same. Yeah, so we won't spoil it, but

Speaker 4 Billy officially tried the Big Texan challenge at the Big Texan Steakhouse. No,

Speaker 4 the championship. Was this Wild Bill? Nope.
Oh, yeah. No, no, this is Wild Bill.
Wow, no. Wild Bill showed up in Oklahoma.
So Wild Bill. So that's not Bill.
Billy might have been able to finish it.

Speaker 4 Well, Wild Bill doesn't play by the rules. So Wild Bill.

Speaker 4 Wild Bill didn't do the extensive prep work.

Speaker 4 I'm scared of Wild Bill in LA. There's a lot of rules out here.
Yeah, I know. Also,

Speaker 4 I don't wear a mask.

Speaker 4 Wild Bill doesn't like to be told what to do.

Speaker 4 I don't want to just gloss over what Billy just said right there. You said, I didn't put in the extensive work necessary to take on this challenge.

Speaker 4 The only work that he had to do was not get drunk before he tried it. Right.

Speaker 4 And it was also in the morning, right? And it was also, yeah, we got there at 10 a.m.

Speaker 4 So we think it'd be a fun idea to have Billy going around from coast to coast, like man versus food, but like

Speaker 4 just getting bodied always

Speaker 4 getting just jacked up by food. You're the Washington Generals.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 He's the bro Adam Richardson. I mean, so many people do those challenges and finish.
Like, we want to see someone who, like, you know, you can't finish any of them.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that actually would be a good video. Like, it's like, watch Billy just show up and with all...

Speaker 4 Because the nice thing about you is that you would show up to every food challenge being like, this is the one I'm going to do.

Speaker 4 And then just get bodied time and time again. But let's just remember the challenge, the steak challenge is the steak plus other stuff.
Right.

Speaker 4 So let's qualify. Or yeah, you ate the whole steak.
You definitely ate the whole steak then, right?

Speaker 4 There's, there's, well,

Speaker 4 I mean, there's grizzle. You're were allowed to cut off grizzles.
There was actually not any grizzle. Yeah, there was some grizzly.
Anyway, watch the video. It's an amazing video.

Speaker 4 And then the most beautiful. It's not an amazing video.
The beauty.

Speaker 4 He's not out of time. So it will be out.

Speaker 4 Watch it. It will be an amazing video.
Beautiful.

Speaker 4 After Amarillo was some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen. Changed your life.
This is where you're just like

Speaker 4 staring at the western sky. You guys don't understand.
You're laughing, but you don't understand.

Speaker 4 Hank and I have driven the exact same drive. Yeah, but you weren't doing it after miles.
Like the transition.

Speaker 4 We did it in a RV. We literally did the exact same drive.
Also, Billy was driving. It changed my life too.
Billy passed out, like, completely passed out.

Speaker 4 Billy left the steak challenge, put on a Hans Zimmer soundtrack compilation of just orchestral music, and then proceeded to pass out in the passenger seat shotgun for the next four and a half hours.

Speaker 4 I do not know. Now, he's right about the drive through the west part of New Mexico.
It was beautiful. It was gorgeous.
Yeah, but I do like

Speaker 4 he's the first person to discover road trips. Yeah, no, but it was just really awesome.
Yeah, we thought

Speaker 4 it was a sick drive. We literally were recording this literally 30 minutes after we valeted the truck, and I've been walking.

Speaker 4 I'm just like, wow, like you sort of, you're, you got like a driver's hide. I don't think that wow Bill would let a valet.
Yeah, I was just gonna say that.

Speaker 4 It's like, well, there's no, this is the worst part about the fucking road

Speaker 4 was the last five minutes where you were trying to find the goddamn place.

Speaker 4 It's a concrete jungle. You can't get wow bill in here.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Bullshit.

Speaker 6 At any point, you know, I saw one tweet in the beginning, but like, at any point, because it worked out. It was a great bet.
I think everyone was happy with the content that came out of it.

Speaker 6 But at any point, were you like, I kind of regret purposely losing these last few weeks because I kind of wish I was just like flying on Sunday.

Speaker 4 Yeah,

Speaker 4 there was one point, I think on the very first night when we're going out to Cincinnati and it's really, it's registering that we're not going to get there until after 3 a.m.

Speaker 4 And then we have to wake up super early the next day. And once you've been on the road, sometimes it's hard to fall asleep.
So none of us got a good amount of sleep on the entire trip.

Speaker 4 That was really, there was a little bit of doubt at that point. But then honestly, like Billy's vibes brought the entire thing up.
Billy's a very, very good road trip partner.

Speaker 4 Like I said, 90% of the time.

Speaker 4 Was the drive straight through to Cincy the right move? Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 4 I'll accept your apology.

Speaker 4 She was actually, Bill, you were afraid.

Speaker 4 I was talking that type of,

Speaker 4 I wanted to think that first night to drive away. Yeah, you crushed it.
That was road road dog life it was road dog lifestyle and

Speaker 4 I'm sad that the trip's over because we had such great vibes between Liam

Speaker 4 there's no rules when you're on the road like it's it's not real life let's keep it up this week it's just dude out the road dude it like traveling man yeah there's nothing like it can you explain the the the picture you tweeted today too of the guys that somehow found you on the road in their car and put a sign up on their window.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 4 That was

Speaker 4 scary. I have no idea how they found us because we were.

Speaker 4 This is a trick that Big cat taught me when I when I first joined Barstall and we started doing the podcast when you're in a different place like stagger your posts a little bit keep people guessing as to where you are So I was never letting people know exactly where we were show up and like tweet immediately like I'm eating at this place right now.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so sit there for three hours somehow this AWL and his girlfriend found us like I don't know if they waited on an overpass for us to drive underneath but they had I think it was like a Dodge Charger So it was a pretty sweet loud car and they got stuff to write on their windows on the back.

Speaker 4 It said Thank you for your service, Billy. And then on the side,

Speaker 4 it said, PFT has no eyes. And so then they pull up behind us.
They speed around us. We don't know who they are.
They honk their horn as they pass us. So my antenna goes up.

Speaker 4 I'm like, okay, that's probably a listener of the show. Then they get in front of us.
Billy doesn't hear them honk. They get in front of us and they roll their windows down and start waving.

Speaker 4 And Billy goes, That guy just flipped us off.

Speaker 4 And he's ready to, he goes into warm.

Speaker 4 I just see one finger fly up. You're ready to fucking fight.

Speaker 4 Wait, Billy.

Speaker 4 Is this officially... Are we officially in the zone where you can get in a fight? Yeah, Billy can get into a fight.
Are you getting a fight again? I'm not. No, that was the joke.

Speaker 4 My license has expired. So you can get in a fight.
So just everyone in L.A., be careful.

Speaker 4 And also, it wasn't a joke because I busted Billy's balls about this a little bit when he was taking on the steak challenge on the anniversary of boxing Jose Conseco. And Billy's like, no, but like...

Speaker 4 Legitimately, if I get into a fight and I hurt somebody, so it's not a total joke. You know, it's not a joke because you've said it many times.
It is.

Speaker 4 There's legal precedent.

Speaker 4 So the person flips us off that Billy thinks, and Billy's like, well, they just flipped us off. And we're about ready to fight in Billy's mind.
And then I was like, Billy, no, calm down.

Speaker 4 They're an AWL. They're a fan of the show.

Speaker 4 And so then Billy kills someone

Speaker 4 on the first day he's legally allowed to. I thought, no, no, no.
I thought because they beeped and then they swerved in front of us quickly. And I was like, what's going on?

Speaker 4 Like, I'm focused on the road, not what's back right. Anyway, they're really nice.

Speaker 4 Um, there was another couple that found this in Oklahoma, too, who took a video and they tweeted it, put it in the blog. Very cool.

Speaker 4 And then, um, yeah, you gotta just like come up with ways to keep yourself entertained and engaged on the road because it's there's only so much that one playlist can do, yeah.

Speaker 4 And uh, we managed to kind of mix it up and and keep things keep things spicy on the road, all in all, yeah, solid.

Speaker 4 I know, I mean, you got the piss and vinegar of a 22-year-old that, like, you are a perfect road trip guy. It was it was so fun.
Yeah. I

Speaker 4 don't know.

Speaker 4 Dude, I'm telling you, just get back in that fucking car. I don't know if I'll ever catch that high again.
Just cruising. I can you can drive back.
I do think Billy should just live on the road.

Speaker 4 Well, so my prediction was that Billy is going to drive the car back and then just like leave it in his house.

Speaker 4 And then like in like two or three weeks, he was going to come up to my desk and be like, so like that truck, like, is it, can I, can I keep it now? And I've just been like, you know what?

Speaker 4 I don't, if no one says anything to me, you can. Yeah.
I don't give a fuck. Yeah,

Speaker 4 he was great to have. Bubba was awesome, too.
So was Steve.

Speaker 4 It was a solid group. And

Speaker 4 I think we're just road dog brothers for life now.

Speaker 4 There you go. We'll always have the drive to the 405.
There it is. We saw a crater.

Speaker 4 Okay. That was kind of interesting.
Saw a meteor crater. It was the most well-preserved crater.
No, it's a crater.

Speaker 4 A meteor struck like 30 miles west of Winslow. So we stopped and went and checked out.
It was a big hole in the ground.

Speaker 4 As far as holes go, it was one of the bigger ones I've seen. That is sick.
Probably the biggest. When did that hit?

Speaker 4 50,000 years ago. Oh, fuck.
I don't know. I just made up a big sound.
In a long time.

Speaker 4 It's a big old hole.

Speaker 4 All right. Anything else from the drive or any other stories before we do who's back and get to Berman? I'm sure we'll remember other stuff, but everything happened so fast.

Speaker 4 If you're on the corner in Winslow, Arizona, look up to one of the top floor windows on the corner. Good surprise up there.
A little Easter egg. Oh, did you guys put it there?

Speaker 4 No, it's just Billy thought it was really funny because they painted like a guy and a girl making out. You sent a picture.
Yeah, you treated a picture, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Billy thought the make out session thing was I mean it is guy and girl like you could imagine yeah

Speaker 4 it's like they wrote a third version to that song like an additional part where they start smashing and mushing

Speaker 4 okay let's get to who's back

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Speaker 4 Okay, who's back of the week? Hank, start.

Speaker 6 Who's back of the week?

Speaker 9 Is the Olympics?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 We're boycotting. Oh, this is

Speaker 4 except the women's hockey team. Yeah, the women's hockey team we're supporting because they're friends of ours and we coach them.
But we're boycotting it.

Speaker 6 Yeah, someone told me that the Olympics were back. I was like, no, I would have seen something from the opening ceremony or something.
Like, no, it's actively going on.

Speaker 4 Yeah, right now, as we speak, there's someone doing some kind of weird thing on ice. Yeah,

Speaker 4 it's always weird to hear the announcers go out of their way to to say, like,

Speaker 4 the Republic of China, ROC, when they're talking about Taiwan, because they're not allowed to say Taiwan. And then when there's Russia, Russia, the Russia were the investigation.

Speaker 4 Yeah, ROC, because they were banned. Rock Nations.
So they were, yeah, they were taken out of the Olympics.

Speaker 4 Russian Olympic Commission. Yeah, so it was like they're not allowed to actually fly the flag.

Speaker 6 And then my other who's back of the week, deja vu, but you know, I should amplify it. We kind of predicted the future, but Harambe.

Speaker 6 I said it last week. Harambe was back.
He kind of went viral. We talked, had Sam Hubbard on.

Speaker 6 The clip was very funny where he very clearly was like, it's something we don't talk about. Like he was very clearly joking, but he did say the words, we're doing it for him.
Yes.

Speaker 6 And that's all it took for that interview to get picked up by every single news station in the world with a dead serious quote that's like, we're doing it for him.

Speaker 6 Sam Hubbard says the Bengals are playing for Harambe.

Speaker 4 It's perfect.

Speaker 6 With no sense of irony. It was amazing.

Speaker 4 It's so perfect, and it's the perfect time for it to all come full circle because we've predicted, we've had this conversation off air many times like when do you think a rambay jokes are going to be funny again and it's like perfectly coincided with the bengals there's a formula i think we can we can extrapolate from this that like five years they always say that like what is it comedy equals pain plus time I'm probably mixing up the pain part of the equation, but time is always the factor in it.

Speaker 4 I think five years is now officially the amount of time when something can become funny again. There was that one article that was so funny.
It was like, well, first they like it was Big J wrote it.

Speaker 4 They referred to me as pft commentator and then they said uh host big cat dan katz asked do you think it's fair to say that you would have stopped the harambe situation if you were there and then they gave his answer to like how he would have like bowed up on harambe yeah uh so yeah that was that was very shout out mike francesa i lost that flip again this gorilla

Speaker 4 just the way he says gorilla

Speaker 4 oh all right pft your who's back i mean my who's back was going to be billy all right because billy really showed up this week. He really did.
Wild Bill or Billy? I'm very proud of him. No, Billy.

Speaker 4 Billy, because even underneath the cold, hard, wild Bill exterior that we all know and love so much, there's Billy in there somewhere.

Speaker 4 The formula with Billy is let him fuck up once out of, you know, every five days. Let Billy just be a real piece of shit, and then he'll come back.
It's like you've got a dog, let it run away.

Speaker 4 You know, if it loves you, it will come back. If it doesn't, it was never meant to be.
And then my other who's back of the week was going to be just

Speaker 4 what happens in Vegas staying in Vegas. Because it looks like, well, actually, this is proof to the contrary.
Looks like Alvin Kamara has a warrant out for his arrest

Speaker 4 in Vegas after the Pro Bowl. Wait, didn't wasn't...
Already? Yeah. No, it looks like he got it.

Speaker 4 It says right here at approximately 5.50 p.m., they were dispatched to a local hospital where a person was reporting a battery, was battered at a nightclub located in 35 meters blocked.

Speaker 4 I was probably yesterday? No, it's because he played in the Pro Bowl, I think. So, oh, they arrested him after the Pro Bowl.

Speaker 4 Have you ever noticed that when it's an athlete getting into a bar fight, it's always a nightclub? Yeah.

Speaker 4 And it's not like they never just say like at a bar. It's like at a local nightclub establishment.
Maybe if they were tackling at the Pro Bowl, guys would be.

Speaker 4 It was pretty crazy watching that. Like, it was.

Speaker 4 I know that the Pro Bowl has always been weird, but they did try a little bit back in the day. This was that pick six that Patrick Mahomes threw, which was like...
did you see the highlight?

Speaker 4 I didn't see that one. It was no one even came close to, I think Winfield from the Bucs picked it off, but like

Speaker 4 no one even wanted to tackle him. Like they were running out of the way.
Yeah, I did see the Mac Jones scramble for the touchdown where like three guys, two-hand touched me.

