Barry Zito, Texans Will Fuller, Playoff Kershaw + NFL Week 6 Preview

Speaker 1 Hey, pardon my take, listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

Speaker 2 The Pro Football Football Show is presented by the Chevy Silverado. Built for the hustle, ready for the game, Chevy Silverado is America's most dependable full-size truck.

Speaker 2 Whether you're grinding through the week or gearing up for kickoff, the Silverado is one ride that's always game ready. Just like football, it's about grit, grind, and getting it done.

Speaker 2 Head to Chevy.com to learn more and build your own Chevy Silverado.

Speaker 1 On today's part in my take, we have a twofer Friday two-fer. We have Barry Zito, very fun interview with Barry Zito.
He came in, legend of the game. You remember him from the A's or the Giants.

Speaker 1 We talk about his big contract, the psychology of being a starting pitcher, winning a World Series, and then winning another one where he actually participated.

Speaker 1 We also have the Snickers player of the week, Will Fuller from the Houston Texans, who went off last week. Probably won you a fantasy game.
We have a weekend preview.

Speaker 1 We're going to talk a little baseball off the top. We got some Fire Fests, some FAQs, a packed Friday show for everyone.

Speaker 3 When Cool Creamy Ranch meets tangy, bold buffalo, the hole is greater than the sum of its sauce. Say howdy, partner, to new Buffalo Ranch sauce only at McDonald's for a limited time.

Speaker 4 At participating, McDonald's.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's go.

Speaker 1 Oh, no, we're gonna rock it down to E-Lay, Trick IV.

Speaker 1 And then we take it higher.

Speaker 1 Oh, we gotta ride down to Elaine Trick IV. Part of my take, presented by Barron.

Speaker 1 Welcome to part of my take presented by the Cash App. Go download it right now.
Use code Barcel. You get $5 off, $5 to the ASPCA.

Speaker 1 Today is Friday, October 11th, and I am starting to think that Clayton Kershaw is not good in the playoffs. Kershaw, yikes.
I'm starting to think that.

Speaker 1 The jury's still out. I appreciate Dave Roberts trying to put him in just to

Speaker 1 invoke a mental change in him. He's like, this is the time because I believe in my guy, I'm going to put him in and he'll be fine.
And it backfired on him big time.

Speaker 1 That was a classic manager move where he goes heart overhead.

Speaker 1 I actually don't blame Clayton Kershaw for the implosion for the back-to-back home runs because he's not dominant Clayton Kershaw anymore.

Speaker 1 He's still very, very good, but he's not like Clayton Kershaw of five years ago with like a 1.7 ERA.

Speaker 1 And to put him out there with everything that he had in his head about the playoffs and all the struggles and all the blow-ups and put him out there against the heart of the Nats lineup when you have Maeda ready to go, that's Dave Roberts' fault.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was not good. So there's three levels of managing.
There's the heart that you mentioned. There's the head that you also mentioned.
You forgot about the gut, though. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So this was a gut call, I think, more than a heart call for Roberts, but his heart convinced his gut to do it, I think. It was a bad call, no matter what you are.

Speaker 1 And you left out maybe the most important part of why it was a bad idea or what turned the game around, really, at that point. I gave a pretty good pump-up speech on the live stream.

Speaker 1 Oh, who could forget the Nationals? It was electric. Everyone's talking about it this morning.
I actually saw people talking about it. I didn't hear it though.
Goosebumps.

Speaker 1 I don't even need a quick call.

Speaker 1 I don't even know what I said.

Speaker 1 God spoke through through me and directed and channeled me to speak to the national and said, you have one shot. I forget what I said.

Speaker 1 I can't replicate it. This is shades of the pants all over again.
And it also had to be a quote.

Speaker 1 I mean, you can go back to the live stream and pull up the quote, but whatever it was, it was poetry written by the hand of God himself.

Speaker 1 And it had nothing to do with Clayton Kershaw being a bum in the playoffs. It had nothing to do with that.
I actually feel bad for him.

Speaker 1 And I know we got, we had it, but you know how Twitter works, where everyone says, you feel bad for a guy who makes $30 million a year? Yeah, actually, I do.

Speaker 1 Because Clayton Kershaw is, you could maybe argue Max Scherzer, maybe Justin Verlander, the best pitcher of this decade, and

Speaker 1 he just stinks in the playoffs. He's just so, so bad.
Even the guys who we have these like arcs where they don't have the clutch gene. No clutch gene.
Most of them find the clutch gene eventually.

Speaker 1 Most of them have that last moment where it's like, ooh, here we go. Everyone feel good for Clayton Kershaw.
They won a World Series.

Speaker 1 But no, this this Dodgers team has won seven straight division titles, and they have nothing to show for it.

Speaker 1 And Clayton Kershaw, I read an article after where it was basically he was saying, like, it, like, will just pop up when he's like on the golf course.

Speaker 1 He'll just think, like, man, I suck in the playoffs. Yeah.
And he just lived with that. Yes, no, there is such a thing as the clutch gene.

Speaker 1 They need to study whatever is in his blood and figure out where the clutch gene can be isolated using pundit squares or whatever. But this is a real thing with Clayton Kershaw.

Speaker 1 It's fascinating to study because he is really, really good. But in the postseason, he has the highest ERA of any pitcher in major league history after the sixth inning.
Damn.

Speaker 1 I think I just made that up, but I heard something like that earlier. Sounds right.
No, it is right, but I might be wrong with like the sixth or seventh inning, something along those lines.

Speaker 1 But 24 postseason home runs, he gets 24.

Speaker 1 Less than 24 home runs a season. Did you hear what he said after the game? He thinks that every time he, this is the amount of pressure that he puts on himself.

Speaker 1 He thinks every time he screws up in the playoffs, he is disappointing God because God gave him so much talent and he's not fulfilling that.

Speaker 1 And there's only one more thing for Clayton to do to try to turn this around, and that's go completely satanic. Flip the script, embrace Satan, become goth, Clayton Kershaw.
Get cornrows.

Speaker 1 Get cornrows. Go out there like Bronson Arroyo style.
Go out there with mascara on, maybe black lipstick. Just like flip the script on God entirely.
See if Satan will give you a hand. Hold on.

Speaker 1 While we're doing this, the games are going on. So we're going to make a a bet.
Everyone, write down how many first downs we think the Giants are going to get in the taping of this show.

Speaker 1 During the taping of this show. So it's the first quarter right now.
Okay. I've written it down.
Got mine too. Okay.
Actually, I'm going to do this. Okay.
So, yeah, back to Clayton Kershaw.

Speaker 1 The interview with Barry Zito is actually very similar to dealing with how you deal with it. Even though you make so much money, the emotions of it are worse than anything.

Speaker 1 But can you imagine not only having all the pressure of yourself, but you also think that God is pressuring you?

Speaker 1 He's in a bad mental place. I hope he's okay.
He should know that God was actually giving you the words. Yes.
So he's good. God's cool.

Speaker 1 And he should also know that if God's going to favor a starting pitcher, it's probably Bartolo Colon because he's got the second family like Moses. Yes.
He does.

Speaker 1 And so Clayton Kershaw, though, the worst part about his whole career is that he is so good. that he always gets the Dodgers to the playoffs.

Speaker 1 So it's the classic situation where you would not be in the playoffs if Clayton Kershaw wasn't as good of a pitcher, as dominant as a pitcher as he's been the last decade.

Speaker 1 And then when he gets there, so it's almost like this is actually a very good lesson to everyone: never be great because then people will expect you to be great in big moments, and you might not have that.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Be average all the time.
Yes, I think we've given that advice out a few times on the show, and it's absolutely true. Don't set expectations too high in anything that you do in life, ever.

Speaker 1 So the other side of it, we should give credit to Natitude. Me? For

Speaker 1 I thought you were going to give me credit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yes, you. Thank you.
God. Yes.
God. Well, I give my credit all the glory to God.
Yes. Natitude, the Nats are back.

Speaker 1 They're going to be facing off against the Cardinals in the NLCS.

Speaker 1 By the way, the Cardinals, did you hear the Cardinals' manager his post-game speech? I did not. He was too focused on George

Speaker 1 so much, and it was so offensive to me in the Cardinal way that I don't know. That's a curse on them.
They need to leave that locker room talk in the the locker room.

Speaker 1 So, where was this speech that he gave? It was in the locker room. Okay, got it.
And it was on a periscope. Okay.
So, yeah.

Speaker 1 I also saw a few people with their eyes wide open for Soto in the post-game celebrations to make sure that he didn't swallow any of the champagne. Correct.
Because he's Mbappe. He's 19.

Speaker 1 He's forever 19.

Speaker 1 He's forever 19 in our eyes. I actually thought that he was 19 in some corrections because people said that he was 19 so much.
He's going to be 21 in October. I Mbappe myself.

Speaker 1 So by the end, he's going to be able to drink champagne at World Series Game 7. There you go.

Speaker 1 Team of Destiny. You're already saying that.
So, the Nationals have some very, very obvious problems with their team, most notably that they have

Speaker 1 their relief pitchers are constituted entirely of starting pitchers. So, they don't really have to.
Oh, Fernando Rodney, bro. Yeah, Fernando Rodney and Dulo.
Shoot that arrow.

Speaker 1 And every time he comes in, I'm like, what? And then they show his record. It's like, oh, five.
I know he's out there.

Speaker 1 Right. I know he's there, but then he pops up.
I'm like, no. Yeah.
Again,

Speaker 1 it's not a formula that you would willingly put together for your team, but you go to war with the army that you have, not the army that you want.

Speaker 1 So we have to talk about the other game, and we did something on Wednesday's show when we talked about Minnesota, and we mentioned in that same sentence that the underrated, saddest sports cities are Minnesota and Atlanta.

Speaker 1 Uh-huh. And Atlanta.
Atlanta's not really underrated, though. No, but it is because it's, again, it feels like Cleveland gets a lot of shine.
Buffalo gets a lot of shine.

Speaker 1 Atlanta is truly the saddest place on earth with

Speaker 1 the sports. MLS champions.
MLS champions, but they gave up 10 runs in the first inning. I've never seen anything like that.
They also have, so I wrote down some Atlanta stats.

Speaker 1 This is going to be, listen, this is a place of love.

Speaker 1 I'm actually, I know Atlanta fans will be upset about this, but what we're doing here is shining light to your misery so that you can wave that flag and say, hey, we actually have it the worst.

Speaker 1 And it's helping the Minnesota fans heal. Yes, that's right.
And then on Monday, we'll pick Detroit. Yes.
And then you guys can still return. All right, so the Falcons.
How about the Falcons?

Speaker 1 Let's start from the beginning where they weren't good for a very long time, and then they went to the Super Bowl. Well, they had Deion Sanders.

Speaker 1 When the bright spot on your team is a punt returner, you as a Bears fan know this more than anybody. Kevin Hester.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 it's not a great feeling to have for your team. You have, like, occasionally when your defense gets a good stop and you have a shot at a good return, you get excited for that moment.

Speaker 1 But besides that, that, the best offense. There was absolutely nothing happening.

Speaker 1 So then they went to a Super Bowl, and then Eugene Robinson got caught with the prostitute the night before and got burned for a touchdown and lost to John Elway 34-19.

Speaker 1 We should also say that he was the Walter Payton man of the year. Correct.
So hot seat Chris Long. Okay, so that sucks, but you went to the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 Oh, and then you drafted a few years later Michael Vick.

Speaker 1 Worst for a year. Franchise quarterback.
Work a few years. Worth it.
Yeah, worth it for a few years. Minnesota Vikings.
And he also went to Lambeau in the playoffs. Nobody's ever done that.

Speaker 1 Let's just remember. He's a pretty good dogfighter.

Speaker 1 But when people, like, when you think franchise quarterback, you don't really expect your franchise quarterback to go to jail for dogfighting and derail the whole franchise.

Speaker 1 Well, you don't ask questions for that in the combine interview. You should.
You do now, but you didn't at the time, so you live and you learn.

Speaker 1 Counterpoint, yeah, they had Vic, but they also drafted Matt Schaub. Yeah, true.

Speaker 1 And then they went

Speaker 1 28-3 Super Bowl, which is the biggest collapse maybe in sports history.

Speaker 1 Here's a question: Do you think it's worse to think about Falcons fans thinking about 28-3 or New Orleans fans thinking about the pass interference? 28-3. Which is harder to talk about.
28-3.

Speaker 1 28-30 is just so incomprehensible. Because with the Saints,

Speaker 1 you can always point the finger at the refs and be like, that's the reason why it didn't happen. We got screwed on that pass interference.
28-3,

Speaker 1 you have nobody to blame but yourself and maybe Kyle Shanahan. Me and God.

Speaker 1 You and Hank. And Hank gave a great speech in the concourse.
To God. And then the Atlanta Hawks have never been to a a final.
That sucks. And no one really cares about them.
The Braves.

Speaker 1 The Braves won 14 straight division titles, and they had one World Series to show for it. The Braves had four Hall of Famers in their prime: Tom Glavin, John Smoltz, Chipper Jones, and Greg Maddox.

Speaker 1 The Braves won six out of eight straight Cy Young Awards. Six out of eight straight Cy Young Awards.
They won one title, and on top of all of that, they have lost 10 straight series since 2001.

Speaker 1 Do you want to play that game where we just because those Braves teams of the mid-90s, though I would spend my days watching the Cubs

Speaker 1 because they were a nationally televised game?

Speaker 1 And then I would watch the Braves on TBS along with Sanford and Son reruns whenever there'd be a rain delay. But I could just name a very fun thing to do is just name Braves players.

