Kenny Mayne, Randy Moss And Blake Bortles Is A Packer

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Speaker 5 On today's part in my take, we have a two for Friday two. For we have

Speaker 5 our best friend Randy Moss back on the show. Actually, he gave us some good insight on to what's going on with Bob Baffert and Medina Spirit.

Speaker 5 And that we have basically been wrong all week, but that's okay.

Speaker 8 We've been slandering a horse.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's fine. Whatever.
We also, he gave us some picks for the weekend, so you got to listen to that.

Speaker 5 We also have the great Kenny Main on the show, who announced on Monday that he is leaving ESPN after 27 years. We talked about his career, some funny anecdotes, stories.
Kenny

Speaker 5 knows everything. Also, he basically played with the Babe Ruth of Wiffleball, which we found out.

Speaker 5 We are going to talk a little NFL schedule, Blake Bortles to the Packers, and Firefest of the Week.

Speaker 10 Before we do all of that, I'm not going back to college to be your friend. I'm going so I can get Uber One for students.
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Speaker 5 Okay, let's go.

Speaker 5 Now in the street, there is violence.

Speaker 5 And then I love some work to be done.

Speaker 5 No place behind all the washing.

Speaker 5 And then I can't blame all of the suns. Oh no, we're gonna rock down to

Speaker 5 It's part of my take presented by Barstool Sports.

Speaker 8 Welcome to Pardon My Take presented by Sport Clips.

Speaker 5 Go check them out. 1800 locations nationwide where guys get their hair cut.
Today is Friday, May 14th.

Speaker 5 And Blake Portals is signed with the Packers.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 He's got the highest yards per carry of any quarterback in the NFL, I think, in the last five years.

Speaker 8 I think this is going to be a great system for him up there.

Speaker 5 I have a question. Blake Bortles, did you guys see his headshot was released? Is that old? I didn't see it.

Speaker 5 I'm a good friend. I'm happy for Blake Portals because he has a lot of hair in that picture.

Speaker 5 We all know of him as a bald guy. It's a rookie year picture.
Yeah, it's his rookie year picture.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 It's going to be cold for him up there in the wintertime.

Speaker 5 He does know that snow is wet. I'm being bullied now on text message by Blake and Jared,

Speaker 5 who are just bullying me. So Jared Goff, Lions head coach, and Blake Bortle's now, or head coach,

Speaker 5 quarterback, and Blake Bortle's now quarterback of the Green Bay Packers.

Speaker 5 Listen, I'm happy for Blake. I'm a friend.

Speaker 5 I'm a consummate friend. That's all I'll say.

Speaker 12 I'm a friend. Are you rooting for him?

Speaker 5 No. You're not.
Is it a group text? Are they

Speaker 5 simultaneously?

Speaker 5 Group text. They're trolling me simultaneously.
If you get a group text.

Speaker 8 If Blake gets into the game against the Bears, you're not going to root for him to perform well? No.

Speaker 5 Wow. I don't want him to be a bad guy.
I think bad.

Speaker 8 Something are bigger than sports, big cats. No, I want him to.

Speaker 5 You're rooting against our friends. No, is what you're saying.

Speaker 5 This is a blowout.

Speaker 5 What? You always root against our friends.

Speaker 9 The Bears are up by 30. What do you mean?

Speaker 5 Blake discovered. I'm having trouble computing this.
The Bears are up by 30 on the Packers? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah, then I want Blake to do well. Okay.

Speaker 5 I want Blake to go 15 and 2, both losses to the Bears.

Speaker 5 The Bears beat the Packers in the playoffs, and then Blake gets a $300 million contract.

Speaker 12 I mean, I think that would work out well for everybody.

Speaker 5 That would be awesome.

Speaker 8 That would be great. I think it's a smart move by the Packers.

Speaker 5 I really do. Do they have Tesla Chargers in Green Bay, Wisconsin?

Speaker 8 I think Blake is the only Tesla owner in Green Bay. I am actually.

Speaker 8 I hope every grocery store has an electric car parking up there, and Blake just gets to park right up front wherever he goes because there's never taken.

Speaker 5 I am actually happy for him. I'm very happy.

Speaker 5 He is a friend. He's been a longtime friend of 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.

Speaker 8 He is, sabermetrically, the least likely quarterback to quit the Packers to go host Jeopardy.

Speaker 5 That's true.

Speaker 5 That's true.

Speaker 8 I don't think Aaron Rodgers could host a Wikipedia club.

Speaker 5 Nope, absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Speaker 13 We see two Tesla destination chargers in the city of Green Bay: 201 Main Street and 465 Pilgrim Way.

Speaker 5 Oh, thank you, Jake. Thanks for actually looking that up.
That was fantastic.

Speaker 8 Do you think that the Packers have contacted Andrew Luck?

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And the NFL schedule came out, and there's five primetime games for the Packers.

Speaker 5 I'm not trying to get woke, but I think they're probably like, you know what? He's going to be a Packer.

Speaker 8 Or they're just trying to get Aaron to show up and play because Aaron likes being on television. Yeah, but

Speaker 5 could you imagine if, I mean, if Jordan Love is, maybe he'll be Blake Bortles.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 I'm not going to let myself get excited about the idea that Aaron Rodgers won't be on the Packers.

Speaker 8 I think it's possible.

Speaker 5 I've already have like a sh.

Speaker 5 Full disclosure, I have seven to eight Photoshop pictures of Aaron Rodgers in a Broncos uniform in my phone right now.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 He's a green bubble guy now.

Speaker 7 Oh, he's had a rough offseason. See you.

Speaker 12 Very rough

Speaker 12 season.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 5 Whoa.

Speaker 8 Bonk. I'm just saying, well, and I'm saying Bill Gates.

Speaker 5 That's a bonk.

Speaker 8 I mean, I've used Windows 2000. I don't think that Bill Gates is going to be able to find a Clitoris.

Speaker 5 Bonk. Just saying.

Speaker 5 We're printing about Melinda Gates' pussy.

Speaker 8 We promote self-love on this podcast.

Speaker 5 All right. So the segue 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.

Speaker 5 It's the worst kept secret every year on the day of the schedule release. You know what?

Speaker 8 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 release. Right.

Speaker 5 Which was like last Friday.

Speaker 8 They're like, breaking news. We can officially confirm that the schedule release has been scheduled for next year.

Speaker 5 Yeah, but it's just so stupid because it's like, if you want to make it a big deal, I'm all for that.

Speaker 5 If 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 is the only one who knows it.

Speaker 5 The teams don't even know it. But because all the teams get, you know, and there are some funny videos.

Speaker 5 The Chiefs had a really funny video where they had a clip of Andy Reed saying, we're excited to face the challenge of... Team X, and it's real clips of everyone on their schedule.

Speaker 5 I think the Chargers had a funny one with Bosa.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 Like, I got someone sent me the Bears one like

Speaker 5 8 o'clock in the morning on Wednesday.

Speaker 8 Yeah, because they have to tell the teams because they have Justin Bieber concerts that come into town. They're like, okay, we need to make sure the stadium

Speaker 8 is accessible on this day and that day. So people in the building have to know ahead of time.
But yeah, I missed the build-up and the drama of having it all come out at once. Yeah.

Speaker 8 I couldn't keep track of which teams had been leaked just

Speaker 5 because there were were too many leaks.

Speaker 8 Because once I was catching up with one leak, there's another leak. Like, hey, have you seen the leak yet?

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 7 I didn't even get that.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 5 We have an awesome Thanksgiving schedule.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 5 So Bears, Lions, which 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.

Speaker 5 So John Gruden in your living room on Thanksgiving Thursday. And then the nightcap, Josh Allen versus Jameis Winston, is going to be incredible.
Yeah. And I'm just excited.

Speaker 5 I have a few notes that I like circled. The first one I circled was week seven, Monday Night Football, the Saints at Seahawks.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 8 Yeah, and then there's Tom Brady going back to his old stomping ground.

Speaker 8 His college friends are meeting his old high school friends. Yep.
Taking them back up there. And that's probably going to be the weekend where he breaks one of Drew Brees' records, I think.

Speaker 5 Yes, probably.

Speaker 7 Probably. And we'll have that circled.

Speaker 8 Hank, what were your thoughts about that? I know that you felt a certain type of way about your old friend Tom.

Speaker 5 People were saying I was salty. All I said was the analogy didn't make sense.
He said, you know, high school friends versus college friends.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 So I just said it's more like, you know, your lifelong friends of 20 years meeting your new co-workers that you moved to a different destination for and have been there for one year.

Speaker 8 And we're extremely good. Which is successful with.
Which is a fact.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 8 after old high school friends were like, we don't want you back. Get out of this town.

Speaker 5 Better partying, more fun to be around. Weather's nice.

Speaker 5 Won me the biggest bet of my life.

Speaker 8 Better coaches.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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 wipe the floor with them.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 Like if my son starts winning Super Bowls, boom, I'm changing my name so that everybody knows I'm that kid's dad.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 5 that would be a power move.

Speaker 9 We have the London Games back.

Speaker 5 London games are back. One of the greatest London games that that I'm just...
But they're Mexico City games.

Speaker 8 But they're London games. They're in London.

Speaker 5 But they're Mexico City. What do you mean? Mexico.
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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 8 It's like when they do

Speaker 8 Saturday night football, and it says Thursday night football on it.

Speaker 12 Got it.

Speaker 5 Okay, 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.

Speaker 5 Well, you know, people are going to watch it. Like, I love watching.
No, no, no, it's a nice game.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 8 No, I'm going to watch it.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 Yeah. And then you got Trevor Lawrence over there.
That'll be interesting. And what's it's Dolphins?

Speaker 5 Dolphins and Jaguars.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's a

Speaker 5 bad color game, and it's in London, so it'll be great.

Speaker 8 I hope the Dolphins go like their brightest, candiest-ass deal, and then the Jaguars do the color-changing helmets, the throwbacks for two years ago, just for that one game.

Speaker 5 The easiest schedules, Cowboys, and the Eagles.

Speaker 5 I saw people being like, this is unfair. Well, it actually makes sense.

Speaker 5 Well, when you count the easiest, most of the time time it's easiest to schedule because of who they're playing that made the playoffs.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 8 I don't know who has it.