Speaker 4 He didn't play by the rules. He just ran all the way to the end zone, which credit to Mac, I probably would have done that too.
They also, they had the new rule.

Speaker 4 They were trying out the new rule to spot and start or whatever.

Speaker 4 I don't know what it's called, where you basically, instead of a kickoff, you, you, this is what the Ravens proposed for overtime, I think a year ago or two years ago, where you pick a spot on the field.

Speaker 4 So like if I say, okay, the 10, your own 10-yard line, then the other team decides whether they're on defense or offense. Oh, I like that.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 So you like, so there was, I think the, I think the AFC did have like a 97-yard drive or something because they picked the three-yard line. They're like, all right, we'll still take the ball.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we'll take, imagine, imagine electing to play defense in a Pro Bowl. Right.
You're like, nope, I'm going to bury you guys deep, play the field position game.

Speaker 4 But it would be cool to be like in overtime, be like, all right, we're going to do the one-yard lines. Like, okay, well, we'll play defense.
Yeah,

Speaker 4 there was one point where I was watching the highlights of somebody running.

Speaker 4 The guys don't want to get hit. They don't want to tackle.
I understand. Why would they? I wouldn't either.

Speaker 4 They should let the players play while...

Speaker 4 They're all on Instagram Live on their phones, like the Antonio Brown rule, and have everybody with one hand with their phone facing themselves, broadcasting to their own audience during the play.

Speaker 4 Personally, to their own audience. That would be sick.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 It was, I mean, it was a fun over to have, even though we didn't have Wi-Fi on the plane. But

Speaker 4 a lot of people were like, dude, why would you take the over in the Pro Bowl? Like, why? I think there was a few unders in a row, but like, who the fuck cares? Why would you ever bet on the under?

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah.
On the Pro Bowl? Like, what are we talking about? What do you say, Billy? Body craves content.

Speaker 4 Contact.

Speaker 4 Body craves contact. Come here.
Maybe you're going to be able to do it. Didn't get enough from the Pro Bowl.

Speaker 4 Sorry. That was bad.
That was mean. I'm sorry.
We're road dogs.

Speaker 4 Wait till we see the video. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Anything can happen. Wait till the facts come out.

Speaker 4 You could edit it. You could CGI it.
No, maybe it looks different than what he remembers. Saddle, yeah.
Billy totally thinks it's going to come out and he's going to be like,

Speaker 4 I finished it in the video. Yeah.

Speaker 4 All right, my who's back is Blue Bloods because Kentucky and Duke are awesome. And Kansas.
And Kansas. Duke had Coach K last game at Chapel Hill, got his fucking drunk grandson in the game at the end.

Speaker 4 I don't know if you saw that, Jake, but he got in. He had trouble bringing the ball up the court.
I'm just going to say that. I was watching.

Speaker 6 He's got Shire doing the half-game interview.

Speaker 4 Okay, so I tweeted that.

Speaker 4 Shire also gets, like, he's, I saw the other day

Speaker 4 he was, like, introduced as the head coach of Duke. He's not yet.
He's not the head coach, but I tweeted, wow, Coach K is not going to have time for the immediate halftime.

Speaker 4 Apparently, he's been doing that for a decade. Why do 357 head coaches take halftime interviews, but one can't? wait whoa are you are you just realizing now that yeah

Speaker 4 well no jake is just realizing now because it's about a halftime interview with the media yeah he never does halftime interviews because he plays by his own rules that's crazy like i understand he's a legend 40 years whatever but just take the interview it's 30 seconds they don't start the 15 minute halftime clock until the interview is done to me for fairness yeah he's gonna

Speaker 4 affect anything no it would because he would you know he has to be different than everyone else right Crazy.

Speaker 6 No, well, I mean, that's you know, the best got different rules.

Speaker 4 That's just how it works. I think kept on showing his face during the intro for the UNC players.
Like, what are we doing here? I think it's taken away from the kids.

Speaker 4 I care about the kids, nothing like Coach K.

Speaker 4 Coach K has perfected the art of just being a dick all the time, but once a year, like cracking like a tiny little joke and smiling, and everyone's like, oh, we love this guy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he's really set the bar so low for himself. He's the best.

Speaker 4 Billy, your who's back? These hands. Oh, yeah, they are.
Let's go. don't you step to billy that was gonna be my who's back just the whole year goes since it happened kind of crazy

Speaker 4 time he's learned a lot about him goes forward this year you can't stop it what so a year past like what any thoughts about the fight um i wish it could have been better for the viewers that's not your fault i know that's literally 0% your fault i know you got in there i was ready he even tried to hit him after he got knocked out yeah jose's a scumbag through and through that's not your fault.

Speaker 4 Yeah. You fucking knocked him out.
What are you going to do? Yeah.

Speaker 4 That question you guys asked like four times on his.

Speaker 4 Tell us about your mindset that you got in when you were getting into the ring with him. Like, did you think that there was a chance that it was like kill or be killed?

Speaker 4 And what would you describe that as?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Jack, he almost did it. He almost did it.
No, no, honestly, Billy.

Speaker 4 All kidding aside. When you stepped into the ring against Jose Conseiko and you were about to fight him, like what was going through your head?

Speaker 4 It was just the most serious I've probably ever been in my life.

Speaker 4 If there was like a mode, what would it be? War mode.

Speaker 4 I went war mode. I mean, you did.
You went

Speaker 4 blinding war mode.

Speaker 4 Oh, we should throw in this one extra story here about what happened to us in Amarilla at the end of the night because we were going back to the hotel and there was a truck that was not.

Speaker 4 a Chevy Silverado that was trying to drive down the same road we were on but it was going the opposite direction got stuck in the snow.

Speaker 4 We did not. We went right past it.

Speaker 4 And then we pulled the ultimate alpha move on it, which is let's pull over and then we will push them out of the snow because we're in a big ass car that can get out of the snow.

Speaker 4 So we get out and we start shoving this tiny little, I think it was like a

Speaker 9 low rider.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was like a low rider. And we just start pushing the shit out of this thing.
And then these other guys come up and they're talking to Billy. They're like, yo, you're swole.

Speaker 4 You should be able to push this out. And Billy's like, I am swole.

Speaker 4 And so we tried to push it out. We pushed as hard as we could, making a little bit of progress.

Speaker 4 And then Billy goes, yo, what if I just got back into the truck and then I just hit that truck from behind? And that was his suggestion. A little push.
It wasn't like. You don't have to do that.

Speaker 4 A little push, yeah.

Speaker 4 You get it, like go slow until they're touching, and then you push it. But if you had seen this truck, it was halfway rusted out in the back.

Speaker 4 You could see both the wheels through the bed of the truck.

Speaker 4 If we had touched that with a shedding silver ride, it would have just turned into a powdery dust um but yeah that was that was a fun time when billy got to push a truck out of the snow you are swole he went war mode on the truck

Speaker 4 mode uh

Speaker 4 it was so fun i just i mean now that i'm finally out of it it's just crazy what about the open sky it's enchanting it's like you look at it and it's just so wide open and you're just like wow he was saying honestly like when you look at the open sky and you see how big the western sky is that's the reason that our forefathers decided to explore the west coast because

Speaker 4 genetically

Speaker 4 genetically, it induces endorphins in your brain that make you want to explore.

Speaker 4 He's right. Awe-inspiring.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 All right, Jake, your who's back?

Speaker 4 My who's back, aside from the investigation and the tanking, is the dolphins. Oh, yes.
I hired a new head coach, Mike McDaniel. Watch that clip of his.
He seems a very media-friendly guy. Yeah.

Speaker 4 He's a big personality.

Speaker 4 He's going to save Tua. Yeah.
Yeah. It's big for you, too.
Respect us. So it looks like it's an exciting hire.
Shout out Deadspin. They called it.
Another white guy gets hired.

Speaker 4 Well, so then Schefter tweeted it out, and he says, Mike McDaniel, who identifies as biracial.

Speaker 4 Like, why do you? I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Do you have to put the identifier word in?

Speaker 4 I think he's just biracial, right? This is not a big deal. What are we doing here? Yeah, but he seems like a cool guy.

Speaker 4 Very cool. I don't know anything about what his responsibilities were on the Niners.

Speaker 4 All I know is that Kittle said, I want to clause my contract saying that this guy's attached to me for the rest of his career. That's good enough for me.
So he's going to be a dolphin, Kittle?

Speaker 4 So Kittle is going to go to the Miami Dolphins. Wait, so Florida has recreational weed? I think so.
I mean, they must. That was what I thought.
That was my big recreational weed.

Speaker 4 That was my big takeaway. I think they have recreational everything in Florida.
Oh, wow. They don't.
Hmm.

Speaker 4 All right. Hopefully.
I can look it up, though. He can figure that out.
Well, he probably has a card, right?

Speaker 4 Probably. He probably can get weed other ways.
I'm pretty sure in Florida, the law is like, if you're not actively killing someone, then it's just chill. Just like try to get away with it.

Speaker 4 Don't make us do too much work. That was the first thing when I saw it.
I was like, oh, wow, I didn't know Florida. Medicinal, yes.
Decriminalized, no. Okay, so maybe

Speaker 4 he has his medicinal. Legal status mixed.
There we go.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I actually like that hire. So what do we have left? Texans, Saints, and

Speaker 4 Vikings got Kevin O'Connell.

Speaker 4 So, I'm actually very happy because I was afraid that Jim Harbaugh was going to go to the NFC North. Is he the front runner for the Texans is right now? Lovey Smith.

Speaker 4 Oh, Lovey Smith and Josh McCowell, I think, as well. It's looking like McCowell's not going to get it.
Okay. And then Eric Bienemi in New Orleans

Speaker 4 is interviewing. I feel like if you're Eric Biennemi and you've been waiting for a good place to go, a place where you're set up.
to succeed, like New Orleans seems like a pretty good option. Yes.

Speaker 4 That's good for him.

Speaker 4 I'm a little bit upset that Harvaugh didn't go to the Vikings because it would have been so, so funny to watch how much he would have hated Kirk Cousins. Yeah.
And Dan Campbell. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 4 They would have fought. Yes.
There would have been incredible fights at midfield for sure.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, I'm very happy that the Vikings didn't hire him because he's a really good coach and he would have...

Speaker 4 It's going to be weird because the NFC, and we'll get into it more with Super Bowl week, but like Tom Brady just retired. Aaron Rodgers may go to the AFC.

Speaker 4 Who the fuck knows where he's going to end up? Like, the NFC is going to be wide open for a little bit. Wait, I just realized

Speaker 4 McDaniel and Kevin O'Connell, I think, were also coaches on that 2013 Washington Redskins team. Who? Josh McDaniels? No, McDaniel.

Speaker 4 Mike McDaniel. Got it.
So I think that now, like,

Speaker 4 a sixth of the league, or like a fifth of the league, is now former coaches from that team. That sucks.
Also, bonus who's back. Retirement.
Shout out Joe West. They kind of know you're.

Speaker 4 Yes. Oh, I can't believe we didn't.
Yeah. Joe West, all-time guy.

Speaker 4 Kevin O'Connell was not. He was not.
No, he was not.

Speaker 4 He started his coaching career in 2015. Good.
Okay. Yeah, Joe West.
I'm going to miss him.

Speaker 4 I tweeted out a couple clips. The Bumgardner Stare Downs all-time, all-time.
Nelson Cruz selfie during the all-class. Yeah, the selfie.

Speaker 4 I had the picture of him when he was signing autographs at Wrigley for little kids, not making the game about himself, just respecting it.

Speaker 4 Also, who's the guy he fell on top of when he, when there was a play at the plate, and it took him like a minute to get off? Well, he didn't even get off of it. He had to be helped off from behind.

Speaker 4 Like prior to Raja Davis. Yeah, I'm going to miss him so much.
God damn it. And his country albums.
He's the best. He's a great singer.
He's the one guy who, like,

Speaker 4 he made it all about himself. And I was like, it was actually kind of endearing because it's like, he makes it so much about himself that you have to respect it.

Speaker 4 You remember, didn't he get hit with a throat of second base at one point? Yeah,

Speaker 4 he did a flex, and then he also obviously had

Speaker 4 the white armband so that people would stop being mean to umps across America. All umps matter.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yes, good call, though, Jake. All right, let's get to our interview with Chris Berman.
Unbelievable interview, 80-minute interview. We went up to Connecticut.

Speaker 4 This is the interview that Bubba did sleep through. That's okay.

Speaker 4 Because I know people were asking.

Speaker 4 Yeah, well, it's like, God bless the broken road that brought Bubba on this car. It also was the perfect scenario for him that it was like immediate punishment.
We're

Speaker 4 all forgotten. Did your phone get fixed?

Speaker 4 No, his phone's still broken. That sucks a lot.

Speaker 4 Okay.

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Speaker 4 Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest. Long time coming.
It is the Schwamm boomer, Chris Berman.

Speaker 4 We're very, very excited for this. This has been, like I said, a long time coming, an honor for us.
I was thinking about it because I'm actually nervous for this interview.

Speaker 4 We've done, listen, we've done a lot of interviews. We don't want to mess this one up.
So I was like, you know, what could I do? I'll do it for you. Yeah, what could I start with, though?

Speaker 4 Like, oh, hey, Schwam, tell us about 1979. I figured maybe an icebreaker, if you have the wallet, we could just start with.
Oh, I want to start with.

Speaker 4 First of all, you got to understand, first of all, nice to be with you fellas. This has been a long time coming, and I appreciate

Speaker 4 I'll show you the wallet in a minute, but you don't get it right away.

Speaker 4 I appreciate really the respect that you've shown me.

Speaker 4 And I didn't know it it so much in 16, 17, 18, but if time has gone on and I don't know what I've done to deserve it, but in just playing back, and Derek and Josh, our PR Mavens, sent me like the last six weeks so I could hear the two past the two minutes.

Speaker 4 I'm going to give you a two, and they're like throwaway lines. They're not.
No one circles the way, you know.

Speaker 4 I mean, I get it, you know, and then all the no, you know, I should have started the answer with a whoop, and then you're set, right? But we'll do some

Speaker 4 questions about

Speaker 4 that. But

Speaker 4 there were two of them.

Speaker 4 One was when the Jags lost to, or they won, but they still clinched the number one overall draft pick as first reported by Adam Shaft.

Speaker 4 I lost.

Speaker 4 That's like a throwaway. It was like, okay, that's funny.
And then Chris Boswell, the Steelers, I don't know if you used it before.

Speaker 4 Chris...

Speaker 4 kicked a field goal or Chris Boswell, New Mexico, the UFO. Like,

Speaker 4 these guys, this is another level here.