Speaker 1 Fred McGriff, Terry Pendleton, Ryan Clesson, big old booty,

Speaker 1 Greg Blowser, no, Jeff Blowser. Jeff Blouser, Greg Lemke.
No, Mark Lemke. Mark Lemke, Jeff Blowser.
Jeff Treadway.

Speaker 1 Rudis Nixon.

Speaker 1 Ron Gantt had huge biceps. He did massively.
Awesome biceps. Javi Lopez.
David Justice. David Justice, the crime dog.
Fred McGriff.

Speaker 1 Fred McGriff's the crime dog, not David Justice. David Justice got his house burned down.
Remember that? No, wait, that was Andrew. Andre Risen.
That's also Atlanta. Yeah, that is Atlanta.
Ty TLC.

Speaker 1 Is he remembering Mike David Brother or some shit? We're just naming everything.

Speaker 1 Sort of screwing it up. Also, the Civil War and Sherman.
Well, no, I'm not done.

Speaker 1 Hold on, I'm not done. They had hockey teams, two of them taken away: the Flames and the Thrashers.

Speaker 1 That's pretty tough to have two. They never went to the playoffs.
And then finally, if you're an Atlanta sports fan, you're most likely a Georgia Bulldogs fan. You won a national title in 1980.

Speaker 1 You lost in pretty much a similar way in 2017 national title. You lost in the SEC championship last year where you had maybe, you should have been in the playoffs.
You got screwed out of the playoffs.

Speaker 1 And then I looked it up. The Georgia Bulldogs, in the last 17 years, have finished in the top 10 10 out of 17 times.

Speaker 1 That sucks. Because you have no titles.
And Ulga almost got spit-roasted by Bevo last year. So, Atlanta, we feel your pain.

Speaker 1 Not literally. No.

Speaker 1 We're going to say. Hold on, hold on.
I feel like I'm going to pitch your pain

Speaker 1 to the extent that I feel bad for you.

Speaker 1 Ah! Out. That's for you, Atlanta.
Hair off your arm.

Speaker 1 They do have Tom Creen. I feel your pain.

Speaker 1 Tom Crean. And Migos, yeah.
And Migos. And Ludacris.
And Dan Quinn's going to get fired soon. So it's all looking up for Atlanta.
But that was our Atlanta mission.

Speaker 1 And your stadium looks like a butthole.

Speaker 1 Losing that 10 runs in the first inning. I would rather lose.

Speaker 1 I would rather lose that way, Delta Airlines. I'd rather lose that.
Oh, the bombing in the Atlanta

Speaker 1 Olympics. Well, I'm just saying that was bad sports memory.
It was. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It wasn't. You had an Olympics and there was a bombing.
Yeah, it wasn't a good sports

Speaker 1 memory. That sucks.
Yeah, but I'd rather lose that way. Go out early in the first inning.
You know the game's over. Then go to the...

Speaker 1 Not like that.

Speaker 1 If the Nats had lost to the Dodgers on a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, like I was sure they were going to do, I think that's a tougher loss to deal with than just getting blown out right out of the gate.

Speaker 1 If it was six runs, okay, I'd agree with you. Ten runs? I actually thought my score app had had

Speaker 1 a glitch when you see 10 runs in the first inning, 10 to nothing. That was so, so painful.
So Atlanta, we're sorry. Now we have, we're set up.

Speaker 1 We're in the middle of the games right now, but the Astros are commanding the game 4-1.

Speaker 1 Looks like we're going to get Astros Yankees, which will be an unbelievable series, and Cardinals Nationals, which will be a series.

Speaker 1 It will certainly be

Speaker 1 one of the two series. That is good for the top two series, though, because now we're just an attitude podcast.
That's right. Correct.
We got big natitudes. I have a future on.

Speaker 1 We've got skin in the game. That's for sure.
What about you, Hank? And the Cardinals. And I hate the Cardinals.
Okay. So we're an anti-Cardinals podcast.
Correct. Okay.
Moving forward.

Speaker 1 I'm just jumping on board. Big cat.
I'm just going to be able to do that. I'm actually shocked at some point in this history of the show you didn't fake be a Cardinals fan for a while.

Speaker 1 No, I mean, that would be just NL Central, the Reds. That's a bridge too far.

Speaker 1 Oh, listen, if the Cardinals somehow luck their way into winning a World Series this year, I probably will just say, well, the NL Central's the best.

Speaker 1 That's a bridge too far for me to troll you with that. I'll put on a cheese head

Speaker 1 as an owner. I'll do that, but I'm not going to go to the St.
Louis Cardinals. Now, I want, can I give you a homework assignment for Monday's show? Sure.
Something to look forward to.

Speaker 1 I need you to give me a tutorial. We probably should have done this today, but we'll do it Monday.
Give me a tutorial on all the reasons why I should hate the cars.

Speaker 1 Or if you just want to go off right now. No, I mean, well, I...

Speaker 1 If you want to prepare, that's good, too.

Speaker 1 I'll give you a few to start.

Speaker 1 One is obviously the fans and the best fans in baseball. Got it.
Gotta Molina will drive you insane.

Speaker 1 They also will always come up with huge hits with guys that look like they should be like, you know, serving you coffee or like serving you a beer. Like they're guys, they get guys

Speaker 1 who just show up. She's just pretty special.
Yeah, who just show up in big moments in October, and you're like, who the fuck is this guy?

Speaker 1 And then, Wainwright, I thought he was dead, and he's going to probably pitch a gem at some point in this postseason. So, just

Speaker 1 I'll make a full list, but I'll add to it because we're going to watch the first two games over the weekend, and I'm sure they'll do something that will drive me nuts.

Speaker 1 It's going to drive you nuts because the Cardinals, they just have this like dark magic that just is bullshit, and they'll just win in bullshit ways.

Speaker 1 And I know, I know Cardinals fans will be like, You're salty. And yeah, you know what? I am salty.
And he's only salty. I'm fucking salty.
Because you've beaten him so many times over the years.

Speaker 1 So it's actually a compliment to you. Now, how about Brian McCann retiring, upstaging the game? Yeah.
I would say. Yes.
Brian McCann retired during game five of Nats Dodgers.

Speaker 1 Not very sportsmanlike of him. Not a custodian of the game move.
But I do think that that's going to make Yachty step up his custodian of his game responsibilities. Yes.
Knowing that McCann's gone.

Speaker 1 Yes, he is the guy now because Brian McCann was the number one unwritten rule, make sure that everything's in check, guy. So Yachty,

Speaker 1 I mean, Yachty's kind of been it for a while as well, but it's really all his now. I got something to keep our eye on here.
So this is a stat that's being tracked by Baseball Prospectus.

Speaker 1 I don't have a membership, so I didn't actually read the article, but I read a tweet about the article, and then I read all the replies to the tweet.

Speaker 1 So I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what's going on.

Speaker 1 The baseballs are not going as far in the playoffs. There's a measurable wind resistance factor that was not there during the regular season.

Speaker 1 Now, some people are saying, well, isn't that just the season changing?

Speaker 1 And if you listen to last night's Dodgers broadcast, the announcer said that it was because the games were at night and the ball doesn't travel as far

Speaker 1 at night.

Speaker 1 I don't think that's true. Maybe the gravitational pull of the sun brings the balls out, but what they're saying on baseball prospectus is that they change the balls

Speaker 1 before the playoffs. Smart.
Raised the seams. Smart.
So there's a lot of balls that should be home runs that are dying at the warning track. Pitchers duel.
It's honestly, it's smart.

Speaker 1 Get everyone to tune in for the explosive regular season, and then they kind of have probably a sense of guilt like we're ruining baseball. It's just, we'll play it fair for the playoffs.

Speaker 1 So what was the Braves pitching staff's excuse?

Speaker 1 Well, they didn't give up home runs.

Speaker 1 They didn't give up a single home runs. Yeah, no, no, 10-0.
No home runs. Yeah, listen, that first out, that sack bun out,

Speaker 1 the Cardinals, Ned Yo somewhere is like, I told you guys. They bunted over and got the first out, and then they scored 10 runs off of that.
Who's their manager again? Who?

Speaker 1 The

Speaker 1 Cardinals.

Speaker 1 Schilt or something, whatever the fuck his name is. It's not the country music guy.
No, I wish it was still Mike Matheny. Mike Matheny was an all-time dumb-dumb.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like one of my favorite dumb-dumb guys in the world.

Speaker 1 Mike Schilt. I remember hearing interviews of Mike Matheny, and I'm not a baseball analytics guy, as you could probably tell from the research that I put into that.

Speaker 1 But I would hear him talk, and I'd be like, this guy has no idea what he's talking about. Yeah.
This guy's lucked his way into a lot of stuff. No, Mike Matheny, I miss him every single day.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's do some.

Speaker 1 He was a heart-over-gut guy. Big time.
Let's do some football talk. Oh, and we also have some Larry's picks.

Speaker 1 This, our preview, our NFL preview is brought to you by Bet MGM. PMT has a new home for sports betting this year.
You need to check out the Bet MGM Sports app in New Jersey.

Speaker 1 You can download the app, deposit, and check out lines from anywhere, but you need to be located in New Jersey to place your bets. Last week, I talked about my can't-lose parlay.

Speaker 1 This week, I've got another one.

Speaker 1 I'm going to reveal it in a second. Ooh, Panthers.
Wow. Panthers is.
Oh, Larry took the Panthers. Larry took the Panthers.
All right.

Speaker 1 Bet MGM has a special offer for new users to sign up with the bonus code PMT and bet on my can't lose parlay. I'm going to say it right now.

Speaker 1 My can't-lose parlay. You ready? Yep.
The Rams, money line. The Ravens, money line.
The Cowboys, money line. I think that's plus odds.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So if you sign up for Bet MGM with bonus PMT, you'll get 100 to one odds on my can't lose parlay. And I only need to hit one game for you to win.
That's right.

Speaker 1 If you get one of my three games right, you'll win $100 with Bet MGM. Sign up with the code PMT.
Make sure to place your first bet on My Can't Lose Parlay for $1.

Speaker 1 You don't need to create the parlay yourself. It will be in the lobby under Barstool Specials.
And as long as you hit one leg of the Can't Lose Parlay, you'll win $100.

Speaker 1 Plus, for existing users, they are making it so you actually can't lose on my Can't Lose Parlay. This week, My Can't Lose Parlay is risk-free up to $20.

Speaker 1 You just need to opt in to the promotion and place your bet, and you actually can't lose this week. Not that it's going to lose.
My Can't Lose Parlay is not going to lose this week.

Speaker 1 I don't see how a single one of those loses. Rams?

Speaker 1 That is. The Rams need it.
No, Hank, don't look at me like that. Wait, the Rams need it.
I'm explaining the video. I don't want to be

Speaker 1 that. That is a hungry team to run fast.
Do you not remember what we just saw on Monday night? Yes. Short week for the 49ers.
That's what I saw. Good point.
And the Rams have a long week.

Speaker 1 They played on Thursday. Good point.

Speaker 1 And I saw a stat that Sean McVay is 10-1 when he has

Speaker 1 more than seven days to prepare. So on any kind of a long week, you know his one loss was against the 49ers.
No? Oh,

Speaker 1 Patriots. Oh.
Super Bowl. Okay, so Rams, Ravens, Ravens will not lose.
Just put that one away. They're playing the Bengals, and the Cowboys will not lose.
They're playing the Jets. Yep.

Speaker 1 Let's do some preview. So,

Speaker 1 this is town. This is.
Oh, you have a loser leaves.

Speaker 1 I actually have just a loser leaves my brain. Loser leaves the NFL and is relegated to the MLS.
I like this because I think we probably have the same. Redskins, Dolphins.
Oh. Oh, I had.

Speaker 1 Okay, so I broke it down. I have a loser leaves town game, but we have two toilet bowls this week.
Okay.

Speaker 1 We have the Redskins, Dolphins as a toilet bowl, and we have the Falcons Cardinals as a toilet bowl. Yeah, so this is not the best slate of games.
The Texans, Chiefs is probably the best game early.

Speaker 1 It's a really good game. You know what's my brain? Don't worry.
Those two quarterbacks are fine. Whatever.
Were they drafted the same year? Yeah. What year was that?

Speaker 1 Who was drafted ahead? You know what? Okay, can I say this real quick? Because

Speaker 1 it's bullshit. Here comes Trig Cat.
Nope.

Speaker 1 What's his name? Solomon Thomas. Uh-huh.
The pick that the 49ers made? He can't even get on the field. He plays quarterback, too.
No, he can't even get on the field. He's the third pick.

Speaker 1 Okay, Mitch plays quarterback.

Speaker 1 The Browns were drafting first. They could have had one of those guys.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to change the narrative. That the Browns were the the ones who met.
Wait, by taking our friend Baker? No, Miles Garrett. Oh, Miles Garrett.
That's right. That was Miles Garrett.

Speaker 1 Yeah, my bad. All right, so I have a loser leaves town game.
Okay. Also, I think if you guys didn't trade for it, that's where it's really like.

Speaker 1 You guys just had the pick and you made up, that's one thing, but the fact that you're like, we need to trade up. Not that it was a good decision.
But the 49ers took Solomon Thomas. He stinks.

Speaker 1 But they didn't need a quarterback. But he stinks.
Loser leaves town. Broncos Titans.
Season is over for the loser of this. I think the Broncos season's already over.

Speaker 1 Ah, you're going to quit on your boy? Oh, my Vic Fangio? No.

Speaker 1 Joe Flacco. No, Joe Flacco, I'm a Joe Flacco realist.
Okay?

Speaker 1 If he is.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Whoa.
Listen,

Speaker 1 I believe in him.

Speaker 1 I believe him to an extent. He's like Phillip Rivers.
If Phillip Rivers could actually throw that fourth quarter touchdown that gives them the lead.

