Ryan Dempster, Army Coach Mike Viti, Ravens Frauds And MLB/NBA Playoffs

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On today's part of my take, we have a twofer for the people. We have Ryan Dempster on.
Talk baseball playoffs are finally here. We're watching it right now.
Lucas Giolito is throwing a perfect game through six. That won't jinx it.
Don't say it. Don't say it.
He's throwing a P word. That won't jinx it.
We have also fullbacks coach of Army football, Mike Vitti. He won football guy of the week.

He's the guy who got headbutted and stood his ground,

even though he was a little dazed.

Man's man.

Pretty much everything he says just makes me motivated to be better than I am.

Not that I'm going to do it.

No, it just makes me feel like less of a man.

He could get me to go to the gym.

Once.

Twice. Yeah.
Two times in a week. If there was a smoothie bar afterwards if he woke me up like if he was standing over me in bed if he headbutted you in bed yes he dragged me to the gym uh so we have that we have monday night football recap uh baseball hot seat cool throne guys on chicks all of it is brought to you by our friends.
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Today is Wednesday, September 30th. PFT, I don't want to do it.
Wake up the guy from Green Day. PFT, I don't want to do it.
What? I don't want to do it, but I want to do it. You want to say that the Baltimore Ravens are frauds.
They're such frauds. They're frauds.
They're frauds, fraud, frauds. I don't think they're frauds.
They're frauds. In the way that Ja Rule uses the term, they are frauds.
They're frauds. False advertisers.
The Ravens are frauds unless they need to beat a team when they're down 10 points or beat the Kansas City Chiefs before I take them for real. They panicked.
They looked terrible on Monday Night Football. The stat was 18-0 with a 10 point lead, 0-5 with a 10 point deficit.
They can't come from behind. They are F-R-A-U-D-S frauds.
I think that maybe they should spot the Washington football team 13.5 points to start the half, and then they can come from behind. They can prove that they're able to do it.
Maybe that's what was happening. Maybe they were looking forward to a real competitor in Washington football next week and overlooking the Chiefs this week.
But, yeah, the Ravens are not built to come from behind. They're false ag all right.
Here, I'm going to explain it in a way that is a little bit softer, okay? They're not frauds in the fact that I don't think they're a bad team. I'm not saying they're a bad team.
They're a very good team. A very good team.
But kind of like Oregon back in the day with Chip Kelly when they would lose to like Stanford in November when the games got tougher, I still, I don't, until I see it, I don't trust that the Ravens offense can work when it gets in a hole or when it plays the Kansas City Chiefs. So therefore, they are a very good team.
But guess what? If you're a Ravens fan, you should actually be happy I'm saying this because I'm not saying they're frauds. They're a bad team.
I'm saying they're frauds as Super Bowl-like level.

That's what I'm holding them to.

I'm holding to that standard, and at that standard, they fall short.

You know what you need to do?

You need to compare it to another fraud team in a different sport

so that people can connect the dots and be like,

oh, yeah, that's right, he's correct about that point,

and incept them into thinking that maybe they're frauds. So you might around of saying like are the baltimore ravens the houston rockets of the nfl weird yeah gimmicky they're analytics mickey mouse-ish i okay let's have a real discussion though do you not agree that uh and i think you're kind of starting to feel the same way even though i say i know i actually i'm here for the houstonets comparison.
Yes. Because when I put those two together in my head, it started to make sense to me.
Yeah. Because by any objective measurement, the Baltimore Ravens are awesome.
They are. They're really good.
And you know what they're going to do? They're going to absolutely steamroll everybody, and they're going to make me think that they can beat the Chiefs, and then the playoffs, the Chiefs are going to beat by 40. They shit pump all the bad teams.
They, again, like Oregon football, Houston Rockets, teams that do something a little different, but when the chips are down and you need, and again, this is Patrick Mahomes we're talking about. It's okay to fall short against Patrick Mahomes, who's the best player on the planet, who, as an aside, Patrick Mahomes using, I love when a guy like Mahomes, who is the best player on the planet, is still using the top 100 list as motivation.
And it's like, but dude, we don't actually think that you're not the best quarterback. Yeah, you have $500 million.
You're the best quarterback. You are very good.
Like some stupid poll. I appreciate that you're using it as motivation, but if you actually polled people with a brain, they'd be like, oh, we want Patrick Mahomes.
You've got to find stuff to get pissed off about, though, at that level. It's true.
It's the Jimmy Butler thing, right? It's true. You've got to find things to make you mad, and then you go out and you play better.
And I think that he's – I would bet that Patrick Mahomes is going to complete a pass to, well, obviously wide receiver. He's got running back.
He's got fullback. He's got left tackle.
He'll throw into the right tackle. He might work out a way to throw, like have a guard eligible play.
That underhand shovel pass was so fucking awesome. And the working man's pass.
So, all right. So back to the Ravens real quick.
And again, you what's going to happen. I'm going to have a lot of Ravens fans be like, dude, the bears are frauds.
I agree that they kind of are. I don't think the bears are like exceptional team.
I that's different than me. Not apologizing.
I won't apologize for three and Oh, well also thinking like, yeah, this might not end so well, but I'm going to enjoy the fucking ride. And we have to define what is a fraud and what is a bum? Because there's a difference between being a fraud and being a bum when it comes to sports talk radio.
When you're a fraud, it means that the expectations are there. And then you end up defaulting on that.
You end up false advertising yourself. So I don't think that the Bears, they're not making any promises to me right now.
No. My eyeball is looking at the Bears and I'm thinking, yeah, nine and seven.
The Bears are a roller coaster that you get on. And as as you walk on it you're watching someone walk off that's like missing a limb and has a bloody nose and you're like this doesn't seem safe but i'm gonna do it anyway you're going to action park right when you go to the bears you're like i'm gonna have a heart attack in the tarzan pool i'm probably going to get knocked unconscious in the wave pool who knows what's going to happen on the rope swing and i'm probably going to die in that circular too same analogy the ravens or the roller coaster you get on it's shiny it's beautiful now we sound like coward it's beautiful it's shiny it's state of the art and then uh it doesn't really go that fast and then all of a sudden it just stops in the middle of it and you're like wait what's going on i thought this roller coaster was incredible i thought it was the greatest new thing that we've ever seen can they figure it out sure i just i have to see it before I believe it, that Lamar Jackson as exceptional as he is, and he is exceptional, but that offense when it's down and they have to throw the ball, I actually think you know what would make me take back the Ravens fraud statement? Is if they just committed to the run even when they're down.
Because that first drive they were going right down the field. I don't know why Harbaugh kicked a field goal.
He should have just gone for it because he seems like the guy. He's been pushing like, go for it, go for it, go for it.
That set the tone like, all right, we're going to kick a field goal fourth and three. I mean, he watched the blueprint.
He watched the film of the playoffs last year. If you go up big on the Chiefs, then they outscore you.
Right, you can beat the Chiefs with three. Right, he didn't want to go up by ten points on the Chiefs because then he's fucked.
Right, and then they get in that hole and it just, like, just keep running the ball. I don't know, just keep running the ball.
Because you can do it better than everyone else. When the Ravens are running and they're running well, it's, and yes, what's his name, dropped a bunch, Mark Andrews dropped passes that he shouldn't have dropped.
And a couple things could have gone differently, but the Chiefs have their number.

Did you see the wristband that Lamar is rocking?

How many plays he has on there?

And the font has got to be, I mean, it's probably like four-point font

that's on his wrist.

It's insane.

He's probably got like 50 or 60 plays that's on there.

Like some of you would get like a personal pizza party

for in elementary school if you read the whole thing.

I did.

It's crazy.

And like Harbaugh, to his credit,

like he tends to stick with what works, right he usually you know he goes forward and forth down he does stick with the run more than most coaches would because he knows that like at the end of the day it's going to be a matchup problem if you are running the read option they can't stop it all the time but then you start fighting against the clock and that's when you make an enemy of the clock then you've've taken a tremendous weight off Andy Reid's shoulders because that's one less person that he has to do battle with. He doesn't have to play the 12th man.
Yes. All right, let's look real quick because I'm sure what's going to happen is after I say the Ravens, the frauds, they're going to rip off like 10 straight wins, just like last year, but especially in a year when you only have one bye.
That game became so important last night with only one bye, and now you have to play more games in the playoffs. They have, yeah, they're going to kill the Washington football team.
They're going to kill the Bengals. They're going to kill the Eagles.
So the next three weeks, in three weeks' time, I'm going to look like an idiot, but I'll still stand by it this time and say that when they have to start playing the big boys and they have to get out of the hole and the Steelers are going to be a tough matchup this year, it's not going to look the same. Counterpoint, Big Cat, Lamar Jackson said the Chiefs are a kryptonite.
So he's admitting it. Well, he's saying that they're Superman.
Okay. But the Chiefs are there, which is kind of weird.
Now, that's something that Patrick Mahomes can look at. That'll be his motivation when they meet in the playoffs.
It's like, wait, he thinks that they're Superman and that we're kryptonite. I'm going to Superman that hoe.
You're Superman the way that Soulja Boy talks about it, so I'm going to nut on your back and throw a blanket on you. Yes.
Lucas G. Lido, by the way, gave up the perfect game right after I said it.
There you go. Whoops.
Bush. I don't believe in that curse.
You don't talk about it. I bet the White Sox.
So I would like to have had him throw a perfect game. All right.
So the Ravens, what do you think? In those games, so again, Washington football team, Bengals, Eagles, they're going to score 140 points. 140 points in those three games? They should be.
They're going to pop off like 45 points a game. Yes, they should beat the football team by 30 points without Jason Young.
It's going to be a play bad. They really should try to.
They should try to go down in the first half. Why not? Just to prove it because guess what? You're going down.
I laid the gauntlet that if they come back from a 10-point deficit, I will remove the fraud. This is the perfect time to do it.
Put in RG3. It's an RG3 revenge game.
Have him start it out. He's going to try to do too much.
He might die on FedEx Field, given what we know about that surface and his injury history. That's almost worse than Jordan Reed playing on the sticky turf.
So RG3 goes in, throws three pick sixes, and then bring in Lamar in the second quarter, and then boom, you still win by 30. And you get the fraud taken off.
I absolutely, Ravens fans who are very frustrated with me, just know that I am a reasonable man that if they come back from down 10, I will officially remove the fraud and start taking them seriously again. I'd also like to point out that if a lineman scores a touchdown, if the player is over 300 pounds, it should count as seven.
And then the extra point is one. That's just so cool.
Agreed. But you can't go for two.
Yes, correct. You can't score nine.
Correct. It's like a bonus point.
Yes. I bet Andy Reid would probably throw to his tackle like probably six times a game if that were the case.
Well, it would be great because then you would basically, you know, you'd get eight points if you can, although Bucker couldn't hit that extra point last night. That was an awesome play.
Also, I saw you retweeted it as well. Such a tell by, who scored the touchdown? Eric Fisher.
Eric Fisher. When he went up and started using Patrick Mahomes' towel right before the play.
It was great. He sneaks over to him, grabs a towel, gets a little wipe off on his hands.
It's like, okay, that guy's going to be catching the ball. He's getting the ball thrown to him.
So Monday Night Football was good, not great.

I mean, everyone was kind of expecting the best game.

I think the Chiefs-Rams game from a couple years ago will forever ruin our brains.

Because we see the Chiefs or the Ravens or the Rams or the Seahawks in these

Monday Night Football games, and we're like, get ready for it.

It's going to be epic.