Speaker 4 Well, here's what I'll say: because this is out of respect for you. And reading everything, your nicknames would always be spur of the moment, like, pop in your head.
Pretty much.

Speaker 4 It takes us a while to do those. So that shows how hard it is to do and how good you are at it.
Because

Speaker 4 we sit there every Sunday night for about an hour and a half going through all the games. And everything I've read about you, it's like if the nickname comes in 30 seconds, it's there.

Speaker 4 If not, we go to the next guy. Pretty much.
That's incredible. Back in the day in baseball,

Speaker 4 I would do the 2.30 in the morning show. And so you'd see a name and a, you know, the box score or whatever, like, okay, what can I, but you don't sit there.

Speaker 4 Usually they might have to have like one beer, not on a workday, but like, you know, okay, one.

Speaker 4 But if it doesn't, or let's say if you guys wrote in or threw me a couple or guys on the crew or women on the crew, hey, whatever.

Speaker 4 If I laugh, well, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's good to have ghost rates. So here it is.
This is really slimmed down.

Speaker 4 It looked like you went on a diet.

Speaker 4 What happened? You had a bad week in gambling last week.

Speaker 4 You're supposed to sell

Speaker 4 some money on the 90s program.

Speaker 4 But no, this is

Speaker 4 well oiled, but no, this is like

Speaker 4 half, if not

Speaker 4 a third of what it was. But this is pre-you gotta understand.
I used to have cards of everybody in here, but this is pre-internet, pre-phone.

Speaker 4 So I had commissioners, senators, everyone was in it's the schwam that wallet is the schwam can I hold it it's yeah I mean

Speaker 4 I just want to feel

Speaker 4 it's a full snake it's a full snake that it took to make there's a few 50s in there go ahead

Speaker 4 this is got some heft to me yeah but you know

Speaker 4 oh yeah oh yeah that's nice i'm telling you dieting wow there you go

Speaker 4 that'll cost you two hawaiian when you when you pull it out in 60 minutes though one of the funniest things i didn't know that was happening and it's like

Speaker 4 one time i was on leno and I forgot it was because I didn't want to leave it in the back. It's in my side pocket, just like it's huge, right?

Speaker 4 And that was the side being interviewed on. I was like, I looked at it later.
Like, are you kidding? Looked like I had like a 20-pound weight in there.

Speaker 4 There's your wallet.

Speaker 4 Came all the way to Connecticut to see the wallet now. Yeah, I'll review one thing and then I'll be done.
So nicknames. Okay.

Speaker 4 So our Maven, Josh, over here, has started, you know, Big Cat. So Galaraga.
Maybe others have called you that. I don't know.
But when he played, of course, came up with Montreal,

Speaker 4 as so many of them did. What a great farm.

Speaker 4 So I started calling him Le Grand Chas, which is the big cat.

Speaker 4 And he liked it. I don't know how much French he knew growing up, but

Speaker 4 Le Grande Chas. So if you're Le Grande Chas,

Speaker 4 now I've got to do something French also.

Speaker 4 It's not a direct,

Speaker 4 it's not a direct translation, but Le Raconteur.

Speaker 4 It's not a contexture. I I like that.
But it's a storyteller. It's a purveyor of information.
So Le Grande Chat et Le Raconteur. You didn't know we were doing French.
I did not.

Speaker 4 Jetem.

Speaker 4 Is that French? Yeah. Did I just tell you that I loved you? You did, but it's a Freudian.
It's your Le Raconteur. You can say whatever you want.

Speaker 4 Amazing. Speaking of the nicknames, I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but we're friends of Booger.
We love Boog. He's come on the show several times.
Makes fun of me all the time.

Speaker 4 Makes fun of Big Cats Wait. He's in a bicycle gang with me.
And we decided one time we're going to try to incept you with a nickname because he watches the games with you sometimes on Sunday.

Speaker 4 All the time. We watch all of them.
So we tried to figure

Speaker 4 how can we get inside Chris Berman's head? What is a nickname that we can throw out that he might actually pick up on?

Speaker 4 So we told him that the first time Jalen Hurts threw a touchdown, he should say, Hurts so good.

Speaker 4 And it made it to the air, and you said it. Of course.

Speaker 4 That was from us via Booger, our gift to you.

Speaker 4 And we loved it. We used it.
You probably would have gotten there on your own. Yeah.
Because it felt like the Cougar, that's right up Boomer's Alley. Oh, I mean, John Cougar Melon Ball.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we, we, yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, that's a great song. But then later on, like, playoff game, it, you know,

Speaker 4 Love Hurts says Nazareth. I'm going back.
I mean, you know, again, a lot of these are predating you guys. Oh,

Speaker 4 we know a lot of the songs. We know a lot of radio.
Yeah, yeah. So, so thank you for that.
Nay, no, the honor was all ours. Hurts so so good.
Yeah, he had a few games. They got in the playoffs.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think he's a fine quarterback. I think when he's playing within the system that they've got there, he can be okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Did you see him dodge the stands falling apart at or at FedEx Field, though? Yes. That showed me composure.

Speaker 4 He was composure, but a sense of where the rush is coming from. Yes, absolutely.
He knew exactly where it was coming from. So I was reading before we sat down with you, right? I knew the nicknames.

Speaker 4 I knew everything. I didn't realize the story, and I don't know how often you told it, that the nicknames almost went away for a little bit.
Oh, they did.

Speaker 4 You had a producer who said, cut it with the nicknames.

Speaker 4 And then George Brett saved it. Can you tell that story? That's incredible.

Speaker 4 So in the early days, look, when we are, I mean, again, a lot of your viewers, listeners, and you have a million or whatever, you know, nobody imagines your age group, even in your 40s, that, you know, cable TV, I'm going to pay 20 bucks for 36 channels.

Speaker 4 Why would I do that? I have to sleep. We didn't even have tape machines then, right? You have to sleep, you have to eat, you got to go to work.
How could I, at any rate? So who knows who's watching?

Speaker 4 My first four years, I did the late show, which was 2.30 a.m.

Speaker 4 It's 11.30 in California. And it's, you know, 8.30 in Hawaii.
So a lot of people watching, my friends. And, well, at the time.
And

Speaker 4 I don't care if you're up late, even if that's your regular deal,

Speaker 4 stuff just comes out, right? So

Speaker 4 a couple came out from back in college at Brown. Like, this is only four years later, I'm on TV or three.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 what was the first one? It was either Frank Tanana-Daikri,

Speaker 4 or

Speaker 4 very good pitcher, one

Speaker 4 really good pitcher. And John Mayberry, really good hitter, RFD.

Speaker 4 And I said one or two of them are maybe both in a segment because probably they're both in the American League at the time, California.

Speaker 4 And we go to a break and I get in my ear, What was that? Now, that's not where you were going. Yeah.

Speaker 4 They just came out. It wasn't a plan.
It just came out. It's quarter to three in the morning.
It's Frankton and Atakeri. I've been calling him that for four years, just not on national TV.

Speaker 4 And although it's three and you know, it's late.

Speaker 4 It was okay. Nobody got hurt.
And the cameramen laughed. And

Speaker 4 so the next night or two, we did a few more. At any rate, now you go about five years.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I probably have 800 of them because it's baseball. You're trying to embellish a little bit because it's every night, and not all the games were video.

Speaker 4 A lot of them was Kansas City 5, Seattle 3 for 30 seconds. Jeez.
Okay, so don't make jokes and take information away. Don't do that.

Speaker 4 But if I'm going to say Frank Tanana Daiquiri struck out 13, I didn't, it cost me a half a second. Right.
Didn't, hey, here's a funny joke. Wouldn't they tell me about the game, please?

Speaker 4 So it was okay.

Speaker 4 So we had a new executive producer, high up, name, it doesn't matter anymore. Like early September in 85, went, no, you can't use him anymore.
I've been doing it for five years.

Speaker 4 Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 4 Everybody likes him. Well, you know, we're trying to...
He had no real reason. Probably it wasn't his idea, which is usually the way it goes, right?

Speaker 4 Well, what do you mean? Like,

Speaker 4 no, you got to stop. There's three weeks left in the season.
First of all, if he's any smart, you do it in November. Maybe nobody knows, and then they don't come back.
Right.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 4 okay, so that's about three weeks. I'm telling a little too long a story.
But

Speaker 4 the only way I could have my own fun was Mookie Wilson, that was William Wilson, you know, and Sparky Anderson was manager of the Texas with George Anderson.

Speaker 4 And Whitey Herzog, I called him Dorel Herzog. So you cut all the nicknames.
Even

Speaker 4 though you know, he didn't tell me that. I did.
Yeah, right. I like Silent Pro Technology.
Durrell Herzog. Who's that? Like, well, he manages the Cardinals.
He said no nicknames.

Speaker 4 I'm just told you told me to do that. Even Babe Ruth once I called the George.

Speaker 4 So, but whatever. That's my own.
He didn't know.

Speaker 4 So the Royals, George Brett

Speaker 4 is a great friend of mine. And he loved the nickname.
That's how we met.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 game one of the ALCS, remember, there's only West and the East. They played Toronto, I think.
And George Graham was covering it. And George Brett is George Brett, right? Here are the Royals.

Speaker 4 And so there's 30 people

Speaker 4 and our George Grant, wonderful person, wonder, great professional, great friend. So, George, can I get, and of course, ESPN, I get it, but wait, are we rolling? Yeah.
But wait a minute.

Speaker 4 What's the story with my man not being able to use his nicknames? Well, these are all the baseball writers. It wasn't out there.
It was no decree. It's 1985.

Speaker 4 And a couple of the TV writers were there because this is George Brett. Like, if you're going to interview a Royal George Brett, right? And by the way, they won the World Series that year.
But

Speaker 4 he said, I'll do the interview. But this is B.A.
I mean, you can swear.

Speaker 4 No, no, no.

Speaker 4 This is George Brett.

Speaker 4 And, of course, our management thought I put him up to it or thought George Graham was involved. No, I didn't.

Speaker 4 The next April,

Speaker 4 they were back. And he was gone.
There you go. He fought the law and the law won.

Speaker 4 I mean, it's just

Speaker 4 a It's an incredible story. It's not George Brett.

Speaker 4 That also speaks to your relationship with guys and being able to be in the media, but also be friends with some of these guys. And it was like, I just read that story.
I was like, George Brett saved

Speaker 4 Boomer and the Schwab. He did it.
Well, he saved the nickname. Yeah.
And he wouldn't try. He was.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he was mad. This is game one of the...
It's like, don't worry about that. Worry about what the starting pitcher for Dave Steve or whoever was going to throw.
No, he was more P.O.'d about that.

Speaker 4 Because he was mad he also didn't have a nickname, right, when you first met him. Correct.

Speaker 4 He goes, how come we don't have a lot of nicknames, the Royals?

Speaker 4 George, are you kidding me?

Speaker 4 He stuck at his head. George Brett, how you did.
How come the Royals don't have a lot of, I mean, I don't know, George. Like, you know, I can't call you Wonder Brett.

Speaker 4 You've been established too long.

Speaker 4 I'm not going to go halfway through your career, Johnny Bench. Now I'm on.
I'm calling him Park Bench. Now, too late.
Right. So, and, you know, Cusenberry is hard to get, right?

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 I don't know. And then he said, what's your nickname? I said, well, you know, not really, because you'll have one after the game.
Was it a pennant game? It was like the last week of a season in 82.

Speaker 4 He had the winning hit. And here's, again, interview in the locker room.

Speaker 4 He's describing the pit. Well, it was low and away.
He goes, There he is, Ethel Merman Berman. Like,

Speaker 4 you just played like a big game. Like, who cares?

Speaker 4 He's my guy. Amazing.
He's my guy. How did you get the name Boomer?

Speaker 4 Okay, that's

Speaker 4 my first year, late,

Speaker 4 one of a man that became a legend at our place, who became the head of all the technical names, Chuck Pagano, local boy here in Waterbury, Connecticut, who became executive VP just because he...

Speaker 4 he worked hard and did his job. He goes, God, you're deep voiced, too.

Speaker 4 You're loud on these these highlights. We're going to call you the boomer, like that came from a coworker, if you will.

Speaker 4 And it stuck. And,

Speaker 4 you know, we've had arguments with Sias and David Wells,

Speaker 4 you know, et cetera, who was, which is the bigger boomer. You know, keep me out of that.
But so it came from a coworker who worked the overnight shift with me. And it stuck.
You know, like

Speaker 4 in the early days, maybe even in your world, your first three, four, something really worked. You weren't planning on it.
You go with it. Yeah.
And it stuck. Yeah.

Speaker 4 What about the swamp? Well, that was mine.

Speaker 4 I love the swamp. I'm picking games.
Well, so now it's 1979. I start October 79.
It was football season. I do the late.

Speaker 4 It's a sign-off the first six months, like good night. Well, maybe not Friday night.
Maybe not Friday night. That we went neither here nor there.

Speaker 4 I said, I'm going to pick five games, you know, against the spread of the weed. You know, you just said things like,

Speaker 4 it'll be closer than expected. Right.

Speaker 4 I mean, this is 1979, 1980, 81. There's all sorts of ways.
They're going to win much more handily than you think. You know, I mean, duh.
You know, what am I telling you? And I put the score up.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. Always put the score up.
So you could figure. And it was never right on.
It was always at least a field goal one way or the other. So I left no doubt as to what I was picking.

Speaker 4 And then I gave, and I gave the record widths right now. And it would have the little thing next to it.

Speaker 4 Because I remember as a kid being like, wait, he just picked like the Cowboys, but why does the thing, why is the thing next to

Speaker 4 the Dolphins? Like, what? And I always love the scores, the scores. Like, you know, you're the only guy that would be like, all right, Cowboys are going to beat the Niners 19 to 11.
Like, what?

Speaker 4 Where's that score? Or a defensive game,

Speaker 4 I go three to two. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I'm not telling you to bet the under necessarily. It's just three to two.
Three to two. Or one, I had,

Speaker 4 I don't know, you know, like 74, 70. Like, just, you know what?

Speaker 4 Like, you get the point, right? Like, that's not that. But it's a wink without hitting you over the head with it, which I think sometimes the audience feels like they're involved in something.

Speaker 4 They have an inside joke with you.

Speaker 4 Something that's understood, but you're not explicitly telling them, which in turn will make the audience like you more because it's like, oh, I identify with this guy. We speak the same language.

Speaker 4 Wasn't doing it with that in mind, but I think that's true. And another thing behind the scenes, I mean, we're primitive technically.
I mean, not only 79, but even 82, 83.

Speaker 4 I told audio, I told Chiron, we called it, which is the graphics.