Speaker 1 The problem is, Phillip Rivers can't throw it anymore. He doesn't.
He doesn't. And, well, Joe Flacco still can, but his defense gives it up.
up. Patriots just blocked a punk.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So that was my loser leaves town.

Speaker 1 Wouldn't you say, though?

Speaker 1 He's changing the narrative around chases as we speak. Wouldn't you say

Speaker 1 I like the Titans in this game because you've got to take the underdog when they're when the Titans are underdogs, you got to take them.

Speaker 1 But wouldn't you say if the Titans lose this game, it feels a little bleak. Yeah, I think they're done.
Right. So, all right, so that was my Loser Leaves Town.
Did you have a Loser Leaves Town?

Speaker 1 No, just my Loser Leaves Town is done with football. It becomes a F-U-T-B-O-Tame.
Also, a reminder to everyone, we have a true London game this week.

Speaker 1 Make sure you get your bet in because 9.30 comes faster than you think. That's right.
Put it in the night pay.

Speaker 1 And I'm only giving myself, I'm allocating myself two Aryans aerial attack in London jokes that I'm making. Well, you're going to be all the way on the west coast.
You're not going to be. That's true.

Speaker 1 That's going to be 6 a.m.

Speaker 1 You need to set them as

Speaker 1 a schedule the tweets. Yeah, I will.
I'll put them in HootSuite and get them ready to go. Not the first time an Aryans have struggled with an aerial attack in in London, folks.
So

Speaker 1 everyone can just reply to that. Just hope, just drop it for like.
Yeah. Everyone reply to it.
You think Jameis Winston is going to play well in London? He's probably not even allowed in the country.

Speaker 1 So schedule for like 7:15 West Coast time and then maybe one for like 10.30. Do the exact same tweet and then everyone just replies, scheduled tweet PFT.
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 It's going to be weird watching this game, not even in America. Yeah.
Because I'm going to be in Canadian. In Vancouver.
In Vancouver.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're not going to be able to watch it. Yeah, they'll have NFL games, and I'll I'll be loudly explaining to all the CFL fans the rules.
Now, this is called...

Speaker 1 I'm just going to ask everybody I meet with a rouges.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you should be that confident. Oh, sorry, we don't have TVs now.

Speaker 1 Upset right now. We've got a beaver who...
He's going to the accent because he knows he might. We've got a beaver that chews a lot of people.
You're going to wake up death.

Speaker 1 You're going to wake up.

Speaker 1 And then be on a Reddit stream on your phone. The hotel, you think the hotel in Canada has the NFL network? That's a good one.
Well, I'm not in a hotel. Oh, there you go.

Speaker 1 Even worse. It's a log cabin.
Yeah, you know, Canadians local.

Speaker 1 I'm in a log cabin that's heated by just like a fireplace filled with surface.

Speaker 1 You just listen to PF's brain just panic and just go right to an accent when we showed him the fact that he might not be able to watch every episode.

Speaker 1 So if there's not a Monday part of my take, it's because I didn't, they don't allow computers in Canada. They think that they're tools of the devil.
There is Monday part of my take.

Speaker 1 We will record it and it will be great.

Speaker 1 Okay, so let's do some picks. Favorites, Hank.
Wait, are we sure they're good? Oh, you have one. Because I've got the 49ers and the Rams, and are we sure they're good?

Speaker 1 You're still thinking the 49ers might not be good. Well, the 49ers lost a very key component to their attack in Monday night.
They lost their fullback, Jushik. Jushik.
Jushik,

Speaker 1 yeah. And then they brought in like seven fullbacks to try out this week.
I don't know who they end up going with,

Speaker 1 but they're going to struggle to fill that role because Jucek is really, really good. Correct.
And And they use him in a way that is kind of key to their offense.

Speaker 1 They might put Kittle in there to do some of the blocking stuff that he's been doing. I don't know.
But they had, I think they had like Repkowski. Giants first down.
Giants first down.

Speaker 1 There's one of them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think. I have three.
Can I finish with fullbacks? Yeah, I've won. Is that okay? You've won? You can at least pretend that you're listening to the game.
Big Cat interrupted first.

Speaker 1 I was picking up.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't have interrupted that if Big Cat hadn't first. No, no, I want to hear the fullbacks.

Speaker 1 My whole point is the Russian attack is not going to have the same fullback this time. And they had a lot of full.

Speaker 1 What's the collective term for a group of fullbacks? You know, it's a murder of crowded we let you finish that. Full by.
It's a murder of crows.

Speaker 1 Full by.

Speaker 1 It's a rush more of fullbacks. Yeah.
They brought in a rush more. How many first downs do you have the Giants? On the count of three.

Speaker 1 We already said it. Oh.

Speaker 1 I said three. I was talking about fullbacks.
Oh. I have five.
Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. So you're.

Speaker 1 Oh, that was your loser leaf sound. Now that loser is sure.
Are we sure they're good? Because I don't know if if the Rams are still good.

Speaker 1 I actually would argue that there's a half of an are we sure they're good game in the Texans going to the Chiefs. If the Texans win that game, I will consider the Texans very good.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Wouldn't you agree?

Speaker 1 You will personally consider the Texans very good. Yes.
Okay. Ah, very good.
Seems strong. I think they're very good if they beat the Chiefs.
Good-ish.

Speaker 1 Ish between

Speaker 1 traps. I could see this being a trap game, though, where the Chiefs are banged up.
The Texans could win this game, and then they meet in the playoffs, and the Chiefs win by 40. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, I like that, Hank. Okay.
Hank, give us your favorite. My favorite is going to be

Speaker 1 the Chargers. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Call me Libwood, but the fact that Mason Rudolph, they're letting him take snaps and he's practicing. He might start on someday.

Speaker 1 Duck. How do you not start? You know, Duck's in AWL.
I know that. Yeah.
But that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 I just assume that he's, but I've seen a bunch of reports. They're letting Mason Rudolph take stats, take snaps.
What does this have to do with Libwood?

Speaker 1 I just feel like people are like, oh, like, it's a liberal take concussion.

Speaker 1 Concussions have a well-known left-leaning bias. Yes.
Okay. Belief in concussions.
Belief in concussions.

Speaker 1 All Democrats are believing. I believe that if you get knocked out while you're playing, you should probably take minimum a week off.
The fact that

Speaker 1 it might not happen. All right, start with Tank.
Hopefully, someday we'll get to a point where we can cross the party line and agree concussions are real.

Speaker 1 Both sides. AOC would be real.
Bipartisan politics. Concussions are real.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 PFT, what's your favorite? My favorite is Jacksonville, minus one and a half at home against the Saints. This is a game that I'm just perplexed by this line.
My dumb brain can't wrap its own

Speaker 1 around. Is that what it's called? No.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I don't know what the Vegas zone is. No one does.
Okay,

Speaker 1 the Jacko zone.

Speaker 1 One and a half point favorites at home against New Orleans.

Speaker 1 I get there's home field advantage, and I get that Minshew magic is good, and he's going to make me want to go out and light a hand grenade on fire on Bourbon Street and then pour it into.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to finish that.

Speaker 1 But I get that there's the Minshew magic going on. I get it's a home game, but still, the Saints just feel like they should be favored in this game.
Correct. And they're not.

Speaker 1 So obviously, my brain is stupid, so I'm going against my brain. I like that.
I like that. All right.
My favorite is going to be.

Speaker 1 I was going to go with the Rams, but that fullback speech you gave me makes me a little nervous. I'm not going to lie.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You're glad for the Rams. I'll stick with the the Rams minus three.
I think the Rams are going to, I think it's just a classic NFL situation where one team really needs a win and one team doesn't.

Speaker 1 The 49ers don't need this win. The Rams need this win.
Also, it's a short week for the 49ers. It's a long week for the Rams.
Hank, your underdog. Dolphins.
Ooh. Okay.
You're going to do that?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. That's gross.
It's exciting. It is kind of...
It's thrilling. I've been betting on the Dolphins all year, and it's fun until you lose every week.
Well, here's the thing.

Speaker 1 This is

Speaker 1 completely different.

Speaker 1 Yes, you're right. It is.
You know what the difference is? The Redskins have an interim head coach, and you know how we feel about interim head coaches. But it's not Jim Dunn.

Speaker 1 And this is like the whole team is completely lost. Callahan is a big-time interim head coach.
Hold on, running sprints. He says that he's going to give Adrian Peterson the ball 40 times this weekend.

Speaker 1 Hold on, Hank. Here's all you have to do.
If this bet loses, whatever happens, you just have to walk around and tell everyone the Redskins shouldn't be three and a half point favorites against anyone.

Speaker 1 And then you can make your even if you lose, if the Redskins win by 14, you'd be like, guess what? I do it again because the Redskins shouldn't be three and a half point favorites against anyone.

Speaker 1 PFT, your underdog. My underdog is Philly.
Philly plus three at Minnesota. I like that.
Yeah, I like. I love this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this is Kirk Cousins going up against a defense. Hold on.
Here's the only thing that makes me nervous about this pick. Doesn't this feel like the Kirk Cousins wins a

Speaker 1 quote-unquote big game, but it's not really a big game because it's one o'clock on a Sunday. So he can say, well, Kirk Cousins won the big game just to fool everyone a little bit more.

Speaker 1 Last week was Kirk Cousins winning a game against a team. So he beat the Giants on the team.
Yeah, he beat the Giants on the right.

Speaker 1 And that was a huge game for him because he got a phone call from Trump afterwards. He did.
Trump called him to congratulate him on beating the New York Giants. Wow.

Speaker 1 And so to him, that's like, you know, he's riding high off that congratulations. I feel like he's overlooking the Eagles at home.
That's true. Okay, so my underdog, I'm going to go Steelers.

Speaker 1 It'd be great if Trump just called Cousins after every single game this year that he won. He was like, good job, Pete.
Or good game. They just said, good game.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You don't believe in concussions. Trump? No, I think Duck is going to play, and he's going to be great.
Duck Fox. Duck.

Speaker 1 But he should be getting all the snaps.

Speaker 1 Hank, you are. I like that.

Speaker 1 If they do cover, it's duck and cover. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Duck, tweet us when you get to this part of the podcast. Hank, go with your over.
My over, I'm going to take the Eagles Eagles-Vikings. Okay.
I like that.

Speaker 1 PFT? My over, I'm going to take Texans and Kansas City Chiefs with two quarterbacks like that. I don't know how you could ever expect them to score less than 27 points each.
They're both young.

Speaker 1 So, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Under-off.
Under-off. I'm taking the under in that game.
Oh, okay. That's an under-off.
All right, my over is going to be Seahawks, Browns, over 46.5.

Speaker 1 I just feel like the defense for the Seahawks just is never good on grass. I'm just, I'm still thinking back on my over pick.
I'm so excited to watch those two guys go out there and sling it around.

Speaker 1 All right, so you have that under, the

Speaker 1 Texans, Chiefs. I'm going to take the under on the Panthers Bucks just because

Speaker 1 if you no one likes to bet unders, this is the perfect time to bet an under because you can sleep through the game.

Speaker 1 Take a nap. That's a great point.
Yeah, 47 and a half. I like my under.

Speaker 1 What channel? NFL Network. Not available in Canada.
BBC. They'll probably have the BBC there.

Speaker 1 My actual under is Cincinnati, Baltimore, 48. I don't know how Cincinnati is scoring more than zero points in this game.
Yeah, that's probably fair.

Speaker 1 I want to take the under on Cincinnati to score one point. Although the Ravens, I've been

Speaker 1 every now and then we do so many of these shows that you forget something you say a few times, and Ravens fans are getting very mad because I keep calling them frauds. Prove it.

Speaker 1 I don't think they're personally prove it to me. No, they're not frauds.
They're bums at this point. Personally, prove it to me, Ravens.
You have to prove it to me.

Speaker 1 I think the Bengals are going to win out. No, Hank, stop.
Yep. Hank.
I'm addicted to the money lines. I'm insane.

Speaker 1 Listen, go to BetMGM right now. Use the code PMT.
Winnings paid in free bets must be 21 or older. Must be in New Jersey to place bets.
Restrictions apply.

Speaker 1 Visit betmgm.com for the full list of terms and conditions. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER.
And remember, BetMGM is the home for PMT this football season.

Speaker 1 If you're a new user, place your first bet of $1 or more on my can't lose parlay, but you got to make sure to use bonus code PMT when you sign up to get $100 if I hit one like Rams, Ravens, Cowboys.

Speaker 1 How does that lose? Ravens, I just told you. Who? That cannot lose.
I'm going to hit it this week. Okay, let's do some fantasy fuck, boys.
Let's get some interviews.

Speaker 1 What's up? Oh, fuck. I didn't even do a fucking name.
Oh, fuck. What up, boys? It's Shoelace Santorini.
My stardom this week is Marble Racing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 If you need that extra fix during the week, you can't wait for Sunday or Saturday. You go on YouTube, type in some Marble Racing.
It's a fucking rush. Hell yeah.
Better than the ponies. Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 My sitem is Silva. It was a terrible week for Silva financially.
It's now only worth $17.60 per ounce. That's down three cents from last week.
Frankie Finance. Shit, that sucks.

Speaker 1 And my sleeper is Byron Pringle.

Speaker 1 Who's that? He's on the Chiefs and he well, I fucking love Pringles. Hell yeah.
And he caught a touchdown. Once you stop, you cannot.
Once you pop, you cannot stop.

Speaker 1 You slice him up and you put him in the tennis ball can. All right, what's up? My name is Johnny Sodorino.
I'm starting fat bears. I'm talking big old bears.

Speaker 1 They're eating seven kinds of fish like it's Christmas time up in the Alaska.