And we didn't realize at the time that was the best it will ever be i think that this game was pretty good it was it didn't live up to that expectation but you're right our brains are grading it on a curve and since it is debate night which i'm sure was electric we're taping this before the debates i'm sure changed a lot of people's minds by the way if you're an undecided voter you deserve to be pushed off a building if you don't know who you're going to vote for do do they exist if you're an undecided voter waiting for rex chapman to tell him to go out and vote if you're an undecided voter tweet at us and let us know because i'm so interested in how you put on a hat in the morning without giving yourself a concussion i don't think they're undecided voters i think they're voters that are deciding the undecided part is whether or not they'll vote right thankfully if you go on twitter go on Twitter, you'll get enough people to tell you to vote that you probably decided to vote. Or you have Ken bone.
Everyone should forever be undecided until the second he walks into the voting booth. I'll be a hypocrite.
Everyone should vote. Everyone vote.
Go vote. But yeah, since it is debate night, we should, we should get to the bottom of this.
Is it E-lair? It's E-lair. Or hell air? No, it's E-lair.
A-lair. A-lair.
He was, Levy was really leaning on the E. It's E-lair.
Or Hell-air? No, it's E-lair. Allaire.
Allaire. He was, Levy was really leaning on the E.
It's Allaire. No H.
Allaire. Yes.
E-lair. Yes.
Hell-air. Allaire.
Allaire. And I think.
We'll get it right in week three. Because remember, well, this is, remember Jake got this wrong.
Famously got this wrong and was very upset about it. But you got it wrong.
I got it wrong. But if I prepped, I would have gone to the pronunciation.
You didn't prep. Emphasis on the capital E, Lair.
So he did it correctly. And Al Michaels was saying, Hulair, and then Twitter was roasting him.
Yeah. But he's so good.
So Levy overcompensated and went hardy. He's so good.
It's so unfair that the Chiefs were able to add him. It is.
It is. Jerry Jones said that.
Jerry Jones, I love it because he can't stop talking about other people's players ever. He was talking about how he wished that he had a more mobile quarterback, and then he went back.
He was like, that wasn't a slight against Dak. It's just that sometimes you see.
It was a slight against Andy Dalton. Sometimes you see a cool toy and you want it.
And he also said, man, I really wish I could have gotten a layer early in the second round. You just gave an infinity dollars extension to Ezekiel Elliott.
Collect them all. Collect them all, Jerry Jones.
Get them all. Get all offensive.
Jerry Jones is going to play flag football on the defensive side, but he's going to have a Pro Bowl team on the offensive. I kind of appreciate that.
Of course. Alright, so we have

baseball playoffs started. We have Ryan

Dempster on in a minute to talk about

them. Should we do our predictions?

We got to do our predictions?

Yeah.

Indians, Dodgers. Okay.

No. Playoff, Kershaw.

Playoff, Kershaw. No fans.

Playoff, Kershaw. No fans.

Cubs, White Sox. Yeah.
Cubs. I'm going to go with the Cubs.
I really like the Cubs this year. Hank fans.
Playoff Kershaw. No fans.
Cubs White Sox.

Yeah.

Cubs.

I'm going to go with the Cubs.

I really like the Cubs this year.

So Hank and I are rooting for the Cubs.

Appreciate that.

Cubs Astros because I want to see everyone pissed off.

Okay.

That would be nice.

Yeah.

Why are you mad though?

I want.

I want.

No.

I know what you're doing.

No.

No.

I legitimately like I don't really care that much about the playoffs this year. I root for storylines.
Cubs-Yankees. Yeah.
Who gets the ultimate pitch stripes. Hey, Chicago, what do you say? I don't want the Yankees.
No? Nah. That would kill you.
If the Lakers and the Yankees won titles within a month of each other, it would be insufferable. Oh, my God.
That would be huge. Drake would be so excited.
Our dear friend, Troll Ballins. It would be a big day for him.
All his teams. What if this is the year? What if Duke basketball is going to win? Well, would it be perfect if it happened? Because this will never obviously have an NBA final at this time.
So we have the Yankees and the Lakers within a month of each other. Same month winning titles.
I might put a front runner parlay down and go Yankees, Lakers. I'll go with the Cowboys.
Alabama. Alabama football and Duke basketball this year.
I like it. We're going chalk.
I like it. I like it.
So, yeah, we have that. And then the NBA Finals do start them on Wednesday night.
I'm very excited. I think our boys, we're the number one heat podcast.
Yep. Sponos.
We're going to get into heat Twitter. All about the culture.
Is that what we're saying? Heat culture. Heat culture.
It's not the heat. It's the humility.
We are grounded. We're ready to go.
Jimmy Butler said that we're not underdogs. Jimmy Butler, as first reported, said we're a good team.
They're a good team. Not going to say that we're better than anybody else, but I just don't think that we're underdogs.
I don't. So Jimmy, much like Patrick Mahomes, needs somebody to be pissed off about.
I guess Jimmy just hates Las Vegas.

Yes.

So when someone comes off the bench, they cheer and be like,

dap each other up.

When we finish the podcast, I'm going to be like, good job, guys.

Okay.

The culture of this podcast is changing.

I like that.

Yeah.

And when you fuck up a name like Clyde Edwards-Alaire, good job, good effort.

Yeah.

Nice try, Jake.

Exactly.

Pretty cool.

Those four years at Syracuse weren't a waste. Thank you.
Right. Pretty cool.
Yeah, pretty cool. Medium cool.
I fucking love the Heat. I fucking love them.
If the Heat beat the Lakers in the finals, and now I can tell Hank's getting amped up just hearing the possibility that the Lakers and LeBron might lose in the finals. It's not going to happen.
It's not going to happen. It's probably not going to happen.
It's not going to be close. If you are listening to this in Pennsylvania, I've reached my pinnacle of life of just creating grudge bets, but there is a bet now on the Barstool Sportsbook app that's just Lakers alpha dog.
You can bet who has more points, Anthony Davis or LeBron James. No, Caruso? No, Caruso didn't make the cut.
We should do a Caruso hero matchup. Caruso, I, I saw a prop the other day that was over two threes for Caruso, and it was like plus 600.
So, so mean. So mean.
He's gone back to being underrated, though. Yes.
So this is when he plays well. I think we're going to get a lot of Kuzma.
Kuz. That's the big – if you're a diehard Laker fan like myself, you've got to be like, Kuzma's about to come out of his shell.
I want to see Dwight Howard just go off in these finals. I want to see Dwight go off and then they ask him what he's going to do afterwards.
He's like, I might just stay in Orlando for a while. Just go ride a lot of rides.
Yeah, let my snakes crawl all over me. It is the perfect environment for Dwight Howard.
Yes, it is. Alright, let's get to our Hot Seat Cool Throne, then we'll get to our interviews.
Hot Seat Cool Throne, this week is brought to you by Bud Light Seltzer. On the Hot Se.
This week is free space in your fridge. Oh, they have something here.
They have a little, uh, how fast can Jake read this? Jake, you got to read this. How fast can Jake read the ad? Hot seat, cool throne, Bud Light Seltzer.
He's our announcer. I just texted it to you.
Uh, Bud Light Seltzer has three new flavors available in their remix variety pack. Jake read it as fast as you can.
He can. No prep, he's not happy.
You get it, you get it. I'm still waiting for it.
I just texted it. I got it.
You can drink it as fast as Jake can say it. Nashville, get ready for one of the biggest parties of the summer in Music City.
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Get your tickets now on BarstoolNashville.com. Hank.
My hot seat, I have a couple. The first one, both basketball-related.
LeVar Ball is on the hot seat. LaMelo basically has to convince teams to just drown him out and not listen to anything he says because he's just trying to get drafted.
He literally had to say, my old man, he's my own man. He has his own opinions.
I have mine. Like I said, I feel like I can play on any team.
Anywhere is a great fit because LeVar Ball was talking shit about him going to the Warriors. So that's got to suck if you're the number one prospect and the only reason you might not get drafted is because of your dad.
They just got to put him on a boat. They just have to put him on a medium-sized yacht,

push him out to sea, no Wi-Fi,

give him an ample supply of whatever LeVar Ball is.

I have to assume it's probably combos and raw meat

and maybe just a bunch of beer or something like that.

Get him out with no cell phone service

and just send him out at sea until it's an appropriate time

where he can't ruin your career and bring him back. Yep.
My other hot seat, Carl Anthony Towns, took a big-time ricochet shot. Andrew Wiggins got interviewed and asked about how he feels about Jimmy Butler because there was rumors like he was a locker room cancer and that Wiggins and Towns were the reason he left, and Wiggins basically said that it was all Carl Anthony Towns.
He said, I feel like that was from certain people that couldn't handle certain situations. So everyone's just roasting Karl-Anthony Towns for being soft and running Jimmy Butler out of town.
And then my cool throne is Jimmy Butler's profit margins. Because he said he's not going to give he players free coffee even if they win the championship.
He's a businessman. No disrespect to families.
But money comes first. Yeah.
I mean, sorry. Go to Starbucks.
You got to pay what you got to pay. There's no friends and family.
No incentives, though. We're trying to incentivize our boys to win this championship.
No, it's about the culture. The culture's hard work.
Pay for what you pay. It's a pay-to-play league.
You don't change what you're doing just because you're experiencing a little bit of success. Imagine if Jimmy Butler would just show up with hot coffee after they win and just start dousing everyone in it.
The Gatorade bath. You guys finally get it.
Yeah. The Gatorade bath is just like a giant flat white and then send everyone bills afterwards.
Also kind of stupid that they're not letting like the they're not letting MLB players celebrate with beer and champagne. And so what is that? It's some bullshit.
Oh, because of Corona? It's some bullshit. That is some bullshit.
Wait, what does that have to do with Corona? Like drinking it and sharing it. Alcohol kills Corona.
That's actually a fact. Yeah, that's a fact.
Thank you, Billy. Is that a thing? Yeah.
All right. My hot seat is Adam Gase.
Adam Gase is on a hot seat. Oh, shit,'s mine, too.
Yeah. I mean, we probably all could have pulled that one out.
But Adam Gase in the hot seat. The Jets are calling around.
Apparently, according to Billy's sheet, they've made calls to several big-time agents trying to find their next coach. I actually don't think that anybody who would want to coach the Jets is somebody that you would want to coach the Jets if you're a Jets fan.
I would not want to coach the Jets. I'm trying to think.
Who would? I'm taking my name. I mean, Shiano would do it.
Shiano would do it. Shiano would do it.
Might do it. Patricia? Yeah, he'd do it.
Yeah, he's probably going to be available in a little bit. Who else is going to get fired soon? Hugh Jackson.
Hugh Jackson. He would definitely do it.
He'd throw people under the bus right away. Jeff Fisher.
Doc Rivers is a hot name going around. Doc Rivers, super hot name.
I'm just saying, Jeff Fisher. No, don't do that.
Why? Because he's our friend. I don't want him to have the misery of the Jets.
I think it's probably the worst job in America right now. Right.
He's coaching the New York Jets. Yes.
I would do it. No, I was going to put conditions on it.
I wouldn't do it. I'm not doing it.
I'm taking my name out of the hat. Unless I, if I could just do it, but like not do it.
Just I'll do it under the condition that I get to coach from the booth. Oh, no.
I'm saying like, I'll do it, but I'm not showing up to work. You'll be the name.
I'll no-show the job. Oh, Greg Williams would do it.
Greg Williams is probably engineering this collapse on his own. We should get some Sopranos-type character to just be the no-show job of Jets head coach.
I'll hang out in the parking lot with a giant mirror just reflecting it on myself tanning in the parking lot. Just let Gary Vee coach him.
Gary Vee might be able to turn that culture around. Why not? It's going to be positive.
If he loses this week. Take social media, guys, but also I'm on every app.
By the way, fuck Vic Fangio. Fuck Vic Fangio.
Because he is, well, first of all, he's a turkey. He doesn't know how to use a clock.
He's a coordinator. Secondly, he said that Blake Bortles isn't starting.
But actually, his explanation was pretty hilarious.