Speaker 5 The Bears were like three or four.

Speaker 8 I feel like the

Speaker 8 Nate Sudfield probably got the Eagles the easiest schedule.

Speaker 8 That game actually changed the tide of the entire NFC Beast for probably the next three or four years. Yes, it turns out that maybe it was a smart move to do.

Speaker 8 But yeah, the Steelers kind of deserve to have a tougher schedule.

Speaker 5 I want to say it was the Steelers. I look.
All this doesn't matter. This is really just an excuse to talk about football in late May because none of the Realtors.
The Raiders have the hardest.

Speaker 5 And then the Steelers. Okay.
Do you have the list? Yeah. Where are the Bears? Five? Raiders, Steelers, Texans, Lions, Bengals.

Speaker 8 Okay. Are the Texans even going to show up this year?

Speaker 7 No. I feel like they haven't.

Speaker 8 They've just kind of accepted the fact that they're not going to be a professional football team. Yeah,

Speaker 5 if they just forfeit every game, I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense. The Bears are 22.
The R words are 27. In terms of easiest?

Speaker 9 Strength of schedule.

Speaker 8 What?

Speaker 5 I'm looking at Warren Sharp's Twitter.

Speaker 8 What did he say? He's probably got a proprietary formula.

Speaker 5 I'm looking at a graph.

Speaker 5 What does it say? It says the strength of schedule. The Redskins are 27.

Speaker 8 That's not the team name.

Speaker 5 The Bears are 22. They don't have a fucking team name.
They don't have a nickname. We don't need a name.
Until they do have a nickname, I'm not going to give them any restaurants.

Speaker 5 You don't need a nickname. Toughest.
You don't need to. You need a mask off.

Speaker 8 You need a mask. We made the playoffs.

Speaker 5 This is going to be great because you make the playoffs. We have an interview coming up with Kenny Maine where it's like, we don't cut out any of our mistakes.

Speaker 5 And it's like, you're just seeing it live.

Speaker 8 It would have been sweet if the football team had done their schedule.

Speaker 9 We need a mascot just showing

Speaker 8 the different

Speaker 8 teams that Ryan Fitzpatrick has played for.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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 it.

Speaker 5 You love cheering.

Speaker 8 You don't care for a cartoon character on the field. I care about the kids.

Speaker 5 Okay,

Speaker 5 wait, Hank, this is not. This is just the schedule grid.

Speaker 5 Five easiest schedules. Is this opinion? Is Warren Sharp giving opinions on here? Look at the tweet I said had the five easiest schedules and the five hardest schedules with a correct wonder graph.

Speaker 5 By winning. Yeah, so 22 is the hardest.
Like 32 is the hardest.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 8 Five easy schedules.

Speaker 5 Number one, the Red City Diners. They are 27.

Speaker 8 Number two, the Broncos. Number three, the Browns.
Number four, the Dolphins. Number five, the Bucs.
Five hardest schedules, the Bengals, Lions, Texas, Steelers, Raiders.

Speaker 5 Right, right. But right before that is the Washington football team.
And then the, like, the.

Speaker 5 Okay, whatever. Yeah, I know.
It's on the same page. I know, but when you say 22nd, I always, immediately think easiest.
I literally am just reading numbers.

Speaker 5 Redskins are 27 on this chart.

Speaker 5 I want to know what his

Speaker 5 formula is because I'm looking at something else that has it different.

Speaker 8 It's proprietary. It is proprietary.

Speaker 5 Temp-ass. 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.

Speaker 8 I always love looking at those, like, oh my, how could the NFL do this to a team? Yeah.

Speaker 8 We have like a Sunday night game, a Thursday night game, a Sunday night game, and then like a Monday night, or a Monday night game to start, and then Sunday, then Thursday, then Sunday.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 13 Usually, you get a buy after London. The Dolphins don't have that.
What? They play Jacksonville Sunday, October 17th.

Speaker 5 Sunday the 21st is Mexico City, dude.

Speaker 5 But still, they usually give you a buy after

Speaker 8 And I would just stay over in London if I were there. That way you don't have to fly back and forth.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 8 You know what I'm doing?

Speaker 5 Which is great. You know, the Super Bowls on February 13th?

Speaker 5 That's awesome. We're getting close to the dream, baby.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 8 So close to the dream.

Speaker 5 It's getting just that much closer to March Madness.

Speaker 8 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 the end.

Speaker 8 Got it. So I'm like, okay.
10-6 and 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 and 1.

Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 That's just wrong. It does.

Speaker 8 It feels bad.

Speaker 5 13 and 4.

Speaker 8 That's wrong. Like 7-10?

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 2-15?

Speaker 5 That's gross.

Speaker 7 It's so gross.

Speaker 8 I would almost rather finish 1-16 than 2-15.

Speaker 5 Yeah, or 0-17. That would be incredible.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 No team's ever done that before.

Speaker 7 That's true.

Speaker 8 The magic of numbers.

Speaker 5 Stuff that fucking champagne bottle up your ass, Mercury Morris.

Speaker 5 All right, anything else before we get to our great interviews? We've got Randy Mostone, we got Kenny Main.

Speaker 5 I thought I had one other thing, but I can't remember remember it now.

Speaker 8 The Yankees managed to get COVID somewhere.

Speaker 5 Oh, yeah, I saw that.

Speaker 7 The Yankees did.

Speaker 12 They did get COVID.

Speaker 8 That's crazy. And they're all vaccinated, right?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 5 And oh,

Speaker 5 did you see LeBron dropped? They dropped the banner, which is weird. I didn't realize that they were doing the banner night like last night or two nights ago.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and someone else reminded me I'm kind of a LeBron stand 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 for the kids more important more focused on things in the past and not more like focused and you know prioritizing for the present and

Speaker 5 there are kids that are at the game you'd 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 I'm concerned but I'm LeBron saying so I'm not gonna say I have a worry I think that LeBron James could ruin the entire NBA playoffs because he refuses to get vaccinated ah yeah that's absolutely it'd probably be better

Speaker 12 if they lost the playing game I have a word.

Speaker 5 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 everyone's face.

Speaker 5 Like I think he's going to be fine. No, I totally believe him when he said he doesn't think they're going to be 100% of the game.
It sucks.

Speaker 5 That wasn't enough. He's set up at all.

Speaker 5 He's playing mind tricks with me

Speaker 5 where I'm like, yeah, you know what? The Lakers do... kind of suck right now.
Like, they're not going to be healthy. If they have to play the play-in game, that's even more games.

Speaker 5 And then I just, deep down it's kind of like the aaron rodgers playing for the pack 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 you're saying that lebron james unless can turn it on yes yes unless yes 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 his book i don't think that he's like it's not a strategy i think he's just he he just knows at this point of his career the regular season does not matter, and it, it just doesn't matter.

Speaker 5 He knows that he just has to play really good basketball for a month and a half.

Speaker 8 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%.

Speaker 5 And he's saying it because he's LeBron and he loves to handle up. That's that's exactly where you're wrong because he does in this moment, right this second, I agree with you.

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 5 to two-week 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.
So I see. This is incredible.

Speaker 8 I don't doubt that for a second. I'm saying he's not planning that.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 This is not like a master's. No, but he'll surprise himself.

Speaker 8 He'll surprise himself. And he'll be like, right, it's always darkest before the dawn.
Yeah, like something I didn't, something I didn't know until I had to walk through hell to get to heaven. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Thanks to you.

Speaker 5 Zero Dark 3023.

Speaker 12 Thanks to you,

Speaker 8 second week of May, LeBron. I am the man that I now in June.

Speaker 5 Correct. Yeah.
That is absolutely what's going to happen.

Speaker 8 Put a mark on this because I'm pretty sure that, yeah,

Speaker 9 we're on the same page. Yes.

Speaker 8 I just don't think that LeBron doesn't plan these things. He just always finds himself in these situations.

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 5 they played less games than usual, but I just... It should have started two weeks ago.
They should have played 60 games, 62 games.

Speaker 5 All right, let's do. Oh, and we have.
Are you guys going to do any type of bet? We should talk about that.

Speaker 8 Yeah, so we got a Mars Bill.

Speaker 5 Capitals and Bruins.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 7 What do you mean?

Speaker 8 There's still regular season games going on this weekend as the playoffs have started.

Speaker 9 Got it. You know what?

Speaker 8 If you're watching hockey on television,

Speaker 8 make sure to look for the little Stanley Cup logo in the bottom right corner.

Speaker 5 Yeah. That's the playoff game.

Speaker 8 But it's Bruins Caps this weekend. It's the first game.
At USAR Arena in December.

Speaker 5 Great schedule.

Speaker 7 Every other

Speaker 8 starts on Saturday. Saturday night.

Speaker 9 It's kind of not a great schedule for us.

Speaker 5 No, well,

Speaker 5 it will become great because we'll go Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Tuesday. The Bruins are going to.
It'll be over by the time it gets to the next. Oh, okay.

Speaker 8 This is the

Speaker 8 Chara, the Chara revenge game.

Speaker 5 True. I like it.
Great tip.

Speaker 13 If you're watching on NBC, it's a playoff game.

Speaker 5 Boom. Love it.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 All right.

Speaker 8 So, Hank, Mirror's bet.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Loser has to buy a cat.

Speaker 8 Loser has to buy, has to purchase Hank's Hank's butt implants.

Speaker 5 We're at like $72.

Speaker 5 Oh, okay. So.
Getting closer and closer.

Speaker 8 What do you think, Hank?

Speaker 5 That's $5,000.

Speaker 5 I'm thinking something summery. You know, summer's coming up.
Oh, Hank's going to work a vacation into this. Or like a bathing suit or like.

Speaker 8 I'm going to buy you a bathing suit. We're going to go bathe.

Speaker 5 A bikini? Loser has to wear a bikini to work for a week?

Speaker 8 I don't do swimsuits.

Speaker 5 How about loser has to make the other person novelty drinks for the next for a week of of shows? So Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Speaker 8 You just want to get drunk during the show.

Speaker 5 You guys got to both get a cat, a hairless cat.

Speaker 8 Maybe we adopt a cat,

Speaker 8 and then we have to find a new home for it.

Speaker 5 Ooh,

Speaker 5 we get a cat that lives in this office, and loser has to take care of it.