Speaker 1 They're getting fat as fuck. They're hibernating, take a big ass snap.
Hey, hey, we don't eat fish in this family. Not fish, unless your name's Junior Soprano.

Speaker 1 But these bears, holy Toledo, they're so big and hairy. I thought it was my ex-wife.
Oh, got them. I'm sitting methamphetamines.
That's right. I feel the need for speed.

Speaker 1 The need for speed. But I'm going to get my bank a crank from my TV this weekend on Netflix because Breaking Bad's coming out with a movie.
It's time to Metflix and pill, not Netflix and chill.

Speaker 1 Breaking Bad, check it out. My sleeper is Tyler Lockett.
That's right. He's a virgin just like Maria.
Just like Maria, big virgin. The Immaculate Receptions this weekend.

Speaker 1 He's going to be good with his hands, great with his mouth. Get up, kiddie.
All right. This is Tommy Tortellini.
And my starter this week, PFT already said it. Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 1 These guys, fuck. These guys are going to throw it up and down the field.
I couldn't imagine that if they're not taking these guys in the 2017 draft. I'm not upset about it.

Speaker 1 You're totally not hanging on there. My sitem is Purdue.
Purdue. No fun, Purdue.
I try not to make fun of Purdue, but they banned gambling on Purdue at Purdue. Come on, Purdue.
That's Purdue.

Speaker 1 My sleepless candle. It's candle season.
Like that candle. Don't Don't go outside.
Just light a candle. Give yourself a little extra ambience in the middle of the morning.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like that.

Speaker 1 That 330 SEC game. Hit that candle.
Feels like fall.

Speaker 1 That's right. Like that John Wick.
All right.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to make fun of Purdue. Okay.
I will.

Speaker 1 They banned gambling on their campus. You can't gamble, even though it's legal in Indiana to bet on school.
It enforces that. You can't gamble on a Purdue game if you're a student.
Who would not?

Speaker 1 Who's not going to make fun of Purdue? I want credit from all of Purdue. What if I go, what do we, we take a trip to Purdue and go on campus and we put a bet in.
Expelled.

Speaker 1 Well, you'd never be able to get. Yeah, you can't get into expelled.
Look, that was something nice about Purdue. It's an engineering game.
And they can't get into Purdue.

Speaker 1 I don't think I could get into Purdue. Yeah, I probably can't either, but still, I wouldn't want to

Speaker 1 under any circumstances, ever go there, even with a full ride. But I'm not going to make fun of Purdue.
I'm just going to read something that was said.

Speaker 1 They said that they did this because they don't want students talking to athletes and getting tips because,

Speaker 1 for instance, just because you ask a football player who's in a group with you, how's your arm doing, or how is your injury, that the football player would have to say, are they asking me that because they want to place a bet on me?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's exactly what they're doing. Yes, they're trying to get some inside info.
You know what? Why are you punishing students for making good choices and good investments with their money?

Speaker 1 Again, I'm not going to make fun of Purdue, but is there a reason?

Speaker 1 Is there an alternate thinking here where they're actually saving Purdue students from themselves because Purdue is so bad that if if they can't bet on Purdue, they won't lose that money.

Speaker 1 You're only allowed to bet on Purdue games against Ohio State. You're only allowed to bet against Purdue.

Speaker 1 That's a moneymaker. That's as good as any savings plan.
Set that endowment up. There you go.
Boom. I fixed Purdue.
That's probably what's up. So the school is just betting all their money on Purdue.

Speaker 1 or against Purdue, and they don't want the student body to be putting all these small bets in and changing the lines, making the spread move.

Speaker 1 Didn't make fun of Purdue. Do you ever think Vanderbilt gets gets a bad rap because they have the same colors? I think Vanderbilt gets exactly the bad rap that it deserves.

Speaker 1 I think Vanderbilt deserves every bad rap they get because they

Speaker 1 had a good time when we were there. Yeah, no,

Speaker 1 I think Vanderbilt is Purdue.

Speaker 1 I have to place it in my head. Because they both don't win football games? Vanderbilt is Purdue.
Not making fun of Purdue. Vanderbilt is

Speaker 1 if Purdue's dad was a finance lawyer, not an employment lawyer.

Speaker 1 They both stink at football.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's get to our interviews. We have first up Barry Zito.
Then we're going to do Will Fuller. We're going to do another Larry's pick during this ad read, though.

Speaker 1 Barcelon Sports teamed up with New Amsterdam Vodka to officially create our signature drink, the Pink Whitney, created by the Spit and Chiclets crew.

Speaker 1 The result is a seriously smooth vodka infused with fresh pink lemonade flavor. For any of you Stoolies out there who've been off the grid for the past few weeks, we teamed up with them.

Speaker 1 We have the Pink Whitney. It is delicious.
And after rounds of taste tests, we came across this seriously smooth blend of pink lemonade-flavored vodka and knew we had to bottle this one up.

Speaker 1 The pink Whitney is perfect over ice, chilled as a shot, or topped off with a little club soda. Either way, keep this game changer on deck for your tailgates and watch parties this fall.

Speaker 1 And if you can't find a bottle yet, tell all those pigeons at the liquor store to get some cases in stock. Brought to you by our partners at New Amsterdam Vodka as the official vodka of the NHL.

Speaker 1 They're on a mission to help you find your wins all season long. Hank? I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 I don't know about that. Catch me outside.

Speaker 1 Catch me outside. Yeah.
I don't know about that. Chiefs.
Chiefs. I don't know about that one, Chief.

Speaker 1 All right, get your pink Whitneys right now. If you don't have Pink Whitneys, if you can't find it, go tell the liquor store to get it because it's just.
You should have said this ain't it.

Speaker 1 Sold out everywhere. Larry has the Chiefs, and we have Barry Zito.

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. It is Barry Zito.
He's got a new book out. It's called Curveball.
We have it right here. If you're watching on Barstool Gold,

Speaker 1 you decided to go with the orange color. How'd you get the name Curveball before? That's kind of weird.

Speaker 4 Okay, so the first cover was actually going to be more like yellowy and I was like, but a lot of the lessons was when I was wearing the orange and black, right? That's fair.

Speaker 4 So, you know, that's kind of the deal.

Speaker 1 So doing research for this interview,

Speaker 1 I realized that you moved to Nashville and live in Nashville, Nashville, and that's the most Barry Zito thing ever. Like,

Speaker 1 I knew you moved to Nashville before I knew you moved to Nashville. Really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Just because I feel like that's a perfect place for Barry Zito to play guitar, pursue his music career, which we'll get into, and just be a cool dude.

Speaker 4 That's cool, man.

Speaker 4 I think

Speaker 4 I mean, shoot, I think I was running away from California and all the, I was like the beat-up little puppy man.

Speaker 1 Right, right.

Speaker 4 So I just ran to the other side of the country.

Speaker 1 So, so, in your book, you talk about your entire career.

Speaker 1 Um, I guess we'll, why don't we start with, you know, just coming up in Major League Baseball and being part of a great rotation and being a guy who makes a splash, wins a Cy Young his third, you know, season in Major League Baseball.

Speaker 1 Was there a moment in those first few years where you're like, holy shit, this is actually all happening to me right now?

Speaker 4 It kind of was, yeah. I mean, it was a whirlwind.
I mean, have you ever heard this thing? They say it's like the path of mastery.

Speaker 4 And so the first stage of the three is the, you know, unconscious competence.

Speaker 4 You're just super good you don't know why you're just killing it and that was kind of what those years were for me so you know i had a lot of momentum from college and actually i was only throwing like 81 in high school but i transformed my delivery and started picking up all this vlo and so you know once college hit it was just kind of a whirlwind and that kind of stopped a little bit after the cy Young that's when I was like oh crap what's going on this is crazy right so you think that you were you were like a little bit better when you weren't thinking about how good you were at the time like when you were just going out there and doing it and then all of a sudden along with, you know, the Cy Young and all these accolades also comes like the pressure of expectation a little bit.

Speaker 4 Totally, dude. You know, sophomore slump, right? Or, you know, you see it in music, the first record like crazy, and then they're like, wait, how do I do that again?

Speaker 1 Right. Yeah.
That's when you sell out.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's right. That's when you, yeah, that's when you sell out.
But I think it's the self-consciousness really is the enemy, right?

Speaker 4 I think in anything we do, if we're like aware of ourselves and how people perceive us, then all of a sudden we're like consciously doing things to like win favor.

Speaker 1 Right. So do you look back on those first three years and you're like, man, that was awesome when I wasn't thinking about it, when I was just going out and throwing and dominating.

Speaker 4 Absolutely. I mean, it was so fun, but also it's like, it's hard to reproduce that because it's not really a conscious effort to not think.
You're just not thinking.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 4 And, you know, and that path of mastery I was talking about, the third stage is the conscious competence. You're like, I'm good and I know how to get that out of myself.

Speaker 4 But of course, the middle stage is the hardest, which is the conscious incompetence. Like, I'm trying and I suck.
This is the worst thing ever. Right.

Speaker 1 I read that

Speaker 1 you did a lot of reading to kind of get yourself to that third stage, and you got into doing transcendental meditation. Is that true? Yeah.

Speaker 1 How do you transcendentally meditate? Because I want to start. I don't know what it is, but I know that I want to tell people that I do it.
It's well, that's why I want to do it.

Speaker 1 I just want to say that I do it.

Speaker 4 That's the first step in doing, right? You just tell everyone you're doing it.

Speaker 4 You know, if you want to sound like a real veteran, you say, I'm doing TM.

Speaker 4 But a good friend of mine, Bob Roth, who actually is here, he runs the David Lynch Foundation, and they do all kinds of great stuff with kids and veterans.

Speaker 4 But TM is basically a practice that was brought over by the Maharishi Mahayogi.

Speaker 1 Of course, from you don't have to man explain the Maharishi Madhya Yoga to us. We're familiar.
That's your guy.

Speaker 4 He brought it over to McCartney and Lennon in the 60s, right? And they started doing it.

Speaker 4 And it's a practice that spans all religions, all walks of life. And you just sit there and 20 minutes of meditation, you have your mantra that nobody else can know, and it calms you down.

Speaker 4 And it's basically a way to just decompress your mind.

Speaker 1 Have you ever told anyone your mantra? Did you change it?

Speaker 4 Not even my wife. Really? Yeah, it's like probably the only thing I have.

Speaker 1 That's the worst time to say it. Nobody listens to the show.
Breaking news. Barrier Zito's mind.
Do you change your mantra?

Speaker 4 No, you get, when you get taught TM, you learn it. And like you get, your teacher gives it to you, and that's it.

Speaker 1 Have you ever accidentally told your mantra out there?

Speaker 4 Never once. I heard it.

Speaker 1 Can you slip it into this interview without us knowing?

Speaker 4 Like subliminally?

Speaker 1 Yeah, just say the words and we just won't know.

Speaker 1 Is it an English word?

Speaker 4 It's no, it's like some Eastern word that I'm going to say.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. All right.
All right. So you can't do that.
That's fair.

Speaker 1 So the other part of your career that is very fascinating is you were the first big contract, as for a pitcher at least.

Speaker 1 It was a contract that I remember when you signed it, everyone said, holy shit, Barry Zito to the Giants.

Speaker 4 I said that too.

Speaker 1 Yeah, for $126 million.

Speaker 1 And you've talked a lot about the expectations and living up to it. When you sign that contract, when you put like pen to paper, what is the first thought that comes to your mind?

Speaker 1 And then like going into that next season, because it's always fascinating to me. Are you saying I've already made it? So whatever happens, happens, or are you trying to live up to it?

Speaker 4 No, that detachment, as I call it, where you're like, you know, I mean, it's like you guys come in here. Ideally, I think you would just, you know, bust your tail to do as best you can.

Speaker 4 And really, you can't take responsibility for what everyone else thinks because you guys can only do what you do in here, right? So that I think is a very healthy mindset.

Speaker 4 And what I was doing was, uh, after the Cy Young, oh, wow, all these people love me, they approve of me. And, you know, I grew up with a father where I was trying to perform and win his approval.

Speaker 4 So, like, be good at baseball to like win his approval, right? And then, all of a sudden, I was pitching for all these people trying to be good at baseball so they would approve of me.

Speaker 4 So, the contract really was like felt like a very daunting, heavy thing that was on my shoulders.

Speaker 4 I didn't perceive it as like, oh, that's amazing. Okay, I'm going to go beat some, you know, win some games.
It was like, oh, gosh, how do I justify this?

Speaker 4 How do I prove that I'm worth it every five days? And if I do anything short of throwing a CG shutout, it's really a letdown. So

Speaker 4 that's kind of where it all started. You just invented

Speaker 1 more money, more problems right there. Oh, that's what that's about.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Well, absolutely. Not a new concept, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, the interesting part to me, though, in baseball, because there is no salary cap, I've always taken the perspective, like if my team signs someone huge, I'm like, you know, I don't really care because there's no salary cap.

Speaker 1 Like, of course, there are some restrictions and owners don't want to spend endless amounts of money. Sure.
But why not?

Speaker 1 Like it's not, it wouldn't be the same as Barry Zito took up 30% of the salary cap and now we can't do anything going forward. I'm always like, guys get paid what they get paid and why be mad at them?

Speaker 1 Be mad at the owner if you want or the GM, but don't be mad at the player.

Speaker 1 Do you think that that might be actually a new thing that's kind of come along recently in like sports fandom and not when you signed your contract in 2007?

Speaker 4 It's a really interesting perspective. I mean, because, yeah, you're taking that pie chart, right? You're taking a big slice, and they're smaller for everyone else.
But without a cap, you're right.

Speaker 4 They can technically do anything they want to do. I mean, for me, it was like the Barry Bonsa era was kind of coming, you know, it was on its way out.
Barry and I played together for one year.

