Kenny Mayne, Randy Moss And Blake Bortles Is A Packer

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On today's Pardon My Take, we have a two-for Friday, two-for we have our best friend Randy Moss back on the show.

Actually gave us some good insight onto what's going on with Bob Baffert and Medina Spirit,

and that we have basically been wrong all week, but that's okay. We've been slandering a horse.
Yeah, that's fine. Whatever.
We also, he gave us some picks for the weekend, so you've got to listen to that. We also have the great Kenny Mayne on the show who announced on Monday that he's leaving ESPN after 27 years.
We talked about his career, some funny anecdotes, kenny uh knows everything also he basically played with the babe ruth of wiffle ball which we found out uh we are going to talk a little nfl schedule blake bortles to the packers and fire fest of the week before we do all of that ever had one of those days when it's just too cold to keep working? Nah, neither has Ariat. Ariat work jackets and boots are packed with all the cold stopping waterproof protection you need to get the job done under any conditions.
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And whether whatever in Ariat Work Gear. Okay, let's go.
Boy! Boy! Now in the street there is violence And I'm not allowed to lot of work to be done.

No place to hang out or wash in.

And then I can't blame all on the sun.

Oh, no.

We're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue.

And then we'll take it higher.

Oh, we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue.'s Pardon My Take, presented by Barstool Sports. Welcome to Pardon My Take, presented by Sport Clips.
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Today is Friday, May 14th. And Blake Bortles is signed with the Packers.
I'm very happy for our friend Blake. I think that this is a good landing spot for him.
I think the Packers see the direction that the league's going in. You need a quarterback that can move.
He's got the highest yards per carry of any quarterback in the NFL, I think, in the last five years. I think this is going to be a great system for him up there.
I have a question. Blake Bortles, did you guys see his headshot was released? Is that old? I didn't see it.
I'm a good friend. I'm happy for Blake Bortles because he has a lot of hair in that picture.
We all know of him as a bald guy. It's his rookie year picture.
Yeah, it's his rookie year picture. I mean, I would do that, too.
If I were a veteran, I'd be like, I'll just email you my picture. He's a bald guy.
It's going to be cold for him up there in the wintertime. He does know that snow is wet.
I'm being bullied now on text message by Blake and Jared who are just bullying me. So Jared Goff, Lions head coach and Blake Bortles now or quarterback and Blake Bortles now quarterback of the Green Bay Packers.
Listen, I'm happy for Blake. I'm a friend.
I'm a consummate friend. That's all I'll say.
I'm a friend. Are you rooting for him? No.
Is it a group text or are they trolling you simultaneously? Group text. They're trolling me simultaneously.
If Blake gets into the game against the Bears, you're not going to root for him to perform well? No. I don't want him to do bad.
Some things are bigger than sports, Big Cat. No, I want him to.
So you're rooting against our friends is what you're saying. No, I said.
That's a blowout. What? You always root against our friends.
The Bears are up by 30. The Bears are up by 30.
What do you mean? Do you want Blake to score? I'm having trouble computing this. The Bears are up by 30 on the Packers? Yeah.
Yeah, then I want Blake to do well. Okay.
I want Blake to go 15-2, both losses to the Bears. The Bears beat the Packers in the playoffs, and then Blake gets a $300 million contract.
I mean, I think that would work out well for everybody. That would be awesome.
That would be great. I think it's a smart move by the Packers.
Do they have Tesla chargers in Green Bay, Wisconsin? I think Blake is the only Tesla owner in Green Bay. I hope every grocery store has electric electric car parking up there and Blake just gets to park right up front wherever he goes because there's never taken.
I am. I am actually happy for him.
I'm very happy for him. He is.
He is a friend. He's been a longtime friend on the show.
He has to come back on and maybe what I'll do is I'll probably just try to get him to bash Aaron Rodgers. He is sabermetrically the least likely quarterback to quit the Packers to go host Jeopardy.
That's true. I don't think that's true.

I don't think Aaron Rodgers could host a Wikipedia club. Nope.
Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Do you see two Tesla destination chargers in the city of Green Bay? 201 Main Street and 465 Pilgrim Way. Thank you, Jake.
Thanks for actually looking that up. That was fantastic.
Do you think that the Packers have contacted Andrew Luck? No. Here's the other thing, and this is a good segue to the schedule release.
I think Aaron Rodgers is going to be the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers week one. I still do.
We have our friend of the program, John Kuhn, acting as an intermediary to the public, saying that he thinks there's a way for them to come together, which essentially means the Green Bay Packers are going to pay Aaron Rodgers a shitload of money. And the NFL schedule came out and there's five primetime games for the Packers.
I'm not trying to get woke, but I think they're probably like, you know what? He's going to be a Packer. You are.
They're just trying to get Aaron to show up and play because Aaron likes being on television. Yeah, but could you imagine if Jordan Love is, maybe it will be Blake Bortles, but if Jordan Love starts and he stinks and they're on five primetime games, they think that Aaron Rodgers is going to be a Packer.
Or they knew they were going to sign Bortles. I'm not going to let myself get excited about the idea that Aaron Rodgers won't be on the Packers.
I think it's been possible. I've already have like a – full disclosure, I have seven to eight Photoshop pictures of Aaron Rodgers in a Broncos uniform in my phone right now.
Guys, I've got some news about Matt LaFleur because much like you were texting with Blake, I hit the other side. I texted Matt to tell him to take care of our special boy Blake up there.
He's a green bubble guy now. He's had a rough offseason.
Very rough offseason. Peace.
Him and Melinda Gates. Actually, Melinda Gates got to flip back to blue.
Yeah. That's probably great for her.
She doesn't have to pretend to use Bing anymore. Yes.
She's shopping for vibrators. Yes.
Whoa. Bonk.
I'm just saying, well, and I'm saying Bill can't. I mean, that's a bonk.
I mean, I've used Windows 2000. I don't think that Bill Gates is going to be able to find a clitoris bunk i'm saying talking about melinda gates's we promote self-love on this podcast all right so the segue to the to the schedule release i am so over the fact that the schedule release is supposed to be some big deal and then it just gets leaked all day it's the least it's the worst kept secret every year on the day of the schedule release you know what it's become different they flipped it on us right now the schedule release the most important day is the day that they announce when they're going to announce the schedule right which was like last friday they're like breaking news we can officially confirm that the schedule release has been scheduled for next week but it's just so stupid because it's like if you want to make it a big deal i'm's like, if you want to make it a big deal, I'm all for that.
If you want to make it a big deal, like the bracket coming out, make it so that no one knows it. There's no leaks.
It's fucking, like, the NFL's the only one who knows it. The teams don't even know it.
But because all the teams get, you know, and there are some funny videos. The Chiefs had a really funny video where they had a clip of Andy Reid saying we saying we're excited to face the challenge of team x and it's it's real clips of everyone on their schedule i think uh the chargers had a funny one with bosa like there's some funny cool things that social media teams are doing but it just gets so many people know the schedule beforehand and everyone has it like i got someone sent me the bears one like the the like eight o'clock in the morning on wednesday yeah because they have to tell the teams because they have like justin bieber concerts that come to town they're like okay we need to make sure the stadium yeah it's just is accessible on this day and that day so people in the building have to know ahead of time but yeah i i missed the the build up and the drama of having it all come out at once yeah i couldn't keep track of which teams have teams had been leaked yesterday.
Right, exactly. There were too many leaks.
Exactly. Because once I was catching up with one leak, there's another leak.
Like, hey, have you seen the leak yet? And I was like, I'm still mentally trying to think of the first leak that I saw, which was the first game of the season, which I've already forgotten. I didn't even get – that was the big crime.
It didn't give me enough time to process the big days, like the Thanksgivings, the opening days, the Christmases, the day after christmases we have an awesome thanksgiving schedule yes so uh bears lions which that i won't even count as awesome i just won't because that's usually the game that's the worst but then we have raiders cowboys so john gruden in your living room on thanksgiving uh thursday and then the nightcap josh allen versus jamesis Winston, is going to be incredible. Yeah.
And I'm just excited. I have a few notes that I circled.
The first one I circled was Week 7, Monday Night Football, the Saints at Seahawks. I think that will be the first moment where we're like, oh, yeah, Drew Brees isn't on the Saints anymore because we'll be waiting to watch Monday Night Football and for Drew Brees to break some record that isn't there anymore.
Yeah, and then there's Tom Brady going back to his old stomping grounds. Week four.
His college friends are meeting his old high school friends, taking them back up there. And that's probably going to be the weekend where he breaks one of Drew Brees' records, I think.
Yes, probably. They have that circled.
Hank, what were your thoughts about that? I know that you felt a certain type of way about your old friend Tom. People were saying I was salty.
All I said was the analogy didn't make sense. He said high school friends versus college friends.
You go to high school for four years and you're in college for four years. He was in New England for 20 years.
He's been in Tampa Bay for one year. So I just said it's more like you're lifelong friends of 20 years meeting your new coworkers that you moved to a different destination for and have been there for one year.
And we're extremely successful with. Which is a fact.
After your old high school friends were like, we don't want you back. Get out of this town.
Better partying, more fun to be around. Weather's nice.
Won't be the biggest bet of my life. Better coach.
You're not going to make me feel bad about it. Tom Brady Sr.
said they're fully expecting to destroy the Patriots. So there's definitely some bulletin board material.
I love Tom Brady. I've always said it.
If they're not playing the Patriots, I'm rooting for the Bucs. But I obviously hope the Patriots fucking wet the floor with him.
I have a theory about Tom Brady Sr. I think that he changed his name to be Tom Brady Sr.
after Tom became so successful. That's what I would do as a dad.
If my son starts winning Super Bowls, boom, I'm changing my name so that everybody knows I'm that kid's dad. Yeah, that would be a power move.
We have the London games back. London games are back.
One of the greatest London games that I'm just... But they're Mexico City games.
But they're London games. They're in London.
But they're Mexico City games. What do you mean? I think there was supposed to be a Mexico City game, but because they...
It's like when the Raptors play home games in Orlando. They're not up to date with the COVID protocols yet, so they're doing it in London, but they're calling it a Mexico City game.
It's like when they do Saturday night football and it says Thursday night football. Correct.
That makes sense. So the Dolphins versus Jaguars in London, that is going to be a hilarious game that no one's going to watch, but we're all going to watch.
Well, you know, people are going to watch it. I love watching Florida.
No, no. Is it 9 a.m.? You didn't listen to what I said.
I said, we're all going to – everyone's going to be like, this game sucks. We're not going to watch it, and then we're all going to watch it.
No, I'm going to watch it. You better believe I'm going to cruise Instagram before the game looking up the hashtags for Jaguars fans and Dolphins fans over in London, going like full body paint, the old Jaguars outfits where they actually look like Jaguars.
Yeah. And then you got Trevor Lawrence over there.
That'll be interesting. And it's Dolphins? Dolphins and Jaguars.
Yeah, so you got, those are two fun, those are two teams that should absolutely under no circumstances ever be playing in England. It's a fish out of water situation.
Yeah, it's a bad game, and it's in London, so it'll be great. I hope the Dolphins go their brightest, candiest-ass team, and then the Jaguars do the color-changing helmets, the throwbacks, to two years ago just for that one game.
The easiest schedule is Cowboys and the Eagles. I saw people being like, this is unfair.
Well, it actually makes sense. NFC Beast.
Well, when you count the easiest, most of the time it's easiest schedule because of who they're playing that made the playoffs. Well, if only one team made the playoffs in your division, it's going to be obviously easier.
But that's the easiest schedule. I saw who was the hardest, Steelers? I don't know who has it.
Bears were like three or four. I feel like Nate Sudfeld probably got the Eagles the easiest schedule.
Yeah. That game actually changed the tide of the entire NFC Beast for probably the next three or four years.
Turns out that maybe it was a smart move to do. The Steelers kind of deserve to have a tougher schedule.
I want to say it was the Steelers. All this doesn't matter.
This is really just an excuse to talk about football in late May because none of this matters. The Raiders have the hardest and.
Okay. Do you have a list? Yeah.
Where are the Bears? Five? Raiders, Steelers, Texans, Lions, Bengals. Okay.
Are the Texans even going to show up this year? No. I feel like they haven't.
They've just kind of accepted the fact that they're not going to be a professional football team. Yeah.
If they just forfeit every game, I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense. Bears are 22.
The R-words are 27. In terms of easiest? Strength of schedule? What? I'm looking at Warren Sharpe's Twitter.
What did he say? He's probably got a proprietary formula. I'm looking at a graph.
And what does it say? It says the Redskins are 27 and the Bears are 22. They don't have a fucking team name.
They don't have a nickname. We don't need a nickname.
Until they do have a nickname, I'm not going to give them any respect. You don't need a nickname.
You need a mascot. We made the playoff.
We have an interview coming up with Kenny Mayne where it's like, we don't cut out any of our mistakes. And it's like, you're just seeing it live.
It would have been sweet if the football team had done their schedule. What about the kids? The different teams that Ryan Fitzpatrick has played for.
We're playing against the Bills this weekend. Playing against the Dolphins this weekend.
We don't need a mascot, Hank. I've said this a million times.
We don't need a mascot. We're a football team.
We play football. The fact that you need a mascot to get pumped up for a football game actually tells me you don't really love football.
No, I just care about the kids. You love cheering for a cartoon character on the field.
I care about the kids. Okay.