He said, Brett Rippon will start and Jeff Driscoll might play.

That's a great way to just inspire your team is being like,

this guy's the starter, but he's probably going to stink.

So Jeff Driscoll is going to be ready to go.

So I don't know.

I don't know what's going to happen.

I'm going to watch Greg Williams.

This is probably good for the Broncos because Greg Williams doesn't know. He doesn't have the budget to put a bounty on two quarterbacks.
Right. He doesn't know.
He's got to spread out his dollars. Yeah.
Who am I going to encourage? And also, if you put a bounty on Brett Rippon, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul because then Jeff Driscoll comes in. Right.
And you're like, wow, I really wish that I hadn't hurt Brett Rippon. Right.
I wish we had just kept with this. How about one other name to take the Jets job? Todd Bowles.
His defense is playing well. Yeah.
Great coach. I actually would love to see that happen, to just be like, Todd Bowles, our new head coach.
But wasn't he the... Todd Bowles, our new head coach.
We screwed up. We admit it.
Rex Ryan, our new head coach. Who was the last Jets head coach to have a winning record? Rex Ryan.
Well, Todd Bowles might have been... No, Belichick.
No, Rex Ryan. He was 500.
Rex Ryan had an overall winning record? Oh, overall. I thought you meant a season.
Yeah, no, no, overall, over the tenure. I mean, he had some good teams, so he might have.
Belichick didn't have a losing record. Belichick had...
He was 500. What do you mean? He didn't coach a game with the Jets.
Correct. Zero wins, zero losses.
Can't divide by zero. Rex Ryan as a head coach of the New York football Jets.
I'm scrolling. Jeez, Rex Ryan's got a fucking huge Wikipedia.
He was 46 and 50. Damn.
Just missed. Just missed.
4 and 12 in his last season really did him in. Come on, Rex.
Otherwise, he was right there. All right, do you have a cool throne? My cool throne is J.J.
Watt loving his brothers the most on the Houston Texans because Earl Thomas is not signing with the team. So, J.J., do you see what I did there? Yeah.
Earl was virtually guaranteed to sign with the Houston Texans, and then it just was reported a second ago that he's not after his medical examination. So I don't know what they turned up there.
But what's up, Billy? I heard he might go to the Eagles. Oh, because of the city of Brotherly Love? That's a good joke, Billy.
Well done. I think that my theory about Earl Thomas is that he just went to Texas to get closer to Dallas.
Yes. Because Earl Thomas has wanted to play for the Cowboys ever since he got into the NFL.
He's just going to show up. He's going to show up.
You know what this is? It's like if you're in the same town as somebody that you want to meet up with, you post a lot on social media, and you're like, oh, here I am. I'm hanging out in Texas in case Jerry Jones happens to notice that I'm in his same state.
If he wants to give me a call, oh, sure, Jerry, I'll drop by. Hey, Jerry, I'm just hanging out.
I was in the neighborhood seven hours away. I don't know why they don't sign him, though.
The Cowboys' defense is terrible. If he wants to play for him, just play for him for the minimum.
Yeah, he should. Yeah.
All right, my hot seat was also Adam Gates. My cool throne is the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Stanley Cup champion, Tampa Bay Lightning. Shout out third leg Greg, you fucking dork.
But more than anything, it worked. The Virginia model worked.
Virginia basketball losing to UMBC, then winning the title. Tampa Bay Lightning getting swept by the Blue Jackets and issuing the lamest saddest are we getting divorced uh twitter message of all time last year which i retweeted last night again but it said this is last year before they went went on to win a stanley cup we don't have any words and we know you don't want to hear them we understand your anger your frustration your sadness everything you're feeling we get it this isn't the ending we imagined and certainly not the one we wanted thank you for being there the entire way there's a deep drive to left by castellanos man of faith uh yeah yeah they want they they then took this we have a fly in the in the studio billy kill this fly i got it kill the fucking fly they took oh no, no.
We're going to get everything. Chill out, Billy.
They took that, which was the ultimate cuck move, apologizing for losing to a Stanley Cup championship. It's the most Canadian Stanley Cup victory in 25 years.
The team that is sorriest ends up winning. Yeah, North Florida.
But yeah, that was cool of them. I don't know what else to say about the Stanley Cup.
The handshake line was nice. That was a real treat.
The handshake line was nice. There were some good games in the Stanley Cup.
Oh, did you see the coach of the Lightning? He was wearing a UVA hat. Wearing a UVA hat and refused to go do his press conference without his full coaching staff.
So they all were just jammed up there at the press conference. That is what...
You never see that in the NBA. No, absolutely not.
No. Hell no.
You would never. This league would never.
Didn't Herb Dean do that? Yeah, I think so. I think he did at one point.
I think when they were saying he was taking too much credit, he's like, well, all my assistants are going to do the press conferences too. Look at this.
Alright, Billy? My hot seat is Odell. He started to video game stream, and he isn't in the hot seat yet but as soon as he does anything you know mess up on the field everyone's gonna be like you should have been in your playbook and not playing video games I feel like doing anything not football related what is he streaming? Cod he's probably a beast probably but I feel like.
Everyone's just going to jump on him. Yeah.
Yeah, it'd suck if everybody spammed his chat with just the shit emoji. That would suck.
He wasn't reading his chat. I was.
They were saying that. He was in the chat.
He was doing that all night. He spent his entire night doing that.
Is he any good? He's all right. But you're not good.
I'm terrible. Right, okay.
He's probably as good as I am. Okay, so he's also terrible.
Yeah. Is there a level in Call of Duty where he can get on a boat? Can he commandeer a boat? No.
That's probably why he stinks. Yeah.
And then your cool throne? Okay. No, no, no, I have it.
Why am I blanking on you? You're down the shelf. I got one.
Yeah. And then your cool throne? Okay.
No, no, no. I have it.
I have it. Why am I blanking on the name? You're cool.
I got one. Dion Waiters.
Nice, Jake. Dion Waiters.
He's guaranteed to get a ring because he was on the heat earlier in the season. Nice.
Okay, well, I have two more. Why am I? All right.
No, no. Let's get to our interview with Ryan Dempster.
Don't West. Who's the owner of the Dallas? Cross-country mortgage.

You missed it.

You missed it.

Madden curse.

You missed it.

Madden curse is back.

Why?

Because.

Lamar Jackson.

Did he get hurt?

No, but he didn't play that well.

He lost the game.

He had 97 passing yards.

You know what?

Here's a fun sabermetric.

Every year, the athlete that's on the cover of Madden loses a game.

Mark Cuban also cool thrown for getting Delonte West. That was a nice move.
Yeah, that is very cool of Cubes. That was a very cool move.
All right, let's get to Ryan Dempster, and then we have Football Guy of the Week, Mike Vitti, Coach Mike Vitti. This interview is brought to you by our friends at Cross Country Mortgage.
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Go to crosscountrymortgage.com slash take to learn more cross country mortgage LLC NMLS 3029 equal housing opportunity go to cross country mortgage.com for licensing and disclosures okay here he is Ryan Dempster okay we now welcome on uh a very special guest it is I have a lot you you have a resume that I have to go through that is fantastic but it's missing one thing so ryan dempster 2013 world series champion 16 year mlb veteran two-time all-star analyst for mlb network and marquee sports network uh where he hosts his own late night show talk show off the mound with ryan dempster uh didn't put in they didn't put in here only guy in Cubs history to have 50 wins and 50 saves and also didn't put in here Hall of Famer, Canada, but Hall of Famer. North of the border.
Yeah. It's fine.
What's up with that? Why aren't we acknowledging the Baseball Hall of Fame in Canada? I don't know. That's a good question.
There's a lot of fine baseball players up there.

I'm lucky to be in that group.

That's for sure.

That was a special moment.

You don't grow up thinking you're going to be in the Hall of Fame anywhere.

Maybe you're high school for something other than sports,

but it was pretty wicked to be able to go into that Hall of Fame,

to have Fergie Jenkins give me the jacket too,

like the greatest Canadian pitcher ever. So it was was yeah thanks i appreciate that intro yeah would you say that you're you're a top three canadian pitcher of all time i would put myself i would put myself in the top three just for statistics top you know yeah i mean fergie's got everything he's likeouts, you know, complete games, the best hitting pitcher ever, innings pitched.
Although he won't even sniff my grand slams given up. So I got him way more on that.
What's the what's the Canadian version of Mount Rushmore? Mountie Rushmore. You have like four famous moose that you talk.
I don't know. We don't really have anything.
Yeah.

I don't know if we just don't – we don't put our tax dollars to that.

I don't know what it is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

So we have Ryan on to talk a little baseball playoffs.

I'm going to save a few Cubs-specific questions for the end so that people aren't like, all you did is talk about the Cubs.

Let's do a general question first, and then we want to maybe talk about each series um in terms of no crowd obviously everyone's used to it because of the regular season but what do you think that has like what impact does it have on guys in the postseason when you need maybe that little extra juice who's it going to hurt more the pitchers or the batters and uh how do you see that playing out playing in front of no one in these high high intensity situations yeah that's a good question i you know i think when i when i've watched it this year um and i've been in wrigley and seen you know calling games and and seen kind of not having the fans and what it what it does i think it benefits the young pitcher who's never been on the stage before, you know, just for the fact those guys, like, you know, I remember what that's like starting a first playoff game. And then when you're a young guy with a little bit of experience and you're all of a sudden in a visiting ballpark and that place bounce and it gets intense, man.
And you got to try and learn to control those emotions. And now when you don't necessarily have that, I think that that um it can it can maybe be a little bit I don't know if easier is the right word but maybe a little bit easier to control those emotions uh to be able to hone it in and just focus on what you're doing but I think we've seen it across the league all year I think there's players certain players in the league that they love that right they love the energy when there's a big base hit it's like I'm gonna take the next base or I'm going to make the next play.
And they feed off of that. And I think, um, I think you'll see certain players.
I don't know who they are necessarily, but certain players do feed off that. I think certain ballparks do an unbelievable job.
LA's ballpark, man, watching those games on TV. It sounds like you're watching a normal Dodger game, you know, just the adrenaline and what the, the ability to like dial that crowd noise up at the right moment at the right time and some people are a little quieter.
Heck, I was just watching the Twins game and they got fans in the stands. Employees in the stands.
It's pretty cool to see them do that. It's such a different feel, isn't it? What about you in particular? If you were just throwing in practice and then comparing that to a playoff game that had fans in the stands, could you see, like would your two-seamer creep up to like 91, 92 miles an hour just feeding off that adrenaline? Yeah, you know, yeah.
I love that all the way up to 91, 92. Bring the gas.
Yeah, all of a sudden now I can really rear back and dial a four seamer in at 93. No, you know, I found as I got experience that when the crowd noise gets like that, when you get a young hitter in the box, that's where you can actually dial it back a notch.
You know, you can be like, use that dude's like making sawdust out of the bat handle because he wants to hit so bad. And then you're like, kyle hendrix just pull the change up on him and you know twirl him into the ground so um yeah it's uh there's there's definitely i think you're still gonna have your dudes everybody throws 100 nowadays so they all know how to dial it up when they need to but um whether that's you know reaching the back pocket for a little extra grip to make sure they can get that spin rate up or whatever it is.