Speaker 4 You have fun in this segment. And we did it live, too.
So Tampa Bay,

Speaker 4 put them in orange. Oh, it's not our format.
Like, we put them in orange. You know, we're picking the 49ers, put them in red.
That was like a big deal for the person doing graphics.

Speaker 4 Put me in reverb, you know, when I come to this game, which was

Speaker 4 you don't do that. Like, it sounds like a complete mistake, but when I go pick this wild up, said, do that.
So the audio got fire. You know, it's just three o'clock in the morning

Speaker 4 on a Friday. And

Speaker 4 so they're involved. And a couple times I'd have the camera like moving, like wave it around.
We're not really supposed to do that. But this is our segment.

Speaker 4 And so everybody, my guys and ladies who,

Speaker 4 you know, we're working with, we all felt involved. And I felt that was.

Speaker 4 And the viewers. Yeah.
And it's, I mean, the one thing that I think that

Speaker 4 you're so good at and why people are so drawn to you is that sports are supposed to be fun. And you always had fun.
And

Speaker 4 that's the thing to me is like, if the person's having fun, you feel it. And you know that they're enjoying this and they're not taking it too seriously.
And

Speaker 4 that's what comes across. Don't you believe that, I mean, this is not necessarily we want to change our jobs.
If you're walking down the street and someone's digging a ditch, I'm making it up.

Speaker 4 Whistling and listening to music, let's say as a boombox so you can hear,

Speaker 4 you might even stop and watch for a couple minutes. Not say, good, I want to be a ditch digger, but

Speaker 4 okay, I'm in.

Speaker 4 It's not brain surgery, right? Right.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's supposed to be fun. Watching sports is fun.
Watching people do highlights about sports, that's supposed to be fun, too.

Speaker 4 I think just like the contagious enjoyment that you brought to it it influenced everybody else that came up watching it.

Speaker 4 I think we've gotten away a little bit from that in the last few years too, where people think that sports, it has to be, it always has to mean something bigger.

Speaker 4 And while sometimes that's very true, sometimes sports are just like, that's what people use to blow off steam. They want to enjoy themselves.
It can be a break from something.

Speaker 4 And that's, I think sometimes,

Speaker 4 you know, we have to remind ourselves of that. You're a good inspiration for that.
We've always appreciated that about you. I'm not alone with it, but here's what I would say.

Speaker 4 So for two-thirds of our career, for example, primetime, let's just do that, not even the baseball sports center. Primetime began at 87.
And until like 2005, pick a year, 2008,

Speaker 4 you saw three games. Yeah.
You live in New York, Chicago, Washington. The Arizona-Seattle game that was 48-45,

Speaker 4 you might have seen one drop in because it was a 90-yard bomb in the middle of the game you were watching, the late, the Cowboys, right? You have, have, well, that's the best game of the day.

Speaker 4 Here's five minutes.

Speaker 4 So, and do it. This is where they make a mistake now.
Everyone assumes, and they are. You hear about, oh, there was a play,

Speaker 4 and you call it on your phone in one second. That's cool.
But even at the end of the day, when you know everything,

Speaker 4 here's a meal. Serve me the whole meal of week 12,

Speaker 4 for example.

Speaker 4 Or even all the baseball or pick your sport. Give me the meal meal and those doing the highlights.
I've stayed with this 42 and a half years. I am old.

Speaker 4 I have socks older than you guys. I keep them for floods.

Speaker 4 What about the ties? What's your oldest tie? Oh, ties are about 300.

Speaker 4 When was the last time you bought a new tie, though?

Speaker 4 Well, I kept buying them up till COVID.

Speaker 4 Then I looked, I went, like the one I wore this week, like, damn, I haven't seen this in 10 years. I love this tie.
It's like, I forgot it was in there, you know.

Speaker 4 And so some of them are, you know, 80s where

Speaker 4 even a hot color, like just a color, like purple or turquoise was whoo, you know, I still got those.

Speaker 4 Did a producer ever say like, hey, hey, boom, that, that tie, like, it's too much? Well, well, it can be, but never wore the ridiculous. Maybe

Speaker 4 I'm doing a giant Stodgers game and I wear a you know palm tree tie. It stopped.
Right.

Speaker 4 But back to just think to the people should not assume that everyone watching has seen the game or the highlights.

Speaker 4 Therefore, you owe it to the viewer to do them like they're live, even though it says, and it's going to be,

Speaker 4 and he's going to leap over a tackler.

Speaker 4 Wait till he jumps and then say it. Don't say it.
He's going to leap over a tackler and score a touchdown. Well, he's still on the 15.
Right. Give it to you.

Speaker 4 the viewer, like it's happening live, even if you've seen it. It's a game that you've seen.
Like a playoff game. We've all watched them, right? Yeah, yeah, do it anyway.
So I do it anyway.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I also grew up watching George Michael in the sports machine out of DC, and he was an awesome broadcaster in his own right. He did it the other way, though.

Speaker 4 He would always say the result before the highlight. That's okay.
Result of game is okay. I mean the play.

Speaker 4 He wouldn't say he's going to leap over a tackler at the 10 and then score. That's what I mean.
Oh, you could, that's okay because he's, that's fine. George was great, as was for highlights.

Speaker 4 I mean, Kosell is the obvious. They taped him.
Our fastest three in the day was live. Like you could make a lot of mistakes.
Live? Did you ever screw up real bad? Oh,

Speaker 4 live? Halftime?

Speaker 4 I mean, I used to have a thing with my director, Jeff Wynn, like, just keep the puck in front of us, you know? And at the end of one of it, it was like,

Speaker 4 I think they got one by us, you know?

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 it's so true about primetime. And it's hard to explain it now because, you know, we're both 37.
We We grew up in the 90s. We remember primetime was the thing on Sunday night.

Speaker 4 You sat down, you're like, I want to watch every highlight. It's hard to explain now to kids who are, you know, 25 or younger because they've always had red zone.
Right. But it was it.

Speaker 4 You would like Sunday night, you sit down, you watch Boom and Tege, and they tell you everything that happened in the NFL on Sunday. I look, I'd watch it, have nothing to do with us doing it.

Speaker 4 And Tommy is, you know, like my best friend. I mean, we were, we worked almost 30 years together.
We talk every week. You know, he, we, he lives in Cincinnati.
He's pretty fired up right now. But

Speaker 4 primetime was a gift that we got to do it, that ESPN got to do it.

Speaker 4 Then, it wasn't a president yet, but at the time, Steve Bornstein said, I'm doing it. He invented it with when ESPN got Sunday night games the last eight weeks in 87.
That was like a big deal.

Speaker 4 ESPN 87.

Speaker 4 World Series will be over. That was about Halloween.
And then the last eight weeks was Sunday night. But we're also, I didn't invent it.

Speaker 4 We're inventing this show that we have the right to show as many highlight minutes as we can in that one hour.

Speaker 4 And he also told Pete Roselle and I got, we're going to throw it and I got the guy to do it. And that's how it happened.

Speaker 4 We can't, we can on the plus show. and on the championship and then after the Super Bowl, but the regular,

Speaker 4 because NBC has Sunday night, when they got that in 06, they have the rights to, they could make that show primetime, you know. They have the rights to do it.

Speaker 4 I'm not saying they should or they shouldn't, but they don't. And we

Speaker 4 can't. Remember, we used to be on Tommy and me and Trent.
Like, we did it, but we were limited in time. But primetime was, okay, we have commercials.

Speaker 4 If you can stuff.

Speaker 4 12 pounds of blanket with 10-pound badges, go ahead and do it and run 40 minutes of highlights, say your name, and just roll it. Yeah, and that's what it was.

Speaker 4 And it was, I mean, would you say that was getting prime time and that move in 1987 was the biggest like thing for your career?

Speaker 4 Because that was so huge for ESPN, I'd imagine. Getting those energies.
The hardest thing we ever did.

Speaker 4 The fact that Pete Roselle, one of the smartest people,

Speaker 4 I got to know him. He liked me for whatever reason.
I think he knew I like football. Just like I appreciate any of you guys.
I like young guys that like football.

Speaker 4 That's really that simple. That's one test.

Speaker 4 That's what you guys do. You like football, you know football, you watch football, and you'll admit, like, hey, I didn't know that.
Fine. I like football.
You like football. It's not that hard.

Speaker 4 We're friends. We love football.
Yeah, we're good. But so, Pete, at any rate, Pete, the fact that he

Speaker 4 cable, ooh, this is a big step in 87. But if the NFL rubber stamped it,

Speaker 4 so the biggest thing for us,

Speaker 4 to everyone who worked there, well, we ain't going anywhere now as a network. We're here.
We always thought that, not always in 81, but by 85, 86, we're doing pretty good. Well, we're here now.

Speaker 4 And then that show, my favorite thing that I've ever done. How could it not be? Yeah.
You know, I was lucky to be in it. I would watch it as a fan.
Why wouldn't you?

Speaker 4 You want to see what happened in these, even the horrible games. You can't, there's no highlights you could show,

Speaker 4 you know,

Speaker 4 on the network, a drop-in of eight guys

Speaker 4 squealed pigging the ball, and you don't show that. But we do.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And the music. The music is everything.

Speaker 4 You know, the natural thing that you would say if somebody was doing the squealed pig play, that would be a whoop situation. Yes.
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 4 Rumbling, bumbling, stumbling, and fumbling would be part of it. The whoop came from Barry Sanders.

Speaker 4 Okay. So that it came as a whoa.
There's no other way to describe Barry's.

Speaker 4 I think his ankles were bionic. Tommy and I both think this because he, there's no way you could swivel as a human being like this.

Speaker 4 And so that was the whoop of the whoop of that. Was more Barry's moves that come from Barry Sanders.

Speaker 4 He's the impetus for that. And now it's anybody that kind of does that.
Yes, now it, because the sound, I get stopped all at the

Speaker 4 like 15, 20 or whoop, like say it.

Speaker 4 They go, go nuts.

Speaker 4 So now I've moved it to to the squeal picture, but it was started with Barry Sanders. And, of course, a Lamar Jackson type of player you would do it with.

Speaker 4 But that's where it came from, out of respect for Barry. So what is the secret to a good whoop?

Speaker 4 I've heard you hit somewhere. It was one of the things that you got.
It bounces off the back of the player when it comes back. Was it McKissick? Yes.

Speaker 4 It was like down at the right somewhere. Yeah,

Speaker 4 it was against the Falcons. It was like early, like early October or something.
You let out this whoop that I swear. Oh, yeah.
You could hear it.

Speaker 4 It bounced off the back wall of the studio and came back to you. I heard it twice in highlights.

Speaker 4 I was inspired by his leap. Like, he took a five-yard.
It was like

Speaker 4 someone trying to do the pole vault, you know, in the Olympics. Like, he's running a long way to take this leap.
It wasn't just a little leap because the tackler went low.

Speaker 4 I don't even think the tackler went that low. He's a little guy.
Yeah. So he went.

Speaker 4 It was like the first, it was at halftime, right?

Speaker 4 So it was the first real whoop of the season that I could crank out on a halftime play. I do think of that every now and then.
Early in the year,

Speaker 4 let's put more ingredients in it a little bit. You got to warm up the pipes, right?

Speaker 4 You got to warm it up first. Yeah, it was not the first pipes.
You got to pry the punch a little bit. Yeah, so do you, do you like open up your chest? Is it from the diaphragm?

Speaker 4 Just like McKissick did. I took a running leap.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 It is, I mean, even you doing those little whoops for Barry Sanders, like we do it, but when you do it, it's like, oh, yeah, that's it. Oh, but you're doing it.
You like it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but like the way you just meant that. The little public domain.

Speaker 4 Like, it's not the same.

Speaker 4 It's only you. We also love the Raiders.
I try to do the Raiders when we run the scores back. I do it as much as I can.
You do a good job. I never heard it.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 That means the world to me. But when I do it, I feel like it takes my...
my entire body about two minutes to recover from it. I don't know if that's something.
It does. It hurts.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 that really is, it's, again, it's taking on a life of its own. But,

Speaker 4 and everybody loves that. And Scott, of course, Van Pelt runs it.
I mean, he has my best couple, and he has it on a button. Even if they're not playing, I think he presses it.

Speaker 4 It was really an ode to Al Davis, who really liked us.

Speaker 4 Al.

Speaker 4 This is his Al's voice in the 80s when I met him first couple times. You know why I root for ESPN? Because you're the underdog.

Speaker 4 Just like that.

Speaker 4 Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And then we're winning all the time. Then, of course, you heard him all the other raiders.
So that's really an ode to Al. So a lot of these are ode to

Speaker 4 Barry,

Speaker 4 Al.

Speaker 4 So that, but the Raiders know everybody loves the law. That again, that's great.
That's a Louis Tiant windup. Okay, that's a

Speaker 4 Raiders.

Speaker 4 Right, yeah, you just need a batting practice. I haven't had a sip of water in a half an hour.
Yeah, you know what? I'm going to. So I'll be ready the next time you ask me.

Speaker 4 So, all right, so the whoop, the Raiders, we got to do circle the wagons because that's, I mean, that picture, too, of you holding the big Bills jersey.

Speaker 4 Well, and we're, we're, we're honorary members of Bills Mafia. We love the city of Buffalo.
We love Josh Allen, but there's just something about no one circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills.

Speaker 4 It just.

Speaker 4 Well, that team in the late 80s and 90s were, I mean, they never won a Super Bowl, but they only wanted to go to four straights. So say no more.
And it's Hall of Famers.

Speaker 4 And obviously, Jim Kelly and Andre Reid and Thurman Thomas and Bruce Smith. And, you know, they may have others.
And Cornelius Bennett was a great player. We can go on

Speaker 4 Marv Levy's in the Hall of Fame. Bill Polem, one of the great executives of all time is in the Hall of Fame.
Ralph Wilson, the owners in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 4 And it's Buffalo. Right.

Speaker 4 You know, it's, it's... Other than Green Bay, it's about the smallest now.
I mean, it's the Bills. And this is the city in western New York.
They asked for nothing. I started picking them in 88.

Speaker 4 They were horrible for the whole decade. They thought I was out of my mind.
They started 4-0, and I got to the championship game and lost to the Bengals.

Speaker 4 I actually thought these Bengals, except they've now gone to the Super Bowl, reminded me of the 88 Bills. Like, I wasn't sure they were going to get past

Speaker 4 Kansas City, but they've already announced we're here for a while. Like, we're really good.
Yeah. You know, I actually said that.
So I forget what game it was, and I just cranked it out on primetime.

Speaker 4 No one, you you know. Looking right in the camera.
No one circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills. And it became a war chant.

Speaker 4 Even the years they were terrible, I mean, up until Josh and Coach McDermott, et cetera, not a lot of great, right?