Wait, Hank.

This is just the schedule grid.

Five easiest schedules?

Is this opinion?

Is Warren Sharp giving opinions on here?

The tweet I said had the five easiest schedules

and the five hardest schedules

with a corresponding graph.

Yeah, so 22 is the hardest.

Like, 32 is the hardest.

32 is the hardest.

Five easiest schedules.

Right, right.

But when you said Bears 22, Washington football team 27,

that's not 27 easiest.

That's the 20.

That's flipped.

Five easiest schedules. Number one, the 49ers.
Number two, the Broncos. Number three, the Browns.
Number four, the Dolphins. Number five, the Bucs.
Five hardest schedules, the Bengals, Lions, Texans, Steelers, Raiders. Right.
But right before that is the Washington football team. And then the...
Okay, whatever. We're on the same page.
I know, but when you say 22nd, I immediately think easiest. I literally am just reading numbers.
The Redskins are 27 on this chart, and the Bears are 22. I want to know what his formula is, because I'm looking at something else that has it different.
It's proprietary. It is proprietary.
I see. Hemdass.
Yeah. There was also one other quirk.
The Ravens, I think they have, like, a month and a half where they don't have a road game, which is pretty sick. I always love looking at those like, oh my, how could the NFL do this to a team? Yeah.
Where you have like a Sunday night game, a Thursday night game, a Sunday night game, and then like a Monday night or Monday night game to start. And then Sunday, then Thursday, then Sunday.
Yeah. Yeah.
I like looking at that because ultimately it gives you something to talk about when it comes to the NFL season. We're here.
It's going to be totally meaningless. Yes.
Absolutely meaningless. The Bears don't have any back-to-back road games.
That was the only plus I saw. What do you got, Jake? Usually you get a bye after London.
The Dolphins don't have that. What? They play Jacksonville Sunday, October 17th, and then Sunday the 21st is Atlanta.
Yeah, Mexico City, dude. But still, they usually give you a bye

after the national game. I would just stay over

in London if I were them. That way you don't have to

fly back and forth. It's going to take me

so... It's going to take me at least three years

to wrap my head around 18 weeks.

Like, just seeing it,

football is just going to go forever. You know what I'm doing?

Which is great. You know the Super Bowl's on February 13th?

That's awesome.

We're getting close to the dream, baby.

It's getting just that much closer to

March Madness. So I think what we should do is, this is what I've been doing when I'm looking at every team's schedule, I'm just predicting what I normally would predict and then throwing a tie in at the end.
Got it. So I'm like, okay.
10-6-1. Let's take a look.
The 49ers, I feel like they're going to be new quarterback, probably 8-8-1 this year. Yeah.
The Broncos, they're going to be 5-11-1. Yeah, it's just I don't like the numbers don't compute in my head anymore.
Like saying, oh, this team's going to go 12-5. That's just wrong.
It does. It feels bad.
13-4. That's wrong.
Like 7-10? Yeah. 2-15? That's gross.
It's so gross. I would almost rather finish 1-16 than 2-15.
Yeah, or 0-17. That would be incredible.
Man, imagine if a team... You know what's great about this season is a team could win 17 games, and they're undisputably the best NFL team of all time in the regular season.
That's true. No team's ever done that before.
That's true. The magic of numbers.
Stuff that fucking champagne bottle up your ass, Mercury Morris. Anything else before we get to our great interviews? We've got Randy Moss, then we've got Kenny Mayne.
I thought I had one other thing, but I can't remember it now. The Yankees managed to get COVID somehow.
Oh yeah, I saw that. The Yankees did.
They did get COVID. They're all right? And, oh, did you see LeBron dropped the banner, which is weird.
I didn't realize that they were doing the banner night like last night or two nights ago. Yeah, and someone else reminded me I'm kind of a LeBron stan now because he's a Red Sox owner, but he did say, I'm not going to be back for tonight's game, but more importantly, I will be there for the ceremony, meaning that he's more focused on things in the past and not more focused in prioritizing the present and the future.
There are kids that are at the game. You would think it would be more important for him to play in the current season to try and win an actual championship in a real year versus celebrating a fake championship during COVID year.
I'm concerned. But I'm LeBron's fan, so I'm not not going to say.
I have a worry. I think that LeBron James could ruin the entire NBA playoffs because he refuses to get vaccinated.
Yeah, that's absolutely. It'd probably be better.
It'd be better if they lost the playing game. I have a worry.
For public health. I think LeBron's going to be like Willy Wonka coming to the gate.
Like he's just hobbling, hobbling, hobbling, does a tumble, and now he's just dropping triple doubles in everyonebles in everyone's face. I think he's going to be fine.
No, I totally believe him when he said he doesn't think it would be 100% again. It sucks.
That wasn't a setup at all. He's playing mind tricks with me where I'm like, yeah, you know what? The Lakers do kind of suck right now.
They're not going to be healthy. If they have to play the play-in game, that's even more games.
And then I just I just deep down it's kind of like the Aaron Rodgers playing for the Packer like deep down I know LeBron is going to just start yamming on people and I'll feel so stupid for thinking the Utah Jazz are going to beat the Lakers I think you're giving LeBron James a lot of credit when it comes to this strategy you're saying that LeBron James unless can turn it on yeah unless this is a strategy that was written on the very first page of The Art of War, I don't think that he's got this shot in his book. It's not a strategy.
I think he just knows at this point of his career the regular season does not matter, and it just doesn't matter. He knows that he just has to play really good basketball for a month and a half.
So he's got to switch. I'm saying I don't think that he's – I think he truly believes that he'll never be 100% and he's saying it because he's LeBron and he loves to hand it up.
That's exactly where you're wrong because he does – in this moment, right this second, I agree with you. LeBron James thinks he'll never be 100% again.
But then when he starts playing playoff basketball, he's going to be like – write an Instagram post, like two weeks old LeBron, two weeks ago LeBron, be like, two weeks ago you thought you'd never be 100%, and look at you now, like old head dunking on people. This is incredible.
I don't doubt that for a second. I'm saying he's not planning that.
This is not like a massive plan. No, but he'll surprise himself.
He'll surprise himself, and he'll be like, it's always darkest before the. Yeah, like, I can't believe it.
Something I didn't know until I had to walk through hell to get to heaven. Yeah.
Thanks to you. Zero dark 3023.
Thanks to you, second week of May, LeBron, I am the man that I am now in June. Correct.
That is absolutely what's going to happen. Put a mark on this because I'm pretty sure that, yeah, we're on the same page.
Yes. I just don't think that LeBron doesn't plan these things.
He just always finds himself in these situations. Right, he's always overcoming it.
So, yeah, I mean, I'm excited for NBA playoffs. I do think that the season went on too long.
Like, I know that they played less games than usual, but it should have started two weeks ago. They should have played 60 games, 62 games.
All right, let's do, oh, and we have, are you guys going to do any type of bet? We should talk about that. Yeah, so we got a mayor's bet.
Capitals and Bruins. Well, we got the regular season of NHL hockey wrapping up at the same time, concurrently, as the playoffs start.
Somehow they've managed to figure out a way to schedule that in there. What do you mean? There's still regular season games going on this weekend as the playoffs have started.
Got it. So, you know, if you're watching hockey on television, make sure to look for the little Stanley Cup logo in like the bottom right corner.
That's a playoff game. But it's Bruins Caps this weekend.
It's the first game at US Air Arena in great schedule. Every other day starts on Saturday, Saturday night.
Kind of not a great schedule for us. No, it will become great because it goes Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Tuesday.
The Bruins are going to – it will be over by the time it gets to Sunday. Oh, okay.
This is the Chara, the Chara revenge game. True.
I like it. I have a tip.
If you're watching on NBC, it's a playoff game. Boom.
Love it. Yeah.
All right, so Hank, there's bet? Yeah. Loser has to buy a cat.
Loser has to purchase Hank's bud implants. We're at like $72.
Oh, okay. Getting closer and closer.
What do you think, Hank? That's $5,000. We're thinking something summery.
Summer's coming up. Oh, Hank's going to work a vacation into this.
Or like a bathing suit. I'm going to buy you a bathing suit.
We're going to go bathe. A bikini? Loser has to wear a bikini to work for a week? I don't do swimsuits.
How about Loser has to make the other person novelty drinks for a week of shows? So Monday, Wednesday, Friday. No.
You just want to get drunk during the show. You guys got to both get a cat.
a hairless cat. Maybe we adopt a cat and then we have to find a new home for it.
Ooh, loser has to take, we get a cat that lives in this office and loser has to take care of it. Well, we do have a mice problem.
I know. It's like a bodega cat.
I'm fine with that. I don't think the powers that be would want it.
Why would anyone get upset about that? You think so? Yeah, I think we've said it before. They're like, no.
All right. Well, let's let the listeners submit some things.
Yeah, yeah. We'll take submissions to it.
I'm leaning towards, I like the novelty drink the more I think about it. Yeah, of course.
Summertime. It's not even a bad bet.
No, it's a good bet, Hank. It's the easiest bet ever.
And then the winner, the loser should also make enough for themselves to. But the bet should be, the winner should be the listeners.
Wow. That's selfish of you.
Extremely. Yeah.
The winner should be the listeners. I like the novelty.
The novelty drink is not that. Okay, fine.
Do the novelty drink. I mean, when managers make bets, the winners aren't the Constitutes of the...