But, yeah, I don't know what it would be like having no fans. It would be super weird.
So, you obviously, your career, you were known obviously as a really great clubhouse guy, you know, a glue guy. You were in the bullpen.
You were a starting pitcher. In the bullpen, in the playoffs.
is it still loose or does it change completely and everyone's like oh fuck I could be in in a second in a high leverage situation or do you guys try to act like it's kind of like the regular season and goof around because I'd imagine the bullpen's pretty fun innings like one through five yeah you're exactly right like during the regular seasons like innings one through seven you know like even like one through eight because nobody talks to the closer after the seventh anyways but in the playoffs it is it's like innings one through four maybe five like unless you're just and if you're cruising it's good but it just it's dialed up right you one one game can change the complexity of a series so you got to be so sharp and ready to go in and be mentally prepared once it happens. So it definitely is a little bit more high energy, a little bit more intense, a little bit more focused.
You know, I can't be out there goofing around telling jokes to people in the front row like I used to in the fifth. I got to I got to be ready to go in case you get called on.
So, yeah, it's, you know, like being in the World Series in 2013 out of the pen, whoa, like, you know, you couldn't wait to get down there.

You're like, how do I get down there? I don't know if the starter, what happens if the starter blows out on the first hitter? I got to be ready to go. So it was, it's definitely a tick, a tick up.
Everything becomes amplified. You know, your pregame warmups, your intensity around the dugout, everything's just sharper, crisper.
I always liken it to you play the regular season in like, you know, 720p,

and then all of a sudden like high-definition TV kicks in in the playoff time because it just becomes intense. Yeah.
Was there any manager that you had? Because you played for, I guess, a wide variety of personalities leading your teams. Was there a manager who didn't get you or that you had to like, you know, personality or i would imagine like maybe lupinel or jim leland like leland to me seems like a no-nonsense kind of guy but would you have to find yourself like adjusting your jokes and personality around him yeah well like leland was the one because he was my first manager in the big leagues i got called up they just won a world series in 97 and then they dismantled the whole team and he had to deal with us going out there and losing six days a week.
So it was, you know, I think him getting me was more like I needed to learn how to be a big leaguer and respect being a big leaguer probably more so. I probably have a few coaches or managers to be like, yeah, Ryan would have paid a little bit more attention or folks a little bit more.
He might be above 500 pitchers. So he was one, but he also put us in our place really quick.
Like, so like I got a great Jim Lee in the story. So now this man wins a world series with the Florida Marlins.
He's just, he's been such a great mentor to us. When we came up, we had all these rookies in 1998.
We lost, I think I was like, we were 54 and 108 or something like that or 56 and 106 we were back so we're in Houston and we're losing 16 to 4 and Eric Ludwig tells a joke on the bench and you know we all kind of laughed and and Leland used to smoke heaters during the game he'd tuck them in his in his corner of his hand here so you couldn't see them. Then he'd blow smoke out.
I once saw him blow smoke into Bruce Freming's face as he ran out to argue a strike three call. It was incredible.
That was my favorite thing. Yeah, you got it.
If you were to tuck a cigarette, I don't have a pen or something. Yeah, no, he would try to hide it from the cameras.
Yeah. But then he'd take a big hit out of it and then just exhale just this giant cloud.
And you're like, I think he might be smoking. Exactly.
It was so awesome. It's like, who are you hiding it from? Why not just throw it? Let it hang out of your mouth, man.
Like we all know. Right.
So he's on. And if I'm sideways, if you guys are on the bench, he's, like, looking at us, and he's just like –

and he throws it down, and he goes down the tunnel.

And I'm like, oh, boys, dude, we are in trouble, man.

Like, we're screwed right now.

We're in big trouble.

So we end up losing the game 20-4.

And in the old Astrodome, they had these, like, French doors,

but they're, like, cafeteria-style doors in the clubhouse.

And he always wore spikes.

I don't know, maybe in case we were so bad he'd put himself in or whatever.

So all of a sudden you hear this, like –

Thank you. I guys stink.
You guys suck. You think you're big leaguers, but you ain't a pimple on a big leaguers butt.
With the exception of a few of you, and you know who I'm talking about, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the rest of you A-ball double-A guys coming up here thinking you're big leaguers, wearing your fancy suits, walking around, paying your clubhouse, dude's eating your spread, driving your fancy car, thinking you're big leaguers.
You should be in double-A. You stink.
You're out there laughing. We're getting our tails kicked.
And all of a sudden, he just stops, And he just goes, guys, I'll lose with you. I'll go 0-162.
No doubt. Not like that.
Not like that. You're not going to do that.
You're not losing this league. Right? So he leaves.
And he just goes off, right? Now you know because I know he's talking to me. He's not talking to, you know, Cliff Floyd.
He's not talking to Mark Kotze. He's talking to the pitchers.
You're laughing, right? So I'm just like, oh, man, he leaves. And I go to get up, go to stand up.
And Jay Powell grabs me by the shoulder reliever we had. He was on the championship team with him.
And he goes, hey, dude, he's coming back. He's coming back.
And I'm like, what? Okay. So all of a sudden, and another thing, you know, and he just goes off again five times.
But he had the best line ever, and I thought this was so great. He walks out and comes back in the fifth time, and he goes, I'm going to my office, and I'm smoking a cigar, and I'm having a whiskey.
If I come back out here in this locker room, and there is anybody in here, I am calling the cops on having you arrested for impersonating a Major League Baseball player. I'm getting the hell out of you.
That's such a great line. Oh, fuck.
That's such a great line. What a legend.
What an absolute legend. So I actually, it's crazy looking at your career.
Was there ever a moment? So you were on the Marlins literally between World Series. They went in 97.
They went in 03. You're there from 98 to 02.
Then you go and now you're on the Cubs in 04 when they're five outs from the World Series the year before and it seems like things are going that right way everyone knows 0708 falls apart was there a moment where you're like am I just the jinx here like is this me is it my fault because I've been around teams that have been good but I've never like we've never actually done it. Yes.
A hundred percent. I was like, after the 08 season,

um,

I, you know, I had the playoff game and I gave it the grand slam and I'm just like, oh, man. Like, is this for real? Like, you know, I get traded, me and Cliff get traded, they win the World Series in 03.
And then, you know, that happens. And then all of a sudden we start, and I'm like man maybe I maybe I am the reason like they traded me they won come here we can't win a playoff series you know you start to have some serious self-doubt you know you do a lot of therapy you talk to the right people um you try to eat better you try to take care of yourself better but uh you know it was a like in 2013 when when John Farrell was like hey we're gonna stick you in the bullpen for the playoffs, you know, and I kind of just want to be like, dude, are you sure you want to put me on the roster? Like, I think maybe if you just had me as like a guy that could like get the beer for the bus or, you know, I mean, that's pretty much what I did anyways the whole time.
I mean, I only pitched one inning each series, but it definitely gives you a lot of self-doubt. No doubt about it.
Yeah.'re coming in and you're facing like one batter like that and you know that that might be your job on any given night is there a danger of over preparing and overthinking it and and realizing hey you know i've got i've got maybe five or six pitches if i do my job correctly i need to make sure that they're all perfectly planned out perfectly placed yeah you know what you're you're You're right, though. And, too, like, you can't – as a starting pitcher, you're, like, you're mapping out a game plan and how you want to set a guy up in the first so that you can face him again in the sixth.
You can be able to get him out as a reliever. It's like I need two pitches right now when I'm getting loose.
I need them both ready. I can't worry about my third pitch.
It becomes great. And I don't got time to set anybody up.

That's the one thing.

When you're relieving, there's no setting up anything.

It's kitchen sink.

Dump it all out there.

However, I got to get these guys out.

It's intense.

I pitched an 8-0 game in the game one of the World Series in 2013,

and it was probably the most intense game I'd ever been a part of.

Pitching without the lead, I'm like, whoa. Take a deep breath, then Matt Holiday hit one off the turnpike, and I'm like – and then Johnny Gomes had the best line in the shower afterwards.
He goes, hey, Ryan, think about it, though. If you finish the playoffs with a zero ERA, nobody would have thought you would have pitched.
True. You've got to give up one.
That's a great spin zone. You showed up in the box score.
Great team. Yeah.
So these playoffs, as weird as they are, we're big on – I'm a big believer in baseball, and we could talk about baseball growing the sport, but a lot of baseball fans care about their team and maybe not the rest of the league. So we want to give our listeners of our show something that they can sound smart if they're talking to their friends about the playoffs.
So if you want to go through the AL and the NL, some of this will be outdated. We're going to run this tomorrow.
There's games playing right now. But if you have like a tidbit or a guy to look out for, essentially giving everyone a cheat sheet of like, oh, I can impress everyone by being like, hey, look out for this guy.
So let's start with the one eight oh the rays and the jays the rays and the jays you can either give us a prediction or just something you're looking out for with the rays and the jays okay uh rays and the jays i think uh tyler glass now might be the nastiest pitcher in the league that's a great line you could sit like because people will be like hey you see garrett coli see Garrett Cole, you see Shane Bieber, see, you know, Hugh Darvish, like, no, Tyler Glassnow, nastiest pitcher in the league. Like, on two pitches, too, like, way above average fastball, way above average breaking ball.
He throws a 93-mile-an-hour cutter that nobody can hit. You know, but he plays in Tampa, and I know he plays a lot of teams in the East, so at least you get to see him every once in a while playing the Yankees and Red Sox, but that dude is filth.
I mean, that's just as dirty as it gets, and if he's on, I just have a tough time believing that the Jays can beat them. Yeah, that's what I go with in that series.
I'll throw in an extra one. I mean, this one most people know, but if you wanted to sound smart, the Jays do have all the major leaguer sons.
So they have Biggio, Guerrero, and who's the last one? Oh, Bichette. Bichette.
Dante Bichette Jr. And Travis Shaw.
And Travis Shaw. So just throw those guys out there and be like, hey, you wouldn't believe it.
They got a nice, like a thick catcher too, right? Real thick catcher. Real thick.
I actually think he looks like he's one of um he looks like he's a backyard baseball player like from the video game like he's he's like smushed i love that though and i love the three game series listen if we're in 2020 and we're not having 162 we're playing a 60 game season three game series all you gotta do is win two or three anybody at any point during the year can win two or three off of anybody so like it's it's sweet to see the jays in it first of all with all these young guys they're gonna be when they continue to get pitching i thought them getting reu was huge because it just kind of puts a starter in there now if they can go sign another one or two and they develop one of these young guys like nate pearson or something cool there's a force to be reckoned with because they got the pedigree right there with all those dads teaching them how to play the game. Would it be bittersweet as a Canadian if they won the World Series this year knowing that technically they're an American team this year? Yes.
It wouldn't be bittersweet. It would just be sweet.
Oh, okay. Let's see what other matchups are these.
The White Sox and the A's are the 2-7. The White Sox obviously they kind of – Alright, actually, this is a pointed question.
The White Sox were hot. Great season.
A lot of young talent. They've fallen off in the last couple weeks.
Now, do you think that was because they clinched and a little bit of foot off the gas? Or do you think there's, like, bigger issues that you've got to be worried about? I'm a little concerned for them. Just for the fact that, like, if your foot's off the gas for making the wild card, then there's something wrong.
Like you got to be trying to win your division. You want these three home games to have to travel all the way out West and play in Oakland, which is not an easy place to play in as a visiting player against a really good team in the A's who once again, just go out there and do what nobody thinks they're going to do and continue to win, win, win.
They got, like, one of the most exciting center fielders in Razor Ramon out there, or as they like to call him, Lazor Ramon. No, I just think that I wanted to see the Chicago White Sox play the Cubs in the World Series.
I think it would just be awesome because that sums up 2020. Cubs-White Sox World Series in Arlington with no fans.
Yeah, absolutely. So I just, yeah, I'm a little worried.
I watched all those games. I watched the three games against the Cubs.
I called one of them. You know, their offense was scuffling bad.
Luis Roberts in a big hole. Tim Anderson didn't even look like himself.
I mean, Abreu is still Abreu. He's hammering the baseball.
And then on top of that, pitching after Lucas Giolito.