Speaker 8 Well, we do have a mice problem.

Speaker 5 I know. It's like a bodega cat.
I'm fine with that.

Speaker 9 What scouty up there? Powers a bee would want it.

Speaker 5 Why would anyone get upset about that? You think so? Yeah. I think we've said it before.
They're like, no.

Speaker 5 All right. Well, let's let the listeners see

Speaker 5 the business things.

Speaker 9 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 5 Just to say that. It's not even a bad bet.
No, it's a good bet. It's the easiest bet.
And then the winner,

Speaker 8 the loser should also make enough for themselves.

Speaker 5 But the bet should be the

Speaker 5 winner should be the listeners.

Speaker 5 Wow.

Speaker 8 It's selfish of you.

Speaker 5 Extremely. Yeah.
The winners should be the listeners.

Speaker 5 I like the novelty drinks. The novelty drink is not.

Speaker 5 Okay, fine. Do the novelty drink.
I mean, when manners make bets, the winners aren't the constituents of the.

Speaker 5 I know.

Speaker 8 Oh, man. Constitutes what they're doing.
The constitutes.

Speaker 5 Constitutes.

Speaker 5 They're actually cousins of prostitutes.

Speaker 7 Okay, how about this?

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 5 Oh, and then everyone should go. And then they really lose.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 You're locked in. I'm ready to go.

Speaker 8 I'm feeling confident. Like I said, it did feel like a couple weeks ago when there was the whole Tom Wilson incident.

Speaker 8 That sounded like the start of a championship DVD.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 8 I think it's the Caps year again.

Speaker 5 The Caps year? The only thing I'm struggling with. Oh, there's a penalty box.

Speaker 8 I'd like to incorporate Cap into a t-shirt for Caps year, but then if it says Caps year on it, then people are like, yo, that's Cap. You know, someone can immediately tell that

Speaker 5 immediately put down. Yes.

Speaker 8 So logically, it doesn't work, but I'd still like to work it in somehow because Cap's so hot right now.

Speaker 5 So we'll have to figure that out.

Speaker 7 So hot. Cap and saying...

Speaker 5 So hot.

Speaker 8 And saying that eight. I like saying that too.

Speaker 5 So hot. That eight.
I love that for you.

Speaker 5 Oh, dude.

Speaker 5 I love that fucking Instagram tag when it's like, I love this for me.

Speaker 5 It's the best. Been like, this is my, I'm living my best life.
I love this for me. I love what's going on for me right now.

Speaker 5 All right, let's get to our interviews. We got Randy Moss talking about Medina Spirit, giving us a winner.
And then we have a great interview with Kenny Main.

Speaker 5 Before we do that, I want to talk to you guys about a great sponsor.

Speaker 2 Hey, Hey, what's going on there, pal?

Speaker 14 We saw you at the hockey game on. Do I know you guys? I'm Ryan Whitney.
I got a drink named after me. Not a big deal.

Speaker 15 Pink Whitney?

Speaker 13 That's what I thought.

Speaker 8 See you, fellas.

Speaker 1 I invented the thing, you pigeon. Pink Whitney for legendary moments.

Speaker 5 Okay, here he is, Randy Moss.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 We have the preakness. Randy, great to see you.

Speaker 5 Let's quickly try to get a little wrap our head around what has happened in horse racing in the last week. Not great for horse racing, but give us the

Speaker 5 expert analysis of everything that's gone down with Medina Spirit and Bob Bafford.

Speaker 15 Sure, and that's actually Medina Spirit is in one of these stalls right behind me along with Concerture. I decided to give you guys the big-time treatment here at the Six Barnes.

Speaker 5 Don't pee. Don't pee.
Don't pee on any hay.

Speaker 8 There's somebody back there with some cough syrup.

Speaker 5 Yeah, don't do that. Be careful.

Speaker 15 Hopefully, the blinding glare off my forehead won't distract you guys from

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 I mean, first of all, A couple of years ago with all the horse breakdowns in California and elsewhere around the country,

Speaker 15 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?

Speaker 15 Or the jockey, you know. So that's where we got to where we are now, where even

Speaker 15 incredibly minute traces of medication in horses systems on race day

Speaker 15 medications that wouldn't have any impact at all on how fast the horse ran can still trigger a positive test okay

Speaker 15 um

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 Okay, rules are rules.

Speaker 15 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,

Speaker 15 that they had to take every precaution to make sure that that didn't happen. All the other trainers apparently successfully navigated that.

Speaker 15 And once again, we're in a situation where a Bob Bafford horse did not.

Speaker 15 Rules are rules. And if the split sample comes back, the second sample that Bafford is sending out to verify the presence of

Speaker 15 beta-methasone in the horse's system, if it comes back positive, the horse is going to be disqualified almost certainly from the Kentucky Derby.

Speaker 15 And there's going to be a long court, it's long drawn out.

Speaker 15 lawyering and court cases and all that.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 Now, the second thing I think people need to know,

Speaker 15 the real victim here in all this is the horse.

Speaker 15 The little horse ran his heart out in the Kentucky Derby. And the amount of beta methasone that he had in his system

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 It was just, I tell you what, it was one

Speaker 15 millionth of a gram of beta-methasone that the horse had in his entire system. We're talking about a thousand-pound horse.
There is no way that it had any impact at all on the way he ran.

Speaker 15 So people need to understand those two things.

Speaker 16 Baffert deserves to be punished.

Speaker 15 The horse probably deserves to be disqualified if indeed he had beta-methasone in his system.

Speaker 15 And secondly, the beta methasone that he had, unfortunately for the horse, made no difference at all in the outcome of the race.

Speaker 8 So you're saying on no uncertain terms that the horse is not a junkie?

Speaker 5 The horse,

Speaker 16 regardless of what has come out from Mar-a-Lago,

Speaker 15 the horse is not in any way a junkie.

Speaker 15 Look,

Speaker 15 when you go to your water faucet to get a drink of water at home, okay,

Speaker 15 your water might actually have and probably does actually have some arsenic in it.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 That's how much beta-methasone was in Medina's Spirit system in the Kentucky Derby. It's an absurdly small amount, but trying to protect the racehorse's zero tolerance for any medication.

Speaker 15 Everybody knew that going in, and the rules are the rules.

Speaker 5 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, not even close. And so I appreciate that, Randy.

Speaker 5 We should have probably had you on on Monday. Yeah, because we definitely helped make this a bigger deal.

Speaker 8 I was just assuming that, like, Bob Baffert was in the stall tying the horse off with like a belt and shooting him up right before the race.

Speaker 5 That's a small amount.

Speaker 8 The way that you put it, it seems pretty small.

Speaker 5 Can you hear?

Speaker 15 But there's something confusing here, okay? And even the other trainers are scratching their heads about it, and we're all scratching our heads.

Speaker 15 When you're in the Kentucky Derby and you know what the testing is,

Speaker 15 something just doesn't add up.

Speaker 15 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, you know, four or five priors in the previous year.

Speaker 15 It just, it just doesn't add up. It's either stupidity or extreme.
carelessness and people just can't quite wrap their heads and understand why this has happened.

Speaker 15 But unfortunately for all of us, it has happened.

Speaker 8 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?

Speaker 8 And from 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.

Speaker 8 It's more about like trading and things like that and recovery. Are you still saying that Medina Spirit deserves to be the favorite heading into the Preakness?

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 He got away because when the horses left the starting gate in the preakness,

Speaker 15 two confirmed intended speed horses, Midnight Bourbon and Rocky World, collided with each other leaving the starting gate.

Speaker 15 That took away all the speed competition, all the pace competition early for Medina Spirit.

Speaker 15 And he was able to set one of the slowest paces, given how fast the track was, one of the slowest paces paces in recent Kentucky Derby history.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 I mean, he's a horse that has never been passed. And if you can get him on an easy lead like that, you're not going to go by him.
And he fought everybody off in the stretch of the Kentucky Derby.

Speaker 15 Now, the Preakness is likely to be run in a completely different manner. He probably won't be on the early lead.
Baffert's other horse concert tour will probably be on the lead.

Speaker 15 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

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 So that's the justification against Medina Spirit.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 I know it went from Mike Smith, who's a Hall of Famer, to Irad, who's also a Hall of Famer.

Speaker 5 But how do you, like, from a handicapping perspective, view a jockey change between these two horses or races?

Speaker 5 Zero. Zero.
Zero. Okay.
Zero.

Speaker 15 Look, look, Jerry Bailey's always teasing me, and we've even joked about it on the air. He always says, boss says jockeys don't matter.

Speaker 16 Okay.

Speaker 15 But here's the reality of it.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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 idea when that's going to happen.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 16 And even then, honestly, I would,

Speaker 15 you know, 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 IRAD or T

Speaker 15 from Mike Smith.

Speaker 5 Okay, interesting.

Speaker 8 And when it comes to not having Bob Bafford at the track, is there anything that a trainer does on race day or leading up to race day that would have any impact?

Speaker 8 Or is it like a general manager being banned from or like a team owner being banned from watching a game on television?

Speaker 15 That's what it would be like.

Speaker 15 It makes no difference whatsoever. As a matter of fact,

Speaker 15 even before the pandemic,

Speaker 15 Bob had scaled way back on his travel out of town to major horse races. He comes to the Breeders' Cup.
He typically would be at the preakness. He typically comes to the Derby Preakness in Belmont.

Speaker 15 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,

Speaker 15 whatever's on where he can watch his horses run on what he calls calls his grade one couch.

Speaker 15 He's won so many grade one races sitting at home watching on TV, he calls it his grade one couch. So it

Speaker 15 makes no difference at all whether he's here or not.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 He goes on the road with all these horses in constant communication with Bob. It's Bob's, it's even more than his right-hand man.

Speaker 15 And so he's very well cared for.

Speaker 8 That's a great assistant trainer name, Jimmy Barnes.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Are they testing?

Speaker 8 Do they test the horses for Corona? Can they get COVID?

Speaker 5 I don't know.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 5 I'd like to know that on the day of the race. Yeah.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 You know, there were obviously calls for Pimlico to disallow Bafford to run any horses in the pregnancy, given what's happened.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 I don't know how they could have done that. But the compromise is, was

Speaker 15 that concert tour, Medina Spirit will have pre-race drug tests that have to come back clean before the horses are allowed to run.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 I noticed you didn't get the Kentucky Derby correct. I did.
So just

Speaker 5 going to throw that out there, not a dime back.