Speaker 1 You know, were those shirts that ask Barry?

Speaker 4 Yeah, don't ask me ask Barry.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and spring training when you guys wore those shirts.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Good memory.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so I played with Barry for a year, and of course, they brought me in to be the face of the franchise.

Speaker 4 So here I am thinking, you know, I was kind of this kid in the Bay Area that you know the A's don't get a lot of attention we just kind of were really good all the time we never made a lot of waves in the media and then now you go across the bay it's only a few miles but it felt like a different world because you know in San Francisco everyone's wearing suits it's like you know they're flying like the fancy planes and all that kind of stuff so for me I just was like oh wow I have to become a little more rigid a little more professional and you know, being that kind of loose cannon that I was in Oakland, I felt like it didn't, it wasn't going to fly.

Speaker 4 So I actually kind of changed my approach. And I think that's where we all screw up, right? Yeah.
I feel like we got to change for them instead of just be ourselves and whatever happens, happens.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so you move right across town. You get a big new contract.
Did you actually get a new house?

Speaker 4 I got the craziest house ever because my ego at that point.

Speaker 1 Who tell us fire? Yeah, what you have in control. Did you have a grotto? In the city? Was it in San Francisco?

Speaker 4 I didn't have a grotto, but I had a grotto in L.A., though. Nice.

Speaker 1 Did you buy a house in the city in San Francisco?

Speaker 4 No, so I live, funny enough, I lived in the city for four of my seven years in Oakland, but when I signed with the Giants, I was terrified to be anywhere near Giants fans because I kind of somehow knew that this thing was going to just be shaky.

Speaker 4 So I got a house like an hour north of the Golden Gate Bridge in this little mountain town called Kentfield and just bought this. you know, mansion that was way too much money.

Speaker 4 But, you know, for my ego, man, I was like, yeah, I'm a rock star, man. This is what I do.
It was like Italian villa, like marble floors and like mountain views. And yeah, way too much stuff.

Speaker 1 What was the most unnecessary thing that you bought when you got that big new contract?

Speaker 1 Oh, like looking back on it, there were probably some moves that you made that are like, well, that was dumb, but it was fun at the time.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think, well, you know, when your ego's leading, man, it's like there's no satiation, right? It's like a bottomless hole.

Speaker 4 So for me, it was, I mean, I bought like four GTs and R8s, McLaren's, like all these things. Yeah.
And I had this house on the top of the hill in Hollywood.

Speaker 4 That was kind of like my main home because I would always go home to LA. So, man, I was spending like, I mean, I painted the house purple.
I mean, I was like way over the top.

Speaker 4 I had like orange mirrors on the ceiling, waterfalls in the house, you know. Yeah, Britney Spears living right under me.

Speaker 1 Sounds pretty sick. Pretty cool.
Wait, actually, yeah. Oh, oh, wow.
Congrats.

Speaker 4 I never met her because, you know, like she was Britney Spears, you guys.

Speaker 1 But you're Barry Spears. Yeah, that's true.
I have to meet you. Yeah,

Speaker 4 well, you know, in LA, man, athletes are small fitness.

Speaker 1 You ever just go outside and start throwing a curve and just be shirtless and wait for her to walk outside to a curve? Oh, sorry. I didn't know that you were coming out.

Speaker 1 I was just practicing my curveball. Oh, hey, what's what's up? Yeah, yeah, I got my shirt off.
Here's my guitar. Did you, you mentioned Barry Bonds.

Speaker 1 Did you ever have an honest conversation with him about all of the Balco stuff and the steroid allegations?

Speaker 4 I never did, man. You know,

Speaker 4 I was fortunate to be on Barry's, maybe on the trust, in the trust circle. I felt like even when I played for Oakland, I'd come say hello behind the cage, you know, batting practice.

Speaker 4 He was always so nice to me and just gave me that, you know, that smile that he's got that's infectious. And so when I came over and played, you know, we had lockers next to each other.

Speaker 4 And there's even a picture of Barry in the book, you know, where I just took him, you know, watching his TV, getting ready to go break some records.

Speaker 4 But we had a great relationship, but I never wanted to, you know, broach those conversations with him.

Speaker 1 That's a, that's a, I feel like there's no good way to have that conversation with somebody that's your buddy. I think you should just go, hey, soap, so, like, Balco.
Yeah, so what's up with that?

Speaker 1 Your nuts are small now. I know they're so shy.
Yeah, like, what's going on? Hey, your hat is like, I put your hat on by accident the other day, and it was basically a sweater. What's up with that?

Speaker 1 That could work.

Speaker 1 You can't broach that with a buddy.

Speaker 1 I just watched Moneyball for the second time, like, last week. Were you pissed off that you didn't get more shine in that movie, in that book?

Speaker 4 You know, that was a story, right? That was a Hollywood story. It was a good story.

Speaker 4 I think there was a lot of truth to, obviously, what Billy Bean and Paul D. Bodessa did and how they approached it, but there was a lot more factors, right? That team had an MVP, a Cy Young winner.

Speaker 4 And actually, I don't know if many people know this but the original money ball was written by Steven Soderberg I think it was going to be directed by him and me Mulder and Huddy were going to star in it oh or not star but like can you know yeah yeah at least have you in the movie yeah and then uh and I think that that version was going to tell the total real story you know and it probably wasn't going to be that interesting to non-baseball fans and it actually got scrapped before it uh and they started over on it and they're like you know what you know what moviegoers want to see is Hadaberg more Hadaberg all the time I mean I mean, he's a good-looking dude, so I don't mind staring at Hadaburg.

Speaker 1 When Pratt played him, that was weird. Yeah, that was.
Yeah, no. When Billy Bean was doing all that stuff and you guys are in the locker room, do you know, did he explain it to you?

Speaker 1 Did he say, hey, this is our approach? Because we're going to bring in some guys that maybe you guys are looking at and like, who the fuck is this guy? How's he going to help us win?

Speaker 1 Did he explain that beforehand?

Speaker 4 I don't, we never got sat down. The thing about Moneyball, Billy Bean never held a meeting in the clubhouse.
I mean,

Speaker 4 I don't think a GM has ever held a meeting in the clubhouse. That's a manager thing.
Right.

Speaker 4 So, you know, but,

Speaker 4 you know, with Hattie, I remember spring training that year. Hattie came over and I was like, oh, I pitched against this guy with the socks.

Speaker 4 You know, he was catching, and then he was at first base, and he was trying to, you know, get his feet under him really at first base and taking ground balls.

Speaker 4 And, you know, he was having a tough go at it at first.

Speaker 4 And then he just started picking it over there like no one else. And, I mean, he adjusted so quickly to a new position.

Speaker 1 That was amazing. Right.
So were any of these guys, did you quietly think, like, what the fuck are we doing?

Speaker 1 Like, some of these guys can't hit not realizing, oh, he's bringing them in for walks or he's bringing them in for this skill. Did you have that conversation?

Speaker 4 That was, I mean, that was, I got brought up into that kind of way of doing it baseball-wise with Billy Ball and, you know, that whole thing, you know, not Billy Martin, but Billy Beanball.

Speaker 4 And, you know, so when I came up in 2000, we were a home run and walk team. You know, Jason Giambi was leading the charge and winning the MVP.
So, you know, that's just how we did it. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, go ahead. Did they ever have any conversations with you?

Speaker 1 Because I know that at least in the book, in the movie, they, you know, they show Billy talking to some of the players and saying, hey, we want to work the counts a little bit more, get the pitch count up there against the other guy.

Speaker 1 Did he ever have any conversations with you from like a larger perspective about how different statistics that you might not have thought about can actually help the team in the long run?

Speaker 4 No, they never sat us down with the, you know, the logistics and all that. I mean, we knew that we were hiring guys that were going to walk a little bit more and we knew we would never sack Bunt.

Speaker 4 In fact, we'd be sitting in the dugout sometimes through those years and being like

Speaker 1 this might be a good time to bunt yeah oh no we're not button you're a great bunny that's like that's one of your secret skills is oh yeah you're bunting especially with the giants i remember you laid down that one for uh for a base hit in rbi right yeah is that who's it the the cardinals right

Speaker 1 yeah yeah that was one of the all-time bunts is that something that when you were on the a's you're like man i just wish i could get just put me in as a dh and just let me bunt one real quick oh man yeah you know what i wasn't good enough to play on my freshman team in high school as a hitter that's when i stopped hitting.

Speaker 4 So I had to learn how to hit in the big leagues, which was not fun. Not that I ever even learned, but I did learn how to do it.

Speaker 1 You did learn how to bunch. I actually think I read it beforehand.

Speaker 1 I think you have the most career hits without getting an extra base hit. Amazing.
Thank you. You have 35 singles.
I like the consistency. Yeah,

Speaker 1 he never hit a double, never hit a whole bunch of people. You're not trying to show anybody up on it.
Yeah. Right guy, every day.
He has singles all the time. Singles hitter only.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 in the book, Curveball, you talk about 2010 and the Giants winning the World Series and you being left off the World Series roster and rooting against your team.

Speaker 1 This is fascinating to me because I've always believed this with athletes.

Speaker 1 Athletes are so competitive that when they're injured or they're out, there's a small part of them that's rooting against their team and you're admitting it.

Speaker 1 What was it like going through that? What was it like being left off that roster? And were you sitting there actually like...

Speaker 1 actively rooting against your team?

Speaker 4 You know what? I mean, I'm just going to be honest. This is a phenomenon that does happen.
You're right. Yeah.
Pro sports. I mean, because here's the thing.
In college, it's rah-rah, right?

Speaker 4 Top of the, you know, front of the dugout. Here we are.
We're a team. And then you go into pro ball and you become an independent contractor.

Speaker 4 And you're like best friends with your buddy, but then he gets called up to double A, right? And then, so now you look at the big leagues as like, let's say two guys are best friends.

Speaker 4 One of them gets the job. One goes to AAA.

Speaker 4 One's financial situation is much different than the others. And then that starts to get weird with the relationship, right? So that's just kind of the nature of pro sports, like you said.

Speaker 4 So, yeah, I mean, I was hoping that, again, my ego was in control, you know, chasing women, buying cars and mansions and all that.

Speaker 4 And so, I'm thinking, if they can lose this, it proves they don't need me.

Speaker 4 So, I'm hoping that they lose. And also, I was so miserable being in the dugout watching them, you know.

Speaker 4 But when Bocey told me in 2010, hey, you know, we're going to go to the playoffs and we got to take our top four guys.

Speaker 4 And I'm sorry, you know, like, why don't you just go home, regroup, and come back in spring training?

Speaker 4 I was like, dude, boach like i've been working my whole life for a world series how am i gonna go home right now like i can can i at least stay and work out in case someone gets hurt so i'm like fighting to just stay as a bench warmer and he let me and it was cool but yeah i mean i was i was miserable man i mean my boys were out there doing what i always dreamed and trying to act you know happy in the champagne celebrations every as we advance every round and trying to hide in my locker most days and pull my hoodie over and i mean it was a nightmare did you ever catch yourself accidentally rooting for the other team like in the dugout like fist bumping?

Speaker 1 Yeah, that would be like just forgetting where you are for a second. No.

Speaker 4 No, man.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 4 But you'd be amazed how many guys I've come across in the years that have shared with that, that that's just a phenomenal thing. I think it's violent.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's cross-forts. Like, we were talking to Gordon Hayward a while ago when he got hurt, and he was talking about watching the Celtics compete in the postseason.
I think most real competitors,

Speaker 1 a lot of them won't admit it. But deep down inside, they all have that feeling.
Like, if I'm not going to be there, then fuck you.

Speaker 1 Like, I want to be out there helping my team.

Speaker 4 I want a World Series so I don't think I don't think there's anything unusual about it except for the fact that you're openly talking about it I mean you know and this book for me is just I'm just trying to be as transparent as possible you know and for me it's it's cathartic to like be like here's all the stuff I didn't say in the standard nucleus you know bulldurum like post-game interview you know because the truth is we don't we don't get a lot of we don't get a lot of facts and realities from these guys post-game we get kind of the candy-coated deal why is that why are why are guys not more honest uh in the post-game interviews?

Speaker 1 Is it just fear of backlash or what exactly, what held you back from being more honest at times during your career?

Speaker 4 I mean, I was terrified that, you know, I kind of had, I'm kind of a sensitive guy raised in a musician family. So by natural, I'm a naturally vulnerable guy.

Speaker 4 I felt like I had to have this coating of armor of assuredness and confidence, and I'm going to shove this ball up your you-know-what out there today.

Speaker 4 So I couldn't be vulnerable in the post-game interviews because that was weakness.

Speaker 4 You But now what I realized after getting my butt torn apart in baseball is that humility is actually the power that I never, then I never allowed myself to feel.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 1 I'm interested to hear about how you picked up the curveball to begin with.

Speaker 1 I'm sure you've told the story a few times when you realize that, hey, this might be a talent that you have that you are abnormally good at.

Speaker 1 Was that something that you started before high school or during high school?

Speaker 4 No, I actually started throwing it when I was seven.

Speaker 4 There was a book called The Art of Pitching by Steve, by Tom Seaver. And I was seven.

Speaker 4 My father was a talent manager, so he didn't know anything about baseball, but he just bought all these books and put them in front of me. And so I looked, and there was a picture of a curveball grip.

Speaker 4 And, you know, I think it was a right-handed grip. And so I gripped the ball my way, left-handed.

Speaker 4 And I think I flipped it upside down accidentally with the ball because I never met a guy in my career that gripped the curveball like I did.

Speaker 4 Most guys grip it with the horseshoe down, but I grip it the other way. But anyways, yeah, I started throwing when I was seven.
and of course, being seven, throwing a curveball.