I mean, I know Dallas Keiko, he's a veteran.

I'm not worried about him.

So in a three-game series when you got those two guys,

but if they get to one of them, they could be in some trouble.

What about the Twins and the Astros? Is it going to be like a sense of relief for the Houston players

knowing that with virtual certainty we're not going to get thrown at because it's the playoffs.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

I think that's probably a huge relief, especially the three game series.

You can't, you can't take anything for granted, but yeah.

And the twins are probably thankful that they went with plastic trash cans in

the dugouts. So, you know, things have gone

probably better than expected for the twins. They win their division or not better than expected, but they're a good team.
Losing Josh Donaldson hurts. That guy in your lineup, the bringer of range, is hitting taters all over the place.
But they mash. They had Granke on the ropes in the first, and they're really, really good.
They're stacked. They're better than people realize.
And so are the Astros. The tough part about it is, A, they're managed by Dusty Baker, like one of the man, dude.
He's just so awesome. And then, B, they've been there before.
And if they get any kind of good starting pitching, they're capable of beating anybody just because offensively they click. All of a sudden, at the end of the season, you notice the last week some guys were starting to swing the bat a little better.
George Springer got really hot. Altuve was swinging a good down the stretch.
So they got to get past the Twins, though. That's a tough first-round matchup right there.
Okay, so what about the Yankees and Indians? I actually think the Indians are going to win the AL. Shane Bieber's nasty.
Did he win? Is there a triple crown for – there should be a triple crown for pitchers. He won it Yeah.
Yeah. So ERA wins.
He's a young award winner. That's a no-brainer.
And strikeouts. So do you think – how do you see that one going, that series going, and how many times do you think they're going to show us video of the midges because that's an all-time moment that the Indians and Yankees when they played in the playoffs, like however long ago that was.
And you know what? That's not going to happen this year unless all of a sudden it spikes up to 80 degrees. It's a little bit cooler night there in Cleveland.
So, yeah, the Cleveland starting staff is good, man. And they came to Chicago a couple weeks back.
They lost both games, but they're loaded. Jose Ramirez firing right now, kind of hit his way back into MVP contention.
But at the end of the day, you see it every year, dude. The guys who get to the finals and are the last four teams standing, the last two teams standing, usually the last team standing, they have the best starting pitching.
And the Cleveland Indians are loaded. They're so loaded that they get traded Trevor Bauer and Mike Levenger and I'm like, we're good.
Yeah. We still have these guys.
Like, find teams out there that can do that. There's not many of them.
So, they're stacked. They got a sneaky good bullpen.
The dude, I'm thinking, losing his name right now, number 99, Ricky Vaughn. Kamachek, you know what I'm talking about.
He wears 99. He's got the haircut like him and everything.
Look at that guy's numbers and then watch him pitch. Throws 98 with like a ridiculous Fosch-type changeup.
It's unreal, man. He's like punching out 16 per nine.
And they're good. They're really, really good.
They score runs, but that pitching staff – good pitching beats good hitting every time, and they're loaded in the rotation. James Karinczak.
There we go. It's funny that you brought him on.
That guy's dirty, and he goes full 99 Rick Vaughn style with the haircut and all. What's the difference between being dirty and being nasty? Nasty is just somebody's got good stuff.
Dirty gets you out. What about filthy? That guy's nasty but like sometimes doesn't know where he's going dirty he knows where it's going and he's nasty and what about filthy filthy that's you're winning the cy young like you darvish just that's everything yeah you're throwing it all together i love remembering the midge game the midges game was it was incredible you always remember where you were i expected more wildlife games this year with nobody in the stands it's one of those nature's healing type things like there are no fans out there it might be like a pack of wolves or at least like a swarm of bees taking over a game the midges game special squirrels yeah the special part place in my heart because i i think it was the first time and i might be dating myself that i watched a sporting event in hdtv yeah and i was like holy shit like this is real maybe we should go back yeah these midges are in my living room what the fuck is going on um all right so let's switch the nl the dodgers and brewers we don't even have to talk about that that's a come on brewers thanks for coming out right i'm uh the only the only reason i say i'm leaning towards you and saying yes is because they they lost corbin burns and he he's the kind of pure stuff that can match up against that lineup the Dodgers rake and they just mash the baseball so you need you need to either locate incredibly well or you got to have overpowering stuff and they got a couple guys with some overpowering stuff but I just find it hard to believe that they're going to fly out to LA and beat those guys i just think the dodgers are just like you know they're drilling just waiting for everybody to come through there it's the eighth year in a row they won the division they're like now is our time so yeah counterpoint though playoff kershaw or do you think that the lack of fans is actually going to be a benefit to clayton kershaw yeah i think i think that he's kind of, in the last few years,

kind of figuring out a way to kind of get by that a little bit.

I think a lot of those numbers, if we

take them and split them down the middle,

the last four years are better than the

four years before that.

And he's nasty this year.

He did have a rough his last time out, but

he's really, really good this year.

So Reds, Braves, Reds are red

hot.

Braves are Atlanta sports, so we just assume that's going to end poorly. Any thoughts on that? I think as long as the Braves don't have a 28-3 lead, they got a shot of winning the series, you know? It's been rough down there.
Yes. I saw a thing the other day.
It said top 10 lineups in baseball and the Braves weren't on it.

And I just was scratching my head.

I felt like that person should have had their Twitter card taken away.

Yes.

It was like a legitimate source too. And I was just like, how are these guys?

Freddie Freeman is going to win the MVP.

And if you statistically look at it,

it might be the third best hitter on the team.

That's crazy.

But that's kind of how Twitter works though.

The wronger your opinions are, they give you that check. That's a great, by the way, that's a great line that we can throw out to people being like, did you know Freddie Freeman's going to win the MVP? He might not even be the third best hitter on the team.
Like, that's a sound smart at the bar line. Yeah, I mean, you look at what Acuna's doing at the top, and then Asuna, for some reason, has just flown under the the radar I think I saw some they hit more home runs in September than who was it hit 51 during the season was it the Nationals they hit like more home runs than one team hit in the whole year in one month so they're firing on all cylinders I know that the Reds got good pitching and they got Trevor Bauer is going to be you know he's going to be strutting it off the mound so I'm actually like is any series there? I'm just excited for that one because you got Hot Reds team, who Joey Votto had probably the quote of quotes.
That was pretty awesome to watch him say that. What do you say? I can't say it on TV.
Okay. All right.
I'll look it up. We're on a podcast, though.
So you can say it here. They asked – you can say anything? Yeah, you can say anything.
He said something about them being there, but he used an express – I was bleeped on PBS. I was watching it.
Okay. Okay.
Okay. And he let loose on that.
And I just think that they are. I think that they could cause some problems for people if they get by this run because you go back again to the Cleveland Indians, who has really good starting pitching, the Cincinnati Reds.
Right. So quick sidebar, I don't know if you saw, but our boss Dave got into a Twitter back and forth with Amir Garrett.
So I want your take on this. Amir Garrett, it showed him being like, he mouthed, I'm a bad motherfucker, and then he threw a slider.
If you say that, you got to bring the fastball, right? I mean, it's kind of standard. It's like you can't do that.
It's like sitting there doing that on the hardest shot in the NHL skills challenge, like right before that, and then flipping a quick little snapshot from the top. Right.
You got to come full Chara. You got to go all the way back and then just let her rip yeah you could say like that's my opinion but the dude also charged the entire pittsburgh pirates bench true without hesitation so i'm not gonna sit here and challenge that guy he's he's unafraid of most situations and he's and he's done a heck of a job right if you say i'm filthy i'm a filthy motherfucker then you can throw the slider right yes yes then you're implementing both yeah but if you drop like a nasty first then you're going heater yeah like I always loved like you know there's like a there's like the times I would do that in spring

training where you just like purposely go hey here it comes and then you throw a four-seam fastball

as hard as you could right down the middle and watch the dude park it on a berm somewhere while

somebody's drinking some daiquiris out there yeah I did that to Soto in spring training against the

Thank you. as you could right down the middle and watch the dude park it on a berm somewhere while somebody's drinking some daiquiris out there.
Yeah. I did that to Soto in spring training against Randy Wynn.
I go, hey, hit this. And I throw a four-seamer, and he, like, takes it down the middle.
And I go, you're not going to swing? And I throw another one, and he hits it like 450. And after the inning, Soto goes, dude, what are you doing? And I go, man, he's going to be looking for that pitch all year and I'm never going to throw that.
I've seen Trevor Bauer do that. He's done the like, I'm giving you the fastball and then he actually throws the fastball afterwards.
I respect that. Yeah.
Yeah. I think she did that in an all-star game, maybe to bonds or something like that.
That's fun. That's find out what you got.
Why not? Let's find out what you got. Model a model.
Come on. What about in San Diego, St.
Louis? If Fernando Tatis does a bat flip like he's capable of, do you think that all Cardinals fans will spontaneously just burst into flames and they'll all write letters to the editor? Like, that's Aussies. You don't do that.
Yeah. I think that the Padres are this unknown super force there that's like, I don't know if this is the year.
I almost liken the Padres to the 15 Cubs. You know, like I feel like they're a year away, another starting pitch.
When you lose Clevenger to the bicep thing, Lamant down, those two guys, you need that stuff out there. St.
Louis, man, they're St. Louis.
They somehow always find a way to just be competitive so yeah it'll be fun I'll enjoy you know Tatis just chucking some bats and you know swinging 3-0 and you know Machado in the background just shaking his head because he's worried he's going to get drilled afterwards yeah it's that's a fun series those two teams teams. San Diego's fun.
They're fun to watch, man. Tons of fun.
All right, the Cubs. I'm going to talk Cubs baseball real quick.
I've been dying to do it because I need you to talk me off the ledge. You know the team very well.
You know a lot of the guys. You obviously know David Ross very well.
You know, know, you call games. Uh, what the fuck with the offense? Like where, tell me that it's going to be okay because I've, this feels like the same thing the last few years since they won the world series where the offense can just disappear and it disappears altogether and all at the same time and all at the worst time.
And we saw it down the stretch. I think they had like 13 home runs runs maybe they had a couple more at the end of the uh month but they were they can't hit consistently give me the like it's gonna be okay talk yeah i think the last series against the white socks let you know it's gonna be okay and i thought that all started with chris bryant just dropping i don't give a shit think about that think about just for a second take that all in there's Chris Bryant right America's boy you know second overall pick uh you know Golden Spikes winner rookie of the year MVP World Series champion doing everything right you know he's Zac Efron doing the express model ads I mean this guy's handsome he answers every question perfectly and he just got fed up and he's just like I just don't give a shit Homer I don't give a shit Homer like he just didn't care anymore and I just think like it set a tone not just for him but for everybody in that locker room really quickly and things can change on a dime man like you can all of a sudden see it where all of a sudden it's like we they know they're good and and then all of a sudden it just like it was an adrenaline shot and they played against a team that was trying to win the division so it wasn't like some team that was out of it uh they were hitting plus velocity no matter how hard guys were throwing they're just hitting taters and wilson's chucking bats to the moon and it just gave edge and i love the fact that it gave edge when you have a bunch of guys who just kind of become like known as, you know, they just go about their business.
They're great teammates. They're great people in the city.
Everybody loves them. They just had a little bit of edge.
It's almost like, you know, Rossi always played with edge. It's like, and then he had their back, and then everybody had their back.
And, you know, I think they're dangerous. They got great starting pitching.
They got a really, really underrated bullpen because nobody knows about them. And if those guys start swinging the bat like they just did in this last weekend and continue that, people are in trouble, man, because when you've got pedigree that have done what they've done, if that matches up, man, people are in big trouble.
Yeah, their bullpen has kind of fixed itself, which is nice because it was bad at the beginning of the year. I agree with you on the Chris Bryant thing.
I actually tweeted the minute I saw it. I was like, I'm all the way back in because if Chris Bryant is swearing, it takes a lot for that guy to swear.
What do you think, though, about the magical chains? So the story goes that I think they're Mike Napoli's chains. He gave them to Rizzo.
Rizzo gave them to Chris Bryant and was like, trust me, these chains, this jewelry has power. And he hit a grand slam with them on.
Do you buy into that, those type of superstitions when it comes to baseball? Yes. Okay, good answer.
I believe you can will things to happen. I believe you can tell your teammates things to happen.
You know, just like it can go the other way where you start to doubt yourself, you start to believe in yourself. I know it's like the Tony Robbins thing, right? Like if you believe it, you can achieve it.
Or it was a bumper sticker. I'm not really sure where I saw that.
But the fact is, is that when you when you have guys are in your corner and they tell you that, you know, it's like the old, hey, use my bat. It's got homers in it.
Oh, it's got a homer in it. I'm going to hit a homer.
It's like, you know, that just, that steamrolls, man. When you're around that, it just steamrolls.
I watched it in 2016, being around those guys when they did that. I witnessed it firsthand in 2013 with the Red Sox when we did it.
We talked that World Series into existence, you know. We fueled off the fans in Boston and the city that was reeling from what they were overcoming and the bombing.
And we just, like, yeah, nobody's going to beat us. You know, we're rolling into the hotel in Baltimore at 3.30 in the morning.
And Pedroia is yelling at Buck Showalter. Like, good try.
Showalter is not going to work with the night game, day game tomorrow. You can't get us.
Like, like it just when you exude that within your tight group. Yeah.
So when Tony 2 Chainz is handing his 2 Chainz over to KB and he's saying, hey, just trust me on this. Tell me KB is not going to trust Anthony.
That's his guy. Automatically gives a positive thought in your head.
And the more you get those positive thoughts, the more good things happen. And then you reinforce it with a tater that lands on the Edens.
Come on, man. It's good stuff.
It's it's really really good stuff and then what you do is you give them to somebody else and you share the wealth somebody else needs it for a second here hey you go deep you wear the change you your turn i would love for them to just pass it off hitter to hitter and just be like in mid game right at home plate as you come across home plate just take it off and put it on the other guy yes Yeah, and then once a guy strikes out, that guy has to wear it until he hits a home run.