Speaker 4 But it just became so much fun. And I don't want to do this, but I guess I will tell the story since you brought it up.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 if you're a rock and roll singer, let's say, because I saw Billy Joel in Fenway, and then you're singing piano, man, and everybody knows the words, right? He played at Wrigley.

Speaker 4 He played all these places, any arena.

Speaker 4 And you get halfway through, and then you lay out, and you hear, if you're Billy Joel, like hear them sing every word. And he's like, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my God.
Like, this is.

Speaker 4 So when Thurman Thomas had his number retire, it was only about four years ago. It was on a Monday night.
And they asked me, Thurman, would I come up?

Speaker 4 And the Bills, it's a quick, I'm going to speak real quick. Someone else is going to say something for a minute.
Thurman is going to speak. It's halftime.

Speaker 4 And I got up for 20 seconds. I mean, again, the place is packed.
They're playing the Patriots when the Patriots still beat them a lot.

Speaker 4 They played well that night, Buffalo. They weren't ready yet, you know.
I think Josh was a rookie, okay?

Speaker 4 So I think, yeah, he was.

Speaker 4 And I said, okay, Buffalo. You know where we're going here.
We're doing it on three and like this. And the 70,000, I went, no one.
And then I stopped.

Speaker 4 And I heard, sir, calls the Ragnaroks, like the Buffalo Bills. I'm, wow, that's Billy Joel singing piano, man.
Incredible.

Speaker 4 It was really...

Speaker 4 My relation

Speaker 4 in my 43 years, the relationship that I've ended up by accident because I'm on ESPN and the Bills and it's Buffalo and the players, the team.

Speaker 4 The organization, the players, and the city, 30 years later,

Speaker 4 it's the most rewarding relationship I've gotten through my job. They're great people.
Yeah, we've

Speaker 4 experienced similarities. There's nothing.
Yeah, every time we go, it's like this place, they're just so nice to us.

Speaker 4 So you did do, I have to ask, the seven-year stretch, the Schwam predicted the Niners versus Bills. And for people who don't like, they're like, oh, he was just putting on seven years in a row,

Speaker 4 Either the Niners or the Bills went to the Super Bowl. And you predicted Niners Bills every year to begin the season.

Speaker 4 You were so close a couple times. Close this year.
You were close this year. I mean,

Speaker 4 I hadn't really thought of it.

Speaker 4 You could get it. Yeah, the Super Bowl.
I picked them 12 years in a row. And here's part.
Well,

Speaker 4 I'm loyal. I'm a Taurus, too.
So I'm loyal and I'm stubborn. But the Niners were my relationship professionally in the 80s.
And I can call a lot of those guys. Obviously, the same with the Bills.

Speaker 4 So when the Bills got good, 88, I started it then. I did 12 years around the first seven, one or the other.
Never the same time. There was always

Speaker 4 Calvin Harper running a slant at candlestick. There was always,

Speaker 4 well, 89, the Bills kind of

Speaker 4 had the bickering bills and they didn't make it.

Speaker 4 We were close so many. We were close so many times.
I have one of the balls. They used to send us the balls, the four possible

Speaker 4 team matchups for our championship Sunday countdown.

Speaker 4 Actually, the one I saved was 92. That was the one that was going to happen.

Speaker 4 Actually, that was the Frank Reich year. They almost lost.
But then the Niners, Dallas was

Speaker 4 up and coming, but not really yet. And Aikman hit Alvin Harper on like a 70-yard slant post.

Speaker 4 And I have that ball. I bring it out every now and then, you know,

Speaker 4 Bills versus Niners

Speaker 4 Super Bowl at the Rose Bowl. Got to keep that.
That's perfect.

Speaker 4 Can we go back just a little bit to before you even became a broadcaster? Because I read that you were a history major in college. First Brown, yeah.
After Brown, right? I like it.

Speaker 4 So what inspired you? Like, why did you decide to study history? And then what made you change into

Speaker 4 pursuing broadcasting as a full-time gig?

Speaker 4 Well.

Speaker 4 Abe Lincoln wasn't a good football player, so I had to move on.

Speaker 4 That's the funny answer.

Speaker 4 No, he probably could have been. You have interviewed presidents.
Tell me great tight end in the red zone.

Speaker 4 Well, Abe, yeah, Abe, yeah.

Speaker 4 Post a tight end, just throwing the ball. He was good.
No, no, so to answer your question seriously, Brown, so a little different in the 70s.

Speaker 4 Brown had a really good, I always wanted to do this, you know, Laroc Hunter. I always wanted to do this professionally.
I thought it would be cool.

Speaker 4 But I also didn't, I'm not saying right or wrong, didn't, the journalism school, no.

Speaker 4 Not no good. Don't get me wrong.
No, I'm fortunate enough to get into Brown. I love history.
I'm going to do it. I wrote 40-page papers.
I'm a pretty good writer.

Speaker 4 I mean, I don't mean like as in a novel, but

Speaker 4 Brown had a really good radio station, 50,000 watts. So back then, it wasn't so much, ooh, I'm not going to take a course in it.
Hmm.

Speaker 4 You do it on your own. Like going to college, anything.

Speaker 4 I think I want to go into drama. I want to do plays.
I want to do this. Do it on your own.
If you find you're not spending the time doing it, that's probably not really what you want to do.

Speaker 4 And I became the voice of Brown, you know, Bruins football and basketball, et cetera. So it wasn't like a change.
I knew history was just doing it while I was there.

Speaker 4 And so my first job was a little radio station in Rhode Island right out of college for about a year. And then

Speaker 4 a little less little radio station in right near here in Waterbury, Connecticut. And then I got on four, I I don't know how, because I had, didn't have the full, but I had, you know, you got the 70s

Speaker 4 mustache, yeah. And you have my hair,

Speaker 4 I got the Troy Aikman, huh? I got the Troy Aikman. I'm facebald.
Well, it's never coming to end. No, but the, but, you know, late 70s, I had this, and I had hair to,

Speaker 4 you know,

Speaker 4 it's what we look like. Not like I was anything, what are you trying to prove? I'm trying to look like the guy right next to me.
So,

Speaker 4 and I got on TV in Hartford just the weekends, $23 on Saturday night and $23 on Sunday. Hartford, I'm not talking about Presque Isle, Maine.
I'm talking about Hartford. $23 after minimum.
Great.

Speaker 4 And I was on for three months. So I'm just 24.
I'm kind of ahead of the curve a little. I mean, I wasn't really good, but I'm on.
That's not bad. You're doing

Speaker 4 Hartford. That's a decent-sized market.
I'm on. Well, only because they didn't, the second job was we're the UHF station.

Speaker 4 We didn't have a full-time second gig, so they just needed somebody to come in on Saturday and Sunday night. I'm your guy.
And then ESPN was just starting.

Speaker 4 And I said, I'm not even going to send you a tape, and I'm pretty raw, but go look.

Speaker 4 And I mean, I know that's not the question you asked me, but it was, I always knew I wanted to do it. I love doing history.
I set out to see if it would work.

Speaker 4 And then we got on ESPN in October 1st, 1979, with

Speaker 4 three months. Had Had ESPN been three years in existence, not 10, three years, never would have hired me.
Not on that experience. No way.

Speaker 4 So as we were getting ESPN off the ground, how close did it come to failing right off the bat? Were there ever any times where you were like, I don't know if this concept can work?

Speaker 4 I mean, ESPN as a concept. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Well, I was too young to worry about that.

Speaker 4 But to answer your question, because I've certainly had a lot of time in retrospect to think about it.

Speaker 4 Getty oil was our benefactor and how that came together, LA-ish, I don't know, but

Speaker 4 they were making money, you know, and

Speaker 4 they were in it. We knew they'd give us a couple of years.
None of this trickled down to me. I mean, look, I'm going home at quarter to four in the morning, you know.

Speaker 4 They didn't get me on the hot phone and say, well,

Speaker 4 what do you think we should tell our investors tomorrow?

Speaker 4 I wasn't in that loop. But

Speaker 4 a year in, I thought, you know, this is a good idea.

Speaker 4 Who knows if cable's going to do this, which we didn't know. And who knows if we're going to do this, which we didn't know.
But I think there's people, just for us, there are people out there,

Speaker 4 well, here, you're two of them.

Speaker 4 There are people out there like me. Because I'm running into people more on the West Coast like, hey, you're the late guy.

Speaker 4 Not ad nauseum, but people are

Speaker 4 watching, and people don't all work nine to five. Not that they ever did, but now we're in the 80s.

Speaker 4 The restaurant people, they come home at 12. I don't mean out of a bender or anything.
Just I'm putting something on for two hours. It's great.

Speaker 4 And you realize that there's all sorts of folks who are like us that aren't nine to five. They're not asleep at 10 o'clock.
You know, so

Speaker 4 give them a shot. So I thought it was a good idea, but

Speaker 4 if you're drawing one of those graphs

Speaker 4 like we all had in school that Ross Perot tried to run president on, like you.

Speaker 4 Cable in the 80s was

Speaker 4 a rocket ship. Yeah.
You know?

Speaker 4 We, I've said this before. We followed Cable's coattails,

Speaker 4 but they kind of followed ours a little. And CNN was, I give them the nod at MTV, 79, 80, 82.

Speaker 4 So now you got, you have

Speaker 4 sports, you have news, and you have music, and you're checking in a hotel in Portland, Oregon in 1986. And if they had some sort of, you got all three.

Speaker 4 That's your hometown station, even though you live in Chicago or Washington or wherever you are. Oh, I get them here.
They're pretty good.

Speaker 4 So we had a feeling it was a good idea, and cable was like this. So who knew?

Speaker 4 I didn't have that kind of knowledge to predict that. Not even the Swami could have predicted that cable TV was going to be a rocket ship.
Did anybody ever back the Brinkstruck up for you?

Speaker 4 Anyone ever? Yeah, try to get you out?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 comparative Brinkstruck. I mean, we're still cable.
But so 19,

Speaker 4 we started, I started, we started in 79, 89. So that's 10 years.
so NBC

Speaker 4 came pretty hard

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 it was a real

Speaker 4 I'm loyal

Speaker 4 I wouldn't say to a fall but I'm loyal as hell but it

Speaker 4 I don't mind saying I was making in the I don't know great I mean

Speaker 4 once 150 160 somewhere in there not two

Speaker 4 And they essentially offered four times.

Speaker 4 So this went on for like five months. Not bad because I had about seven months to go, but this was going to break the mold of what we do.

Speaker 4 I mean, it's the same as real, real life, some teams that can't afford it, right? Like,

Speaker 4 right? Like in baseball, let's say, right?

Speaker 4 Hey, we're cable. Well, we're all right, but

Speaker 4 I said, Steve,

Speaker 4 Bornstein,

Speaker 4 basic is

Speaker 4 I went to Brown, I could add. You know, don't fault me for this.

Speaker 4 It's not a,

Speaker 4 but in the end, I said, you don't have to match this. You have to get within a nine iron.
And I don't know what that means. And he's not a golfer.

Speaker 4 My nine irons suck. You know, but,

Speaker 4 and they did. That was the best decision I ever made.
Because,

Speaker 4 because,

Speaker 4 and that's really, I have one other interesting story that it's more of a life story that I don't tell very often, but, but so back to that one. We got got the NFL in 87.

Speaker 4 If I went there, I would be waiting to be the NFL guy behind Costas was doing at the time. Well, I'm doing that,

Speaker 4 and I'm doing it for an audience, and I'm doing it every day.

Speaker 4 So, and yeah, they had the Olympics and they had, I mean, there's the NBC, and they, you know, had this.

Speaker 4 So in the end, you don't have to match. But I can't stay at, I mean, yes, so that that's that was the Brinks truck.
Any other other than that, not really. Now, here's the interesting one:

Speaker 4 not, ooh, Chris Brick. As I look back at life, you know how we look at life and always wonder,

Speaker 4 if I had done this or if this had happened, how would my life have gone? I mean, you could do that with your family.

Speaker 4 I mean, my wife,

Speaker 4 there was somebody else, or there was nobody else, or I might have taken that job and we wouldn't have gotten married, whatever it is, right? Even that, I'm talking about life decisions.

Speaker 4 So, San Francisco Giants are, of all,

Speaker 4 they're the number one. Seven years old, Willie Mays.
Okay? I don't have to say anymore, right? 1962, he's in the World Series. I'm seven years old, Willie Mays.
I grew up in Connecticut.

Speaker 4 He plays for San Francisco. I'm a Giant fan.
And you're a little kid, you know what a giant is. Like, that's woo, a giant, right? It's Willie Mays.

Speaker 4 Pretty good, right?

Speaker 4 So that's

Speaker 4 my goals coming out of college, pie in the sky, maybe be Brent Musberger, which

Speaker 4 I'm not saying I've become, but I had the job.

Speaker 4 But one was I'd like to do the Giants.

Speaker 4 And the owner of the team that was named Bob Laurie, great guy, still around. I mean, he doesn't own the team, but he's wonderful San Francisco upper 80s now, I think.
Christmas cards, you know, we

Speaker 4 and I got a call from his office in 88.

Speaker 4 The Giants are playing the three games at the Mets. He'd love to see it it for lunch.

Speaker 4 Hey, and I'd met him. Okay.

Speaker 4 Well, here's where we're going to meet at the 21 Club. No, I'm, you know, 21 Club's already, you know, I don't usually go into New York and have lunch at the 21 Club.

Speaker 4 I might have it at, you know, Katz's Deli. So,

Speaker 4 or whatever.

Speaker 4 And he goes, next year.

Speaker 4 This was new at the time. The team is going to hire the announcers.
Always the stations. Now it's the team, you know, it's a group thing but yeah that was a big deal

Speaker 4 and I wondered to know if you'd be interested in being our announcer

Speaker 4 wow

Speaker 4 it's like my

Speaker 4 from

Speaker 4 junior high if I could announce the Giants and live in San Francisco I love that city

Speaker 4 oh he goes you'll have to tell me now And we had a great two and a half hours. No money was discussed.
I mean, wasn't the point?

Speaker 4 He goes, but call me tomorrow. Here's, I'll be at the such and such hotel.
I always have lunch in my room or whatever, he said.

Speaker 4 And now I'm conflicted. I don't tell this one that often.
So,

Speaker 4 and it probably would have been not the NBC money, more

Speaker 4 and living in San Francisco. And,

Speaker 4 okay,

Speaker 4 doing your team, and I'm hired by him.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 I said, Bob,

Speaker 4 I can't believe I'm going to tell you this.

Speaker 4 You've come to me a year too late.

Speaker 4 I can't believe I'm saying it.

Speaker 4 You've come to me a year too late. I'm Brent Musberger.

Speaker 4 Two years later, he has pay and ended up getting Major League Baseball, and I asked to do the West Coast games on Tuesday night for a couple of years so I could do a lot of Giants.