Speaker 1 I was like, these guys can't even hit fast.

Speaker 1 I would be so pissed off at you in Little League if I had to bat against you. Yeah.
Like you're out here throwing a 12 to 6 curveball and I'm trying to swing a 22 ounce bat. That's right, dude.

Speaker 1 Can you remember one guy that you made look just the most foolish? Because when your curveball was on, that big loop and just getting guys to freeze up,

Speaker 1 was there a game or a batter where you're like, I had it, and it looked like that person had never seen a baseball in their life.

Speaker 4 there was a couple guys i mean i i specifically remember the lefties in the league you know tomy um

Speaker 4 you know rafael palmiro um

Speaker 4 garrett anderson ichiro

Speaker 4 uh but one time i remember facing tomy and i mean guy's just a legend obviously and uh but for whatever reason i don't know if he saw it right but he kind of He like ducked forward.

Speaker 4 You know, most guys get the jelly leg and they lean back. Yeah.
He ducked like forward and then like ran out of the way the other way, backed up.

Speaker 1 And of course it made me feel so good because I'm like, dude, that's Jim Tomey. Right, right.
That's as close as a baseball player gets to being in like an N1 mixtape. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Is making somebody jump out of the box. Like I need the guy to come out there and be like, my godson, it's over.
Just like run across the bottom.

Speaker 1 The curveball jelly legs is like an all-time moment when you, when, when guys can really, actually throw it really well.

Speaker 4 That's right, yeah. And when you can get the right-hander to get the jelly leg, that's when you know, you know.
That's when it's humming.

Speaker 4 Yeah, because when the right-hander's buckling and he's not even worried about getting hit with it, you know, it's coming. Yeah, that's the special moment.

Speaker 1 Is there such a thing as good curveball weather? Ooh. That's good.

Speaker 4 I would say more humid. Yeah.
Yeah, I got to imagine it's gripping that air a little more. I mean, because look at Colorado, the curveballs don't really break there.
So

Speaker 4 I imagine in the humid places, you know, my curveball was always good in Texas. So that says something.

Speaker 1 There you go. Interesting.

Speaker 1 So you would recommend, well, I don't know if I'd say recommend, but it worked for you starting out throwing a curveball at a young age.

Speaker 1 But I always heard, like, don't start until you're 14, 15 years old. But you had a pretty good track record injury-wise, at least as your arm went, right? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 And I think, well, they just found out that fastballs are the main reason for all these Tommy Johns now. It's actually not curveballs or sliders like they were talking about.

Speaker 4 The guys down at ASMI in Alabama, Glenn Fleisig, they did this whole study on all these Tommy Johns, and they're saying it's fastball torque. So of course I didn't have to worry about that.

Speaker 1 What'd you top out at, like 87, 88?

Speaker 4 I was hitting 93 early in my career.

Speaker 1 Okay, so faster than Dan Heron. Than Danny Herron? Yeah, He's a friend of ours.
Danny's my boy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he's our buddy.

Speaker 1 He's our friend. Danny throws Chad.
Come on. No, I mean, you know, he doesn't throw.
He was throwing 88 at the end of his career. Yeah.
We're not going to make stuff. That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, it's, I mean, he was okay.

Speaker 4 He was 195, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's okay. Great.
He's actually a future Hall of Famer. We've looked through his numbers, and he's got some stats out there that he's got legitimate.
Wow, yeah.

Speaker 1 Best postseason pitcher of all time, according to like two metrics that we looked at. Yeah, I think he's never given up a run in the postseason.
We only had one outing.

Speaker 1 But still. Or no, World Series.

Speaker 1 World Series. Best World Series fish of all time, Dan Herron.
Yeah. Amazing.
Yeah, yeah. You wouldn't believe it.
Let's talk about your game against the Barry Zito game against the Cardinals.

Speaker 1 How good did it feel to have that redemption arc in 2012? Because that to me is what sports are all about: having the 2010 World Series left off the roster.

Speaker 1 2012, you become the guy, and you win big games for the Giants to win another World Series.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, there was a very, you know, a huge change in my internal process of what happened in those first five, six years of the Giants contract, which is, you know, I kind of, I didn't, I wasn't raised with any kind of foundation spiritually of anything.

Speaker 4 Baseball was the most important thing in my life. You know, I think a lot of us can relate.
We make our jobs our God in a lot of ways. It defines us.
So that's what happened to me.

Speaker 4 And then after 2010, getting left off that roster, man, I just, my world was shattered. You know, I had no baseball life.
And so I was forced to kind of look inward a little bit.

Speaker 4 And after all the struggle, I was like, finally admitted, I can't do this by myself. I need something else.
That's not something I ever admitted, you know, headstrong guy.

Speaker 4 So yeah, you know, 2011,

Speaker 4 I found God, as they say, and I found this thing I could lean on and go to for strength. So ironically, in 2012, everyone was like, do you feel redeemed?

Speaker 4 You've had these great games in the playoffs and beat Verlander in the World Series. How does it feel? And I'm like, man, I finally gave up the need to be redeemed by all you guys.

Speaker 4 You know, I shouldn't say that, but I I was like, I stopped caring about what everyone thinks and I just started worrying about do my job and give the rest up to God and that's it, man.

Speaker 4 And I found this peace, as they say. I mean, it's true, though.
So all that stuff happened, but I was kind of like, I was laughing because it's like I stopped caring about everyone approving of me.

Speaker 4 Right. And then all of a sudden everyone's approving of me.
You know, it's just so funny how it happens.

Speaker 1 There was like no moment of relief for you. It was just like you look around and you feel, you know, you don't have the burden anymore and you you don't realize the second that you lose the burden.

Speaker 1 It's not an instantaneous thing, but you know, all of a sudden you win a World Series and you just, you feel good.

Speaker 4 I feel good and I was grateful for what I was able to do. And gratitude is not something I ever felt in my career.
I was like entitled. Oh, man, I'm good.
I throw a curveball. I this.

Speaker 4 This is what should happen. I deserve this.
It was a completely different headspace.

Speaker 4 So when all that stuff happened and the, you know, they had the big parade when you win the World Series in 2012, everyone's chanting my name.

Speaker 4 And I'm just looking at my wife on the cable car going, this is surreal.

Speaker 4 Because two years ago, 2010, you know, people were giving me fingers and, you know, giving me every vulgar gesture you can imagine.

Speaker 1 Get off our body. You're yanking yourself.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4 So, I mean, it was surreal, man.

Speaker 1 And now you have to see the contracts, you know, as they climb and climb. Are you laughing about how, like, hey, that my contract, 126 million?

Speaker 1 Because I remember in the back of my head, Barriezito signed a huge contract. It was like the biggest contract.
And then I looked it up before this interview. I was like, wait, it was only 100%.

Speaker 1 That's a fucking bargain.

Speaker 1 Like, guys are signing 200 million dollar contracts. Like, everyone is.

Speaker 4 It's crazy. I know.

Speaker 4 It's, yeah, it's grown exponentially. You know what?

Speaker 4 The crazy part is to me, too, is I always said, because I looked at some other huge contracts that were signed around the time that I signed mine, and a lot of these guys ended up hurt for half or more of the contract.

Speaker 4 And you don't hear about those guys being the bus as much as the guy that's on the mental DL, like I was. Right.

Speaker 4 I was out there, but not doing well.

Speaker 4 And those are the guys that get labeled the bus. The guys that you just don't hear from anymore because they're hurt, you don't really hear all the mad fans about that.

Speaker 1 So the lesson is fake an injury.

Speaker 4 That's the lesson. Yes.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 If we could take anything away from this, if you feel like you're not doing well at your job, just say your knee got blown out. That's right.

Speaker 4 Come up with a hammy and the rest will be gravy.

Speaker 1 That's perfect. I always wondered pitching in Oakland because we're big football fans on the show.
You see the Raiders field, how you split it with the athletics.

Speaker 1 Was there, could you notice that in September, there would be a difference with the field once football got started there?

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, the grass was totally just, I mean, the grass was a joke. You know, we'd come back off a road trip after the first Raiders game, and the grass was like yellow and just dying.

Speaker 1 That was just Mark Davis pissing on the field.

Speaker 1 Yeah, afterwards, he just walks around on all fours and lost his leg.

Speaker 1 I have one last question. It's a SeatGeek question.
Put in promo code Take. You get $10 off.
Seek Eek question. So we're here with Barry Zito.
Curveball is in stores now. Today, yeah.
Today.

Speaker 1 And it's an awesome book. I mean, it talks about all of Barry's career, and he's had a fascinating career.
I got to ask you, though, funniest teammate you ever had, and also, why was it Tim Linsecum?

Speaker 1 Was it Tim Linsicum? I assume it was.

Speaker 4 Timmy? Funniest.

Speaker 1 Big time. What was it called him? Big time Timmy Jimmy or whatever?

Speaker 4 Freak, yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, Timmy.

Speaker 4 Oh, Timmy was a a special guy man I love Timmy he reminded me a lot of myself when I was young sensitive guy um you know thinker um but I would say the funniest guy I ever played with was a guy named Frankie Manicino okay and Frankie's from Staten Island out here and we used to call him Frankie Manicotti and he was just the funniest dude you ever met and Frankie wasn't a specifically a tall man but he had you know he had the biggest spirit and the biggest heart in the game he was our team leader and a lot of times he wasn't even starting right he literally led our team in the early 2000s with that.

Speaker 1 Glue guy.

Speaker 1 You need a glue guy. Absolutely.
Locker guy.

Speaker 1 That's the only skill I think I'd have in a locker room. It's just being a locker room.

Speaker 1 That's it. He'd just hang out.
Mad Bum wasn't the funniest guy you ever hung out with. I heard he's just like a barrel of laughs.
He oozes.

Speaker 4 Oozes charisma.

Speaker 1 You ever go hunting with him? He just doesn't show it to you guys. Yeah, you ever go hunting with him?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 1 That'd be scary.

Speaker 1 You hear the story about how he used to date a girl named Madison Bumgarner? Yeah. Back in the day? Are you serious? That was like his high school girlfriend.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 She was also named Madison Bumgartner. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I know there's a lot of bumgarders in his hometown.

Speaker 1 I remember him saying that. And there was also a story about how he found a, he cut a snake open and saved the jackrabbit out of it.
Yeah. Raised it.
Yeah. A copperhead

Speaker 1 tried to eat a baby rabbit. He slit its belly.
He gave birth to a jackrabbit out of a snake's stomach and then raised it and nursed it back to hell. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So read Curveball before Madison Bumgartner writes his book because I'm sure that will be fascinating as well. But Barry, thank you so much, man.
Appreciate it. Best of luck with the book.

Speaker 1 Best of luck with the music career. And, yeah, this is fun.
Thanks so much, Corpus.

Speaker 1 We do a segment on our show called Do Your Pod because Hank is a big Boston sports fan. Would you like to apologize to him for beating Pedro Martinez in the Cy Young Award?

Speaker 1 He's still pretty broken up about that.

Speaker 4 Well, Pedro already had... Two or three.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but this would have been a dynasty for him. So it really hurt Hank that you beat him.

Speaker 4 Pedro is like my favorite pitcher still.

Speaker 4 Pedro was not happy when the Cy Young, when I got it, he was like this new white surfer kid, yoga guy.

Speaker 1 Curveball, he would throw it fast.

Speaker 4 He was definitely a disgruntled.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Well, that's you got the Cy Young.
You're a Cy Young pitcher forever. Exactly.
All right. Thanks, Barry.

Speaker 4 Thanks, guys.

Speaker 1 Hey, it's PFT here, reminding you that Boars Head makes game day entertaining elevated and effortless.

Speaker 1 Whether you order catering platters ahead from your local Boars Head retailer, or you create your own spread at home with Boars Head premium deli meats and cheeses, you are sure to impress your guests.

Speaker 1 My favorites, like oven gold turkey or blazing buffalo-style chicken, paired with their classic Vermont cheddar or creamy Munster cheese, are sure to score big and help me elevate my entertainment every time, whether it's for a tailgate or a home gating celebration.

Speaker 1 Seriously, guys, it's a game-changing flavor for every gathering. Boarshead, committed to craft since 1905.
T. And now, Will Fuller.
And now for something completely different.

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on very special guest. It is Will Fuller from the Houston Texans, and he has won the Snickers chain for the week.
He's the fifth recipient, NFL's hungriest players each week.

Speaker 1 Snickers is giving out that big chain. We actually showed it on our show, but he won it for week five because he had 217 yards and three TDs.
Sheesh. Were you in the zone on Sunday?

Speaker 5 Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, but it wasn't just me, though.
You know, Deshaun was playing great. Our Olan was playing great.
So it was a total team effort. But,

Speaker 5 yeah, we got that through.

Speaker 1 You guys have been on a little bit of a roll here. I think the Texans are going to be one of those teams that will

Speaker 1 be contending down the stretch. I saw after a game, this was a recent one.

Speaker 1 I forget who you were playing, but you lost the game, and Deshaun goes back on the field and just practices by himself hours after the game is over.

Speaker 1 Was there anybody out there with him that he was throwing passes to? Did you see that?

Speaker 5 I saw a picture of him out there. I think he was out there with his quarterback coach.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 5 no, I think he just did that on his own. I think he was just trying to get locked in and get ready for the next week.
So,

Speaker 5 I mean, that's crazy to see that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's

Speaker 1 his

Speaker 1 post-game press conferences have been awesome as well, where he breaks down everything. Do you think, is there any point where he's maybe given away too much?

Speaker 1 Have you guys had that conversation in the huddle? Like, hey, Deshaun, maybe don't give away our entire game plan and break down everything so that people get smart.