Now it's back in good luck.

Yes.

You never hand it off on a bad streak. It reminds me of that one postseason that the fight and necklaces all showed up all at once.

And that worked.

That worked.

Players that wore those necklaces for some reason were all over my TV in the championship and in the World Series.

Were you around when those first came out? Remember uh yeah were you like what the hell how come everyone got these at the same time yeah and then we didn't get them at first because i was playing with the marlins you know like we got everything like we were like the minor league team like a big league teams like filed all that in a box and we got it the following year we were wearing puka shells instead because of of Malari. He's like, here, wear these.
They're just like the fight necklaces. They weigh, way more and they cut your neck every pitch you throw.
But, hey, I threw a shutout with one of them on, so it was good. There you go.
So I feel better about the Cubs after what you just said. Were you surprised at all that Hendricks is pitching game one and not you, Darvish? No.
I think that, you know, given Kyle's track record, you know, I know he was, in my opinion, he should be the Cy Young Award winner this year. And he's pitched great.
Kyle's pitched is a tick below that. I mean, the guy threw a shot on an opening day.
He pitched strong all the way through every time they needed him. He's pitched in game seven of the World Series, started that.
I love Kyle Schwarber's line today. He said he's probably not going to smile, probably won't frown either.
He's just a steady Eddie, man. It's like the epitome of keeping your heart rate where you need to be.
And maybe you have you right behind him, and David Ross is lucky, man. He's got two aces, and those guys are really, really good.
Yeah, I mean, I love Kyle Hendricks love i i'm gonna try to do a prop bet on our

sports book about kyle hendrix is he like i don't know how many times he's done it but it feels like every time he goes out there uh he's he'll be like eight innings 95 pitches and you're like how the fuck is he doing this and he's just he's incredible um all right so i had a couple last cubs questions One was, were you pro or against Kerry Woods smashing Sammy Sosa's boombox? Kerry Woods smashed Sammy Sosa's boombox. God, so you do know the tricks of this question.
So did he? I'm still trying to figure out who smashed that boombox. You know who smashed it.
Come on. I did love when that boombox would play the same song over and over because that usually meant that Sammy was going deep.
Like, that's how that boombox works. So if Sammy hit a homer, like, and Kool and the Gang played before the game, Kool and Gang was on for a week.
And usually Sammy went on a, you know, a roll there, and we were celebrating good times. So, you know, every once in a while he'd put on some, like, some shot A and it just kind of lulled us all to sleep, but that was okay.
It was the high energy stuff that we really appreciated. So Kerry did smash it, right? I'm totally unaware.
I'd have to speak to Kerry about that. I'll ask around and next time I'm on, I'll get back to you on that.
How the hell is like, how the hell do we not have definitive proof on who smashed him? Why are you guys not, why can't anyone say it? Here's the other one. Who smashed the pipes in 2008 in Dodger Stadium? Yeah, oh my God, that was a disaster.
Yeah. Yeah.
All it was, I was leaving the dugout and I needed a canoe to get back up to the clubhouse. Yeah, that was just an awful series.
I'm not going to sleep for a week now. that mark de rosa home run was and then the cubs never led again i remember being so jacked up about that and being like holy shit this is awesome and then that was the last time they had the lead but was it you can just say this one like it was jim edmonds right like because he's more of a cardinal than a cub so he's the asshole who smashed the pipes in Dodger Stadium.
He made up there.

I think it was Wendell Kim.

I don't know.

I'm not really sure.

Wendell Kim.

All right.

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So Ryan Dempster, give us your World Series and your champion. All right, here it is.
The World Series coming from the National League is going to be the Chicago Cubs. Mm-hmm.
And coming from the American League is going to be the Oakland A's. Oh.
And who's going to win? Yeah. And I'm going to go with the Cubs in six.
Okay. Like it.
Is there an asterisk because of the season? Not if the Cubs win. Not if the Cubs win.
Not if the Cubs win. If the Cubs win, then it's not an asterisk.
Are the Marlins – I'll give it to the Marlins just so we can keep that storyline going of every time the Marlins get into the playoffs, they win the World Series. Mm-hmm the Florida Marlins, the Miami Marlins.
It's different, right? So good point. You don't have a statue.
You don't have a fish. Yes.
Oh, I remember my last question is Len Casper, the coolest guy in the world. Dude, Len is so awesome, man.
He is so great. Knows all about music, plays guitar, like just knows everything about baseball, smooth as could be announcing games.
He just seems like he's like one of those guys you're like, okay, you're just cooler than me and you're not even trying. And like so prepared and just like tease you up on stuff when you're up there working with him.
And he's like pop trivia, you know, current event trivia, movies, music. I mean, like you said, plays guitar.
Like would totally be comfortable if somebody was like, hey, dude, can you sit in because like, you know, we're missing our guitar player. And he'd be like, yeah, I got it.
Let's go. That's like he's just like he's – I love Len Casper to death, and he is just a blast, man.
All right. Well, Ryan, this has been awesome, man.
We really appreciate you. I have one last question.
This is something I've been wondering. I've talked to a few ballplayers about this.
They seem to gravitate towards the idea. Did it ever occur to you when you were pitching that maybe if there was nobody on base and there were fewer than two strikes, you could just take your catcher and then put him in between second and first base and then just throw a pitch to nobody and just being the umpire.
But as long as it went across home plate, it was a strike. Dude, you're honest.
Did I just fix baseball, the mega shift? I mean, now we're taking the shift to another level right there. Yeah.
You know, and if you play in some places, you could still do it with two strikes because if you're throwing a heater, I mean, odds are it's going to bounce back off the wall. If you're good at fielding your position, your fleet of foot, why not? I'll go get it and throw you out.
Yeah, plus you get a chance to bean Joe West. That's fun.
Yeah, that would be great. Only when Joe's umpiring would you do it.
Just like him or I won't even say the other guy. No, Joe's great umpiring.
Joe, in my career, had the best strikes on any umpire. Tim and Tim McClung, the best strikes.
Wow. Say something nice about Joe West.
All right. Well, Ryan, thank you so much.
Again, everyone can find Ryan on Dempster, at Dempster46, at Dempster46, 46 on Instagram, at Dempster46 on Twitter, Marquee Network, off the mound with Ryan Dempster, MLB Network. He's everywhere.
He's the hardest-working man in baseball. Thank you so much.
We appreciate it, man. Hey, guys, anytime, man.
Thank you guys for having me on. I really appreciate it.
That was fun. That was great, man.
Thank you. That was great.
So it was Kerry, though, right? We're not recording anymore. I have no clue.
Yeah. I just came into the clubhouse and I'm like, man, this thing's all broken.
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it was Kerry, though.
I'll dig around, though, and find out. You guys took a blood oath.
Yeah, yeah. It was like a piece of paper with all of your fingerprints on it.
That interview with Ryan Dempster was brought to you by 3Chi, our great friends at 3Chi. True story, took a 3Chi over the weekend.
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And now, Army's fullback coach, Mike Vitti. Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest.
It is football guy of the week. It is Coach Mike Vitti from Army.
He is assistant coach of Army, also the fullbacks coach. And we'll talk about some other stuff, but we got to start with why you won Football Guy of the Week.
You got headbutted by one of your players on the sideline, which was the ultimate football guy move to headbutt a coach who doesn't have a helmet on. Now, a little birdie told me that you weren't mad that you got headbutted.
You were mad that you looked dazed for a second, which makes you even more of a football guy, that you were just more pissed that you might have shown a moment of weakness. No doubt.
Mike Johnson and I are kindred spirits. We're cut from the same mold.
He's a blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth kid. He's one of our team captains.
I was a former team captain. We were starting to get things rolling on offense.
It was a media timeout, and I was fired up, and I misread the chest bump, and it was probably more my lack of athleticism showing up in that moment and took a good one. Did you have to go into the blue concussion tent afterwards, or did you take a protocol? Because it looked like you were standing eight count there for a while.
It was the first time I've been knocked out on my feet. I've been knocked out before.
If I would have took one more step, if Coach Monkenwell wasn't behind me on that one and I took another step, I would have been down. like, I was more disappointed on number one, that it happened and I reacted very softly for about 10 seconds.
And then number two, finding out afterwards that more than just the immediate army football huddle knew about it was a little bit straining. Yeah.
It was viral very fast. What was that like? When did you realize that you had been captured on camera? You know, just checking in with friends and family after the game and you just see your phone lit up, are you okay? Having a text from my mom, you know, my wife, my sister, and then, you know, when your mom, sister, and wife are checking on you after a game, you know it's probably went somewhere pretty fast.
Well, so you got a nice shiner we're looking at you right now you have a nice shiner yeah you that's not that's a nice looking uh black eye um i do i i think it is a moment where you probably were like man i wish i was tougher and i watched it and i was like i would be out for weeks and weeks and weeks like that would have been we would have had to cancel the podcast I would have been in a hospital bed and uh you know really milked it so so for the general population I'd say you're the toughest guy uh for the weekend after that appreciate that um I think the worst four-letter word coach Munkin says this all the time and I concur that you can be called in the English languages soft. Yeah, so, all right, you're not – I mean, yeah, you obviously are not soft for many, many reasons.
I also wanted to talk about your Legacy is Alive Foundation. So you did a tour in Afghanistan.
When you came back trying to figure out what the next step was after Army, you walked across the country is that right you walked across the country for uh you know families that lost military members overseas how long did it take you and also like were you tired i'm tired just thinking about it yeah so um back in 2014 um you know some advice if you're ever going to to walk across America and you walk both coasts, you always get short of the coast. I actually walked from the entire west coast and across the southern part of the United States and up the east coast.
And the reason for it, really, it's not so much the journey, but the message to get, you know, the families of our fallen and the warriors who lost their lives during the global war on terrorism. I wanted to walk one kilometer through their hometowns, meet their families and introduce America to our nation's Gold Star families and honor the legacies of brave men and women who gave up absolutely everything for our freedoms and liberties.
And, you know, as a combat veteran, you know, those, the least we can do is find ways to service people when we get back to our normal is to continue to bring them forth in the present. And really, that's what that mission is about.
That's what Legacies Alive is about. It's about honoring our nation's Gold Star families, because really, they're footing the bill for 15 plus years of war.
I agree with that. I think the fathers, the children, and those are the people who we need to rally around.
And that was the mission. It took 232 days.
It was a very, very, you know, tiring event. And more mentally and emotionally, when you meet the families and they're sharing with you intimate details of how it's, you know, forever changed the course of their life.
That's something that it'll change you. And ultimately, I think that's a big reason why I'm back at West Point and coaching the guys I get to coach is, you know, football is our vehicle.
You know, football is the greatest leadership laboratory we have, I believe, to teach young men what service is going to look like to prepare for an opponent who's preparing to defeat you, to keep their composure, to exercise leadership, agility, emotional awareness, and just the planning that goes into it. And then the execution, they get immediate feedback.
They have to work not just by themselves, but amongst the team. And, you know, it's a neat thing to see it full circle.
And, you know, that's what the journey was about and not just forgetting those men and women. That was such a football guy quote.
We're going to quote that. The football is like the greatest laboratory for teaching, you know, the youth.
So wait, let me get this straight. You ran up the score on walking across the country.
You walked down one coast across the country and up the other coast. You ran up the score.
I ran up the score because we, you know, you couldn't do it a straight shot. LA to New York would not have got it done.
I carried a flag with me and wrote the names on that flag of each person I was walking for that day. And the nearly 7,000 people on that flag just took a longer course.
So that's why. I agree with that.
I think one of the most patriotic things you can do is take care of the people that have lost it all and take care of their families when they're not around to do that. So thank you for kind of taking that upon yourself to bring awareness to that.