Speaker 5 Can you give us, though, my last question, can 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?

Speaker 15 Yeah, there's a race directly before the Preakness. It used to be called the Dixie and

Speaker 15 because of political correctness now, it's being called the Dinner Party.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 The price is going to be a little low to bet on Sacred Life, but I think if you hook him up in an X-Acta, with 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 freakness and i hope to hell my horses run better than the ones i gave you last week i love it sorry sorry no that's okay

Speaker 8 it's uh pfd you got any last question i was just wondering like is there any animosity from the other trainers? Actually, is Medina Spirit right behind you?

Speaker 5 Yes, well,

Speaker 5 he's back underneath.

Speaker 8 Can I apologize to him?

Speaker 8 There you go. I'd like to apologize to the horse.

Speaker 15 You can't really see Medina's Spirit.

Speaker 5 I'd like to thank Medina's Spirit.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 9 I made a mistake.

Speaker 8 I jumped to conclusions, and I will own that.

Speaker 7 I apologize to you.

Speaker 16 Okay.

Speaker 15 It says apology accepted.

Speaker 5 Okay. Okay, Bob.
I feel better.

Speaker 15 So to answer your question, yes, there is animosity from other horsemen because they believe that there was at

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 And so there is definitely a feeling of

Speaker 15 animosity over this.

Speaker 5 Yeah, but you know what? Everyone needs, you know, a bad guy to point at. Bob Bafford's, who's the bad guy? Bob Bafford.
Never seen a bad guy like him, you know?

Speaker 15 There are people that have even invoked Lance Armstrong.

Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah, I've seen it.

Speaker 15 I wouldn't go that far because, again, this is not a Balco situation.

Speaker 15 You know, 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.

Speaker 5 Got it. Well, thank you, Randy.
I think we finally have some clarity.

Speaker 5 Great shirt. He's wearing the recurring guest shirt.
It's really only you, Rachel Nichols, and Spencer Hods that have that shirt.

Speaker 5 One of our classic plans where we're like, we'll send everyone a shirt. And we just didn't do it.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 15 All right, guys. Take care.

Speaker 5 All right. Thanks, Randy.

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Speaker 8 Here's Kenny Main. And now for something completely different.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 He was in the news this week. He was trending on Twitter because his time has come to an end at ESPN for greener pastures.
Are you retiring? Are you retiring from the game?

Speaker 16 No, our overhead is too much. I mean, we could, but we want to enjoy, you know, got college kids coming up.
We got, you know, yeah, we have bills. And plus, I think I'd get bored anyway.
Like,

Speaker 16 I'm old, but I ain't that old. So, you know, I want to keep doing something.

Speaker 5 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? I think it might. Yeah, yeah.
And

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 15 Yeah, I wouldn't do that.

Speaker 16 I have too much, even on the days where you show up late and you're kind of scattered. Like when it's time to do the show, like I have pride in what I do.
Like I may screw around a lot, right?

Speaker 16 Like you guys do, but I still care care about the product, right? And plus, you're working with other people. Like, you don't want to let people down.

Speaker 16 When 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.

Speaker 16 You said 18 points and it was 19. You know, those kind of things, right? But other, other than that, I absolutely always give effort.

Speaker 16 You know, some nights you have more effort to give and you're better than that, you know, right?

Speaker 15 Just like a game, right?

Speaker 16 You play better one day than another day.

Speaker 8 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?

Speaker 8 What was, was there, was there a grand goodbye to Kenny Maine, or was it just

Speaker 5 clarify?

Speaker 16 I'm not done. I'm actually, what did they say? 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.

Speaker 16 No, I have seven shows to give based on, you know, I'm supposed to work till the end of May, and it's not like over.

Speaker 5 I'm, I'm, I'm, it's a, no, it's, it's, no, you're on this show now, so it's over. Well, I'm going to.
Your key card doesn't work anymore. As soon as this drops.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 I've got nothing to say bad. Like,

Speaker 16 I loved my time there. And, you know, 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 going to go play the over.

Speaker 16 I mean, that's, and I'm trying to be funny. Like, that's what I'm going to try to do.

Speaker 5 I like that. And let's put it all into perspective: 27 years at the same media company is a hell of a run.
We know how this business works, and it's cutthroat. And there are times when

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 16 That's far more interesting than the end.

Speaker 5 Yeah, the beginning, though. You sent a letter to John Walsh

Speaker 5 that said, check these three boxes, or whichever box applies. And one box said, it just hit us.
We love your work. Contract is on the way.
Stand by the mailbox.

Speaker 5 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 ESPN 5 hits the air. And that was it.

Speaker 5 That was the whole letter. It wasn't, was there, there was no resume or anything.
It was just that.

Speaker 16 Well, they already knew me. See, the backstory to that is

Speaker 16 I started out.

Speaker 16 How far back are we going?

Speaker 5 Birth. So what was your first first memory? I was born.

Speaker 16 My first memory was probably 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.

Speaker 16 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

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 And through college, I actually was more interested in straight news and political things and history.

Speaker 16 I wanted to be doing like frontline at this point in my career, if I could have mapped it out, right? PBS.

Speaker 16 PBS is a public broadcasting. Okay.
That's just a joke.

Speaker 16 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?

Speaker 16 I had a brief tryout with the Seahawks.

Speaker 16 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 we'll talk about with my foundation for veterans um

Speaker 16 and

Speaker 16 they eventually said okay we're gonna let you on tv i i didn't go anywhere else i just went to seattle that was my first stop right tacoma really but seattle tacoma market and they finally let me in the air little station called ks2

Speaker 16 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 you played football.

Speaker 16 You're doing sports. 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.

Speaker 16 And about three years later, I guess it was, I did the Super Bowl, Joe Montana to John Taylor.

Speaker 16 The 49ers beat the Bengals. John Candy's on the sideline, that whole deal.
And Al Jaffe, who was right, the head of recruiting at ESPN, said, send us another tape. We want to see if that was a fluke.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 And I,

Speaker 16 you know, 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.

Speaker 16 I worked for MCI, the long distance company. And for about four years, I was kind of like their Seattle correspondent, right?

Speaker 16 I was sometimes a feature story, pretty straight, not a lot of silly stuff. And sometimes just go interview Griffey.
You know, you had three homers. We want soundbite for baseball tonight or whatever.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 And so I sent John Wallace that letter. And this is four years deep, right? I've been freelancing for four years.

Speaker 16 And he replied with the middle box. He said, keep up the freelance work.
I just talked to him yesterday. I had a really nice call with him.
And

Speaker 16 they hired me about two months later.

Speaker 8 So when you get to ESPN, I have to imagine a long

Speaker 8 you just covered like 40 years in about four minutes.

Speaker 5 I wanted you to hurry up.

Speaker 5 No, the garbage bins, I would, we'll come back to that. Yeah,

Speaker 16 that's good by itself.

Speaker 5 You passed right over that.

Speaker 8 And also, UNLV, I got some questions about that too.

Speaker 8 So you get to ESPN, and I have to imagine the process back then for putting together a show is probably completely different from the way that it is now.

Speaker 8 The way that, you know, all the highlights are uploaded. The entire workflow of the show had to be a lot different.

Speaker 8 What was a typical day like for you when you first started working in the office at ESPN?

Speaker 16 Well, it was much smaller for one.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 Stuart Scott, Bill Pito, and Deb Kaufman were called the Smash Anchors. So it was like a 90-minute, well, first it was like a nine-hour show.

Speaker 16 Then they finally got smart and made it be like 90 minutes or whatever.

Speaker 16 And it was like Sports Center, a little looser, right? A little, like you dressed like you guys or me right now, like just show up and talk about sports.

Speaker 8 I remember the Keith Olberman leather jacket.

Speaker 5 The leather jacket, right? Yeah.

Speaker 16 So Keith decides he wants to go back to be with Dan, Patrick, on Channel 1. And Stuart moves up to be the anchor with Susie.
They need one more guy. You're looking at him.
That's how it all happened.

Speaker 16 And the very first day I get there, they have me, you know, go kind of shadow the show for a couple weeks.

Speaker 16 And the first day, Stuart Scott in a break, rolls up a wad of script paper and fires it across. I wasn't looking, he hits me in the face.

Speaker 16 And I look over to see it's him, and I picked it up and threw back at him. And we were boys ever since.
It was kind of like a cool moment.

Speaker 16 It's like, oh, all right, you did that, I did that, and yeah, then we got each other. We used to play a lot of electric football together.

Speaker 5 It had to have been, uh, I imagine, like just some pretty heady times, you know, being at the cusp of something so new in the sports world. Like,

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 Did it have that energy?

Speaker 16 A little bit. And I didn't answer your earlier question, but a day at life, I'll kind of get into that.

Speaker 16 Yeah, the olden days, I mean, we had physical tapes, right? Like they would say, you know, tapes for, you know, you get to look at your highlight and practice it.

Speaker 16 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 ESPN 2, we were a little smaller time.

Speaker 16 We were just like a bunch of, it was like a college project. You know, like, what the hell are we doing here?

Speaker 16 But I was 34. You know, I came in late, right? I'd done the garbage can assembly and worked for MSI and worked for my local station.

Speaker 16 I mean, by the time I got there, ESPN was 15 years old. So it wasn't.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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

Speaker 16 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 got a stack guy and you got producers.

Speaker 16 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 the, you know, at 55 and then the two minute at 28.

Speaker 16 You know, that was, that was our role.

Speaker 16 And I was having trouble with the computer. And I'm not really all that technically adept anyway.
It's a miracle that I was able to, right?

Speaker 16 You guys are surprised that I fired this thing up as I did as quickly with that detection.

Speaker 16 So I'm in there and nothing will save. You're supposed to 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.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 So I'm on at 5.25 or 5.28, whatever it was.

Speaker 16 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 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 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 and like the three second you know music or whatever and i start talking.

Speaker 16 And he's like, rookie. And it made me laugh because I knew then, oh, I went on, it's not my turn yet.
And then, boom, I did it. And I didn't suck completely.
But

Speaker 16 I think it was good to do that ESPN2 thing because it was really experimental.