Speaker 4 And then you would go on to manage the base. And the brake truck was backed up so by not taking the brake truck, I had some pull.
I'm kidding.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you got to manage the Giants later on. Oh, that was great.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 One and one.

Speaker 4 Two springs in a row, if they even have spring training anymore. They may not this year.
I don't know. But at any rate, here's how good a guy he was, because I want to finish this story.

Speaker 4 I know we're going long, but I've got nowhere to go. And you can run this in April, you know.

Speaker 4 Pause at the end of the line. He goes, after you telling me what you did yesterday at lunch.
This is Bob Lurie. You made the right decision.
That's how good a guy he was.

Speaker 4 He also took less money in selling the team in 93 not to have it move out of town to the TROP, the Giants in the Trop, really? Yeah.

Speaker 4 But then that's not a knock on St. Pete.
It's just they're the Sanford. I know they were in New York, but this is.
Yeah. But he took less.
That's the kind of guy he is. Less money.

Speaker 4 He got plenty, but less money because he's a San Francisco guy and he thought they're pretty good group, McGowan and that group,

Speaker 4 and they're going to stay.

Speaker 4 So speaking of San Francisco, we have to bring it up. The catch.

Speaker 4 You were there. I love it.
Is that true? You were there?

Speaker 4 You've seen it?

Speaker 4 We got to run it.

Speaker 4 It was

Speaker 4 40 years ago last month.

Speaker 4 I mean, we had to run it. Had to.
No, I ran it again. I mean, I

Speaker 4 play it again. I mean, it was

Speaker 4 the game itself,

Speaker 4 there are a lot of turnovers in it. It was not as far as a pure game like Kansas City Buffalo, where there were no turnovers.
Like, I mean, we can get to football now.

Speaker 4 I know we're going to get there eventually, or maybe. We got all night, so we could do it.
So,

Speaker 4 and I picked the Niners all year, partly because I'm doing the West Coast show. There were six and ten the year before.
Yeah. I was on them every week.
Yeah. I go out to the championship game.

Speaker 4 I don't know anybody.

Speaker 4 They line up to do interviews, like 11 of them. You're the Swami.
You pick us every week. I didn't know they two years in.

Speaker 4 We have plenty of time for you. And that's everyone from Joe Montana, right, to the offensive lineman to Charlie Young, the tight end.
And then we can go on and on and on.

Speaker 4 And then, of course, they win. And, you know, I'm friendly with the owner, Eddie DeBartolo.
And then here you go with

Speaker 4 and now they win this. And we're on the field.
I mean,

Speaker 4 the catch.

Speaker 4 So now the game ends. Now to do a stand-up, you got one shot to your overrun.

Speaker 4 One.

Speaker 4 You can try another one, but it ain't,

Speaker 4 first of all, the cameraman's carrying a

Speaker 4 heavy pack, and the wire is that. People can get hurt, actually, if you let every

Speaker 4 here they come. We run out.
It's about eight seconds to eight. Ready? Three.
We got one shot, so that was under pressure. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So I was a young kid, I delivered, but then again, Joe Montene and Dwight Clark delivered a little better than that. Still remains an iconic game.
It does. It just, just,

Speaker 4 and the fact that

Speaker 4 the start of their

Speaker 4 start of them. Yeah.
Yeah. It's like the tuck was, the tuck game was the start of the Patriots.
Yeah. And look what they did with it for 20 years.
The catch was the start of 15 years. Yeah.

Speaker 4 It just, you didn't know it.

Speaker 4 He played the Bengals. I love that clip.
It's the

Speaker 4 one shot. We'll do it again.
Yeah, one shot. And you got to think about it every time you watch it.
Like, wow, we nailed it in that one shot. Well, no one's thinking about that, but I am.

Speaker 4 I would have got my cameraman hurt.

Speaker 4 And Dwight, who

Speaker 4 passed of ALS a couple years ago, became, of all those guys, my best friend of that group other than the owner, Eddie DeBartolo. They became all my.

Speaker 4 Oh, it's just interesting how we. And when the last night at Candlestick, we ran, Dwight and I resurrected it.
That's awesome. you know i mean i threw it actually

Speaker 4 he jumped and you know it was december of 13 it was a monday night game pre-game we we got to do it one last time that's amazing so uh you mentioned you know the modern the modern uh era and the the super bowl that we've got coming up here in a week and a half what's the swamp predicting for the super bowl well as we sit and you guys let me pass so far so i'll throw it out so i know i'm immune from it you know what day this is it's groundhogs day Duh, duh, duh, duh.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 June 222. So now I'm good, right? Yes, yes, there you go.

Speaker 4 You can't write this stuff, actually.

Speaker 4 It's almost written like your guys' Fastest Two Minutes. You know, the first Boswell, New Mexico.

Speaker 4 God.

Speaker 4 Nobody knows about Roswell, New Mexico.

Speaker 4 Little green guys. But

Speaker 4 so as we sit, this is on Groundhog's Day. So I'm not dodging because we talked about it before.

Speaker 4 This is a Super Bowl. I didn't think

Speaker 4 I was going to be able to do it. I didn't count on this one, which is fine.

Speaker 4 I mean, the Bengals earned every bit of it, but if you really want to get into it, I mean, I'm very close with the Chiefs and the Bills.

Speaker 4 So we had

Speaker 4 as great a playoff game as we've ever seen two weeks ago with Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, and nobody made a mistake.

Speaker 4 And each, I mean, you got to be, the record will show 13 seconds, but that they both took the lead twice.

Speaker 4 I mean, I don't have to tell you.

Speaker 4 The only playoff game I could think of that was not the catch, because there was like eight turnovers in that game. It was great excitement.
But I don't go exciting. You're talking about a great game.

Speaker 4 I go to San Diego at Miami in 81, 40 years ago. Telling Winslow all the time.
The Winslow carried off. That's the only one.
And by the way, San Diego who won it lost to Cincinnati the next week.

Speaker 4 So maybe that's the problem.

Speaker 4 So here's Kansas City did all that to beat Buffalo. And then they laid that egg in the second half.
Give the Bengals full props. I mean, mean, whatever they did.
Patrick Mahomes,

Speaker 4 I can't, this is Wednesday. I'm pretty close with them.
I don't know what that was yet.

Speaker 4 It was some team I don't recognize. And that's give Cincy credit.
So I'm not dodging

Speaker 4 because they can't, who's to say they can't win?

Speaker 4 One thing that Coach Reed told me in the middle of the week going into that game, I said, do you think, even though they've beaten you before, and so they're confident, that the moment could be all of a sudden or down in the third quarter?

Speaker 4 I posed this to him, down in the third quarter,

Speaker 4 and I didn't predict down 21 to 3 or whatever, or 21 to 10, what have you. And

Speaker 4 they look around and the moment becomes a little big for him.

Speaker 4 He was quick to say, All those guys that won national championships on that team, and not only the quarterback and the receiver, but a lot of others who have played in.

Speaker 4 If we're counting on that, we're in trouble. They told me this in the middle of the week.
Now, I mean, that was not an XO thing. That was just a conversation.

Speaker 4 He didn't count on it. I don't know.
I don't know what happened. So

Speaker 4 the Bengals, are we just missing the boat? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Four points, too. We keep

Speaker 4 picking the winner. Yeah, we talked about that.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 once we figure that out, it's over.

Speaker 4 Once anyone figures anything out with gambling, it all comes back to us. Right.

Speaker 4 What we're talking about is until the Niners, the Rams won, but didn't cover every other playoff game, but just picked a winner. In other words, if the 49ers won, they're an underdog.

Speaker 4 Easier said than done.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Cincinnati won those games. They're an underdog.
You take them, but you throw the spreads out.

Speaker 4 But given that the playoffs we've had, so at four,

Speaker 4 you'd think, well, it's got to be a field goal game, doesn't it? Isn't that the way it you would? And you would hope so after the, of course, the first round of the playoffs were awful. Yeah.

Speaker 4 There were a lot of teams that shouldn't have been in. Yeah.

Speaker 4 The seven playoff teams.

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Speaker 4 What's the biggest, what's the best bet you've ever won?

Speaker 4 Well, because I love that you all, I mean, now we're obviously

Speaker 4 gambling is is big and everyone talks about, but you were

Speaker 4 not even talking about you because I, first mortgage, I was done doing that. Yeah.
So I'll be, I don't mind saying 83 mortgage, I, I, yeah, yeah, yeah. I make my picks.
I make my five picks on TV.

Speaker 4 I live and die with them. Everybody knows that.
I live and die with them

Speaker 4 because I want people to do, you know.

Speaker 4 So that 81 season, I was on the Bengals who were 6-10 and the 49ers who were 6-10, like all year. So I was at 68% because I have five picks.
Cincinnati, San Francisco.

Speaker 4 Now, let me think of three more, you know? But that was just, I've had other years when it's been horrible. There's been a couple of funny ones.

Speaker 4 Like Mort always says, it always works out at the end. When you bring the ball to the game, you make the rules.

Speaker 4 So there was one year, but then I'll give you the greatest one ever, which is my walk-off Swami pick by accident. There was one.
It's one of the great football games.

Speaker 4 I was 12 under 500, you know, whatever it is, going into the last week of the season.

Speaker 4 93.

Speaker 4 and

Speaker 4 Cowboys at Giants. Big game.
It was the Emmett Smith game with the shoulder, and he ran for 180 yards. So it's a famous game, as it turns out.
Said, I'm picking one game, and it's worth 13.

Speaker 4 You can't do that.

Speaker 4 Well, no, if I lose, I'm 25 under. I'm putting it up.
Don't worry. Yes.
But it's worth a 13-star special. Yes.

Speaker 4 And I said, 16-13 Dallas, which was the score. Wow.
And so nobody in the building, you, I don't, no, I'm doing it off the top of my head.

Speaker 4 I don't think it was 19-16, but I think it was 16-13, if I'm wrong. It's one of the two, but I'm saying 16.
It's a long time ago. Overtime score.

Speaker 4 Emmett's great game. Like, don't talk to me.
I'm one over. And then we go on to the playoffs.

Speaker 4 And then the other one was

Speaker 4 my final. So in 2016, when I was,

Speaker 4 you know, changing what I was doing, so the final ended up being New England and Atlanta, that's Super Bowl.

Speaker 4 My pick in the Super Bowl, not the score,

Speaker 4 had New England by six. Now,

Speaker 4 I'd be lying if I said, well, they're going to trail 28-3. They're going to go to overtime.
They're going to win. You had a read on that, guys.
I didn't have that.

Speaker 4 But the final was New England by six. It's like, I'm done.
Yeah. I'm not making another pick.
You nailed it. I'm done.
That's got to be the best win of of all time. It is.
That's right. I got to that.

Speaker 4 But the Emmett one, I remember. I took such flack in the building.
You can't do that. I can do whatever I want.
It's my segments. Exactly.
It's your show. It's your podcast.
Yeah. You want to do it?

Speaker 4 Go ahead. Did you ever.
I have three game of the years already, and we're only in February. I mean, it's true.
I'm 3-0. Game of the year.

Speaker 4 You got to have three games of the years. Yeah.
And you got another one. People are like, how do you have this many game of the years? It's like, well, I keep seeing games that are game of the years.

Speaker 4 Especially when you win it. Yeah.
3-0. What do you got? You win it.

Speaker 4 It's your ball. You brought it.
Exactly. Did you ever happen to run into Hunter S.
Thompson back in the 70s, 80s? Because

Speaker 4 he was another big gambler. I know he was tight with Al Davis back then.
Well, Pete Axtum, who we worked with, was Hunter Thompson's buddy. But no, I don't think I met him back then.

Speaker 4 I mean, all that stuff was legendary. They all were, you know, the New York gin mills and the Jimmy the Greek circle.
And the, no, I didn't.

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 4 they ran an interesting life. I was not yet.

Speaker 4 Remember, we're up here. We're two hours away from the air.
You didn't go in and

Speaker 4 do whatever and then try to make your way home. So the answer is no.
It would have been interesting, though. Yeah, for sure.
That would have been an all-time hang, I would imagine. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Pete would have been there,

Speaker 4 you know, who worked with us. Pete Axtum was like Jimmy the Greek.

Speaker 4 Pete was brilliant. He was with us our first years in prime time and countdown.

Speaker 4 Game day, we called it that. One thing I wrote down that I have to bring up, we're a big fan of yours all around, big fan of your golf game as well.

Speaker 4 Love the wide-brim hats.

Speaker 4 Has anybody ever told you, like, maybe don't wear a gray shirt when you're going to be out in the 95-degree sun?

Speaker 4 Yeah. Sweating, I sweated at 12.

Speaker 4 Okay, so it's I sweated a long time ago before I was, well, I'm better. I, you know, I lost a lot of weight now, but I mean, again, it's the Titanic losing a few deck chairs.
So

Speaker 4 they're floating floating right out there.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 gray, I never wore gray. No, it's always colorful, but I mean, if it's warm and hot and you got a carnation shirt, you know, or

Speaker 4 a

Speaker 4 nice sharp purple shirt. Look,

Speaker 4 if you've ever come to my studio, which now, I mean, I'm only, but back in the day, three hours, you know, countdown.

Speaker 4 Even in September, the camera people had to wear a jacket. You can hang meat in there.
Yeah. Because I sweat in an igloo.
Yeah, I run pretty hot, too. No, after I do a shirt,

Speaker 4 my shirt shirt for you.

Speaker 4 Yes, they do.

Speaker 4 It's like a magic eye poster.

Speaker 4 Yeah, black.

Speaker 4 I wear black shirts. Well, right, but not on a golf course when it's 88.
Yes. Can we tell you something funny that you probably have no idea about? That's a very weird thing.

Speaker 4 You're going to think we're stalkers.

Speaker 4 Your

Speaker 4 suit cleaner in Connecticut

Speaker 4 had a signed poster of

Speaker 4 we have that in our studio. He gave it to us.

Speaker 4 I can send you as many as you want. We have that one from your dry cleaner because his son is a huge fan of ours.

Speaker 4 And he said, I've had this. My dad's done the Schwamm suits for 30 years.
I want you guys to have it. It's sitting in our studio.
It's our

Speaker 4 every single time you come in, it's right there.

Speaker 4 I have plenty of them. They supposed to print 400

Speaker 4 20 years ago, and there's 4,000. So I haven't gotten rid of all those.
Okay. They're in the basement.
But that guy, I mean, your dry cleaner's got the grid five. We made it look good.

Speaker 4 He's been a knuckle ring. There's everything.

Speaker 4 It's Pachino-ish. Yeah.
But your dry cleaner, he's probably had to do some work with the sweat.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. And some was like, just sorry, I tried my best.