I know.

There we go.

Oh, man.

Constitutes, whatever.

The Constitutes.

Constitutes.

They're actually cousins of prostitutes.

Okay, how about this?

In order to make the winners the ultimate listener, we'll do the novelty drink thing,

but it has to be a really big novelty drink, so the person gets drunk during the show, and then everyone's like, oh, that's so funny. And then they really lose.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, we'll think of it.
I think you could do the novelty drink, but I think listeners should think of something that they can win at. Like, whether it be, I don't know, they have to do, the loser has to do something or a picture or something.
I don't know. Whatever it may be.
We'll figure it out. But you guys are ready to go.
You're locked in, ready to go. I'm feeling confident.
Like I said, it did feel like a couple weeks ago when there was the whole Tom Wilson incident. That sounded like the start of a championship DVD.
Yeah. I think it's the Caps year again.
The Caps year, yeah. The only thing I'm struggling with is I'd like to incorporate Cap into a t-shirt for Cap's ear.

But then if it says, like, Cap's ear on it, then people are like, yo, that's Cap.

You know, someone can immediately tell that, like, they have an immediate put down.

Yes.

So logically, it doesn't work, but I'd still like to work it in somehow.

Because Cap's so hot right now.

So we'll have to figure that out.

So hot.

Cap and saying that eight.

I like saying that, too. So hot.
That eight. I love that for you.
Oh, dude. I love that fucking Instagram tag.
It's like, I love this for me. It's the best.
I'm living my best life. I love this for me.
I love what's going on for me right now. All right.
Let's get our interviews. We got Randy Moss talking about Medina Spirit giving us a winner and then we have a great interview with Kenny Main.
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Okay, here he is, Randy Moss. Okay, we now welcome on our favorite recurring guest.
He's wearing a recurring guest shirt. It is Randy Moss, live from Pimlico.
He's actually outside of a barn with birds chirping. The sun is shining.
We have the Preakness. Randy, great to see you.
Let's quickly try to wrap our head around what has happened in horse racing in the last week. Not great for horse racing, but give us the expert analysis of everything that's gone down with Medina Spirit and Bob Baffert.
Sure. And that's actually Medina Spirit is in one of these stalls right behind me along with Concertura.
I decided to give you guys the big time treatment here at the Stakes Barn. Don't pee.
Don't pee. Don't pee on any hay.
There's somebody back there with some cough syrup behind you. Yeah, don't do that.
Be careful. Hopefully the blinding glare off my forehead won't distract you guys from what I'm going to tell you here.

So there are a couple of points I think that people don't really understand that need to be made. I mean, first of all, a couple of years ago with all the horse breakdowns in California and elsewhere around the country, uh the horse racing industry made a concerted and actually a noble attempt to completely dial back as much as possible on all medications that horses have in their system during the running of a race, especially medications that could have the possibility of deadening pain that horses feel during a race, which would not be good for the horse, right? Or the jockey, you know.
So that's where we got to where we are now, where even

incredibly minute traces of medication in horses' systems on race day, medications that wouldn't

have any impact at all on how fast the horse ran can still trigger a positive test okay um bob baffert the trainer obviously of medina spirit and concert tour has had uh four or five previous occurrences of positive tests over the limit of these permissive medications,

even before we got to the Kentucky Derby.

Okay, rules are rules.

Every trainer in the Derby knew the sensitivity of the tests,

and they understood that even though the rules might be a little draconian

as far as what the horse can have in his or her system,

that they had to take every precaution to make sure that that didn't happen.

All right. a little draconian as far as what the horse can have in his or her system, that they had to take every precaution to make sure that that didn't happen.
All the other trainers apparently successfully navigated that, and once again, we're in a situation where a Bob Baffert horse did not. Rules are rules, and if the split sample comes back, the second sample that, uh, that Baffert is sending out to verify presence of beta, uh, beta methadone in the horse's system, if it comes back positive, the horse is going to be disqualified almost certainly, uh, from the Kentucky Derby.
And there's going to be a long court. It's long drawn out, uh, lawyering and court cases and all that this time next year, we may not officially know the court outcome of the Kentucky Derby, but I feel pretty confident in saying that the horse will probably be disqualified.
Now, the second thing I think people need to know, the real victim here in all this is the horse. The little horse ran his heart out in the Kentucky Derby, And the amount of beta-methasone that he had in his system, absolutely positively, in my opinion, and according to the opinion of some of the top veterinarians that I've talked to made zero difference whatsoever in the way the horse ran in the Derby.
Okay. It was just, I tell you what, it was one, one millionth of a gram of beta-methasone that the horse had in his entire system.
We're talking about a thousand pound horse. There's no way that it had any impact at all on the way he ran.
So people need to understand those two things. Baffert deserves to be punished.
The horse probably deserves to be disqualified if indeed he had beta-methasone in his system.

And secondly, the beta-methasone that he had, unfortunately for the horse, made no difference at all in the outcome of the race.

So you're saying on no uncertain terms that the horse is not a junkie?

The horse, regardless of what has come out from Mar-a-Lago, the horse is not in any way a junkie. Look, when you go to your water faucet to get a drink of water at home, okay, your water might actually have, and probably does, actually have some arsenic in it.
Okay, it's a deadly poison, but yet the EPA has allowed a certain amount of the deadly poison to be contained in your drinking water at such a tiny microscopic level that it can cause no harm at all to humans. Okay.
If you took that level of arsenic that you're allowed to drink and you cut it up into 479 pieces and you took one of those 479 pieces that's how much beta methadone was in medina spirit system in the kentucky derby it's an absurdly small amount but trying to protect the racehorses zero tolerance for any medication uh everybody knew that going in and the rules are the rules okay so that's a great explanation by the way because i do think we obviously run with the idea that he was on steroids uh not even close and so i appreciate that randy we should have probably had you on on monday yeah because we definitely helped make this a bigger deal i was just assuming that like bob baffert was in the stall tying the horse off with like a belt and him up right before the race. That's a small amount.
The way that you put it, it seems pretty small. But there's something confusing here.
And even the other trainers are scratching their heads about it, and we're all scratching our heads. When you're in the Kentucky Derby and you know what the testing is, something just doesn't add up.
I mean, you don't take this kind of a risk of giving a horse what Bob said was a topical cream right up until the day of the race, especially when you're Bob Baffert and you've had four or five priors in the previous year. It just it just doesn't add.
It's either stupidity or extreme carelessness. And people just can't quite wrap their heads and understand why this has happened.
But unfortunately for all of us, it has happened. Yeah.
So it kind of answers my other question. I was going to say, like, is there any reason to not bet on Medina Spirit because it was such a fast horse in the Kentucky Derby? And from what I what I had heard about the drug that it was caught using or had in its system, it wouldn't really affect the performance of the horse that much on race day.
It's more about like training and things like that and recovery. Are you still saying that Medina Spirit deserves to be the favorite heading into the Preakness? Well, I will tell you that there are reasons not to bet on Medina Spirit in the Preakness, but they have absolutely nothing to do with anything called beta-methasone.
He got away because when the horses left the starting gate in the Preakness, two confirmed intended speed horses, Midnight, Bourbon, and Rock Your World collided with each other leaving the starting gate. That took away all the speed competition, all the pace competition early for Medina Spirit.
And he was able to set one of the slowest paces, given how fast the track was, one of the slowest paces in recent Kentucky Derby history. He had a huge advantage in the race, given what happened at the start.
Now, he's a tenacious horse. We talked about it i think last week before the kentucky derby he's a horse that it's never been passed and if you can get him on an easy lead like that you're not going to go buy him and and he fought everybody off in the stretch of the kentucky derby now the preakness is likely to be run in a completely different manner he probably won't be on the early lead badford's other horse concert tour will probably be on the lead.
Medina Spirit will be sitting a little bit off the pace. And he's run well before sitting a little bit off the pace.
But if you're a better and people and the odds of the horse in the Preakness reflect what he did in the Kentucky Derby when he got away with such an easy, advantageous trip, then you're supposed to bet against horses like this. So that's the justification against Medina Spirit.
Okay, so I had one other horse I wanted to ask you about for the Preakness, Midnight Bourbon, who you just mentioned was a speed horse in Kentucky Derby. Switched jockeys going from the Kentucky Derby to the Preakness.
How much does that change how you view a horse when you do switch a jockey? I know it went from Mike Smith, who's a Hall of Famer, to IRAD, who's also a Hall of Famer. But how do you, like from a handicapping perspective, view a jockey change between these two horses or races? Zero.
Zero. Okay.
Look, Jerry Bailey's always teasing me, and we even joked about it on the air. He always says, boss says jockeys don't matter.
Okay? But here's the reality of it. When you're betting and you get into a race like the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness, the jockeys involved are all so good and so competent that the difference between jockey A and jockey B, jockey B and jockey C is negligible.
And if there is a difference, it might come out once every 15 or 20 races, depending on a circumstance, and you have no idea when that's going to happen. So what I tell people is when you're handicapping races like this, just ignore the rider and focus on the abilities of the horse.
The only time I would consider what jockey is riding what horse is if the jockey had ridden more than one horse and had his choice of which horse to ride in a race like this. And even then, honestly, I would, uh, you know, I, I feel confident enough in my own handicapping abilities that I would prefer to use my judgment instead of a jockey's or a jockey agent's.
But no, don't pay any attention to I-Rad or T from Mike Smith. They're both good.
Interesting. And when it comes to not having Bob Baffert at the track, is there anything that a trainer does on race day or leading up to race day that would have any impact or is it like a general manager being banned from or like a team owner being banned from watching a game on television it that's what it would be like it it makes no difference whatsoever as a matter of fact uh even before the pandemic uh bob had scaled way back on his travel out of town to major horse races he comes to the bre' Cup.
He typically would be at the Preakness. He typically comes to the Derby Preakness in Belmont.
But in the vast majority of major races other than that, Bob stays home. And, in fact, in his living room, he's got a couch, and he watches TV.
He watches NBC, TVG, whatever's on where he can watch his his horses run on what he calls his grade one couch. He's won so many grade one races sitting at home watching on TV.
He calls it his grade one couch. So it makes makes no difference at all, whether he's here or not.
He's got one of the top, if not the top assistant trainer in America and Jimmy Barnes, who works for him, who goes on the road and has been with him for decades. He goes on the road with all these horses in constant communication with Bob.
It's Bob's – he's even more than his right-hand man. And so he's very well cared for.
That's a great assistant trainer named Jimmy Barnes. Yeah.
Are they testing? Do they test the horses for corona? Can they get COVID? I don't know. I don't know if horses can get COVID or not.