Speaker 1 I mean, I know you guys have, who do you have next week? Oh, you have the Chiefs. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Andy Reid's probably listening to that press conference at a steakhouse right now, and he's got all the information he needs to beat you guys on Sunday.

Speaker 5 I mean,

Speaker 5 Deshaun's a real smart quarterback, so I'm sure he can adapt to anything anybody throws at him. But we do a good job changing things up, so

Speaker 1 we'll have fun.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's going to be a fun game against Kansas City.

Speaker 1 Who's got better hands, you or Nuke?

Speaker 5 Oh, man.

Speaker 5 Definitely my boy Nuke, man. I mean,

Speaker 5 ain't nobody in the game. I don't think anybody in history got better hands than Nuke.
I mean, he only receiver ever to have any drops in one season with 115 catches.

Speaker 1 That's pretty crazy. That's just insane.
Do you ever secretly get jealous that you don't have a cool nickname like Nuke?

Speaker 5 Nah, nah, nah, man. I mean, I appreciate my brother, man.
I love Hop. I mean, but no, I don't get jealous of Hop at all.

Speaker 1 So we're friends with J.J. Watt.
We've had him on our show a couple times. We have a long history with him.
Has he done anything lame recently?

Speaker 5 Has JJ done anything lame?

Speaker 1 It's all good fun, but yeah, he probably has.

Speaker 5 Not that I can speak of. Not that I can speak of.

Speaker 1 Okay, good. Did you take away? It's good to know.
I'll rephrase the question. Did you take away Oxcord privileges from JJ in the locker room after he played too much Fort Minor?

Speaker 5 Oh, no. JJ can play whatever you want in the locker room.
J.J. locker roll.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, listen, we think that JJ turned a corner a couple of years ago, maybe small part because of us, but he has seemed

Speaker 1 a little more relatable, a little more human, and we're fans of his, and we're friends with him now. So we're happy he's doing well.

Speaker 1 I want to personally thank you, and this is going to be a little bit of a backhanded compliment, but I want to thank you because last year I said that if the Houston Texans win the Super Bowl, I'm going to cut off the tip of my pinky.

Speaker 1 So thank you for not winning the Super Bowl. I don't have the same bet this year, so you're free to go ahead and win the Super Bowl this year.

Speaker 5 Oh, yeah, I wouldn't want to cut off my pinky. But yeah, we're definitely going to, you know, continue to do what we're doing and just trying to stay

Speaker 5 on a good track and just, you know, see where things take us.

Speaker 1 Is there any difference for you this year, playing receiver, now that you have like a fully healthy, 100%

Speaker 1 quarterback that's able to scramble around the pocket, maybe a little bit better than he was last year. So, you know, the plays get extended, things like that.

Speaker 1 Have you noticed anything that's changed about your game to adapt to a healthier quarterback?

Speaker 5 The years I've been playing with Deshaun, I mean, he's been healthy for the most part. Um, it has really been me.
So, um,

Speaker 5 I mean, like you were saying, when he's scrambling, it it opens up a lot of things for us, and um, you know, it helps the offensive line, helps the receivers, you know, gives us more time to get open and things like that.

Speaker 5 So, uh, it's just it's just fun with him back there and uh him being able to to scramble and keep the plays alive

Speaker 5 adds a whole nother dimension to our offense, really.

Speaker 1 You ran a 4.32 at the combine. That's really fast.
I just want to say that it was really fast. And I wanted to get your thoughts on what it feels like to be fast.

Speaker 5 To be honest, you know, I didn't get my speed into college. And people don't really believe me when I say that.
But

Speaker 5 if you go back and look at my high school tapes, you know, I got hawked a bunch of times. But it feels good.
It

Speaker 5 makes being a receiver a lot easier when you have speed. So to

Speaker 5 try to use that to my advantage and

Speaker 5 keep the defense on our heels.

Speaker 1 All right, so speaking of college, my last question. We're talking to Will Fuller.
He won the Snickers chain this week for being the hungriest players. They're giving out every single week.

Speaker 1 Is Notre Dame back?

Speaker 5 Oh, man.

Speaker 4 Notre Dame never went anywhere.

Speaker 1 4-8?

Speaker 5 We ain't really going nowhere.

Speaker 5 When did they go 4-8? About two years ago?

Speaker 1 You weren't on the 4-8 team, were you?

Speaker 5 No, no, I wasn't on the 4-8 team.

Speaker 1 Okay, but yeah, that was...

Speaker 1 Yeah. We looked good.
I mean,

Speaker 5 we went into Georgia, played a real good game in Georgia. You know, tough loss, no moral victories, but I think that just showed the world that we are real contenders and we can play anybody.

Speaker 1 Do you think you got faster in college because they grow the grass out so much at Notre Dame to slow down the better athletes that go there?

Speaker 5 I don't even know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 No, it's like resistance training. It's like running with a parachute now.

Speaker 1 It's turf. We got turf now, too.

Speaker 1 I'm going to choose to ignore that. My point still stands.
It's been turf for a while. That's okay.
That's okay. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, do you grow out the turf?

Speaker 1 What was that? Do you grow out the turf? Have you figured out a way to grow out the turf to cheat?

Speaker 5 Oh, man.

Speaker 1 Notre Dame, we legit, man. We don't need to cheat.
Oh, you actually, so the four and eight season was after you left.

Speaker 1 So it's actually, it was because there was such a hole with Will Fuller leaving for the pros.

Speaker 5 I want to say just me. We had a real good team my last year.
We lost a lot of guys, so

Speaker 5 it was a lot of things that they went in at. But like you said, we're back now and we're playing good now.

Speaker 1 Okay, all right. Well, thank you so much, Will.
We appreciate you stopping by. Do you have another question?

Speaker 1 I was just going to say, I hope you score a lot of points this weekend because this is America is going to be hoping for tons of points out of that game. Oh, yeah.
With our pocketbooks.

Speaker 1 And also, how many people came up to you after the game? They're like, hey, Will, thanks for winning my fantasy week.

Speaker 5 A lot of people would have said that, and a lot of people said they had me benched.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 don't bench Will.

Speaker 1 That's fucked up. You can't bench Will.

Speaker 1 God.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, Will, thank you so much.
Say hello to JJ Watt for us, will you?

Speaker 5 I got you, gotcha.

Speaker 1 All right, appreciate it. Thanks, man.

Speaker 1 What's up, guys? It's Big Cat here making my Irish entrance with proper number 12 Irish whiskey. How do you make an Irish entrance, you ask?

Speaker 1 It starts with a shot of proper number 12 Irish whiskey because real friends don't let friends Irish exit a party without without a story to tell.

Speaker 1 Original proper number 12 is rich in a smooth blend of golden grain and single malt. Age four years in bourbon barrels.
Mix it up with some ginger ale for a classic and refreshing proper ginger.

Speaker 1 In the mood for something smooth but a little sweeter, try proper Irish apple, a delicious blend of proper's award-winning Irish whiskey with crisp, fresh notes of apple.

Speaker 1 So get out there and make your Irish entrance. Anything else just wouldn't be proper.
Okay, let's get some segments. First up, we have a Fire Fest.

Speaker 1 Last pick will be on Sunday. Sunday.
Barcelona Sports is. Probably the most cinematic piece me and PFT have ever worked on.
Joker. It was an honor.
Well, you just gave it away. But yeah,

Speaker 1 it was an honor to work on it. It would get people excited and give it away.
Yeah, Hank also. Joker dies.
Hanker. Goker, that's right.
Hank spoiled Joker for me earlier this week.

Speaker 1 Is that your Fire Fest? When he was telling me the concept. It could be.
I might have two Fire Fests. All right, go ahead.
You go first. All right, my first Fire Fest is Hank spoiled Joker for me.

Speaker 1 You joked. Because we sat down to talk about the concept for this week's Larry of the Goldfish, and Hank is like, is it okay if I tell you what my concept is? I said, yeah.

Speaker 1 And then, boom, spoiler, boom, spoiler. I just stared at him.
I was like,

Speaker 1 we're even. We're even.
After

Speaker 1 decades

Speaker 1 of Sopranos that we've given you. Yeah, actually,

Speaker 1 the pain in your face when I told you was similar to how I felt that's a good thing.

Speaker 1 That's fair. That's a fullback assist in the Patriots game.
Okay. But what I also was like, can I tell you what happened so I can tell you the plane? Like, yeah, that's fine.

Speaker 1 And then I said what happens, and you're like, dude, what the fuck? But that's my bad. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, PFF. That was a a good impression of me.
I like that.

Speaker 1 All right, what's your other Fire Fest? My other Fire Fest of the Week is for any parents out there that bought tickets for their kids to go see Blippy. Fuck!

Speaker 1 We've talked about Blippy before. But yeah, but this is new.
So Blippy was putting on a live tour throughout the U.S.,

Speaker 1 but the guy, Stephen John, the guy who created Blippy and also took that poop on the other side. Yeah, he did the funniest,

Speaker 1 what was it, Harlem Shake ever? Yeah. He pooped into his friend's asshole.
He shat into his friend's friend's circle of life. Hilarious.

Speaker 1 Literally one of the funniest things I've ever watched. Instead of showing up to these events that he sold tickets for and marketed as Blippy Live,

Speaker 1 he has an actor that's showing up playing the character of Blippy, an adult man in tight jeans and an orange bow tie. But

Speaker 1 wait, he delights in learning about fire trucks and tractors. Wait.
That sounds pretty cool, actually. But hold on.
Throw in trains and I'm there.

Speaker 1 Spin zone, this actor will not feel the sudden urge to poop in his friend's butt. Maybe this is the guy whose butt got pooped into.
That's now playing blippy. That's just trying to pass.

Speaker 1 That's how they pass the torch to a new blippy. It's like

Speaker 1 the new pope when the smoke comes out.

Speaker 1 Once the sewage goes into another man's anus, a new blippy has been crowned. Hilarious video.
All right, Hank, what's your fire fest? My fire fest is that I have to go to Atlantic City tonight and

Speaker 1 somehow

Speaker 1 my girlfriend's going there. I'm going with her.
Oh, nice. You have a girlfriend? Nope, not a big deal.
You guys staying overnight down there? No, we got a coffee. We got a little getaway.

Speaker 1 It's so sick.

Speaker 1 It's like, whatever.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 she's going earlier, so I'm meeting her and people there. So I have to get down there, and it's basically impossible to get down there without

Speaker 1 taking four hours. Yeah, it's

Speaker 1 two and a half hours with all like the New York City, Atlantic City.

Speaker 1 At some point, I know it's not as big anymore, but you would have thought back in the day, they'd be like, all right, let's just put a train that goes from New York City to Atlantic City.

Speaker 1 So your fire fest is that you have a girlfriend and you get to go party with her at at a casino, but I have to take a bus to get there

Speaker 1 by myself. Got it.
Got it. Yeah, that sucks.
I ended up coming back Saturday. Could you imagine being Hank and having a girlfriend and getting to party with her at a casino?

Speaker 1 No, so wait, Hank, you're going down to Atlantic City. I've said it many times.

Speaker 1 This is a hard thing to come up with because I never had to go to the bottom. My fire fest is I've lost so much weight.
I need new jeans.

Speaker 1 I would never have said this otherwise, but I would have to think about it.

Speaker 1 My dick looked so good in my tight baseball boys on the live stream last night, and everybody was like, wow, is that Teddy Bridgewater? How about your news? No, it's PFT. It's PFT.

Speaker 1 There are some obstacle allusions. You need bigger pants.
You make everyone uncomfortable with your really tight pants. I didn't buy them.
Spider bought them for me. Okay, my Firefest is...

Speaker 1 This is going to make me a huge hypocrite, but I have to say... My Fire Fest is my Fire Fest.
Okay, that's fair.

Speaker 1 This is going to make me a hypocrite for something I said a month ago, but I have to say it because I realized it and it bumped me out so bad.

Speaker 1 We're at week seven of college football season. Okay, you don't have to say that.
Why are you saying this? We're halfway through.

Speaker 1 Why am I entertaining this conversation? It's not bad to have double journey. tourists.

Speaker 1 Shut up.

Speaker 1 That's fucking crazy. How are we week seven? It was just week one.
We're halfway through. A second ago.
You're not including the playoffs. And the bowl games.
You're not including the bulls.

Speaker 1 That's the wonder of it all. You're forgetting the Cheez-It Bowl.
Most fabulous.

Speaker 1 I'm so excited for the Cheez-It Bowl. You know what I'm saying? We're going to do a live stream for the Cheez-Ibby Bowl.

Speaker 1 It's going to disappoint you because there's no way it's as good as it was last year. Well, it could be better.

Speaker 1 It would be awesome if it was just like a shootout and the Cheez-It Bowl is a schizophrenic bowl. Or they just bring Frank Beamer in to coach both teams and it ends up 0-0 tie.
Great.

Speaker 1 BarstowGold.com/slash PMT. You get to see what we just did.
We won't tell you, but we just did something really funny. BarsonGold.com/slash PMT.

Speaker 1 Okay, next up, we have Talking Soccer. And boy, do we have some Talking Soccer.
Maybe the greatest story that has come out in the last week about soccer.

Speaker 1 Maybe

Speaker 1 when did the Maradona documentary? That was over. Two weeks ago.

Speaker 1 So my statement stands. Colleen Rooney.
Colleen Rooney. So is Mary Wayne Rooney's wife released, she has become a cybersecurity detective and released a statement that is so awesome.

Speaker 1 I will read it right now.

Speaker 1 So she starts with, I'm going to power through it because it's thrilling.

Speaker 1 For a few years now, someone who I trusted to follow me on my personal Instagram account has been consistently informing the Sun newspaper of my private posts and stories.