Speaker 4 We did everything we could.

Speaker 4 We all got to say that. They don't make that.
They can't get rid of that. Yeah.
Yeah. They're not, yeah, sit you down and just be like, listen, that's

Speaker 4 just

Speaker 4 on the air three hours high.

Speaker 4 And the air isn't running right. Uh-huh.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 the lights, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 TV, like I told Tommy, and I told Boyd, I told everyone I've ever worked with, gotta play with pain in TV.

Speaker 4 Well, we played 14 years at linebacker. What are you talking about? Oh, yeah.
You'll see. Yeah, yeah.
You know, I did a podcast one time with a broken foot and Big Cat got bit by a dog.

Speaker 4 Yeah. We still did a full show.
You got, look,

Speaker 4 it's only only game day. Yeah.
Can you go? The lights are on. We're going.

Speaker 4 Take it up. Yes.
Yes. All those things.
We're not taking you into the tent.

Speaker 4 You're okay. Yeah.
You're clear. Let's go.
You got to go.

Speaker 4 All right. So, this has been incredible.
We got to wrap.

Speaker 4 I mean, we don't want to take your entire life here, but we got to do your best nicknames. What are your best nicknames?

Speaker 4 What are the ones that you, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, oh, that one. Because we have some of yours that we have.
Oh, I want to hear those. But

Speaker 4 so are we going football? All right, whatever you want to do, well, we'll do football last because I okay, because that's kind of your, I mean,

Speaker 4 so baseball, a lot of them now will predate even so much you guys, because I'm going to the ones that because the 80s I did 10 sports centers a week. We all did Bob Lee did, Tommy Mis did

Speaker 4 John Saunders. Today's John's birthday.
We lost him, what, five years ago, six years ago? Great. You know, we could go on and on.

Speaker 4 All the guys, we did

Speaker 4 10 shows a week. Doesn't make us heroes, but hey,

Speaker 4 we're a network, but we have one-fourth of the staff, so

Speaker 4 you okay to do the next show? Well, I did the last. Yeah, we got another one.
Go ahead. So,

Speaker 4 did baseball all the time. So, the best, I'll go right to that.

Speaker 4 Burt Blylevin, because that's Be Home Blylevin.

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 4 you don't have to see the lot of these nicknames are, you don't have to know, A, he's a pitcher. B, B, he pitches for the Twins or the Pirates or whoever.

Speaker 4 C, he has a curveball who got him into the Hall of Fame. You are a kid, and you heard from your parents, be home by 11.
And as a parent, you've told your kid, be home by living.

Speaker 4 You don't have to be a genius to figure these out. Right.
So that's probably the best. I mean, the early ones, baseball, Jose, can you see Cruz? Julio, won't you let me take you on a seat?

Speaker 4 Cruz, a lot of them were from Rock and Roll, Vaughan, Purple, Hayes.

Speaker 4 A couple that stuck, and I just saw him last month, crime dog McGriff.

Speaker 4 That stuck with him. Doggy.

Speaker 4 Every player calls him doggy. He loves.
He's such a good guy. Certainly Borderline Hall of Famer.
Didn't touch a thing, and he hit almost 500 home runs, by the way.

Speaker 4 Chuck Knobloch is one of my favorite. New kids on Knobloch.

Speaker 4 He liked it too, even when he didn't make the throw correctly.

Speaker 4 um

Speaker 4 oh now i'm space um

Speaker 4 roberto remember the alamar that history

Speaker 4 yeah i love that one

Speaker 4 i mean

Speaker 4 food there was a movie blame it on or not food but george taco bell i mean like that with toronto like food everyone knows what taco bell is you don't have to know he plays for toronto that's the that's the best part of him and it's did i really hear that and and even if i get a chuckle out of him yeah see even more so what What do you have baseball?

Speaker 4 So, one of my favorite baseball ones is Miguel Tejara. Very good.
See, I'm going to, I don't forget these. Tejara de Fukum.
Tejara de Fauna. Yes, right?

Speaker 4 The best. I mean, it's

Speaker 4 right. Jimmy Cliff.

Speaker 4 The best.

Speaker 4 Oh, man. So I'm going too far back.
I'm trying to think of. We can go to football too.

Speaker 4 Oh, football's a ton. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So, football, the best ones are those you can deliver under the highlights. You can sing with them.

Speaker 4 We've resurrected Lido Shepard this year with Debo, you know, which is Boss Skaggs. Debo? Whoa.

Speaker 4 It's the Lido Shuffle. One of the great wind-up songs of all time.

Speaker 4 We used to do it for Lido Shepard, defensive back Philadelphia. The GM of the Niners, John Lynch, texted me like a month ago.
Debo, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 4 Like, you know, and I've known Lynchy since he played, of course. But

Speaker 4 so

Speaker 4 when Steve Bono would go back to pass and complete it, you could go to doot doot.

Speaker 4 I got you, babe. I'm a completion, right? Yeah.

Speaker 4 You could go.

Speaker 4 So Elvis Gerbach, again, these are all, but they're plenty right now.

Speaker 4 If Elvis went back and was going to be sacked, caught in a trap, you know?

Speaker 4 I mean, I mean, okay.

Speaker 4 Mark Bulger. Remember him with the run? Yeah.
Well, that's the scarecrow. Ray Bulger, right? So he'd go back to

Speaker 4 if I could only find a receiver. You know?

Speaker 4 And then the kickers had a lot of them. Yep.

Speaker 4 Including David Greenacres and the vet they used to play the theme from the TV. But this is old.
So now.

Speaker 4 And the guy that should be a head coach is Eric Sleeping with B. Enemy.
Yep. You know, incredible.
He should be. And that was really Curtis, my favorite, Martin.

Speaker 4 Martian was a TV show.

Speaker 4 Obscure.

Speaker 4 Good for this audience. Do you remember

Speaker 4 Steelers, primarily fullback Chris

Speaker 4 Mafala? Yes. Fumatu Mafala.
Yes.

Speaker 4 We called him

Speaker 4 Chris Fumatu Bad Mafala.

Speaker 4 And then Tommy would chime in because that came out of shaft. It was with a,

Speaker 4 you know, can you dig it? Can you dig it?

Speaker 4 Shut your mouth. We throw those in, too.

Speaker 4 We'll throw in like the teas going back with the

Speaker 4 mouth. No, I'm so now.

Speaker 4 See, okay, now. I have, yeah, we're missing a couple of my absent favorites.
I don't pick these up. He's in the Super Bowl.
Who's in the Super Bowl? So I'm going quicker. Joe mix and match.
It's okay.

Speaker 4 It's not great. It's okay.
But I'm thinking Bengals.

Speaker 4 I can give you one for the Bengals if I want. Please.
So Joe Burrow throws a pass to Jamar Chase.

Speaker 4 Burrow and Chase hide and seek.

Speaker 4 It works.

Speaker 4 Hide and seek. Hide and seek.
Or you could go.

Speaker 4 What do we do for Joe for Joe Burrow? Do we do like January Joe? All systems Joe. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Which is what it is. Think about it.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Two years ago, he won the national title, and now he can win the Super Bowl. Yep.
Two years ago, he sat in the box with us at the Super Bowl. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Now he's playing in it. He might win.
It's crazy.

Speaker 4 Good for him.

Speaker 4 But why am I. I mean, we have...
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 4 The Chuba Missile Crisis. Yep.
Yep. Chuba Missile Crisis

Speaker 4 this year.

Speaker 4 Oh, there's a, go ahead. Well, I mean, Jake Delome, huh?

Speaker 4 jake dalome is one of my all-time favorites daylight come and you got it the lom yeah that's right that one's and then john kittna was my other favorite that you always

Speaker 4 yeah he uh well with kitna go ahead kitna caboodle yeah okay i haven't thought of him in a while yeah but that's i love those look at a lot of them a lot of the kickers um

Speaker 4 and i you I think it was with Jeff Fiegels, Jeff Philadelphia Fiegels, which is like so, it's so easy, but it's just so funny to say because he's playing for the Giants and you're like, Jeff Philadelphia Fields.

Speaker 4 But when they work when they're from where they're from,

Speaker 4 like, like Royce Clayton was a short setup with the Giants, Royce Aroney Clayton, a San Francisco treat, you know, like, but Jeff, not Fiegels, Jay Feely, who TV now? Yeah.

Speaker 4 So I would do the who for that one. On long ones.
See me.

Speaker 4 Feely.

Speaker 4 And you like to sing, right?

Speaker 4 Have you sung the anthem or something? The anthem, yeah, when we do our boxing. Yeah.

Speaker 4 That's a hard song.

Speaker 4 It is.

Speaker 4 I can sing. I was set to do it, and the Whalers, naturally, the last week of their final season here in 97,

Speaker 4 down their leg the last two or three. They were going to make the playoffs, you know, and lose to somebody in the opening round, but they were going to get in.

Speaker 4 And I had a deal with the general manager, Jim Rutherford.

Speaker 4 Not the national anthem. I'm okay singing.
I'm okay. As Huey Lewis told me, as a golfer boomer, you're a 15.
As a singer, you're a six, you know?

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 I was going to sing O Canada. That you can get to.
That range is different in English and French.

Speaker 4 But they didn't make it. Yeah.
I did O Canada in Providence when

Speaker 4 we did a rough and rowdy, our boxing, our pay-per-view boxing. How'd it go?

Speaker 4 Everyone just started booing and I started laughing. Why? Because Canadians.

Speaker 4 Well, it was a Canadian, our main event was a Canadian versus an American. So I start singing it and everyone starts booing because everyone's revved up and drunk.

Speaker 4 And I just started laughing hysterically, and I couldn't finish the whole thing. It was such a

Speaker 4 good thing. You can do it.

Speaker 4 Go, you guys probably don't even know it. One of the best.

Speaker 4 So the old gentleman that used to sing, Oh, Canada at the Montreal Forum, Roger Dusset, is gone. Have you ever seen this on video? You need to find it.

Speaker 4 So they would wheel him out at the biggest games, Silver Hair, Tuxedo, some of the great games when the Guilla Fleur was playing, and before that, but in the 70s, you can find it. Like 35 seconds.

Speaker 4 You wanted to charge through, you know, through customs.

Speaker 4 You just, you Rogere doucet. And in English and French, it was man at the forum.
Yeah. Bow tie, tops, silver hair.

Speaker 4 It's like Kate Smith back in the day, you know, singing God bless America for the flyers. But it was better because it was Montreal.
Right. No knock on Kate or the Flyers, but it's Montreal.
Yes.

Speaker 4 I mean, it's hockey.

Speaker 4 We've seen you sing the second verse to Take It Easy before.

Speaker 4 Standing on the Corner. Yep.
Winslow, Arizona. Such a fine sight to see.
We do a recurring bit on our show. Do you?

Speaker 4 I don't know if you've heard about this one, but as an homage to you, we just assume, because we know that you're a big fan of classic rock, we see the Rod Stewart album come out every year in late September.

Speaker 4 You're good, man.

Speaker 4 You've done a hell of a. Yeah.
Well, I mean,

Speaker 4 our life. That's our life.
We watched that. We watch football and highlights.
I'm just repeating

Speaker 4 what I've seen. Late September is Maggie Mae comes out on the studio update desk, which I always love.
Week four. Yep.
Week four. Yeah.
Week three was Don Henley Boys of Summer. Yep.

Speaker 4 So the first year we started to do this

Speaker 4 homage to you, actually, I tried to put that in week three, and Big Cat goes, it's too soon. Yeah.
And he's like, push it out. You got to wait.
And he's got seasons later.

Speaker 4 Week three may be good now because we start late. Yeah, it's true.
But we may be feel to it. It's like it's right before the clocks and everything.
And it's like, oh, yeah, it's not.

Speaker 4 It's late September. Summer's got late September.
Yeah, you got to really feel it. Final September weekend.
Hey, the first sweatshirt day. It's like, oh, okay.
It's football.

Speaker 4 And it's funny because I realized when I bring this album out that a lot of people a little younger than you don't even know what it is. What is this? Well, I have 400 of them.

Speaker 4 Is it the same album that you bring out every time? Yes. It's always every picture tells a story.

Speaker 4 I mean, Maggie Mae is on that album. Right.
It's the same physical album that you've had. Absolutely.
I love that. I mean, I

Speaker 4 had it at college. I played the wax off it, you know, in college.
Maggie Mae. Yeah.
Oh, God.

Speaker 4 The intro to that song, that'll wake you up.

Speaker 4 That's a feel-good song. It's a great, it's a great.
Now, the Eagles.

Speaker 4 So we, Glenn Fry was

Speaker 4 a great friend of mine.

Speaker 4 And we did did two Super Bowl Swamis. He joined me for one of them, the one in San Diego, when the

Speaker 4 Broncos broke that long winning streak of the NFC, like 12 or 13 or 11 in a row, whatever it was, and they beat the Packers.

Speaker 4 But we did it in front of the Hotel

Speaker 4 Coronado,

Speaker 4 San Diego, which is famous. And we did it at the Hotel California.
And he's dressed as a Bellman and comes out, you know, like I start to, you know, I quote every line of the song.

Speaker 4 I'm like, you know, my mind is tiffiny twisted. I can't pick the, you know, the winner or whatever.
And Chris, what do you do? He comes out singing. Welcome to the hook.

Speaker 4 Glenn Fry, what are you doing here? He goes, I live here. What are you doing here? You know, and then we went on and on and on.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, singing is okay. Yeah, no, it's good.
I've heard you sing that second verse before. We do the standing on the corner as a tribute to Jameis Winston every week.

Speaker 4 We say Jameis Winston down in NOLA is what we did this year. It used used to be Jameis Winston, Tampa, Florida, and then he got traded.
So hopefully, he's

Speaker 4 a strong as a song, though. Yeah.
Yeah. It does.
On stage. You still get a chance to sing.
Yes. Take it easy.
Yes. The song that put the Eagles on the map.
Yeah, it's wonderful.

Speaker 4 And you got a decent voice. We heard you sing on stage.

Speaker 4 I don't know if it was, it might not have been with the Eagles. It was maybe with a cover band.
You probably didn't even know that you were being taped.

Speaker 4 But some sicko out there was videotaping you, singing it, and they sent it to us because.

Speaker 4 Hawaii, right before. Yeah,

Speaker 4 probably in Hawaii. But we said when Glenn passed away, Huey and his news, when they could tour a few years ago, came through here about Connecticut about two months later.