I think they probably could, but I don't know if you would know if they had it. I'd like to know that on the day of the race.
Yeah. Now, they are pre-testing, pre-race testing.
Medina Spirit and Concert Tour, that was sort of the compromise that the Baffert camp made with Pimlico. You know, there were obviously calls for Pimlico to disallow Baffert to run any horses in the Preakness, given what's happened.
But since there's a such thing as due process, and since as we stand here right now, Medina Spirit is still considered the winner of the Kentucky Derby until the split sample comes back, and he's actually officially disqualified. I don't know how they could have done that.
But the compromise is, was that concert tour Medina Spirit will have pre-race drug tests that have to come back clean before the horses are allowed to run. Okay, so everyone, make sure you watch Randy on NBC on Friday and Saturday.
We know you can't give us a pick for the Preakness because you hold that back. I noticed you didn't get the Kentucky Derby correct.
I did. So just – Good.
Yeah, just going to throw that out there. Not a dime back.
Can you give us, though, my last question, could you give us a pick for Friday, the Black-Eyed Susan, or another race maybe that you like in these two days because everyone will be tuning in? Yeah, there's a race directly before the Preakness. It used to be called the Dixie, and because of political correctness now, it's being called the Dinner Party.
That's the name of a horse way back in the 1800s. So it's on the turf, the race right before the Preakness.
And Chad Brown has a horse in there named Sacred Life that looks like an absolute standout. price is going to be a little low to bet on sacred life but i think if you hook him up in an exacta with uh the number one horse some like it hot brown that's the name of the horse who's coming off several bad races on paper in a row but in his last race he was caught up in an unbelievable speed duel and ran actually well considering that, and he should get a much better trip.

So I like the 5-1 exacta, Sacred Life and some like it hot brown in the race before

the Preakness, and I hope to hell my horses run better than the ones I gave you last week.

I love it.

Sorry.

Sorry, everybody.

No, that's okay.

PFT, you got any last question?

I was just wondering, is there any animosity from the other trainers?

Actually, is Medina Spirit right behind you?

Yes.

Well, he's back underneath.

Can I apologize to him?

There you go.

I'd like to apologize to the horse.

You can't really see Medina Spirit.

I'd like to thank Medina Spirit.

Medina, I'd like to say that I'm sorry for canceling you,

for attempting to cancel you. You did not deserve that.
You're not a junkie. I made a mistake.
I jumped to conclusions and I will own that. I apologize to you.
Okay. He says apology accepted.
Okay. I feel better.
So to answer your question, yes, There is animosity from other horsemen because they believe that there was at at its most innocent there was carelessness here and extreme carelessness that didn't have to happen and that it's given the entire sport a black eye uh and so there is definitely a feeling of uh of animosity over this yeah but you know what everyone needs you know a bad guy point at. Bob Baffert, who's the bad guy? Bob Baffert.
Never seen a bad guy like him, you know? There are people that have even invoked Lance Armstrong. Yeah, yeah, I've seen that.
I wouldn't go that far because, again, this is not a Balco situation. This is a therapeutic medication that's used widely in thoroughbred racing.
But other trainers pulled way back on when they stopped using it, and apparently that wasn't the situation here. Got it.
Well, thank you, Randy. I think we finally have some clarity.
The great shirt, he's wearing the recurring guest shirt. It's really only you, Rachel Nichols, and Spencer Hawes that have that shirt.
One of our classic plans where we're like, we'll send everyone a shirt, and we just didn't do it. But thank you.
Good luck this weekend. We'll be tuning in, and we'll talk to you in a few weeks before the Belmont.
All right, guys. Take care.
All right. Thanks, Randy.
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Here's Kenny Main. And now for something completely different.
Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. It is Kenny Main.
You know him because he's been on your television for almost three decades now. He was in the news this week.
He was trending on Twitter because his time has come to an end at ESn for greener pastures are you retiring are you retiring from the game no our overhead is too much we i mean we could but we want to enjoy you know we've got college kids coming out we got you know yeah we have bills so and plus i think i'd get bored anyway like i'm old but i ain't that old. So I want to keep doing something.
Yeah, so I saw you did an interview with Richard Deitch, who's been on this show, and he said – or sorry, was it with Richard Deitch? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And basically, no ill will. Your time has come to an end, but they might have offered you a contract that was so low that you had to say no.

Was there any part of you, though, that thought maybe I say yes and just mail it in?

Because that's really the American dream, right?

Yeah, I wouldn't do that.

I have too much.

Even on the days where you show up late and you're kind of scattered.

When it's time to do the show, I have pride in what I do.

I may screw around a lot like you guys do, but I still care about the product and and plus you're working with other people like you don't want to let people down yeah we screw up on what's called the fixed shows you know the one the last show of the night that's going to repeat you know we all make mistakes you said the name wrong you said 18 points and it was 19 and you know those kind of things right but other other than that i absolutely always give effort you know some nights you have more effort to give and you're better than it you know right just like a game right you play better one day than another day yeah what was your last day like at espn was there did they give you a farewell did they give you a gold watch did you have to turn in your gun and your espn phone what was was there was there a grand goodbye to kenny main or was it just well you tweet in your out clarify i'm not done i'm actually what it is today we i tweet and you're out? To clarify, I'm not done.

I'm actually – what is it today?

I don't know when you run this, but I'm on Friday, Sunday, Monday.

I'm golfing Monday.

I'm coming in late, just letting you guys know.

No, I have seven shows to give based on –

I'm supposed to work until the end of May, and it's not like over.

No, you're on this show now, so it's over. Your key card doesn't work anymore.
As soon as this drops. You know what? Because I'm on this show, you're right.
Maybe they'll say your services aren't needed. But no, I'm not doing anything bad.
I'm not saying anything bad about the company. No.
I've got nothing to say bad. I loved my time there.
And they they helped me get in the position that i'm in and it turned out that they valued me at a certain number and i said i'm gonna go play the over i mean that's i'm not even trying to be funny like that's what i'm gonna try to do i like that and and let's put it all into perspective 27 years at uh the same media company is a hell of a run we know how this business works and and it's cutthroat. And there are times when there's turnover and people are moving around and trying to get better offers.
So I think it's an incredible run. I do want to talk about your beginning though, because I saw the letter.
That's far more interesting than the end. Yeah.
The beginning though, you sent a letter to John Walsh that said, check these three boxes or whichever box applies and one box that said it just hit us we love your work contract is on the way stand by the mailbox the next one said keep up the field producing we'll call you when we need you and the last one said we'll consider hiring you about the time espn5 hits the air and that was it that was the whole letter it wasn't was there there was no resume or anything it was just that there well they already knew me see the backstory of that is uh i i started out if you how far back are we going i mean birth so what was your first memory i was born my first memory was probably i burned my thumb at age three as my birth and my grandma mom said don't touch the matches well of course i'm gonna touch the match i'm a pyromaniac here I'm going to town, mom. And I burned my thumb at age three.
It was my birthday. And my grandma, mom said, don't touch the matches.
Well, of course I'm going to touch the match. I'm a pyromaniac here.
I'm going to town, mom. And I burned my thumb.
So that's probably my first memory, kind of a bad memory, right? But I had other great childhood memories and lived up, lived South of Seattle. I always knew I wanted to be in something, you know, communicating, writing, you know, I didn't know about ESPN.
It wasn't invented at the time. And through college, I actually was more interested in straight news and, and political things and history.
I wanted to be doing like frontline at this point in my career, if I could have mapped it out, right? PBS, PBS is a public broadcasting. Okay.
So, well, we're going to fast forward now. So now I'm out of college.
I really think I want to be in news, right? I had a brief tryout with the Seahawks. I signed a contract, but I failed the physical because of the ankle that I got ruined or that I ruined at Oregon, which we'll talk about with my Foundation for Veterans.
And they eventually said, okay, we're going to let you on TV. I didn't go anywhere else.
I just went to Seattleattle that was my first stop right tacoma really but seattle tacoma market and they finally let me in the air a little station called kstw an hour ahead of the rest uh and then our other motto was if there's news on the weekends it's news to us because we didn't literally have a weekend show right monday through friday that's it we're showing old movies they had the mariner contract i mean it was one of those you know so they said well you played football you're doing sports and i'm like okay and i wasn't even that interested it's really strange but i started going to seahawk games and mariner games seahawk you know the huskies all this fun stuff and about three years later i guess it was i did the super bowl joe montana to john taylor uh the 49ers beat the bangles john candy the sideline, that whole deal. And Al Jaffe, who was the head of recruiting at ESPN, said, send us another tape.
We want to see if that was a fluke. And so I sent him another tape.
I got interviewed, but I didn't know who the fifth pitcher on the Cubs was. And they didn't hire me, right? But strangely, I quit the job I had.
Long story. And I had to make money, right? I had to pay my bills.
But ESPN called me in the middle of my underemployment period. I made garbage cans.
I sold prepaid legal insurance. I worked for MCI, the long-distance company.
And for about four years, I was kind of like their Seattle correspondent, right? I was sometimes a feature story, pretty straight, not a lot of silly stuff. And sometimes just go interview Griffey.
You know, he had three homers. We want soundbite for baseball tonight or whatever, right? And I was just kind of at the end of it, like, guys, how many things do I have to do until you get that I can do what I'm trying to do, right? And so I sent John Walsh that letter.
And this is four years deep, right? I've been freelancing for four years. And he replied with the middle box said keep up the freelance work i just talked to him yesterday i had a really nice call with him and um they hired me about two months later so when you get to espn i have to imagine a long story that was a great story though you just covered like 40 years in about four minutes no the garb the garbage bins i i would we'll come back to that yeah that's good by itself you passed right over and also you and lv i got some questions about that too but so you get to espn and i have to imagine the process back then for putting together show is probably completely different from the way that it is now the way that you know all the highlights are uploaded the entire workflow the show had to be a lot different what was a typical day like for you when you first started working in the office at ESPN? Well, it was much smaller for one.
There were like two buildings and a portable like, you know, in junior high when they're rebuilding the school and you got the portables out there or the school's overcrowded or whatever. I started out on ESPN, too.
The origin of that is Keith Olbermann and Susie Colbert were the lead anchors right the show called sports night stewart scott bill pedo and deb kaufman were were called the smash anchors so it was like a 90 minute well first it's like a nine hour show then they finally got smart and made it be like 90 minutes or whatever and it was like sports center a little looser right little you dress like you guys or me right now like just show up and talk about sports i remember the keithmann leather jacket. The leather jacket.
Yeah. Yeah.
So Keith decides he wants to go back to be with Dan Patrick on channel one. And Stuart moves up to be the anchor with Susie.
They need one more guy. You're looking at him.
That's how, that's how it all happened. And the very first day I get there, they have me, you know, go kind of shadow the show for a couple weeks.

And the first day, Stuart Scott, in a break, rolls up a wad of script paper and fires it across. I wasn't looking, and he hits me in the face.
And I look over to see it's him, and I picked it up and threw it back at him. And we were boys ever since.
It was kind of like a cool moment. It was like, oh, all right, you did that, I did that, and then we got each other.
We used to play a lot of electric football together. It had to have been, I imagine, like just some pretty heady times, you know, being at the cusp of something so new in the sports world.
Like, did you realize that in the time, that, like, what you're doing is something that hasn't been seen? You're inventing an entire show, network. You're part of all of this where now we obviously know ESPN forever, and it's part of our life.

But back then it was, you know, the new kids on the block.

Did it feel like that? Did it have that energy?

A little bit, and I didn't answer your earlier question,

but a day at life, I'll kind of get into that.