Speaker 16 I mean, we were, there'd be like four people working on the late, you know, because Stuart and Susie would leave at seven o'clock.

Speaker 16 And when they were done with their parts, the Smash guy and Paul Kinney, my, my research guy, and, you know, a couple other people, Pam, she did lighting.

Speaker 16 Phil Jakes, I think was involved. And And we would stay till all the games were done, right? We had to stay till 1.30 or whatever it was when West Coast was done.

Speaker 16 But it was just us, you know, it was really fun. It was, it was a whole different thing.

Speaker 16 And I'm glad I went through that. That kind of prepared me for Sports Center and other things I would do.

Speaker 8 Yeah. Yeah.
And when did you realize that you had something going? Like not just the ESPN2 thing, but you yourself personally.

Speaker 8 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 gonna try to do more of that type of thing I think it was the Charlotte airport and I said I looked at the guy 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

Speaker 16 I've always known you was always weird it was weird and good at the same time because if somebody says man I really like your work or you know one of those good nice comments

Speaker 16 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?

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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 expecting, you know, he's going to say something nice.

Speaker 16 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 sit, I always wanted to tell you that.

Speaker 5 And I'm like, you know what?

Speaker 16 That's cool. I respect you had the courage to say that.
That's great.

Speaker 5 Yeah. It's 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 16 I'm sorry.

Speaker 16 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 1240 at night, you want to do the highlight a little different and be a little silly and drop some reference, you know, it's not hurting anybody.

Speaker 16 And you're the number one thing I just said this on a different interview about, like,

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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?

Speaker 16 Who gives, who gives a damn who won the game and really want to see the bicycle kick? That's all that mattered, right? But I messed up. Well, I was handed the wrong information is what happened.

Speaker 16 And I said the wrong team won. It was, 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.

Speaker 16 Like, God, we told, 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.

Speaker 5 See,

Speaker 5 that tells me that

Speaker 5 you still have a little bit of that big J journalism because when we screw up, people don't don't even try to correct us anymore. They're just like, oh, you guys are doing a bit.

Speaker 5 And it's like, no, we're just stupid.

Speaker 16 Yeah, it happens. I mean, you get late, you're tired.
You feel, you know, kind of punch drunk.

Speaker 16 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 and except now they don't do that so much. But

Speaker 16 yeah, you know, 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.

Speaker 8 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?

Speaker 16 I don't know. We've had the ones that I like are the ones that are 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?

Speaker 16 We go to color bars and like, that's funny to me. Bring me color bars all day long because I'll just say, you know, we still are in the fight for the technical achievement in me.

Speaker 16 We're not giving up just because that happened.

Speaker 16 Some other people at the place and probably any place, not just TSPM,

Speaker 5 are more,

Speaker 16 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 funny.

Speaker 16 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,

Speaker 16 you know, you kind of like tense up and make sure you say the words right. And

Speaker 16 the rest of it, though, is guys are playing games and girls are playing games.

Speaker 16 There's games. I mean, I still respect the athleticism and the dedication.
You know, all those things are all true.

Speaker 16 But I think if you were an NBA NBA athlete and you heard silly stuff we say as they score, you know, like our new little, whatever phrase we come up with, you know, I think they'd be amused by that as opposed to Steph Curry was successful with the three points.

Speaker 16 Yeah. I mean, that's boring.

Speaker 5 Yes, makes sports fun. I absolutely agree.

Speaker 5 Is there something,

Speaker 5 any wisdom that was imparted on you from the one and only Chris Berman? Because we're big boomer guys. Oh, I'm too.

Speaker 16 Yeah. He called me yesterday

Speaker 16 with a very 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 going to leave.

Speaker 16 And it was just bad timing. You know, they were going to announce that he's doing some more of the NFL stuff.
And I said, dude, I didn't, it was probably like an auto.

Speaker 16 They probably set it up to put it out at two o'clock. You know, there wasn't no malice.

Speaker 16 He didn't need to apologize for that. He was great to me because he

Speaker 16 was just like, you know, he's the godfather. I mean, without Berman, we probably didn't end up doing.

Speaker 16 And that's that's not any insult to Bob Lee and Tom Meese, who passed away, Dan and Keith, Bill Patrick. I mean, I'm leaving out names.
There's a whole lot of people.

Speaker 16 Gail Gardner, you know, the original guys who did the first show.

Speaker 16 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?

Speaker 16 It was, it was what we were watching. I watched from Seattle before I ever thought of being on ESPN.
I was watching all that. And

Speaker 16 yeah, we have high respect for him. I hope he gets to do it as long as he wants to do it.

Speaker 8 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?

Speaker 16 That's not a horrible idea. I, you know, I'm going to 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 Topps is selling.

Speaker 5 Oh, what is that?

Speaker 16 It's called card baseball.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 So you got your dog leading off and your sixth-grade girlfriend's batting second and Ken Griffey Sr. is batting third.
Johnny Bench, probably Lee May. I'm going to old school Reds on you right there.

Speaker 16 Who else I have on my team? I mean, I would basically play the Reds mostly and then mix in some friends and some Mariners.

Speaker 16 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 seattle uh so i adopted the reds because they were world champions i was kind of a frontrunner there at age 10 but you know yeah it did and it had it it hasn't worked out since that was really kind of it

Speaker 5 i was there for the the big years yeah yeah right you you actually have to go back you might have to move to cincinnati to make the reds great again I mean, we did that, you know, like playing wiffle ball.

Speaker 16 I probably would still if I were playing.

Speaker 16 We would pretend to be, you know, like you announce who you are coming up right and you indicate joe morgan yeah um we kept stats man we were weird mark sansver he let's let's plug mark sansiver yeah he's out of wolf point montana um a good friend and he broke babe ruth's home run record in one summer the summer of 1972 wow

Speaker 16 790 home you know some absurd number because we literally kept stats every game and we would play from nine in the morning you know till two we'd go swimming come back play the evening card so we, you know, we probably played 25 games in a day, little three-in-one games or whatever.

Speaker 5 Now, was that any, any, that was just the thin yellow bat? Or was there any?

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 And all we had, because the yellow bat broke, all we had was one of the stupid fat bats, totally illegal.

Speaker 5 Totally illegal.

Speaker 5 People to play with them. Or games.

Speaker 16 Or you stuff the, what I would do is stuff the wet toilet paper or paper towel in the bat and it would give a little little weight to it we didn't think of that that thing would pop so yeah there's cheating and we had a really cool field on the house i was describing earlier on star lake and my dad you know built a fence for us and then we got advertising we put fake advertising in the outfield to replicate you know stadium uh matt mcgillen 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.

Speaker 8 We got to get you out to Stu Finer's house. We're going to go play in a wiffle ball tournament out in Long Island this summer.

Speaker 12 I'd be honored to have you along.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 16 I throw an 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 falls.

Speaker 16 But I also favor using the softball size wiffle ball. and the skinny yellow bat because it doesn't throw out your arm.
You can throw a real fastball with a heavier ball.

Speaker 17 The pro football football show is presented by the Chevy Silverado. Built for the hustle, ready for the game.
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Speaker 17 Whether you're grinding through the week or gearing up for kickoff, the Silverado is one ride that's always game ready. Just like football, it's about grit, grind, and getting it done.

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Speaker 8 Now, here's more Kenny Main.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 16 One guy got it right. Good.

Speaker 5 Yep.

Speaker 5 How far could you throw a football at your heyday?

Speaker 16 Like 75, maybe.

Speaker 5 What? 75? Damn.

Speaker 16 Randall threw it like 85.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I know. He played in the NFL.
He was incredible.

Speaker 5 75 is a lot.

Speaker 16 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 60s or something when you needed it.

Speaker 16 No, I wasn't great. I had a good arm, but I was probably

Speaker 16 the chaos you see on some of my shows didn't transfer to being a quarterback.

Speaker 16 You know, I was a little, and the other thing, 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.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 Where Sam King, who played ahead of me in my senior year, led the nation of passing yards. So it wasn't like I.

Speaker 16 wasn't you know it was playing against a pretty good guy to try to beat him out he ended up having a free agent deal with seattle and he was turning it down to go elsewhere.

Speaker 16 And my coach said, Hey, if you like Sam, you should look at Kenny. And I went up on my tryout.
Steve Largett happened to be in the building that day. And he comes out, he's running routes for me.

Speaker 16 I'm like, All right, we're doing okay now. I can throw it anyway.
He's going to catch it. So I ended up signing, but I failed the physical because I'd ruined my ankle my junior year.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 It was time to, yeah, they kind of told me it was time. Yeah, because like, how much do you do in college? Well, I threw like 90 passes in two years, and I have a ruined ankle.

Speaker 5 Anyway, I'd love to try out for your team.

Speaker 16 Like, I didn't have a lot to sell to these people.

Speaker 7 So, how far can you throw football now?

Speaker 16 I bet I could hit 60.

Speaker 8 That's pretty good. That's brilliant.

Speaker 9 I saw

Speaker 8 you threw a fastball or you did the first pitch for a Mariners game, and you got, what, 68?

Speaker 16 Yeah, and I got to 72 the next year.

Speaker 8 That's, you still got a cannon. You got a house.

Speaker 5 My goal was, but it's funny.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 And plus, you know, I haven't been training to be a pitcher for 40 years, but I thought I could just do it on willpower. And it's hard.
Just getting to 70 is everything you got.

Speaker 5 Yeah. I mean, a former club.

Speaker 16 I'm going to make 75. In fact, I pitched a thing to the Mariners yesterday.
Because with our foundation, we're

Speaker 16 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 injured their legs at war or whatever.

Speaker 16 We're helping veterans get back, you know, pain-free lifestyle. This brace I have is insane.
I just played golf with it. I can hike.
I can play flag football. I can run sprints.

Speaker 16 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 hours.

Speaker 16 Like, I couldn't believe my gift. Like, I can run again.
Like, this creates no pain, you know, because my ankle sucks.

Speaker 16 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.org org and i don't know how many men and women we've uh been able to help i think we're high 20s at this point in about three years maybe 30.

Speaker 16 um 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, not be in pain.

Speaker 16 And this thing

Speaker 16 does it for them. It's amazing.
It's called ExoSim.