Speaker 4 And I said, Huey, he's a friend of both of ours, can you guys work up, take it easy? Because

Speaker 4 Huey always would call me up, and I'd sing a song. He's nice enough to let me do it, walk it on a thin line, that is not taking it from

Speaker 4 it's an add-on. Nobody wants to hear me sing the power of love or

Speaker 4 anything like that, you know, harder, rock and roll. But we would,

Speaker 4 so I sang, one is with Huey Lewis in the news. You can find that on YouTube.
Somebody shot on their phone. It wasn't any professionally, they worked it up and I forgot about it.

Speaker 4 He called me that afternoon. You're going to come over for,

Speaker 4 you know,

Speaker 4 work up, take it easy.

Speaker 4 You didn't forget. Yeah.
We practiced once.

Speaker 4 You know, it's always, he calls me for an encore so that at least you've had a few beers by then, you know, and not too many, but a few. Yeah.
And then I'm okay, but one and out.

Speaker 4 Nobody needs to see me throw 50 passes a game. Nobody needs to do that.
What's your all-time favorite band?

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 well, I mean,

Speaker 4 that's a tough one. Yeah.

Speaker 4 This job has allowed me to be friends with

Speaker 4 somebody like Glenn Fry. Bob Seeger is a very good friend because they're sports fans.

Speaker 4 So that would be Bob Seeger, you know, Silver Bullet would be way up there. But if you're asking me a rock and roll question,

Speaker 4 I'd have to give it to the Stones. I just think I would because they're still doing it or they were.
Yeah. And they,

Speaker 4 the songs from the 60s, they still could come out today. Yeah.
They're, you know, under my thumb.

Speaker 4 Dead Flower is one of my favorite songs ever.

Speaker 4 The ones from the 60s, let alone 70s, 80s. so if you're asking me a rock and roll honest question would have to be the stones I don't do I know that I met Mick you know a few minutes but

Speaker 4 Bob Seeger and Huey Lewis and there's the other Stephen stills like they it's really cool that

Speaker 4 and what you guys are finding yes you have your hardcore audience that's sports and all but you meet people from all over America, Canada, et cetera, white, black, old, young, who like, hey, we're football fans, for example.

Speaker 4 And sports has allowed me and us to

Speaker 4 meet you guys. Football, frankly.
You like football? We like football. You like football? I like football.
We like football. I like football.
I like football.

Speaker 4 Let's have a meal.

Speaker 4 You want to talk football? It's a perfect ending. You want to talk football? Some spread.

Speaker 4 From a commercial.

Speaker 4 Howie long. Every time I see him, he says, some spread.

Speaker 4 God,

Speaker 4 I tell you what, if I ever need to be refreshed, I'm 66 now.

Speaker 4 Don't ask me what I had for breakfast. I could tell you what happened in the catch 40 years ago, but don't ask me if I had an egg or a cereal today for breakfast.

Speaker 4 But if I forget some details of my career. Yeah, we got you.
Yeah, we got you.

Speaker 4 I know we're a Christmas.

Speaker 4 Damn.

Speaker 4 Look, I appreciate that more than anything, you guys are, not forget me, fans of football. And you have,

Speaker 4 I don't want to equate cable in 79 and 80 to the podcast business, but your first one was what? 2016.

Speaker 4 With podcasts, like maybe that was the first year-ish

Speaker 4 podcast started in about like 2010, 2011.

Speaker 4 No one really did too many of them. We had a few guys, KFC at Barstool started back in, what, 2012? Yeah, I was on that one.
Yeah, so, but we started in 2016, and

Speaker 4 it was, we, we were at the right place at the right time. So we caught that wave.

Speaker 4 We had a little bit of help from ESPN, who sent us a cease and desist letter after our first episode.

Speaker 4 These things happen. But then we just.

Speaker 4 It didn't get lost in the mail. No, well, we ended up using that to cease and desist them back saying, you need to cease and desist, cease and desisting us.

Speaker 4 And then that obviously, like, it got more eyeballs on our podcast. So indirectly, I guess they call that the Streisand effect.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 But, uh, but things, things were, you know, very fortunate for us at that time. Well, right place at right time.

Speaker 4 See, so I was thinking about it knowing I was coming out like a month ago and then we had

Speaker 4 this is great

Speaker 4 that I don't want to equate podcast with cable TV but in some ways it is like you don't you didn't know you thought you guys had a good show that's your job with your crew let's put a good show together right every week and do we hit a home run every week every two days not necessarily but

Speaker 4 it was every painting or rembrand right some are finger paintings right not really good, but bring the energy, bring the knowledge, and

Speaker 4 my point is,

Speaker 4 you guys took something that may not have taken off. And I respect that because that's kind of what I and we lived 40 years ago.
Yeah. So I think it's really pretty cool.

Speaker 4 Armand said is like if we can make each other laugh. and have fun doing the show, then to us that feels like a good show.

Speaker 4 And hopefully other people out there will kind of find the same things that we find funny to be funny for them. I agree.
Now, the only thing I did bring, and I'm surprised you're not going with it.

Speaker 4 I mean, this is, I'm supposed to at least. Hawaiian shirt, I'm not going to change the shades.

Speaker 4 I got to say,

Speaker 4 I took the shades off. I think it was the ultimate sign of respect that he didn't have the shades off.
Yeah, very much. There we go.

Speaker 4 And I knew that. I just wanted to

Speaker 4 look you in the eye during this episode. No,

Speaker 4 first of all, Hawaiian shirt shades, I got it. Yeah.
I'm glory. Bro,

Speaker 4 this is a good look. This is a good look.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 I meant to start with it, and then we went to the wallet, and

Speaker 4 everything went downhill from there on. So this has been, you guys are totally respectful, and

Speaker 4 I appreciate how hard you work, not this show, but I mean, this particular, but I mean, how hard you work in putting it together. Like, you,

Speaker 4 and your listeners and your viewers

Speaker 4 respect it,

Speaker 4 but now they expect it. Yeah.
And you expect it of yourself.

Speaker 4 It don't come easy, Rainbow Star.

Speaker 4 I got one last, last question for you, just kind of looking towards the future.

Speaker 4 What's next for Boom? Where do you see the next like five, ten years?

Speaker 4 Are you going to be happy if you retire

Speaker 4 getting off TV? Are you going to feel that itch? Do you want to be in front of the camera? Which is why I full-time ended it at the end of 16. But

Speaker 4 the next two years I was around, you know, because kind of

Speaker 4 You know, I'm not George Washington. Maybe I'm Abe Lincoln.
More like Teddy Roosevelt. That seems more likely.
likely but i think you could get shot during a show and still finish well

Speaker 4 well

Speaker 4 yeah he yeah hopefully we'll never find out yeah i would try to your point but um

Speaker 4 but then this reinvention of prime time on plus i know it's plus and i'm not knocking plus but it's we don't have the rights to do it anywhere else i sold that i sold that

Speaker 4 I talked to our president, Jeremy Patero. Do you think we could get rights to this? Because I want to do that.
So where I'm at now,

Speaker 4 I got one year left of it, but that'll be 68. I certainly see me doing it to 70 if they'll have me.

Speaker 4 And then we'll see. I mean, but yeah,

Speaker 4 there would be an itch. Primetime has scratched it, the itch, because

Speaker 4 it gives me excuse. I can call my friends in the league anytime.

Speaker 4 You know, coaches, not so much players, some, but

Speaker 4 you're doing the show.

Speaker 4 There's a reason, and they know you're doing it, and and you're on it half.

Speaker 4 And then the SPN put the halftime highlights back on a year ago, which I taped Sunday night, which is why the Sunday night game's not in there.

Speaker 4 But I mean, not even the SWAMI can predict what's going to happen on, you know, Sunday night. But

Speaker 4 that's, I'm in a good place like that, because 42 years, not like, oh, I'm so tired. You know, tell that to somebody in a coal mine, right?

Speaker 4 I don't think so.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 4 but that's a good question. And I thought I was kind of done,

Speaker 4 but this has been reinvigorating

Speaker 4 the prime time and the halftime. But then during the week, if I want to go do something, I'm good.
Yeah. You know?

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 you'll have me to kick around for a few more years. If they'll have me after one more, we'll see.
I love it. I love it.
They could send me that letter.

Speaker 4 I doubt that. Yeah, no way.

Speaker 4 You never know. We riot if they send you that letter.
We will storm. We'll treat Bristol like it's the capital on January 6th.
I'll line up outside and tear the damn gates down.

Speaker 4 We'll get it solved before it comes. Yes, okay.
Thank you. You guys have been as loyal as,

Speaker 4 I mean, my goodness. You know, I need you in my backfield.

Speaker 4 We got you the fullback. Yeah, we got you.
We got you. But it's been a pleasure, it's been all ours.
So thank you so much. Chris Berman, Boomer, the Schwamm, absolute legend.
We appreciate it.

Speaker 4 Le Grand Champ, Le Raconteur, Merci.

Speaker 4 There you are. That's beautiful.

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Speaker 4 Okay, that is the show. I just dropped my phone again.

Speaker 4 Boomer was incredible. That was well worth the wait.
And yeah, we we bullshit with him for about a half hour before we even started the interview.

Speaker 4 We actually Hank gave the look, which I know very well, where he was like, why are you guys just doing the interview before we do the interview?

Speaker 4 Like a couple minutes was fine, and then you guys kept going. And then

Speaker 4 the pfd asked one question like and then i was like you definitely wrote that down for the interview well here's the question here's the thing it was it was because uh he's old school like so his guy his handler who i'd been in contact with like constant contact with was like hey boomer wants to like shoot the shit for a little bit before you guys start like yeah we're cool with that so i knew that we needed to do a little bit of that my ears like perked up yeah i know when you gave the look i was like oh no we got to get in there we got to start because we definitely were like starting to get into like conversation.

Speaker 4 I think we were talking about like him hanging out with like the 80s niners or something. And we're like, all right, let's go.
Let's go. Uh-huh.
It was, it was a dream come true.

Speaker 4 There was one point where we were expecting him to start coming down the hallway, and Big Cat and I heard him before we saw him. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 And it definitely reminded me of when we met Coach O for the first time and we heard him down a hallway and then got to walk out and see him. You heard Boomer coming down the hallway.

Speaker 4 Everybody just like. Our ears perked up and we're like, oh my God, he's actually here.
And like, dude, is a lot of fun to talk to. We probably could have gone gone for four hours with him.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he, um, there, I, I, like, there was probably about three or four times this weekend where I just like had a little smile come over my face, just replaying in my head him doing that subtle whoop and whoop with Barry Sanders saying that's how he created it.

Speaker 4 It was like the funniest like two-second clip where it's like something about his whoop it's effortless.

Speaker 4 And it can't, it can't be like we replicate it, but it's not. It's a total cheap knockoff.
Like his whoop is just, it's perfect.

Speaker 4 It's, it's, it, it's almost like if you saw like like a great like diamond jeweler can see like a true diamond that's his whoop and then you see ours you're like okay this is a fuguesi right away yeah like throw it out it's a fucking fake we're smash mouth covering under pressure by Queen and David Bowie at that point.

Speaker 4 No disrespect to Smash Mouth. And a whoop.

Speaker 4 It was, man, it was an all-time moment. There were so many times where I was just sitting watching him and I was smiling.

Speaker 4 His presence made me so happy. And then we should actually give a shout out to Evan Longoria because Boomer was telling us the story after the interview was over.

Speaker 4 And he goes, you know, in 2019, I know that you guys have been reaching out to me and I had put it off a couple of times. But then Evan Longoria came up to me in San Francisco and before a game.

Speaker 4 In Boston. In Boston, excuse me.
Because they were playing. Yeah.
Remember, he had his, he was like, they're at Fenway, so I went up for all three games in his big boomer voice. Yeah, yeah.
So, so

Speaker 4 Evan Longoria took out his phone. It was on a Tuesday, and he played Boomer our

Speaker 4 Monday morning NFL recap, the fastest two minutes. And he sat and he listened to it, and he was like, I like these guys.
I want to meet these guys.

Speaker 4 And that's when he decided that he was eventually going to do the show.

Speaker 4 And it was still two and a half years later.

Speaker 4 That makes me feel so warm inside, though, to know like Boomer.

Speaker 4 heard us yeah and boomer liked us and it was a slow yeah it was a slow process because i remember i would just text like every like three months being like hey any thought any word about boomer any word about Boomer?

Speaker 4 He's like, well, he knows he likes you guys, but he's like, it was a slow, he's old school.

Speaker 4 He's old school in every sense of the word, but I actually am happy that we didn't interview him three years ago or whatever it was because it was perfect.

Speaker 4 It was like the perfect time, Super Bowl week. Everything was perfect.

Speaker 4 So shout out Chris Berman. And like, speaking of old school, we had,

Speaker 4 his guy rented a conference room and had a, a full spread. Like, we had a full lunch spread.
And I was like, this is not necessary. He's like, no, no, no.
We got to get a full spread.

Speaker 4 It's like, okay, fine. Let's get a full spread.

Speaker 4 And they

Speaker 4 sparkling water, Diet Cokes. It was actually Diet Pepsi, but his guy was like, we need Diet Coke.
This guy's like, Boomer likes his Diet Coke. Understandable.
I get it.

Speaker 4 And so then somebody came down from the front desk with these two one-liter bottles of Diet Coke. Everything was perfect.
Boomer, he was actually like a very, very down-to-earth cool guy.

Speaker 4 Obviously, everything that he says has the weight and gravitas behind it of Chris Berman is saying this thing. And there's something about his presence that's just like, well, this guy, like,

Speaker 4 I'm picking up what this guy's putting down. Yes.
All right, let's do numbers. Great show.

Speaker 4 Jewel me. Here we go.
Numbers. 44.
I'll do an eight.

Speaker 4 66.

Speaker 4 You just stole my number that I've been doing. The Super Bowl.
Oh, yeah. You get it?

Speaker 4 22. What do you got, Bubba?

Speaker 4 What do you got, PFT? I can't keep track of PFT. I'm not doing the 8.
I'm changing it. I was only doing 56 this week or last week.
I'm changing it to 71. 71.

Speaker 4 72.

Speaker 4 So close. Roadrunners mate for life.

Speaker 4 Love you guys.

Speaker 4 Sage anyway.

Speaker 4 Today's a night. I'll close my eyes.
Day to find you. Begin to pray.

Speaker 4 Shine away.

Speaker 4 I've been coming for your lover's

Speaker 4 Well, I don't know.

Speaker 4 Needless to say

Speaker 4 I'm all set in to free the mind.

Speaker 4 But I'm me. I have to be

Speaker 4 stolen away.

Speaker 4 Life is just fine.

Speaker 4 We say it off to me.

Speaker 4 It's the better to be safe and sound.

Speaker 4 We're a gon' take

Speaker 4 on

Speaker 4 We're not on

Speaker 4 each

Speaker 4 gone

Speaker 4 We're on the void of all bomb

Speaker 4 We're the ones wild.