Yeah, the olden days, I mean, we had physical tapes, right?

Like they would say, you know, tapes, you know,

you get to look at your highlight and practice it.

You had a little, you know, zoom it forward, and then they'd announce show tapes are going down for the 11 o'clock sports you know there was that but on espn2 uh we were a little smaller time we were just like a bunch it was like a college project you know like what the hell are we doing here um but i was 34 you know i came in late right i'd done the garbage can assembly and worked for mci and worked for my local station. I mean, by the time I got there, ESPN was 15 years old.
So it wasn't, you know, I guess I was on the early edge of it in that sense, but you know, they had a lot of good people, you know, before I ever got there. So I was just looking at it like, Oh, they're the guys that do sports all the time.
I'm doing sports in Seattle. What the hell? Let's try these guys.
So I don't think I was overwhelmed by it because you had so much good help. We had great people around us.
You know, you had a stack guy and you had producers. And I remember my very first day, though, that I was ever going to be on the air.
And all I was doing was the smash, the five minute at 55 and then the two minute at 28. You know, that was that was our role.
And I was having trouble with a computer and i'm not really

all that technically adept anyway it's a miracle that i was able to right you guys are surprised

that i fired this thing up as i did as quickly with that so i'm in there and nothing will save

it's just a hit like i don't know f7 something was saved your script and i had to do a couple

lead-ins and shot shoots were coming and julie paradise i'll never forget she comes up to me

she was my producer kind of puts her hand on my shoulder and she's like are you okay and it's like

Thank you. to do a couple lead-ins and shot shoots were coming and julie paradise i'll never forget she comes up to me she was my producer kind of puts her hand on my shoulder and she's like are you okay and it's like 4 12 we're on at five o'clock so i'm on at 5 25 or 5 28 whatever it was and i wasn't okay but i pretended i was okay and for about 30 seconds i'm not kidding i was like if i just fucking run from this building right now no one will ever know that i failed right it'll be embarrassing with these people but no one in the universe right I just get the hell out you haven't embarrassed yourself yet so then I go out to do my first smash and Dennis Sidori god bless he passed away um he's my director and he's in my ear and they used to say now it's time for the smash or whatever and they had this little animation thing in like the three second you know music or whatever and i start talking and he's like rookie and it made me laugh because i knew then oh i wouldn't it's not my turn yet and then boom i did it and i didn't suck completely but um i think it was good to do that espn2 thing because it was really experimental i mean we were there'd be like four people working on the late you know because stewart and susie would leave at seven o'clock.
And when they were done with their parts, the smash guy and Paul Kenny, my, my research guy, and you know, a couple other people, Pam, she did lighting Phil Jakes, I think was involved. And we would stay till all the games were done.
Right. We had to stay till one 30 or whatever it was when West coast was done, but it was just us, you know, it was really fun.
It was, it was a whole different thing um and i'm glad i went through that it kind of prepared me for sports center and other things i would do yeah yeah and when did you realize that you had something going like not not just the espn2 thing but you yourself personally was there a moment or like a feature that you did or something that you did on the air where you realized like you went out in public and somebody saw you recognized you and your voice and your style resonated with them and you're like hey i think i might be onto something i'm going to try to do more of that type of thing i think uh it was the charlotte airport and i said i looked at the guy i said don't fucking bother me again all right i played it that way i tried to be above no i didn't do that uh i've always wanted to do that it was weird it was weird and good at the same time because if somebody says that man i really like your work or you know one of those good nice comments um you know meant it's good for you right you reaching somebody like you're saying and also it's good for you period right that means if they like you out there it might get back to the bosses that this guy's not terrible and let's keep them keep them long although i do remember at an airport one guy came up and he started with hey you're from espn right you're kidding right and yeah and i'm i'm expecting you know he's gonna say something nice so i hate what you do like it's you know you don't respect the sport you're just out there screwing around and i just wanted to i just wanted to tell you that and i'm like you know what that's cool i respect you had the courage to say that that's great yeah. Watch something else.
It is funny because it's, you know, in the late 90s, early 2000s, I think there wasn't that transition yet where sports are meant to be fun. I think there's a lot more of that now, and a lot of that is due to people like you who made it fun in the 90s, in the early 2000s.
So I'm not surprised that some person would come up to you and be like hey like respect the game a little bit more even though it's like what are you saying though i'm sorry the thing is i think i do respect the game but you know if it's team a versus team b and it's wednesday and it's 12 40 at night yeah you want to do the highlight a little different and be a little silly and drop some reference you know it's not anybody. And you're the number one thing.
I just said this on a different interview about like, we always want the score, right? We want the stats, right? We want to say the name, right. And then after that, have your fun.
And sometimes we screw it up, you know, and we try to do better. Like one night we're doing top plays, you know, it's the thing with all the top 10 plays.
And the scores don't matter in the least, right?

Who gives a damn who won the game when we really want to see the bicycle kick?

That's all that matters, right?

But I messed up.

Well, I was handed the wrong information is what happened.

And I said the wrong team won.

It was UMass, right, basketball.

And I got lit up on Twitter, but mostly respectfully.

Hey, dude, we won that game.

Get it right, you know.

And we felt bad.

Like, God, we said the wrong team won.

Like, that's bad.

You can't do that, you know.

But other than that, it's supposed to be fun, right?

It's entertainment.

See, that's bad you can't do that you know but other than that it's supposed to be fun right it's entertainment see that's that tells me that uh you you still have a little bit of that big j journalism because when we screw up people don't even try to correct us anymore they're just like oh you guys are doing a bit and it's like no we're just stupid yeah it happens I mean, you get late, you're tired, you feel kind of punch drunk.

You feel like you're in Vegas for 30 hours playing dice and you haven't slept.

And it's 2.17 in the morning and the West Coast games go into 15 innings,

except now they don't do that so much.

But, yeah, we always try to do our best.

And sometimes we do better than other times.

Sometimes we have shows so clean, like we didn't fix one thing.

Like the hour was perfect, let's leave. So other times we don't do that.
Do you remember? Is there a perfect show? What's the best show you've ever done? I don't know. We've had the ones that I like are the ones that are a little more chaotic where there was even a screw up.
But we made such a joke of the screw up that that made it better. You know what I mean? We go to color bars and like that's funny to me.
Bring me color bars all bars all day long because i'll just say you know we still are in the fight for the technical achievement emmy we're not giving up just because that happened um some other people at the place and probably any place not just espn are more uh what's the word you know just straighter arrows that just think oh god we can't clown around about mistakes i'm like no man mistakes are. You don't want to make a mistake on a serious story.
Like when it's time to do, and we do have to cover serious stories, you know, you kind of like tense up and make sure you say the words right. And the rest of it, though, is guys are playing games and girls are playing games and there's games.
I mean, I still respect the athleticism and the dedication. You know, all those things are all true.
But I think if you were an NBA athlete and you heard silly stuff we say as they score,

like our new little whatever phrase we come up with,

I think they'd be amused by that as opposed to,

Steph Curry was successful with a three-point shot.

I mean, it's boring.

Yes, makes sports fun.

I absolutely agree.

Is there something, any wisdom that was imparted on you from the one and only chris berman because we're big boomer guys oh i'm too yeah he called me yesterday um with a very uh sincere we talked for about a half hour it was just it was very he felt bad he was apologizing his birthday was the same day that it all came out that i was gonna leave and it was

just bad timing you know they were gonna announce that he's doing some more of the nfl stuff and i said i didn't it was probably like an auto they probably set it up to put it out at two o'clock you know there wasn't no malice um he didn't need to apologize for that uh he was great to me because he he was just like you know he's the godfather i mean without burman we probably didn't end up doing and that's not any insult to bob lee and tom meese who passed away uh dan and keith bill patrick i mean i'm leaving out names there's a whole lot of people uh gill gardner you know the original guys who did the first show um it wasn't just berman but you know his thing the way he did the football, all his little phrases, you know, all the names for the players, like it became like, right? It was what we were watching. I watched from Seattle before I ever thought of being on ESPN.
I was watching all that. And, yeah, we have high respect for him.
I hope he gets to do it as long as he wants to do it. Have you thought about maybe ghostwriting for Chris Berman? Do some of his boomerisms on Sunday Night Football, maybe under a name a gnome de plume that's not a horrible idea i you know i'm gonna get into greeting card sales first i also have a game with tops.com let's plug that thing i made up a card baseball game that tops is selling oh what is that it's called card baseball um basically my uncle bud and i way back when i was like nine made up a card baseball we just kind of made it up out of thin air it's basically like playing war essentially you know high card wins but there's a way to make it be a baseball game and then the fun part is you make your own lineup so you got your dog leading off and your sixth grade girlfriend's batting second and ken griffey's senior's batting third uh johnny bench probably uh lee may i'm going old school reds on you right there uh who else i have on my team i mean i i would basically play the reds mostly and then mix in some friends and some mariners but i grew up without baseball mostly because when i was a kid we had the seattle pilots who then became the milwaukee brewers right they only played one season so i went about seven years with no team in in Seattle.
So I adopted the Reds because they were world champions.

I was kind of a front runner there at age 10.

But, you know, it hasn't worked out since.

That was really kind of it.

I was there for the big years.

Yeah, right.

You actually have to go, but you might have to move to Cincinnati to make the Reds great again.

I mean, we did that, you know, like playing wiffle ball.

I probably would still if I were playing.

We would pretend to be, you know, like you announce who you are coming up. Right.
And Joe Morgan. Yeah.
We kept stats, man. We were weird.
Mark Sansever. Let's, let's plug Mark Sansever.
He's out in Wolf Point, Montana. I'm a good friend and he broke Babe Ruth's home run record in one summer, the summer of 1972.
Wow. 790, you know, some absurd number.
We literally kept stats every game. And we would play from 9 in the morning, you know, until 2.
We'd go swimming, come back, play the evening card. So, you know, we probably played 25 games in a day, little three-inning games or whatever.
Now, was that any – that was just the thin yellow bat or was there any – That's a great question because 40 of his homers were later discounted because my sister wasn't home to go to Value Mart to get new equipment. And all we had, because the yellow bat broke, all we had was one of those stupid fat bats, totally illegal.
Totally illegal. People would play with them.
Or you stuff the, what I would do, stuff the wet toilet paper, paper towel in the bat, and it would give a little weight to it. We didn't think of that.
That thing would pop. So, yeah, there's cheating.
We had a really cool field on the house I was describing earlier on Star Lake, and my dad built a fence for us, and then we got advertising. We put fake advertising in the outfield to replicate a stadium.
Matt McGillan stole a stole a stop sign and that became home plate i'm not implicated i was a little complicit in it because we used it but and then my sister would come up and sing the national anthem um and we would line the field with either chalk or flour or something you know we gotta get you out to stew finer's house we're gonna go play in a wiffle ball tournament out in long island this summer i might be honored to have you along yeah i throw a almost unhittable spitball like the ball drops literally like a yard you just turn your back saliva and then you see it fly off and the ball just fall but i also favor using the softball size wiffle ball and the skinny yellow because it doesn't throw out your arm you can throw a real fastball with this heavier ball kenny man is being brought to you by ZipRecruiter. If you're looking for a new candidate for a job, maybe you're looking to hire somebody who's quirky with a dry sense of humor that has worked at ESPN for, I don't know, 26 years.
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And now here's more Kenny Mayne.