I have to imagine that also, you know, finding people who have dealt with a significant loss like that gives you a perspective of like, you know, I'm very lucky to still be here

and here are the things that are important that we can do to honor the people

that are no longer lucky enough to be around. I couldn't agree more.
You know, the families are gold star families. We have a family reunion every year at Army Navy.
We have events all over the country and they are our family. You know, whether it's them losing a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, you know, a brother, a sister, you know, that's what Legacies of Life is about.
It's those social settings that they no longer have. And really, you know, when you're in the military and you lose someone that you've been around the military for 15, 20 years, your life, your identity is almost taken from you when you lose your service member.
And, you know, the military is a huge family. You know, it's a brotherhood, it's a sisterhood, but we always, you know, it's a community as well.
And that's what we try to provide is a social network and a community for our Gold Star families. I think that's great.
But just from like a logistical standpoint, my brain wanders to the idea of like, okay, I'm picturing myself on the open road walking all day. What was the bathroom situation like? um inside of the road you know behind a

behind a tree

you know behind it behind a tree you know any anywhere you can find it you know there's not a lot of rest stops or anything like that in the in the american southwest and you know no big deal i mean there's nothing more alpha than pissing outdoors so you just basically did that for 200 plus days so that's the dream yeah that is the dream so to bring it back to football real quick you played at army you coached the fullbacks at army we were talking briefly before we started is there any better feeling in the world when the triple option works and you know there's nothing the opponent can do to stop it no it's it's you know there's a reason why this offense has stood the right? And, you know, it's poetry in motion when you watch it, but it's one of the most violent offenses. You know, you talk to a defense after they've played it and they can't figure it out or they don't know what's going on.
It's a very aggressive offense. It fits, you know, the type of players that we want in this program.
Tough guys, humble guys, intelligent guys, guys that don't care if they get the ball 30 times or once. And, you know, that's, that's what it's about.
I don't think there's a greater offense on the face of the planet and you can see it kind of coming back, you know, watch what the Ravens are doing. Yeah.
There's a scheme in it and it's just coming from the gun and it looks a little bit more sexier and it's just window dressing. So, but when it comes down to it, it's controlling the line of scrimmage it's making the right reads it's it's working in harmony it's working as a team and that's that's why i love it have you ever thought has a coach ever thought about uh putting in like an air raid package and fucking up the opponent because i've always thought that army you spend so much energy getting ready for the triple option if you guys came out went five wide and was like yeah we're just not running the triple option today uh has that crossed his mind i think our fan base would revolt yeah yeah that's not a fan base that you want to entice to revolt either no doubt no doubt so i think it's a culture thing too i mean it's like it's a scheme the scheme's got to fit the school the culture of the school and what you know how you win i think there's there's a culture thing, too.
It's a scheme. The scheme's got to fit the school, the culture of the school, how you win.
I think there's a formula at every school. There's nothing wrong with what we got and how we do it.
I don't think we'd ever change it or experiment with anything else. When you guys call pass play, is there a part of you that just cringes up real quick and you're like, no, we should lower the ball here.
Come on. No doubt.
You throw the ball right three things can happen and two of them are bad yeah you can pass an interception or you know like so why it's that simple it is it is do you think that you have the most masculine job title in america fullbacks coach at army yeah i coach america's backs i mean i call the war stable of war horses and absolutely show me show me otherwise i mean these guys are you know broad shoulder square job clenched fist guys who are getting after you know playing fps level football for four years and then they're going to go fight and win our nation's wars yeah yeah we've got um we do an annual award here called the low man trophy and slocum was on he was on on the short list last year. So we look across the country.
We try to identify the best fullbacks in college football. Do you have any that you think that maybe we should be keeping our eyes on? That's probably a bad phrase.
You just obviously got a helmet to your orbital bone. But who are you looking at when you think of the nation's top fullbacks right now? All four of ours.
You know, most guys, they look at the fullback position. It's a unit for us.
We rotate four guys. The first 12 plays of our game on Saturday, we played five fullbacks.
You know, it's not just, you know, we got Santa McCoy. We got Cade Bernard.
We got Anthony Atkins, Jacoby Buchanan. All four of those guys are going to get carries..
It's just what it is. It's a unit.
In our program, it's a unit. We don't call it a position group.
It's a unit. You look back all the way to 16 when we really started creating a unit.
We're better when we're playing three or four of those guys. Each of those guys guys have a different skill set, and we pride ourselves on it.

It was Slomka last year.

Yeah, yeah.

Slomka, yeah, Connor Slomka.

Yeah.

So I had one last question.

We are with our football guy of the week, Coach Vitti from Army.

So obviously Army-Navy, we've been to a few of the games the last few years.

It is a bucket list game if you're a sports fan listening right now.

It is such an experience. You just have to try to get to it at one point in your life.
But I know there is bad blood between Army and Navy now. Do you guys, though, like in the back of your head, do you root for Navy when they're not playing Army, or is it just always we want Navy to lose? That's a good question, though, because they're military.
Navy's playing BYU. Do you root for Navy? I respect the fact that Navy does much of the same things we do after.
For those four years, it's a different story. Okay.
There's guys that have served in the Marines, guys who have walked the walk and done the damn thing. And I, those are some of the finest men and women I've ever could ever tell you about guys that I just have ultra respect for these four years though.
We're never on the same team. Okay.
It's's just it's just that simple and we're competing for the same thing and you know i think there's a mutual understanding you know respect is there but there's a mutual understanding of what it's about over these four years so but afterwards and after the service side is complete i think that's, you know, everybody wants to tell the very nice, warm and fuzzy story that, you know, they're on the same. We're not, we're not until it's over.
Like that's until the service side is done too. You know, like that, that to me, after you play army football, after you serve your country, that's when you become an army West Point football player until then, you you know what I mean? You're standing on the shoulders of giants, right? So I think after that walk is complete, metaphorically, for each of those schools, through the four years of playing Division I football at a Tier I institution, until your serve side is done, then you can look each other in the eye and, and kind of, you know, you know, bow your head and, and, and have a mutual understanding, but not yet.
Okay. That's a perfect answer.
What about air force? I feel like air force gets left out of this conversation a lot. Do you just kind of, I mean, let's call it what it is.
Yeah. I love it.
I love it. Oh, man.
Well, Coach Vidi, thank you so much. We appreciate it.
You are football guy of the week. We do an end-of-the-year award, so I'd say that you're probably in the running here already for that.
Maybe we'll have to have everyone show up and wrestle, and then you can win it that way. But we appreciate your time.
And, I mean, again, the fact that you took a helmet to the face and you're like the worst part about it was that you showed 10 seconds of weakness. You're a boss.
Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.
It's an honor to be on your show. And thanks for the award.
All right. Thank you.
Thanks, man. Have a good one.
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I've got a hurt or injured that we should get around to. Oh, yeah, okay.
Hurt or injured, Tennessee Titans. Okay.
So I think, what, three of their players tested positive for COVID? Eight. I think five of their staff.
So combined with three of the players, that's eight, Billy. That's good speed math on your part.
But they don't know if they're going to play this weekend. They're not allowed in the facility.
Yeah. I think the Vikings aren't allowed in the facility.
They might play Monday night. They might play Tuesday night.
Please credit Pat McAfee for the huge breaking news. Yes.
That he said that he knew before everyone but didn't say anything. So credit him.
That was him. Yep.
But yeah, we knew this was going to happen, right? Yes. I was saying.
At some point, if you don't have a bubble, it's going to happen. Well, I was saying, and tell me what you think about this.
I guarantee that there has been a NFL player that has played a game this year with coronavirus. And it might be on the Titans.
Right. But like they, I think the NFL's plan was let's just keep it all like hush hush until a team has a lot.
Unless there's an outbreak. Right.
Because to go three weeks with zero positive tests, that's insane. And I'm not a testing expert, but I'm pretty sure that you can test like the day of a game and you can then contract the disease or you can start like becoming contagious for it later on that day right after you've tested negative for so it was going to happen at some point um i just i think that the titans should probably refund everybody that bet on the vikings money line last weekend if they did have a player that played with the coronavirus i think it's the least that they can do is just help people out.

But now the biggest tragedy

is Mike Zimmer is not allowed

to go to the football facility this week.

And I don't know what he's going to do.

Yeah, he's probably...

I would imagine Mike Zimmer

just goes out into his garage

and just punches like a cement wall.

Yeah.

I imagine that Mike Zimmer just...

He'll find a nearby high school football field.

Yeah.