Speaker 5 I mean, that's awesome. I'm going to check it out.
Everyone should go check it out. We'll put it in the bio of the podcast for tomorrow.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 16 That would be a fix on the late Sports Center.

Speaker 5 We don't fix anything. Okay,

Speaker 5 we don't. We don't fix anything.

Speaker 16 Whatever day it is, we're on right now.

Speaker 5 Yeah, wherever you are, life is live.

Speaker 16 How come it's not live? Why don't you just be live?

Speaker 5 It is live. If you're listening to it right now, you're listening to it live.
Oh, you're living. Live as hell then.
We're not live.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 It's live for them.

Speaker 16 Okay, because it's the first time it's ever happened.

Speaker 5 And it's life. Life is live.
You're experiencing it all at once.

Speaker 16 But real live is always better than pretending.

Speaker 5 No, so you're doing your TV trick.

Speaker 8 Because, Kenny, what we are is we're on demand.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 8 So we're live whenever somebody wants us to be live.

Speaker 5 Oh, you're Netflix.

Speaker 8 You get your phone, you push a button, and I'm there. I'm in your car with you.
Yeah.

Speaker 16 I got you.

Speaker 5 You'll learn all this stuff. You're just a young guy out there trying to find your way.

Speaker 16 And I'm like a walking NFT right now. I'm just, if you want a little piece of this.

Speaker 9 Nick, can I buy you right now?

Speaker 8 How much for the next five seconds of your life?

Speaker 16 i that whole thing i sort of get the bitcoin and and all that i sort of get it but the nft thing i'm like hold on so let's pretend just as an example uh you know name a guy aaron rogers is going to spin a football on the ground right because 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.

Speaker 16 Yep. 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.

Speaker 16 And then you're the only guy that ever has it because you're just looking at that thing because you own it.

Speaker 5 It's mine now. Yeah.
Just hold on to what it is. I possess that.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 5 That t-shirt's fungible.

Speaker 16 These are non-fungible NFTs, bitches.

Speaker 5 You know what?

Speaker 8 I would buy an NFT of the entire segment you did with with marshawn lynch at davin buster yes because that and applebee's and appleby's yeah don't forget dude that's a great that's a great story actually if we have time yeah uh we is time there is none

Speaker 16 hold on

Speaker 16 oh

Speaker 5 okay do we have can we do 14 great more minutes yes we have as much time as you want okay we have literally we could do 24 hours with you okay But I can't right now.

Speaker 16 I could come back and wrap up if, you know, no, no, no, let's go.

Speaker 5 Let's go ahead.

Speaker 8 Give me the Davin Buster's leg.

Speaker 5 This is like Bill Walton. This is when we interviewed Bill Walton, and two hours into it, he turned to us.
He goes, How long does this go? And we're like, as long as you want, Bill.

Speaker 16 Bill Walton called us last night, and I put it on speaker so Gretchen could hear. He's the sweetest, kindest.

Speaker 5 He's just the best.

Speaker 16 He's, I mean, there's many people I've run across. Jamal Crawford, shout out.

Speaker 16 Otherwise, there's many others. I've left them out.

Speaker 5 It's just Bill Walton and Jamal.

Speaker 5 No, they're all good.

Speaker 16 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

Speaker 16 why didn't he just run the story? Why did it have to have a name? Like, what are we doing?

Speaker 8 Just, but it's the main event. Well, it's better than just being like, here's Kenny Maine doing something funny.
Yeah, you know, I think they

Speaker 5 also they hired you because they're like, someday we're going to be able to use this.

Speaker 16 Yeah, we also had Main Street. That was another show.

Speaker 5 That one I liked a lot.

Speaker 16 Everybody on that show was on Parks and Rec. Like, they're all famous now.

Speaker 16 So Tom McCollum was 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?

Speaker 16 Usually make up something or take a real story and go off the cliff with it, right? In this case, Willis McGahy had left Buffalo. And on the way out, he kind of trashed the place, right?

Speaker 16 He said, Buffalo sucks, man.

Speaker 16 Where they got a Davin Busters and Applebee's and don't even start on the women. I think that was his quote, right?

Speaker 16 Marshawn's a rookie now. So Tom wrote a really funny script.
Like, I changed the word or two and we freelanced a word or two, but it was really Tom.

Speaker 16 And Marshawn and I, I'm reading him the Willis McGahey quote, and Marshawn is reacting to it.

Speaker 16 And then to prove that Buffalo is kind of cool and Willis McGahey was wrong, Marshawn goes out on the town to

Speaker 16 Applebee's and to Dave and Busters. And we just had a time.
We just went out on the town. And we didn't really script as much of that.

Speaker 16 That was just give Marshawn the keys and tell him to drive the cart, you know, just like a cow.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 16 Yeah. He's a friend.
Yeah. 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?

Speaker 16 Like, there's usually you just want to hear with the quarterback and the coach anyway. And there's 53 guys.
Pick another guy. Like, he just want to play football.

Speaker 16 watch Netflix and hang out with his boys and come back and do it again. Like he just wasn't into that thing.
However,

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 He like passes out cell phones to homeless people to get them connected, right? Like without, right? This modern technology we're living in. So helps kids in Oakland.

Speaker 16 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 any.
Hey, Marshawn's here.

Speaker 5 You know, he said he'd be there. He showed up.
Legend. Absolute legend.
All right.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 16 I don't know if you can find it. It's like an it's the NFT.
I'm going to give you an NFT. Try to find it.
Hell yeah.

Speaker 16 So I used to play in the all-star softball games. And one year I couldn't make it.
I had a horse race to cover or something. And then they never invited me back.
It was like, you said no once.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 I'm very average at, I can throw the softball, but you know, hitting, I was, you know, like a 200-hitter or something.

Speaker 16 I made,

Speaker 16 I'm looking around, it's like, Fred Lynn's over there. Ricky Henderson's over there.
It was just bizarre. Like, why am I on the field with these guys? But it was crazy fun.

Speaker 16 We were going to play in Detroit. Stevie Wonder is from Saginaw, which is close to Detroit.

Speaker 16 He was going to be in a concert in Philadelphia like a couple days before we had to go out to the game in Detroit. I called Tim Scanlon who was then the head of baseball.

Speaker 16 I said hey I got an idea for Stevie Wonder

Speaker 16 if there's any way to make this happen but I have to go to Philadelphia and he's like well you're connected now do you have a patent no I got nothing he said all right good luck go get it I said you're sure because I'm not promising anything he's like whatever it's an airplane in a hotel like go do it So I go to the concert.

Speaker 16 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 Wonder's there and all these other big shots are there.

Speaker 16 And at one point, I'm just trying to get work closer to get the chance to ask one of his guys, can I get a minute with him or you or whatever?

Speaker 16 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 and talks to Stevie. And then

Speaker 16 Natalie Portman goes in and somebody else. Right.
And all of a sudden, he's looking at me like waving, like, you know, it's a big smile. Like, come on, come on.
Stevie wants to meet you.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 5 He was behind me, apparently.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 You pitch him, right? If he'll do it, he'll do it. If you don't, you don't, right? And we loaned our camera to BET because their camera broke.
So we, you know, we're like being helpful.

Speaker 16 You guys go first. And I interviewed Stevie.
And I said, hey, Stevie, it's 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.

Speaker 16 I have a high ankle sprain.

Speaker 16 He murdered it in one take. And he had an album coming out.
I forget which one it was. I said, hey, when's that album coming out? And he said, soon.

Speaker 15 He walks away.

Speaker 5 That's it. What's better than that? Yeah.
That's amazing. I love that story just because,

Speaker 5 you know, being in the business and and having those moments where you just don't really have access and you just keep grinding and grinding and pushing it's there's no better feeling no we've had 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 to talking to Sarah McLaughlin and these other guys are coming.

Speaker 16 I mean, it was all crazy. It was, it was the best.

Speaker 16 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 mckagin 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 clear

Speaker 8 right yeah 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.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 16 He was our fixer, they called it. Did Matt Doyle send that one in? Is that coming in from the from Wakefield or somewhere? Aaron.

Speaker 16 Yes. Amir didn't, he didn't like me.
So every time we went to a different country, the more

Speaker 16 dangerous is, you know, just the ones where there was, you needed a little help. You needed a little, somebody looking out for you.

Speaker 16 We would hire sort of bodyguard/slash handler, right? And in some cases, we needed more, some less.

Speaker 16 London, we just ran around on our own. But

Speaker 16 yeah, Ymir didn't like me.

Speaker 16 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 de-bone it for me.
So shout out to Amir.

Speaker 5 All right, so what,

Speaker 5 I mean, this is going to be a weird question.

Speaker 5 You see the reaction when you say that you're leaving the SPN. It was all positive.
I don't think I've ever heard one person say Kenny Main sucks or Kenny Maine this, like something bad about you.

Speaker 5 Give us something bad about you. Like if you had to self-scout yourself, because it's crazy.

Speaker 5 You have, and it's a testament to your career and working with people that everyone is like, I love Kenny Maine because you don't see it often. You know what I mean?

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 What would be the one thing that you could pick it out so that way we can get a front of it? I don't know.

Speaker 16 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,

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 I'm not very good at pronouncing some hockey names. That would be my there.

Speaker 5 It is. see, that's good.

Speaker 5 Now no one can go looking for Kenny Maine's weakness, but he's like, here it is. But it is really, it was a backwards way of me giving you a compliment that I watched the reaction.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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

Speaker 5 more

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 16 Well, I had a bunch of good people who treated me well as well. You know what I mean?

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 That could have been weird, you know, but he handled it really well.

Speaker 16 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

Speaker 16 give me some questions. I've never heard of this person.
If I'm talking to Aaron Rodgers, I don't, you know, I'm not writing any questions, right? I don't think you guys wrote too many down.

Speaker 16 We just talk. And that's the thing I think sometimes gets missed on the interviews is like, just treat people like human beings.

Speaker 16 And I think the athletes appreciate that more when you don't exalt, you know, put them in this lot that weirds them out, probably. They just are taller or throw better or run better.

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I think a lot of times they're thankful to be talking to somebody that's not trying to get them on anything.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 I think that's what we try to do with everybody that we have on the show over here.

Speaker 8 We don't want somebody to leave our show being like those guys are dickheads and then have a bad headline about them the next day in Sports Illustrated or something like that.