All right, so your arm, I have to bring this up.

You obviously played quarterback.

You played at UNLV.

You were ahead of Randall Cunningham in the depth chart.

One guy got it right.

Good.

Yep.

How far could you throw a football at your heyday?

Like 75 maybe.

What?

75?

Damn.

Randall threw it like 85.

Yeah, I know.

He played in the NFL.

He was incredible.

75 is a lot.

Yeah, I mean, that was all out. That was, you know, running up and, you know, dropping back and stepping up, you know, you'd be in the sixties or something when you needed it.
But, um, no, I wasn't great. I had a good arm, but I was probably the chaos you see on some of my shows didn't transfer to being a quarterback.
You know, I was a little, and the other thing too too, I came in as a walk-on originally, so I was always trying to show out

and, you know, go for the home run too many times.

If I had just handed the ball to Michael Morton and Ray Krause

and those guys, you know, Leon Walker, I would have been better.

Sam King, who played ahead of me in my senior year,

led the nation to passing yards.

So it wasn't like I was playing against a pretty good guy

to try to beat him out.

He ended up having a free agent deal with Seattle Seattle and he was turning it down to go elsewhere and my coach said hey if you like Sam you should look at Kenny and I went up on my tryout Steve Largent happened to be in the building that day and he comes out he's running routes for me I'm like all right we're doing okay now I can throw it anywhere he's gonna catch it so ended up signing but I failed the physical because i'd ruined my ankle my junior year and that was about that for football i played like a semi-pro league for a couple couple games kept trying usfl tryouts or canada and now i'm 25 working as a gopher at a tv station it was time to yeah they kind of told me it was time yeah because like how much you do in college well i threw like 90 passes in two years and I have a ruined ankle anyway I'd love to try out for your team like well I didn't have a lot to sell to these people so how far can you throw football now I bet I could hit 60 that's pretty good that's really I saw you through uh you threw a fastball you did the first pitch for Mariners game and you got what 68 yeah and I got to 72 the next year that's you still got a cannon you got to have my goal was but it's funny that sounds so lame you know in the 70s when these major league guys are at 100 and plus it's hard to throw a strike and plus I've you know I haven't been training to be a pitcher for 40 years but um I thought I could just do it on willpower and it's hard. Just getting to 70 is everything you got.
Yeah.

I mean, a former college in fact i pitched the thing to the mariners yesterday because uh with our foundation we're uh uh awarding what's the best word recipients they are recipients of i don't like to say they were gifting it i mean they earned it right they they injured their legs at war or whatever we're helping veterans get back you know pain-free lifestyle this brace i have is insane i just play golf with it i can hike i can play flag football i can run sprints and this guy in gig harbor washington makes it named ryan blanc and he invented it for the benefit of veterans right so when i got mine i like cried for three like i couldn't believe my gift like i can run. Like this creates no pain, you know, because my ankle sucks.
It's it doesn't work. But with this brace, I can do anything I want.
Right. Not very fast, but I can do it.
So we started a foundation called Run Freely. If they want to donate, it's run freely dot org org.
And I don't know how many men and women we've been able to help. I think we're high 20s at this point in about three years, maybe 30.
But some of the stories are just crazy. Like, you know, you're crying reading the letter back.
They're so thankful and so humble about it, and I want to help other people now. And we got people back working.
We got some who went back in the military. But most of them just want to have a nice day and not be in pain.
And this thing, it does it for them. It's amazing.
It's called an exosim. I that's awesome i'm gonna check it out everyone should go check it out we'll put it in the uh bio of the podcast for tomorrow um if you had if someone said to you like hey kenny i want to say tomorrow it's now today today you're right when people are listening today that's a fix that would be a fix on the late sports center we don't fix anything okay we don't fix anything whatever day it is we're on right now we're we are wherever you are life is live uh how come it's not live why don't you just be like it is live if you're listening to it right now you're listening to it live you're living live and tell them we're not live but when you're listening to this moment right this second,

someone is listening to this moment in their car on Friday morning going to work,

it's live for them.

Okay, because it's the first time it's ever happened.

And it's life.

Life is live.

You're experiencing it all at once.

But real live is always better than pretend.

No, so you're doing your TV tricks.

Because, Kenny, what we are is we're on demand.

Yeah.

So we're live whenever somebody wants us to be live.

Oh, you're Netflix. You get your phone, you push a button, and I'm there.
I'm in your car with you. Yeah.
I got you. You'll learn all this stuff.
You're just a young guy out there trying to find your way. I'm like a walking NFT right now.
I'm just, if you want a little piece of this, can I buy you right now? How much for the next five seconds of your life? I, that whole thing, I sort of get the Bitcoin and all that. I sort of get, but the NFT thing, I'm like, hold on.
So let's pretend just as an example, you know, name a guy, Aaron Rogers is going to spin a football on the ground. Right.
Cause he's so good at that. And somebody, and they're going to capture that and they're going to blow out, you know,

a power station by using computing power to blockchain the hell out of that thing.

And then that's a thing, right?

It's a physical thing and it's a zeros and ones thing.

And then you buy it for $20 million because you want that Aaron Rodgers spinning thing, right?

Yep.

And then you're the only guy that ever has it because you're just looking at that thing because you own it. It's mine now, yeah.
Just hold on to it. I possess that.
Like this t-shirt. Nobody else that I know has this one, but it's not.
You could replicate it. You could reprint it.
Right. But you can't reprint the Aaron Rodgers spinning it thing.
That t-shirt's fungible. These are non-fungible NFTs, bitches.
You know what I would buy? I would buy anft of the entire segment you did with marshall lynch at david yes because that and applebee's and applebee's yeah don't forget that's a great that's a great story actually if we have time yeah it is time there is none hold on oh shit okay do we have can we do 14 minutes? Yes. We have as much time as you want.
We have literally, we could do 24 hours with you. Okay.
But I can't right now. I could come back and wrap up if, you know.
No, no. Let's go.
Let's keep going. Give me the Dave and Buster's leg.
This is like a Bill Walton. We interviewed Bill Walton and two hours into it, he turned to us.
he goes, how long does this go? We're like, as long as you want, Bill. Bill Walton called us last night, and I put it on speaker so Gretchen could hear.
He's the sweetest, kindest. He's just the best.
I mean, there's many people I've run across. Jamal Crawford, shout out.
Otherwise, there's many others. I've left them out.
It's just Bill Walton and Jamal. They're all good guys.
Everybody else on and just no they're all good um so tom mccollum uh still works at espn and he was my producer on what was called the main event and they made that name up i did not i thought it was stupid but why didn't they just run the story why did it have to have a name like what are we doing just but it's the main event well it's better than just being like here's kenny main doing something funny yeah you know i think also they hired you because they're like someday we're going to be able to use well we also had main yeah we also had main street that was another show that i like um everybody on that show was on parks and rec like they're all famous now um so tom mccullin my producer. And I'd say more often than not, I would, with somebody or on my own, come up, let's do this this week.
Here's the dumb idea of the week, right? Usually make up something or take a real story and go off the cliff with it, right? In this case, Willis McGahee had left Buffalo. And on the way out, he kind of trashed the place, right? He said, Buffalo sucks, man.
They got, you know, well, they they got a davin busters and applebee's and don't even start on the women i think that was his quote right marchand's a rookie now so tom wrote a really funny script like i changed the word or two and we freelanced the word or two but it was really tom and marchand and i i'm reading him the willis mcgay quote and marchand is reacting to it and then to prove prove that Buffalo is kind of cool and, and Willis McGahee was wrong. Marshawn goes out on the town to, to Mark to Applebee's and to Dave and Buster's.
And we just had a time. We just went out on the town and we didn't really script as much of that.
That was just give Marshawn the keys and tell him to drive the cart, you know, just like a cow. Yeah.
Yeah. He's a friend.
Yeah. I, I love Marshawn.
He's like – and he was so misrepresented, all that stupid stuff about not wanting to talk to the media. Like, who cares? Like, there's – usually you just want to hear the quarterback and the coach anyway.
And there's 53 guys. Pick another guy.
Like, he just wants to play football, watch Netflix, and hang out with his boys and come back and do it again. Like, he just wasn't into that thing.
However, if you get him going on a topic he wants to talk about he'll talk and talk i hosted his charity event in seattle once and i had to like wrestle the mic back he was very sincere he's very passionate about what he does he's done so many good things that he didn't care he's not like waving his arm look what i did he like passes out cell phones to homeless people to get them connected right like without right this modern technology we're living in we're living in. So helps the kids in Oakland.
He came up for a Seattle event for Special Olympics after he'd left Seattle, and they didn't expect him to show. He's no longer, hey, Marshawn's here.
He said he'd be there, he showed up. Legend, absolute legend.
All right, so if you had to pick one thing, one piece of work that you're like, this is what I'm most proud of or this is what I want you to watch of my time at espn what is it i don't know if you can find it it's like an it's the nft i'm gonna give you an nft try to find it hell yes so i used to play in the all-stars softball games and uh one year i couldn't make it i had a horse race to cover something and. And then they never invited me back.
It was like, you say no once.

You're out.

You're not playing any softball anymore.

But it was really fun.

They'd mic you up.

And I'm like out there in the outfield.

I'm very average.

I can throw the softball.

But hitting, I was like a 200 hitter or something.

I'm looking around.

It's like Fred Lynn's over there.

Ricky Henderson's over.

It was just bizarre.

Like, why am I on the field with these guys?

But it was crazy fun.

We were going to play in Detroit.

Stevie Wonder's from Saginaw, which is close to Detroit.

He was going to be in a concert in Philadelphia, like,

a couple days before we had to go out, you know, to the game in Detroit.

I called Tim Scanlon, who was then the head of baseball.

I said, hey, I got an idea for Stevie Wonder if there's any way to make this happen.

But I have to go to Philadelphia.

And he's like, well, you're connected?

No.

Do you have a patent? No, I got nothing. He said, all right, good luck.
Go get it. I said, you're sure.
Cause I'm not promising anything. He's like, whatever.
It's an airplane in a hotel. I go do it.
So I go to the concert. It was live eight.
It was when they were doing a worldwide concert to relieve African debt. That was the point of it.
And stevie winner's there and all these other big shots are there and at one point i'm just trying to work closer to get the chance to ask one of his guys can i get a minute with them or you or whatever and i'm standing outside the fence and i'm kind of looking at all the trailers inside and his assistant keeps on waving like will smith goes in talks to stevie and then natalie Portman goes in and somebody else, right? And all of a sudden, he's looking at me, like, waving, like, you know, this big smile. Like, come on, come on, Stevie wants to meet.
And, like, are they talking to me? Like, how do they know who I am, for starters, right? So I start. I was like, all right.
I take a step forward, and Don Cheadle walks by me. He was behind me, apparently.
So that was tough. But I didn't give up.
And I met a teamster who gave me a lanyard now I'm backstage you know I just kept getting closer to the action right and I got a hold of his guy I think it was his brother Milton Hardaway and said I got this crazy idea for ESPN can I get one minute literally one minute he says you stand here when he's all done we'll meet you you pitch him pitch him, right? If he'll do it, he'll do it.