And he'll just go like sit on the 50-yard line the Ducks. Right.
Yeah, just with a whistle. Just blowing his whistle at the Ducks.
And crying through his good eye. And then we also, do you want to do the sabermetrics real quick, and then we'll do guys on chicks? Yes.
The sabermetrics was crazy. So Hank sent this to us.
It was that because the, what was it? Tell it to us, Hank. I'm pulling pulling it up but it won't pull up uh Rondo and Jared Dudley were Shaq's teammates so that basically ensures that so was LeBron so that's what I thought that we were talking about was LeBron I guess him too uh it basically ensures it ensures that Shaq has had a teammate that's played in the NBA finals dating years.
Yeah. 1984.
Since Udonis Haslam is never going to retire, that's going to extend for another 10 years. That's crazy.
So, 1984. So, Shaq, yeah, we'd have to go through, like, all the rosters and see who's going to carry this on.
I guess LeBron. LeBron for right now.
He's the Kevin Bacon of NBA Finals. He's connected in some way to everybody.
LeBron would be one.

Yeah, I think it's like LeBron and Udonis.

Yeah.

Who did it last year for him?

That's a question.

Ooh, last year.

I don't know.

I'd like to see a list.

Someone give me a list.

All right, we'll figure that out.

We'll get more stats.

Does he count the national team? I don't think so. I don't think so.
Iggy? Maybe. I'll think about that.
I wish we had a stats guy or something. Hey, guys.
Just watching baseball. Hi, guys.
I'm dating a... She said guys in the first four words.
Hi, guys. A guy I'm dating mentioned having children and getting married on our second date.
I was a little weirded out, but ultimately let it go, thinking he just wants to get married and have kids someday and wants that to be clear. Well, now that it's been a week and he's constantly talking about our children and marriage, I really like him, but this is freaking me out.
I would rather have a demon snatch a fetus from my womb than have a child in the next few years. Is this something guys sometimes do because they think a girl wants to hear about marriage and kids or should i be concerned this man is going to poke a hole in the condom help what should i do you should tell him that uh you're really into babies too but you want a guy you want to you want to have it like that movie with ormond schwarzenegger jr yes that you want the man to take a big responsibility so you want him to get pregnant i like that so he wait what'd he say right away he was like I want to get married second second date that's kind of a baller move heart wants what the heart wants let it happen or you can just be like well that sucks cuz I'm I'm just really into blowjobs and nothing else right and then see what he says to that.
That works too. That's a great way to drive a guy away.

Maybe Jonas Jarebko?

I was thinking CJ Miles.

Danny Green.

Danny Green.

There we go.

Danny Green.

Hey, Big Cat and PFT.

We were the first guys on Chick Question.

I was not listening whatsoever.

I was trying to fucking find this Shaq teammate.

Serious question that chicks need an answer to. Why won't my boyfriend

let me touch his gooch?

It's very ticklish.

You can't touch his gooch. It's a no-fly zone.

It's also probably smells bad. It's also slippery

smells very bad. Yeah, you never know what's down there either.

You're just saving stuff.

You're an inch away from a dark place.

Death Valley. Dancing on the fault line.

It's football season. The goochs

are no-fly zone during football season.

Sup, boys, especially Bubby and Belly Football.

I've recently gotten an IUD and started letting my boyfriend finish inside me.

Hot.

That's so hot.

I thought she was talking about a roadside bomb for a second.

Last night.

Now I get...

Okay.

C4.

Last night when he did, he softly blurted out, filling up the gas tank, $1.99 a gallon. Was this weird or should I laugh it off? Thanks, Bobby.
That's fucking funny. It's like calling an audible when you switch positions.
That is fucking funny. If you can't laugh in bed, then I'm straight out of luck because I'm not going to make you scream.

That's fucking funny.

All right.

This is maybe the most important Gazan Chicks ever.

Sup, boys, especially Big Cat Daddy.

As a girl in her early to mid-20s, I have a curiosity I can't shake.

Is Billy Football bangable?

Yes.

Or would I want to punch him in the face?

Both.

Or maybe both at the same time? Yes. Thanks in advance for your advice.
Sincerely, I just got to know. I think probably both.
Billy's for sure bangable. I don't like being objectified.
Well, Billy, like guy to guy? Guy to guy, Billy? Like, I'd bang you. I think Jake's pretty bangable.
No, don't switch this off. Don't defer this, Billy.
I think that you'd want to bang Billy. Yeah, you want to marry Jake.
Yeah, you definitely want to marry Jake, bang Billy, kill Bubba. That's easy.
Like Jake is the one that you spend the rest of your life with. Billy, you just anal.
You anal Billy. You just want to anal Billy.
KY Jelly Football. You want to experience things in the bed with Billy that you've never thought you could experience.
I put up a lot. He's a rebound guy.
You're a big-time rebound guy. What does that even mean? That's good, dude.
You see Billy at the bar, and you're like, I've got to get over my... That guy's above 6'2".
He's tall. Ben Wallace.
I look good in shorts. You get chicken legs.
We need to get you new shoes by the way. I'm gonna buy you a pair of shoes.
I saw your shoes getting roasted the other day. What size shoe do you wear? What size shoe do you wear? 14s.
I buy You hear that girls? What size shoe do you wear Jake? I buy 12. 12.
12. 12.
Oh, Jake's 12. Still pretty good, though.
I buy AF1s in bulk, and then I trade them out. You're like Dr.
Dre. So where's the trade-out? What size of shoes do you wear? Well, my next formal...
There's no way you buy them in bulk. Yeah, because you...
Yeah, I buy a couple. Well, where is the next pair? The next pair is coming.
My next formal attire that I put a new one on. You bought them in bulk.
Well, I put the new one. I haven't worn through these yet.
Yeah, I'd say that you have. Yeah.
They're so gross, dude. Yeah, it's pretty nasty.
Anyway, I'm not bangable. Yeah, you are.
You're fuckable. You're a treat.
You're snack. You would want to punch Billy before you banged him, and then afterwards you want to punch yourself.
Mm-hmm. This is just...
What? I recently discovered a trick from TikTok. I want to spit in Billy's mouth.
This is fucked up. I recently discovered a trick from TikTok regarding fart bombing.
So when a girl is new to seeing or dating a guy, they naturally are embarrassed to fart a poop around them. Sometimes when girls are peering mid-flow, a fart just sneaks out and could potentially be loud, aka a fart bomb.
TikTok has taught me that taught me fold some paper and stick it in your butthole to prevent that. Would you guys be turned off if you overheard a girl fart bomb into the toilet when you first started talking to her? Thanks with love, boys.
I think the alternative like seeing a girl crumple up a piece of paper and jam it into her ass while she's peeing is less sexy than hearing her fart. Mm-hmm.
Fart bomb? That's just funny. You're just talking about farting while you pee.
Sounds like Jeff Van Gundy. Mm-hmm.
Hi, Cake and Company. My boyfriend is a hardcore AWL and Blake kept a stan.
Recently, when we were watching the U.S. Open together, I briefly mentioned how strong he is saying...

Wait.

Fuck.

I think I copy-pasted this wrong.

I, uh...

Recently watching the U.S. Open together, I briefly mentioned how strong he was, and he got mad saying,

anyone can look like that.

Is he insecure of himself, or is this a justified response?

Thanks.

I wouldn't say insecure. Anyone can look like that.
Yes, anyone can look like that. Is he insecure of himself, or is this a justified response? Thanks.
I wouldn't say insecure. Yes, anyone can, but no one has...
Well, no, not anyone. There are certain people that would never in a million years look like that.
Wait, I think I know what happened. This was during the U.S.
Open, you say? Yeah. She accidentally said that about Bryson.
Blake wasn't in the U.S. Open.
She probably looked at Bryson, thought he was strong, and then he rightfully said that anyone can look like that. Creatine, ever heard of it? If they just take steroids and drink nine protein shakes today.
It just bloats you. Right.
And just go swimming in salt all day long and get stung by 40 bees that you then complain to a rules official about. The poor twins.

They just are so sad.

They're such a sad franchise.

It was 1-1.

It was 1-0.

I thought they were going to beat the Astros.

Didn't they used to have pinstripes?

And they've just completely imploded in this ninth inning.

Am I making that up?

Did not the Jack McDowell Kirby Puckett? Yeah, you would. Kent Herbeck.
Behind home plate right now. From Little Big League.
Billy Haywood. Oh, yeah, I see him.
They had pinstripes in that movie. They're just such a sad.
It's just sad. I actually thought that Little Big League could happen to me one day when I saw it.
Even though my parents didn't own a professional sports team. That and Rookie of the Year.
Rookie of the Year could happen. Yeah, it still could happen.
You just break your arm in the right place. All right, last one.
This is a follow-up from last week. My boyfriend and I took PFC's advice from last week's show and started gambling together on the same game so we were never against each other.
Because I was so hot, we went with all my picks. But unfortunately, I had a tough weekend, and now my boyfriend is mad at me because he said I'm making him lose on purpose.
Can you explain this on my fault? For reference, I had Falcons minus three in the over in the Chiefs game. How do I make him not mad at me? Those were the right bets.
Give him a winner. Tell him that they were the right bets because they were.
The Chiefs over should have hit. And by the way, I went back.
I looked at the tape of the field goal in the first half. That ball was in.
Really? The ball went over the upright. They didn't show you the from below angle.
If the ball goes over the upright, it counts. I thought that too.
It counts. It's bullshit.
I was surprised more people weren't saying that in real time. They showed the replay and they showed him reacting and I was like, that looked like it was good.
What happened was Bucker said it was good. He put his hands up and then the ref on the field is like, I'm not going to get shown up by a kicker.
I'm a ref. This is the only person that I can compete with in terms of how cool I am.
So he was like, no. It's like when you run to first base on ball four, the umpire is always going to call a strike on that.
You don't want to show him up. That's what happened.
It's bullshit. That is bullshit.
Fuck that. Count it as a win.
Tell him I said that. Count it as a win.
All right. That's our show.
Want to do a number real quick before we go?

Love you guys.

Billy, you got a stat?

Billy, did you hear our impression?

Yeah, I did.

That was funny.

I listened to the show.

That was all dogs go to heaven.

Anyway, Pumas, Mountain Lions, and Cougars are all different names for the same big cat.

That's fascinating.

So Puma is also a Cougar.

Yeah.

And a Puma is a Mountain Lion.

Thank you. are all different names for the same big cat.
That's fascinating. So Puma is also a cougar.
Yeah. And a Puma is a mountain lion.
Puma Swede. Shout out Puma Swede.
Yeah, big time shout out. She's definitely a cougar.
And a Puma. And a mountain lion.
All right. What do you got numbers? I'm going 18.
20, 85, 17,

23.

I can't, I can't not say I can't.

I'm so rattled to not say 17.

What is it?

90,

90.

It's a trash number.

Trash number.

Oh,

wait,

what the,

you didn't put all the numbers?

No,

we didn't put them all back in there.

So it's rigged.

Love you guys.

It is rigged.

It is rigged. I'm talking away I don't know what I have to say I'm saved anyway Today is my day to find you Shine away I'll be coming for your love again Shining away Thank you.
I'm a little late. So I'm learning when life is okay.

Stay on me.

It's better to be safe than somebody.

Stay on me.

It's better to be safe than somebody. Stay on me.

Stay on me.

Stay on me.

Stay on me. Drink on the ice Drink on the ice Drink on the ice Drink on the ice Things that are the same Is it all I want? Just to play my worries away You are the things I've got to remember Thank you.
Take on me Take on me Take on me Take on me Take on me Take on me We are We are Take me out.