Speaker 16 I'm fucking offended by everything that we've done here so far.

Speaker 5 But if you guys want to get to the cool questions, yeah.

Speaker 9 So that said,

Speaker 8 give me some dirt.

Speaker 7 That was my way of saying that.

Speaker 5 Who's the biggest prick? Give me a little bit of a bigger thing. I'll tell you offline.

Speaker 5 I'll tell you offline.

Speaker 16 However, honestly, this is not joking.

Speaker 16 Are there some people who have certain personalities that grate you one way? But all in all,

Speaker 16 it's a cliche about we're a family, but it kind of is like that. Here's a little team.
Like the guys I just played golf with today,

Speaker 16 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?

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 8 yeah you are you mentioned a second ago but when you got the call up to uh to the big leagues when dan waved you over

Speaker 8 was he telling you like hey just be yourself do what you've done or was there any uh was there any pushback at all from esp and one

Speaker 16 to uh 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 actually but um no i mean i had done some sports centers it wasn't like channel two to channel one like overnight i had filled in during the summer i think it was summer um keith had left and they rotated a bunch of 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.

Speaker 16 That was it. But they handled it like, you know, I was landing on the moon or something.
It wasn't, I mean, it was kind of cool.

Speaker 16 I mean, that's a big deal, that show at the time and still is, but you know, particularly at that time when people didn't know the results, right?

Speaker 16 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 those two cities.
So yeah, I was definitely nervous early with it.

Speaker 16 Like, don't screw it up.

Speaker 16 But he made me comfortable and I just kept trying to improve, you know?

Speaker 5 So you might not have an answer to this question, but I'm going to ask you anyway. Do you keep rolling? Keep rolling.
Yep.

Speaker 16 This will be an interesting part of the.

Speaker 5 I'm going to go. Well, I have two last questions.

Speaker 16 Okay.

Speaker 5 One is, do you have any idea what you want to do next? Have you actually thought about it, talked to people? Like, I'm sure that, and people want to know, obviously, where's Kenny Main going to be?

Speaker 5 Is there any

Speaker 5 leaning one way or the other of what you would like to do?

Speaker 16 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.

Speaker 16 I think that's going going to be a revenue loser out of the gate. I think we're going downhill.

Speaker 5 We're not.

Speaker 16 What am I doing? I don't know. I mean, I've heard from more people.
First, I should have said it when you brought it up. Like I was floored by the reaction.

Speaker 16 Corey Kozak, my good friend, we were joking about, 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?

Speaker 16 You write a tweet you think is the greatest tweet ever.

Speaker 16 Everybody's like, whatever, dude. We're moving on.
And the overwhelming reaction, I was blown away by it, like unexpected.

Speaker 16 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 or you know nothing official i'm going to basically i'm i'm looking at this like my period of my contract is may this month that we're in to uh you know free agency period if you will right i'm allowed to talk to other companies so i'm just doing it in public i'm doing my entity process in public and really taking people behind the scenes.

Speaker 16 This is a conversation that would take place with any company.

Speaker 8 I love it. And if all else fails, you still have what, a 72 mile an hour fastball?

Speaker 16 And the greeting cards and the tops.com thing.

Speaker 8 I was going to say, with an arm like that, the Jacksonville Jaguars could probably try you out at tight end.

Speaker 16 I sent Gruden a text and said,

Speaker 16 I'll be your like scout team quarterback.

Speaker 5 He'd probably do it. Yeah, he probably would.
He loves quarterbacks.

Speaker 16 I think I could run scout team. It ain't that hard.
They give you a a chart.

Speaker 16 They're not going to hit you. All you got to do is, you know, throw a 20-yard out or whatever.

Speaker 9 Yeah, you just have to be better than Nathan Peterman.

Speaker 16 Yeah. 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.

Speaker 5 Go. Give us a winner, though, for Saturday.

Speaker 16 Can I text you that later? Because I haven't even looked at the forum, but it's not going to be the Derby winner.

Speaker 5 Okay, there you go. Then that's fine.

Speaker 9 Take the rest of the field.

Speaker 5 Kenny Main, we are big fans of yours, and we appreciate your time. And thank you so much.

Speaker 16 Thanks for having me. Be well.

Speaker 4 Give it up for Chicago.

Speaker 18 Sebastian Maniscalco's new stand-up special, It Ain't Right, is coming to Hulu on November 21st.

Speaker 4 30 years ago, Jeff Bezos, complete nerd. Bezos now ripped to shreds on his super yacht and the boxes keep

Speaker 4 coming.

Speaker 18 Sebastian Maniscalco, It Ain't Right, premieres November 21st, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 5 We're ready to finish up with some Fire Fests.

Speaker 8 What about this, Hank? We have a longtime Capitol superstar named Chara, right?

Speaker 8 We have a longtime Boston superstar named Pasta. Why don't we do some sort of olive garden trip?

Speaker 5 Oh, now we're talking.

Speaker 5 Seems like they're complimentary food.

Speaker 5 Yeah, we videotaped it. But it's...

Speaker 8 No, no, no. So it's all you can eat and drink pasta and Chardonnay.

Speaker 5 You have to eat a certain amount or something.

Speaker 5 You have to eat so much. You have to eat

Speaker 5 until you throw up. Until you throw up.

Speaker 8 You have to eat or drink until you throw up.

Speaker 5 Put it on the YouTube. We'll go live on the YouTube.

Speaker 8 On Olive Garden. All right.
Or should we do Olive Garden or just have it ordered here? Just pasta after pasta ordered to the bottom.

Speaker 5 We can do that too, yeah. All right.
Yeah, so Olive Garden until you throw up. You have to eat pasta until you throw up.

Speaker 5 You can't put your finger down your throat.

Speaker 9 And drink Chardonnay.

Speaker 5 And drink Chardonnay. Bet.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 5 That's a great bet. Is that a good one? That's a bet that the listeners will

Speaker 5 do a live stream. We'll hang out.
We'll enjoy. We'll interact.
And

Speaker 5 one of you will puke.

Speaker 8 Subscribe to the YouTube page.

Speaker 5 Subscribe to the YouTube page.

Speaker 8 That's great. We're going to stream it live?

Speaker 5 Yeah. I think that's the point.
We'll maybe play some Mario Party or something.

Speaker 5 There'll be a secondary. Yeah, I don't think.
Yeah, yeah. No, we'll do something.
We'll think of something else.

Speaker 8 As sexy as Hank looks when he's sucking down some ZD.

Speaker 7 Oh, I'm not going to lose.

Speaker 5 No, we could do, or we could

Speaker 9 watch a game.

Speaker 5 We could watch a hockey game

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 My stocks are great. Bitcoin's great.
Have you.

Speaker 5 Home's great.

Speaker 5 Your relationship with everyone in this room is okay? Yeah, it's awesome.

Speaker 5 There's not anyone that you've been

Speaker 5 icing out

Speaker 5 to make him feel a little bit worse, and he's starting to get self-conscious. I don't know what you're talking talking about, Bitcat.

Speaker 5 I'm talking about the fact that you refused to talk to Jake and he talk to Jake every day. No, we keep talking.
What do you mean he's talking to Jake really mad at me? Jake and I talk every day.

Speaker 5 We just did stool streams. We were in the booth together.
It was great.

Speaker 13 It was a good broadcast. It was a great broadcast.

Speaker 12 I'm trying to do my firebreak.

Speaker 5 But no,

Speaker 5 it's been a great week. It's been a great week.

Speaker 8 You guys are like Mike and Mike at the end right now. You only communicate when you're on camera.

Speaker 5 Next Thursday, PFT challenge me and Jake challenge me. Big Gat's going to be in the booth, so I'm going to get my redemption

Speaker 5 stool straight Thursday, 2 o'clock. I did this for you.
Playboard.com.

Speaker 8 I did this for you, Hank, because

Speaker 8 I want you to have another chance. I want you to get back on that horse.

Speaker 8 I can't bear looking at you like this.

Speaker 5 It's the regular season. I'm not going to over-celebrate in Showboat just because you don't see the Lakers celebrating like they won the championship in a regular season game.

Speaker 5 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 know, focused down.
It doesn't mean a thing if you don't get the ring.

Speaker 5 Tournament's coming this summer. I'm just focused for that, you know?

Speaker 8 What tournament is this?

Speaker 8 SummerSlam Spectacular.

Speaker 5 Really? Yeah. The SS? In July.
In the triple S. Oh, okay.

Speaker 8 So how many S's is that?

Speaker 12 Cynco S.

Speaker 5 Five S's.

Speaker 5 S cubed times two.

Speaker 5 No. No.

Speaker 7 S cubed plus two.

Speaker 5 Maybe. I don't know if you guys are cubed.
As soon as you start doing cubed, I'm like, I don't know. So you and Jake are good.
We're We're great. Jake? Never been better.
Do you feel like you're good?

Speaker 13 I don't know at this point.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I know. I feel bad for you.
I want it to be good. I know.
I know you do.

Speaker 8 I mean, you did a great job promoting the shirt of yourself beating Hank for the team.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 8 That was a podcast. No, that was good.
People wanted it.

Speaker 5 I'm saying you did a great job doing what Hank didn't do it.

Speaker 13 Like, the PMT account on Instagram said swipe up to emasculate Hank. And then I reposted it, but I covered up the emasculated Hank, and I just said swipe up to buy a shirt.

Speaker 5 I can't have that language on my... Yeah.
I feel bad. Yeah, but I don't know.

Speaker 8 He feels bad that he's making you feel so bad for do you have a fire fest, Jake?

Speaker 5 You want to go next? Is it yeah, you should have gone first?

Speaker 13 No, I

Speaker 5 think and hope we're good.

Speaker 5 I don't know at this point, but um, how much time have you spent this week thinking about it? Way too much.

Speaker 9 I know, I know, you guys see it.

Speaker 5 I know

Speaker 5 you asked me all that. You're ruined my week, if I'm being honest.
I know. That's why I think Hank is gonna

Speaker 5 bridge this.

Speaker 5 I had a great week. Like I said, I didn't even have a fire fest this week.

Speaker 8 Yeah, you've been wonderful.

Speaker 5 Everyone's been so nice to meet you.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 5 Right. Because you're thinking about

Speaker 5 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 showbloating and laughing in my face.