If you don't, he don't, right?

We loaned our camera to BET because their camera broke.

So we're like being helpful.

You guys go first, and they interview Stevie.

And I say, hey, Stevie, just one line.

It's just a joke for this baseball thing we're doing.

His line was, I can't be at the All-Star game. I have a high ankle sprain.

He murdered it in one take. And he had an album coming out.
I forget which one i forget which one was i said hey when's that album coming out he said soon he walks away i'm that that's it what's better than that yeah that's amazing that's i love that story just because uh you know being in the business and in having those moments where you just don't really have access and you just keep grinding and grinding and pushing, there's no better feeling. No greater victory.
Yeah, where you're like, I didn't have any, I shouldn't be here, but I just, like through will and just stupidity, got myself to this moment. That's precisely how it happened.
If the Teamster guy hadn't recognized me, I don't know if it would have worked out as well, but I'm standing back talking to Sarah McLachclaughlin and these other guys are coming i mean it was all crazy it was it was the best uh did you see that mashup i think it was on two weeks ago or so on twitter and it was guns and roses and stevie doing living for the city and the guns and roses song and i know duff mckagan from that band and i asked him like did you guys okay that did people just do that he said dude we were in something with Stevie Wonder. Who cares if it was cleared? Yeah, right.
How cool is that? Right. It's worth looking up.
Yeah. So you guys did a lot of stuff where you were on the road trying to, like, work your way into these clips, get the right questions, ask the right people.
We heard that you spent some time overseas in Bosnia and that you had a great friend over there named Amir. Do you still remember Amir? He was, like, your handler? He was our fixer they called it matt doyle sent that one in is that coming in from the from uh wakefield or somewhere aaron uh yes amir didn't he didn't like me so every time we went to a different country the the more uh dangerous is you know just the ones where there was you needed a little help you need a little somebody looking out for you.
We would hire sort of bodyguard slash handler, right? And in some cases we needed more, some less. London, we just ran around on our own.
But yeah, Amir didn't like me. It was, it was, that was tough.
Just, he cut my fish for me every night. I ordered trout.
It was the only thing on the menu I wanted and he would debone it for me. So shout out to Am all right so what uh I mean this is going to be a weird question you see the reaction uh when you say that you're leaving ESPN it was all positive I don't think I've ever heard one person say Kenny Maine sucks or Kenny Maine this like something bad about you give us something bad about you like if you had to self-scout yourself because that it's it's crazy you have and it's testament to your career and and working with people that everyone is like i love kenny main because you don't see it often you know what i mean there's usually a few people like oh he was a jerk to me you know going to get coffee or you know he yelled at me when i didn't get the right bagel what what would be the one thing that you could pick it out so out? So that way we can get a front of it.
I don't know. I'm not trying to come off like choir boy here, but I think I treat people pretty well.
And that mattered more than if I did highlights. Well, you know what I mean? Like my dad always taught me about, you know, treat the janitor the same way you treat the VP, right? Like they're all humans and we all have different jobs and the janitor's jobs may be more important than some of our jobs.
Garbage man is as important a job as there is out there, right? What if your garbage doesn't get picked up? So I just think I come from that ethic, and I don't know. I'm not very good at pronouncing some hockey names.
That would be my – There it is. See, that's good.
Now no one can go looking for Kenny Mayne's weakness because, like, here it is. But it is really – it was a backwards way of me giving you a compliment that, like, I watched the reaction.
And, again, like, being in this business, I hope someday that I have that – I elicit that same reaction from people where it's like I worked with him and it was so much fun and it was always a blast and he's a great guy. Like, I think that really does mean more than hours and hours of tape and being on TV.
It's like the connections that you made. So kudos to you for that because it really is incredible.
Well, I had a bunch of good people who treated me well as well. You know what I mean? Like, all these little steps along the way, like when I got picked to replace Olbermann when he left and Dan was good to me and kind of made me feel comfortable, that could have been weird, you know, but he handled it really well.
And the times where I needed help, you know, like if I'm going to interview, you know, some soccer player I've never heard of from the Czech Republic, I want help. You know, like give me some questions that I've never heard of this person.
If I'm talking to Aaron Rogers, I don't, you know, I'm not writing any questions, right. I don't think you guys wrote guys wrote too many down we just talk and that's the thing I think sometimes gets missed on the interviews is like just treat people like human beings and I think the athletes appreciate that more when you don't exalt you know put them in this lot there's weirds them out probably they just are taller or throw better or run better you know we appreciate what they do but they're still just human beings who somehow made a team and made a career out of that.

Yeah, I think a lot of times they're thankful to be talking to somebody that's not trying to, like, get them or anything. You're not trying to grab a quote out of them.
And the more they gain your trust, the more you like them, they like you. Then they'll be more willing to do stuff with you in the future.
I think that's what we try to do with everybody that we have on the show over here. is like we don't want somebody to leave our show being like those guys are dickheads

and then have, you know, a bad headline about him the next day in Sports Illustrated or something like that. I'm fucking offended by everything that we've done here so far.
So if you guys want to get to the cool questions. Yeah.
So that said, give me give me some dirt. Give me a headline.
You hate the most. That was my way of setting it up.
Who's the biggest prick? Give me give me. I'll tell you offline.
I'll tell you offline. However, honestly, just not joking, are there some people who have certain personalities that grate you one way? But all in all, it's a cliche about we're a family, but it kind of is like that.
There's a little team. The guys I just played golf with today, we work on these different shows, and it's fun just to be together in a different environment and clown around and make fun of each other.
And, you know, just like regular people. Right.
So, yeah. Yeah.
You are, you mentioned a second ago, but when you got the call up to, to the big leagues, when Dan waved you over, was he telling you like, Hey, just be yourself, do what you've done. Or was there any, was there any pushback at all from ESPN one to have you perform a certain way now that you're on the flagship show? Like, hey, what you did in the minors over at ESPN2, you got to tweak this and that for a bigger audience? Or was it just like they trusted you and they wanted Kenny to be Kenny? I don't know if they still, if they trust me now, actually.
No, I mean, I had done some sports centers. It wasn't like Channel 2 to Channel 1, like overnight.
I had filled in during the summer. I think it was summer.
Keith had left, and they rotated a bunch of us with Dan. I didn't do any politicking for that.
I didn't mention that I wanted the job. It just kind of happened.
They called me in one day. We've chosen you to be with Dan.
And there you go. That was it.
But they handled it like, you know, I was landing on the moon or something. It wasn't.
I was kind of cool i mean that's a big deal that show at the time it still is but you know particularly at that time when people didn't know the results right we were telling you for the first time ever the marlins have defeated the cubs no one knows that but us and people who live in you know those two cities so yeah i was definitely nervous early with it like don't screw it up um but he made me comfortable and and i just kept trying to improve you know so you might not have an answer to this question but i'm gonna ask you anyway do you keep rolling keep rolling yep okay this will be an interesting part of the i'm gonna go well i have two last questions okay one is do you do you have any idea what you want to do next? Have you actually thought about it, talked to people?

And people want to know, obviously, where's Kenny Mayne going to be?

Is there any leaning one way or the other of what you would like to do?

First thing I'm doing after the last show, which is May 24th,

is going to San Diego, to Del Mar, to team up with my daughter

who just graduated from college. So those are the immediate plans.
I think that's going to be a revenue loser out of the gate. I think we're going downhill.
What am I doing? I don't know. I mean, I've heard from more people at first.
I should have said it when you brought it up. Like I was floored by the reaction.
Corey Kozak, my good friend, we were joking about, I i was like what if i put a tweet out that i'm leaving and like nine people like it i mean that happens right you read a tweet you think is the greatest tweet ever and everybody's like whatever dude you're moving on and the overwhelming reaction i was blown away by it like unexpected and i was flattered and humbled and you know whatever else i was supposed to be but sincerely And then immediately different companies that thought I wasn't horrible at what I do started, hey, you want to talk to us? Let's have a cup of coffee. Nothing official.
I'm looking at this like my period in my contract is May, this month that we're in, to free agency period, if you will. I'm allowed to talk to other companies.
So I'm just doing it in public. I'm doing my interview process in public and really taking people behind the scenes.
This is a conversation that would take place with any company. I love it.
And if all else fails, you still have, what, a 72-mile-an-hour fastball? And the greeting cards and the Topps.com thing. I was going to say, with an arm like that, the Jacksonville Jaguars could probably try you at tight end.

I'd want to.

I sent Gruden a text and said,

I'll be your scout team quarterback.

He'd probably do it.

Yeah, he probably would do it.

He loves quarterbacks.

I think I could run scout team.

It ain't that hard.

They give you a chart.

They're not going to hit you.

All you got to do is throw a 20-yard out or whatever.

Yeah.

You just have to be better than Nathan Peterman.

I think this has been a pleasure,

but I don't want to stiff the next guy that I promised I would do something with.

Go.

Give us a winner, though, for Saturday.

Can I text you that later?

Because I haven't even looked at the form,

but it's not going to be the Derby winner.

Okay, there you go.

Then that's fine.

Breaking news.

Take the rest of the field.

Kenny Main, we are big fans of yours,

and we appreciate your time, and thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
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We're ready to finish up with some FireFest. What about this, Hank? We have a longtime capital superstar named Chara, right? We have a longtime Boston superstar named Pasta.
Why don't we do some sort of Olive Garden trip? Oh, now we're talking. Seems like they have complimentary food.
Yeah, we videotaped it. No, no, no.
So it's all you can eat and drink pasta and Chardonnay. You have to eat a certain amount or something.
You have to eat so much pasta. You have to eat until you throw up.
Until you throw up. You have to eat or drink until you throw up.
Put it on the YouTube. We'll go live on the YouTube.
On Olive Garden. Or should we do Olive Garden or just have it ordered here? Just pasta after pasta ordered to the office.
We can do that too, yeah. Alright.
Yeah, so Olive Garden until you throw up. You have to eat pasta until you throw up.
You can't put your finger down your throat. And drink Chardonnay.
And drink Chardonnay. Bet.
Okay. That's a great bet.
Is it a bet? That's a bet that the listeners will do a live stream. We'll hang out.
We'll enjoy. We'll interact.
And one of you will puke. Subscribe to the YouTube page.
Subscribe to the YouTube page. That's great.
Are we going to stream it live? Yeah. I think that's the point.
We'll maybe play some Mario Party or something. There has to be a secondary.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll do something.
We'll think of something else. As sexy as Hank looks when he's sucking down some ziti.
Well, I'm not going to lose. No, we could do, or we could watch a game.
We could watch a hockey game and just pound some pasta with the boys. I like that.
Fucking love it. All right.
Firefest of the week. Hank.
I actually don't have one this week, guys. Really? Yeah.
Why not? It's just a great week. My stocks are great.
Bitcoin's great. Home's great.
Works great. Your relationship with everyone in this room is okay? Yeah, it's awesome.
There's not anyone that you've been icing out? No. To make him feel a little bit worse, and he's starting to get self-conscious? I don't know what you're talking about, Bicamp.
I'm talking about the fact that you refused to talk to Jake, and he keeps asking me. We talk to Jake every day? No, we didn't.
What do you mean? Is Hank really mad at me? Jake and I talk every day. We just did stool streams.