Speaker 5 It's the only thing people talk about. But that's all right.
Well, with Jake. I remember everything.

Speaker 8 Jake's entire point about his week being so bad is because

Speaker 8 that should make you feel way worse, that his week has been awful because he beat you so badly.

Speaker 5 He beat me by badly. No, it was not, yeah, it was a close match.
I mean, you're the best in the office.

Speaker 5 You're the best one here. All right.
Emotions happen.

Speaker 8 When you said that you were at the doctor earlier this week, were you actually at HR?

Speaker 5 No, it was at the doctor. I was getting my third vaccine shot.
Okay. Oh, nice.
All right, Hank, I'm good at this. I'm sure.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I'm great. Like I said, I'm triple.

Speaker 5 I'm triple vaxed up. Nothing could go wrong.

Speaker 13 My foot's been falling asleep way too often this week, and it hurts.

Speaker 5 Also, I had a broken foot. We talked about about it on Firefest last week.

Speaker 5 This is Jake's Firefest.

Speaker 8 Yeah. I'm not going to say something like that.
He's not making eye contact with him.

Speaker 5 No, we're good. We're great.
We're good.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 5 Yes, every time I take a shit, you get up every day. And you just feel like you don't have a foot.

Speaker 8 Yeah, that's literally the only reason that I know when it's time to get up from shit.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 8 You have a foot that goes asleep. Yeah.

Speaker 13 And you can't walk. But then it always gets better.

Speaker 5 Okay. Do you guys feel like when your leg's asleep?

Speaker 5 Like I have described it to like T V static? That's what my legs feel like. Pins and needles.

Speaker 8 I always say it feels like Joe Rogan's interviewing my foot. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 8 That sort of thing.

Speaker 5 Yeah. That went way over my head.

Speaker 8 My Fire Fest of the Week is Dr. Fauci said it's Masks Off right now.

Speaker 7 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 Happy Summer.

Speaker 5 You should start to listen to that song.

Speaker 8 What? Future. Future Mask Off? Yeah.
Okay, I'm going to write this down.

Speaker 5 Oh, PFT walked up to me today.

Speaker 8 His name is The Future.

Speaker 5 Oh, my God. PFT walked in today and he goes, hey, have you heard Sicko mode? And I was like, yeah.

Speaker 5 Like, two years ago? And he's like, yeah, I just listened to it.

Speaker 12 I was like, what? Like a light.

Speaker 5 I thought I was, I thought I had, like, I thought I had, like, gotten knocked out or something when he said, I thought there was like a music.

Speaker 7 And I'm out on the flight.

Speaker 5 Where were you? It was all that was played.

Speaker 8 I'm 18 months post-modern culture. Got it.
That's when I start to catch up.

Speaker 5 But yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it sounded good.

Speaker 8 Wait, did you say that I cap when I'm 18 months? Yeah. You think I'm more than that? Yeah.

Speaker 9 No, I think you're less.

Speaker 5 How less? You're right on it, bro. When was Sicko?

Speaker 8 You're right on it. When did Travis got sick of it?

Speaker 5 Like two summers ago, I think. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 You're right on it.

Speaker 8 But yeah, my Fire Fest is his masks off, which is great.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 12 I'm getting a cold sore right now.

Speaker 5 Oh.

Speaker 8 And this is the worst possible time ever.

Speaker 7 Jesus.

Speaker 9 In the course of human history.

Speaker 5 I think that I am.

Speaker 8 I can't be sure. You ever have that feeling?

Speaker 5 It's time.

Speaker 8 Where you're like, I don't know.

Speaker 5 Maybe.

Speaker 5 Maybe I'm sending myself out.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 5 Okay, one more week.

Speaker 8 Just one more week. Or maybe I'll let you know on Monday.
Maybe it's okay to do right now.

Speaker 8 Okay. It might be all in my head.

Speaker 5 Don't bonk me. Like,

Speaker 5 you have a hurt.

Speaker 8 Like, 80% of people have cold sores, hang on.

Speaker 8 Totally. It's just a shame to talk about it.

Speaker 5 Totally.

Speaker 5 All right. My Firefest is that I got vaccinated today, but PFT stole all the jokes about how you won.
You're not talking about the vaccination, so I can't talk about my vaccination.

Speaker 8 That sucked. I'm sorry.
Yeah, it's alright.

Speaker 7 I'm not going to talk about it.

Speaker 8 But when I talked about mine, I didn't mean to be preventing you from talking about yours.

Speaker 5 So I can't now talk about mine.

Speaker 8 Now you almost have to talk about it. No, I don't know.
Because if you don't talk about it, then everyone's like, oh, it's PFT's bitch.

Speaker 5 I will say this.

Speaker 5 I am.

Speaker 5 I do feel like more of a fucking man because I went and got the Johnson ⁇ Johnson. And it's partly because I'm just lazy.
I didn't want anybody for a second shot. Johnson Square.

Speaker 5 I got the one that, like, knowingly people are like, hey, that one's Sketch. And I'm like, I don't care.

Speaker 8 Well, if you're a drill boss, it's Sketch. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I was all for it, though. Real men get three.
No, real men get one, Johnson and Johnson, and have an 85% efficacy rate.

Speaker 5 Don't, they're going to fucking put the little thing on the bottom of this podcast. Troops is going to be like, plug clock, the cat.

Speaker 5 Yeah. So your boys are all vaxed up.

Speaker 8 Except, well, no, you have two weeks. You got to wait two weeks.

Speaker 5 Well, I already had immunity because I had it, so I'm ultra alpha. You know what I mean? Like, I had it.

Speaker 8 Because you caught it because you're the only one that caught it.

Speaker 5 Well, no, there's some guy here who had it. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, someone who will not be named. He will probably not get vaxxed.

Speaker 8 You know what a good joke is when someone asks you about your vaccine, be like, yeah, it's Johnson ⁇ Johnson. That means docking.

Speaker 5 Ah, nice. Put them right together.
Sword fight. I actually was surprised at how easy it was.

Speaker 8 Everyone should go do it if you can.

Speaker 5 Not to get political. Getting a shot.

Speaker 7 Yeah, big cat.

Speaker 5 Don't get political. Not to get political on your asses.

Speaker 5 But it was crazy. They had it really set up.

Speaker 8 I thought it would have been funny if we all got our second shots or our first shots at the exact same time. And then we recorded a part of my take where we were all just very sick.

Speaker 5 Where we just mouth-kissed?

Speaker 8 Well, no, we were just violently.

Speaker 5 I didn't get sick after my second or third one. So

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 7 Hank is the strongest in the world.

Speaker 8 Just wait.

Speaker 7 Just wait.

Speaker 5 Did you feel sick, Jake? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. That's right.
Liam, did you get vaccinated?

Speaker 5 Yes. So the whole squad's vaccinated?

Speaker 5 I do. Fuck yeah, boys.

Speaker 5 Pass off. Hot boy summer.

Speaker 8 I feel like a sucker for getting vaccinated before I even got a burger out of it.

Speaker 5 Well, they're giving away burgers?

Speaker 8 Yeah, in New York. They're giving away burgers.

Speaker 7 I could get a burger?

Speaker 8 You're You're doing a great job of acting surprised right now.

Speaker 9 Shake Shack fries? Big Cat waited to schedule a vaccine.

Speaker 8 Big Cat was the one target in the audience of Bill de Blasio's press conversation.

Speaker 5 DJs did, you can get like a VIP card to there. Really? Like,

Speaker 5 if you got vaxxed there. Do I have to take it?

Speaker 8 You have to eat a burger.

Speaker 5 That's a way to not get... Vaxed.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Well, it's Shake Shack.

Speaker 5 Also, shout out Lil Sass because he said that when people tweet him saying, I can't believe what the Pard of my take guys said about you, he immediately listens to the show. Oh, really?

Speaker 5 So, everyone tweeted little sass and be like, I can't believe what the part of my take guy said about you. And that's one more listener.

Speaker 12 I like that.

Speaker 7 Yeah, he's that vain.

Speaker 8 So, we're just gonna do that every time. Easy, give him a fake time stamp, too.
Yeah, give him a time stamp to

Speaker 8 what was the worst part of the show today?

Speaker 5 Probably talking about it. Probably try to figure out the strength of schedules.

Speaker 8 Yeah, that or Melinda Gates-Clatoris.

Speaker 5 Yeah, there's some real hot times. Try to Google the strength of schedules.
All three of us.

Speaker 5 99. The only side effect I got is he made my taco out bigger.
Oh, man. That's unfortunate.
Eight. Oh, there we go.
Did you do it? Woo! Oh, let's go. Oh,

Speaker 5 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. Love you guys.
What? What, Hank?

Speaker 5 This has gone over my head for a while. All right, so don't stop recording.

Speaker 13 I have notes. I haven't had

Speaker 5 to.

Speaker 5 You, PFT, and I have a bet that we have to follow someone on Instagram.

Speaker 8 On the side text thread that we have where we talk shit about everybody else.

Speaker 5 Who gets it right? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah. 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.

Speaker 5 This is an inside joke for three of us in the room and none of the listeners.

Speaker 13 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.

Speaker 5 Ooh!

Speaker 8 That's a lot of good facts.

Speaker 9 Thank you, Jake.

Speaker 5 Just did it. Love you guys.
Wait, one, two, three.

Speaker 13 Wow. 99,998, because you guys are two.

Speaker 7 Wow. We're taking it up.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 5 Maybe.

Speaker 5 I close

Speaker 5 my

Speaker 5 eyes

Speaker 5 only for a moment, and the moment's gone.

Speaker 5 All

Speaker 5 my

Speaker 5 dreams

Speaker 5 pass before

Speaker 5 me.

Speaker 5 Just

Speaker 5 in a way,

Speaker 5 all we are is just to me.

Speaker 5 Same

Speaker 5 on

Speaker 5 song,

Speaker 5 Just a drop of water in the land of sea

Speaker 5 All

Speaker 5 we

Speaker 5 do

Speaker 5 Crumbles to the ground the worm with fears defeat

Speaker 5 only

Speaker 5 are a dust to do

Speaker 5 Love don't dare

Speaker 5 It's Pardon My Tape presented by Barb Stools Futures.