We were in the booth together.

It was great.

It was a good broadcast.

It was a great broadcast.

I'm trying to do my fire rest.

But no, it's been a great week.

It's been a great week.

You guys are like Mike and Mike at the end right now.

You only communicate when you're on camera.

Next Thursday, PFT challenged me and Jake challenged me. Big Cat's going to be in the booth, so I'm going to get my redemption stool straight Thursday 2 o'clock.
I did this for you, Hank. I did this for you, Hank, because I want you to have another chance.
I want you to get back on that horse. I can't bear looking at you like this.
It's the regular season. I'm not going to over-celebrate and showboat just because, you know, you don't see the Lakers celebrating like they won the championship in a regular season game.
That's just not how I operate personally. Other people can choose to do that if they wish.
That's not how I roll. I'm, you know, focused down.
It doesn't mean a thing if you don't get the ring. Tournament's coming this summer.
I'm focused for that, you know. What tournament is this? Summer Slam Spectacular.
Really? Yeah. Theuly and the triple s oh okay so how many s's is that cinco s five s's s cubed times two no no s cubed plus two maybe i don't know what you start doing cubed i'm like i don't know uh so you and jake are good we're great jake never been better do you feel like you're good i don't know what that's cubed is.
As soon as you start doing cubed, I'm like, I don't know. So you and Jake are good.
We're great. Jake, do you feel like you're good? I don't know at this point.
Yeah, I know. I feel bad for you.
I want it to be good. I know.
I know you do. I mean, you did a great job promoting the shirt of yourself beating Hank for the team.
Yeah. For the podcast.
No, that was good. People wanted it.
I'm saying you did a great job doing that. Hank didn't do that.
The PM account on instagram said swipe up to emasculate hank and then i reposted but i covered up the emasculate hank and i just said swipe up to buy a shirt i can't have that language on my yeah i feel bad yeah but i don't know he feels bad that he's making you feel so bad for do you have a fire fest jake you want to go next is it yeah he should have gone first actually or is no i i think and hope we're good i don't know at this point but um how much time have you spent this week thinking about it way too much i know i know you guys see it i know secret you asked me all through in my week if i'm being honest i know that's why i think hank is gotta we to bridge this. I had a great week.

Like I said, I didn't even have a Fyre Fest this week.

Yeah, you've been wonderful.

Everyone's been so nice to me at work.

It was intended for Hank to be humiliated,

but now the tables have kind of turned,

and he's having a good week, and I'm not.

Right, because you're thinking about the human side of it.

Well, I'm joking because every single person in this office,

it's one of those things where it's like you really find out

how people feel about you because once you take a loss,

everyone's fucking show bloating and laughing in my face. It's the only thing people talk about, but that's all right.
I remember everything. Jake's entire point about his week being so bad is because that should make you feel way worse, that his week has been awful because he beat you so badly.
He beat me by two points. No, it was a close match.
I mean, you're the best in the office. You're the best one here.
All right. Emotions happen.
Hank, when you said that you were at the doctor earlier this week, were you actually at HR? No, I was at the doctor. I was getting my third vaccine shot.
Okay. Oh, nice.
All right, Hank, I'm good if you're good. Better safe than sorry.
Yeah, I'm great. Like I said, I'm triple vaxxed up.
I'm triple vaxxed up. Nothing could go wrong.
My foot's been falling asleep way too often this week, and it hurts. Also, I had a broken foot.
We talked about it on FireFest last week. This is Jake's FireFest.
Yeah. I'm not going to say something like that.
He's not even making eye contact with Hank. No, we're good.
We're great. We're good.
All right, your foot's falling asleep? Way too often, and it hurts. I don't know if you guys have ever been in that position, especially when you sit on the toilet for too long.
Yes. Every time I take a shit.
You get up. Every day.
And you just feel like you don't have a foot. Yeah, that's literally the only reason that I know when it's time to get up from shit.
Yeah. So brutal.
You have a foot that goes to sleep. Yeah.
And you can't walk. But then it always gets better.
Okay. Do you guys feel like when your leg's asleep that you...
Like, I always have described it to, like, TV static. That's what my legs feel like.
Yeah, like pins and needles. Yeah.
I always say it feels like Joe Rogan's interviewing my foot. That sort of thing.
Yeah. That went way over my head.
My Firefest of the week is Dr. Fauci said it's masks off right now.
Have you heard? Hot Boy Summer. You should start to listen to that song.
What? Future. Future mask off? Yeah.
Okay, I'm going to write this down. Oh, PFT walked up to me today.
His name is The Future? Oh, my God. PFT walked in today, and he goes, hey, have you heard Sicko Mode? And I was like, yeah.
What are you, like, two years ago? And he's like, yeah, I just listened to it. I was like, what? Like a light.
I thought I had, like, gotten knocked out or something when he said it. I thought there was, like, a new thing.
And I'm out on the flight. Where were you? It was all that was played i'm 18 months post modern culture got it that's when i start to catch up uh but yeah cap yeah that's it sounded good yeah yeah did you say that i cap when i'm 18 months yeah you think i'm more than that yeah no i think you're less how less you're right on it bro when was sicko you're right Scott sing sicko? Like two summers ago, I think.
Okay. Yeah.
You're right on it. But yeah, my Fyre Fest is masks off, which is great.
But I'm getting a cold sore right now. Oh.
And this is the worst possible time ever. In the course of human history.
I think that I am. I can't be sure.
You ever have that feeling?

I'm bonked.

Where you're like, I don't know.

Maybe.

Maybe I'm psyching myself out.

Yeah.

But I started to feel it this morning,

and then the next thing that I saw was fucking Fauci saying,

hey, great news.

Take your masks off.

I think that we should do one more week.

I think if we just go masks one more week,

I think that'll be perfect timing.

Then everybody will be happy, and we can finally then take our masks off in public. Okay, one more week.
I just think just one more week. Or maybe I'll let you know on Monday.
Maybe it's okay to do it right now. Okay.
It might be on my head. Don't bonk me.
Give a heartbeat. Like 80% of people have cold sores, Hank.
Totally. They're just ashamed to talk about it.
Totally. All right.
My fire fest is that I got vaccinated today, but PFT stole all the jokes about how you're not talking about the vaccination, so I can't talk about my vaccination. I'm sorry.
Yeah, it's alright. I'm not going to talk about it.
But when I talked about mine, I didn't mean to be preventing you from not talking about yours. So I can't now talk about mine.
Now you almost have to talk about it. No, I can't.
Because if you don't talk about it, then everyone's like, like oh it's pft's bit i will say this i am i do feel like more of a fucking man because i i went and got the johnson and johnson and it's partly because i'm just lazy i didn't want to go back for a second johnson square i got the one that like knowingly people are like hey that one's sketch and i'm like i don't care well if you're a girl boss it's sketch yeah it's it's i was all for it though real men get three no real men get one johnson and johnson and have an 85 efficacy rate don't they're gonna fucking put the little thing on the bottom of this podcast troops is gonna be like plug clot big cat uh yeah so the boys are all vaxxed up. There we go.
No, you have two weeks.

You've got to wait two weeks.

Well, I already had immunity because I had it, so I'm ultra alpha.

You know what I mean?

Like, I had it.

Because you're the only one that caught it.

Well, no, there's a guy here who had it.

Oh, yeah.

Somebody will not be named.

He will probably not get vaxxed.

You know what a good joke is when someone asks you about your vaccine?

Be like, yeah, it's Johnson & Johnson.

That means docking. Ah, nice.
Put them right together. Sword fight.
I actually was surprised at how easy it was. Everyone should go do it if you can.
Not to get political. Getting a shot? Yeah, big cat.
Don't get political. Not to get political on your asses.
But it was crazy. They like had it really set up.
I thought it would have been funny if we all got our second shots, our first shots at the exact same time and then we recorded a part of my take where we were all just very sick. Were we just mouth kissed? Well, no, we were just like violently ill.
I didn't get sick after my second or third one, so true alpha. Really? That's big time.
Damn, Hank. I'm feeling good right now.
I'm not, you know, it's been about 12. Oh, Jake, just give me a look.
Hank is the strongest in this office. Just wait.
Did you feel sick, Jake? Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That's right.

Liam, did you get vaccinated?

Yes.

So the whole squad's vaccinated.

Fuck yeah, boys.

Ass up.

Hot Boy Summer.

I feel like a sucker for getting vaccinated before I even got a burger out of it.

Were they giving away burgers? Yeah, in New York, they're giving away burgers.

I could get a burger?

You're doing a great job of acting surprised right now, Big Cat.

Shake Shack Fries?

Big Cat waited to schedule his vaccine.

Big Cat was the one target in the audience of Bill de Blasio's press conference.

I actually saw it.

DJs did.

You can get a VIP card to there.

Really?

If you got vaxxed there.

Do I have to take it?

You have to eat a burger.

That's a way to not get vaxxed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's Shake Shack, so.

Also, shout out Little Sass

because he said that when people tweet him

saying, I can't believe what the Pardon My Take guy

said about you,

he immediately listens to the show.

Oh, really?

So everyone tweeted Little Sass

about I can't believe what the Pardon My Take guy

said about you.

And that's one more listener.

I like that.

Yeah, he's that vain. So we're just going to do that every show now.
Give him a fake time stamp today. Yeah, yeah.
Give him a time stamp to what was the worst part of the show today? Probably when we tried to figure out the strength of schedules. Yeah, that or Melinda Gates-Klatoris.
Yeah. There's some real hot talkers.
Try to Google the strength of schedule. All three of us at the same time.

99.

The only side effect I got is made by Taco Bell.

Oh, man.

That's unfortunate.

Eight.

Oh, there we go.

Did you do it?

Woo!

Oh, let's go.

Oh, oh. You did eight?

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

That also means you have to follow someone on Instagram.

I do.

Whoa.

Have fun with that.

Whoa.

I have a... Love you guys.
What, Hank? This has gone over my head for a while. Alright, so don't stop recording.
I have notes. Yeah.
You, PFT, and I have a bet. We have to follow someone on Instagram.
On the side text thread that we have where we talk shit about everybody else on the show. The person who gets it right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Alright, All right, we're back. Yeah.
Bonk. Yeah, you're getting bonked big time for your follow.
We've got cows can sleep standing up. This is an inside joke for three of us in the room and none of the listeners.
Cows can sleep standing up, but they can only dream laying down. And when you hit the space bar on your computer, 600,000 people around the world are doing it at the same exact time.

That's a lot of good facts.

Thank you, Jake.

Just did it.

Love you guys.

Wait, one, two, three.

Wow.

599,998 because you guys are two.

Wow.

We're taking it up.

Yeah.

Love you guys.

Hank, maybe part of our bet can be if I win the bet,

you have to take care of my Instagram responsibility.

Maybe. I broke my eyes Only for a moment And the moment's gone All my dreams But before I secure your need Take on me I'm just a way Take on me Only I've got to believe All we are is dust in the rain Same old song Just a drop of water in an endless heat All we do

Crumbles to the ground

The way we fear to see

Just for the week

Take on me

And we are just for the week

Take on me. Take on me.

Take on me.

Take on me.

Take on me. It's Pardon My Take presented by Barstool Sports.