Speaker 1 There's been so much information given to them about me, my friends, and my family, all without my permission or knowledge.

Speaker 1 After a long time of trying to figure out who it could be, for various reasons, I had a suspicion. To try and prove this, I come up with an idea.

Speaker 1 I blocked everyone from viewing my Instagram stories except one account. Those on my private account must have been wondering why I haven't had stories on there for a while.

Speaker 1 Over the past five months, I have posted a series of false stories to see if they made their way into the Sun newspaper. And you know what?

Speaker 1 They did.

Speaker 1 This story. Yeah, this is where I started getting like, ooh, here we go.

Speaker 1 The story about gender selection in Mexico, the story about returning to TV, and then the latest story about the basement flooding in my new house.

Speaker 1 It's been tough keeping it to myself and not making any comment at all, especially when the stories have been leaked. However, I had to.

Speaker 1 Now I know for certain which account slash individual it's come from. I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories, which clearly show just one person has viewed them.
It's

Speaker 1 Rebecca Vardy's account. Now, you probably don't know who that is, so I realize that this is probably not that thrilling.

Speaker 1 Honestly, that didn't even matter. Yeah, that didn't matter.
It didn't. It didn't.

Speaker 1 It's the wife of another English star, a new money English star, James Vardy, who's been only on the scene for a few years now. The Rooney's have been on the scene for decades.

Speaker 1 This is insane. This is like

Speaker 1 Savannah James revealing that Aisha Curry has been putting out all of her posts and everything and leaking things to the press.

Speaker 1 It's like if Siara, or if Jimmy G's porn star girlfriend was leaking that Siara was hanging out in Futures Man Cave. Yes.
That's exactly what it is. That's what this would be like.

Speaker 1 That is, it is nuts. And seeing people react to it online, I didn't really understand it when I first read it because I didn't know

Speaker 1 who the two parties were necessarily. But then I saw all the reaction to it, and I was like, I need to figure out who this was.
So I did some sleuthing and I googled the names.

Speaker 1 And now I'm like, holy shit, this is like a really, this is really interesting story. It's a huge story.

Speaker 1 So Mrs. Rooney was pissed off because all these stories were popping up in the sun.
They sound like relatively harmless stories, though, right? No, I think not. Fake is flooded.
Well, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Those were not fake stories. Bruno Marcy.
Those were the fake stories. Oh, okay.
She's been revealing. She's never actually flooded.
Right.

Speaker 1 She's been revealing real stories of like the Rooney's for years, and now she's finally got her red-handed, and it's awesome.

Speaker 1 I want to know what the selection process was like for figuring out what fake stories to try to plant.

Speaker 1 And also, my basement flooding is such a non-story, but the fact that it made it to the sun is kind of awesome. Yeah, and she probably...
But that's how big the Roonies are.

Speaker 1 She didn't start with Rebecca Vardy either. There's probably a few people she had to

Speaker 1 find the leadership. It's thrilling.

Speaker 1 And then she went and retweeted a couple of her old tweets from like, you know, six months ago, where she basically said, like in January, she said, it's happened several times now over the past couple years.

Speaker 1 It's sad to think someone who I've accepted to follow me is betraying me for either money or to keep a relationship with the press. And she kept going.
Oh.

Speaker 1 And so this, you know what they're calling her now? What they're calling Rebecca Vardy? Wagatha Christie. Rebecca Farty? Wagatha Christie.
Oh, that's good. Or no, I guess they'd be calling

Speaker 1 Wagatha. Wag Christie Christie.
Because the mystery novel. Rebecca is Rebecca Farty.
And now Rebecca Vardy has hired IT experts to go through her phone to prove that somebody else hacked her account.

Speaker 1 And it goes deeper than that because I was doing a lot of reading about it. What does that mean?

Speaker 1 Someone hacked her.

Speaker 1 She's grasping at straws here and saying that somebody had her login

Speaker 1 and used it to watch the Rooney's stories and then leak those.

Speaker 1 It's a tangled web.

Speaker 1 It's also very interesting because I guess the Rooney's, like, Wayne Rooney has had a bunch of tabloid exposés, a lot of things that have gone on, and Colleen Rooney has stood by him.

Speaker 1 They're like their high school sweethearts. So they're like the first family of soccer in England.
The Vardy's are, like, James Vardy has only like been big time for a few years now.

Speaker 1 So they're the newcomers. They're brash.
They always

Speaker 1 say what they want. They're kind of the trashy new money.
It's like Jay-Z and Beyonce and Kim and Kanye. Yeah, it's

Speaker 1 thrilling. That's what I was going to say.
Thrilling. We need to get Roger Bennett back on to tell us how awesome this is.
We did that.

Speaker 1 This is something I could see Cardi B doing.

Speaker 1 Right? Cardi B could pull something like this on a Nicki Minaj.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 then Devardies,

Speaker 1 DeFardees, in addition to hiring IT consultants, her response was almost better than the initial accusation

Speaker 1 because she denied it. She denied, denied, denied.
And it was like a selfie, like a hot selfie. No, but then she goes, it was the notes app, obviously.

Speaker 1 And then she says, Yeah, they're having a notes app off. Yeah.

Speaker 1 She says,

Speaker 1 I don't know why you would do this to me right now at a time when I'm heavily pregnant. Smart move.
She invoked pregnancy. She pulled the fetus card on her.
It's actually a genius move. It is.

Speaker 1 Heavily pregnant.

Speaker 1 Yep. Heavily pregnant is a great fantasy soccer team name name from now on.

Speaker 1 What Kin Bones Reddit account? What happens?

Speaker 1 Like, you know, obviously, if you smoke during pregnancy, if you do drugs during pregnancy, what if you're addicted to exposing your friend on Instagram to the press during pregnancy? To the sun? Yes.

Speaker 1 That's the fucking sun? That's to the fucking sun, dude. Yeah, that's not good to have your child be around journalists like that.
I agree. So this was an awesome story.
And that's talking soccer.

Speaker 1 That was talking soccer. Let's finish up.
We have our long national nightmares over PFT. What was this?

Speaker 1 This is a big deal going on right now in Division III football.

Speaker 1 So the University of Mary Hardin Baylor is vacating their 2016 national championship because their head coach let a player use his car for a year. So his player...

Speaker 1 Just three people start the school and they just decided to

Speaker 1 Mary Hardin Baylor. No, I think it was like Mary Hardin went to Baylor.
Mary. And she's like, I want my own Baylor.
So she started Mary Harden Baylor. This is the better version of Baylor.

Speaker 1 It's her personal version of Baylor. Mary Hardin-Baylor.
So she married Baylor University, and then she started her own college. Got it.

Speaker 1 But yeah, so they're having to vacate their 2016 title because their coach committed the crime of loaning a car to a player, which has been happening at no other college.

Speaker 1 Usually they just bypass the head coach and go straight to the dealership. Yeah, Nick Saban just gets you hooked up with what's the car that he sells everyone-oh, like a Ford.

Speaker 1 Oh, oh, Jesus Christ. Now this game got interesting.
So Tom Brady just fumbled, and

Speaker 1 the Giants are going to tie the game. It's time to ask.
Holy

Speaker 1 shit.

Speaker 1 Is it time to move on? Hank, thoughts? Jared Stidham? I did say. It's now 14-14.
If there was ever a game they were going to lose. Jared Stardum.

Speaker 1 They're not going to lose, but. If there was ever a game.
Honestly, those jerseys, like, give me, like, it's just the Giants jerseys give you just

Speaker 1 gray pants. Tom Brady has not looked great.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's do our FAQs. Although it's windy.
Wait, do we want to talk at all? It's windy. Do we want to talk at all about China? No, we've done it every case.

Speaker 1 Because there's a bad visual I'd like to bring up about China. What? So ESPN, going into one of their China segments today, they showed a map of China at the start, right?

Speaker 1 Which is pretty normal because they're in China. It would stand to reason they would show a map of China.

Speaker 1 But the map that ESPN showed had the nine-dashed line at the bottom right corner of China, which circles like this big area of nothing but sea and Taiwan, which isn't on a map, and it's not even a real thing.

Speaker 1 But the fact that they were fed this map means that ESPN is now giving territorial rights to the South China Sea to China, which they don't own.

Speaker 1 So ESPN just basically gifted China an island on national television today. Now it's talking China.
The national.

Speaker 1 Isn't that weird? Is that not weird to anybody else?

Speaker 1 It's weird. I just think that the, like, I always assume the people who do the maps and whatever graphics will always fuck up.
No, because this is. No, they were sent over specifically.

Speaker 1 Oh, this is not. It goes deeper.
This is not a map that you would just hurt, Hank. Jesus.
It's not a map that you would just pull up.

Speaker 1 Okay, yes, then I agree with you. It's a map that was given.

Speaker 1 I'll put it in terms that you can understand.

Speaker 1 I understand. The nine-dashed line is like the race.
I just didn't want to talk China anymore. Underneath the hoop in basketball.
It's crazy. They're just totally cucking ESPN and the NBA.

Speaker 1 They've got them all. The logo is going to change.
Shout out the guy from Slate who did a review of our very serious China take from Monday's show. That was really nice of him.
For real? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He put us in, like, he did a review of Bomani, Bill Simmons,

Speaker 1 Stephen A. Smith, all these people.
And he called us, I want to pull it up. Pardon my take, the lowest ladder ladder of cogent informed response.

Speaker 1 Well, listen to me, buddy. I responded.
I said, hey, can we use this in promotional material? Because you just implied we're informed. Listen to me, buddy.

Speaker 1 What you just said actually is not a cogent response because you meant to say the lowest rung on the ladder of informed response. We're on the ladder.
CheckmateSlate.com. We're on the ladder.

Speaker 1 We are on the ladder. We're the

Speaker 1 ladder of informed. We're the most important rung.
We're on the ladder of informed, so you're an idiot. You played yourself.
Sorry, Slate. Yeah, idiot.

Speaker 1 All right, let's finish some FAQs. All right, Jake just sent me these.
I have not went through them. What happens when you guys make friends with all the players?

Speaker 1 You got to really be a good coach, their manager, and just throw your guy under the bus before you get to the end.

Speaker 1 We only have so many more times I can do that.

Speaker 1 What happens when you guys make friends with all the players in all the leagues? Who will you be able to talk shit about if they're all friends of the pod?

Speaker 1 I think we got to go with Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, what if we're friends with him? No.

Speaker 1 I think we got got to turn our sights to non-athletes at that point. Yeah.
And just become a music podcast. Yes.
Or we can do with the lazy way I would be and just cover exclusively sports journalism.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's that, yeah, and critique everyone's critique. We'll just listen to every podcast and tell you what was wrong with all of them.
To give you the ladders of informed responses.

Speaker 1 Can you guys roughly break down how you build the fastest two-minute segment? Maybe some pictures of your notes. Thanks, babes.
I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you want to see some pictures of my notes? I have one. I have a video idea that I might do this weekend.
Really? It says,

Speaker 1 we're not going to be together. Oh, yeah.
Next Sunday. We're going to do it this weekend.
But yeah, we basically just sit,

Speaker 1 watch games, and for about three hours just make mostly terrible jokes, and then every few minutes we'll find a good one and write it down. Here's what I've got right now.
I do have a document.

Speaker 1 So far, the only thing in it... Don't you have one document for life, though?

Speaker 1 I try to clean it up. Yeah, I clean up every now and again.
But yeah, I do have my life document.

Speaker 1 I've got

Speaker 1 Fiscal Cliff Kingsbury is a note that I'm going to eventually get around to. Nice.
So that's one thing. You're on the lookout for that.
Question for Bubba: How can I become a flow god like you? Ooh.

Speaker 1 Just got to say fuck it and be logic. There we go.
Good job.

Speaker 1 Hey, Slim Cat, the master of flow and Hank. Why is that when I work out to the podcast, I grow in height and add five pounds of muscle each time, not complaining, just want another science?

Speaker 1 What? So we make you bigger. We're steroids.
Caden attitude, PFT. How does it feel knowing you killed Tommy Lasorda? Yeah.
How does it feel? I think it was Tommy's time. No!

Speaker 1 How dare you? I think it's Tommy's time.

Speaker 1 Actually, Clayton Kershaw killed Tommy Lasorda. Yeah, probably.

Speaker 1 Probably. We're going to have to go back to death.
Question for Bubbo. When you got hit by that car, why didn't you hit back? Fact.

Speaker 1 Should have saw the car. Was it a punch buggy? Yeah.
What were you wearing?

Speaker 1 Probably like shorts and a t-shirt. Okay, so

Speaker 1 kind of revealing. You weren't wearing high-visibility orange then.

Speaker 1 I was not. Okay.
Provocation.

Speaker 1 Elements of provocation. How did the car know it wasn't supposed to hit you?

Speaker 1 Hey, PMT boys, especially Big Cat, because this question is for you. What's the history of the mustache and what advice do you have for a 21-year-old trying to figure out a facial hairstyle?

Speaker 1 Oh, okay, good question. So I actually had a mustache off and on

Speaker 1 post-college. I always just thought it was funny.
And then I grew one out for the Blackhawks 2013 championship run.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 I just, it just kind of, I didn't really know what to do with it. It's kind of stuck.
I like wearing a mustache.

Speaker 1 My advice on growing facial hair, and take this with the world's largest grain of salt possible, is don't force anything that isn't coming to you. Yes.
And I'm a living testament to that.

Speaker 1 So I went, there was years, there was probably years from like when I was 20 to 25 where I was like off and on, giving it a shot, taking it away, maybe doing it.

Speaker 1 I did it for like a month, and I'd be like, nah, don't do it. So I also thought when I first got a job out of college that it made me look a little older.
No joke.

Speaker 1 I was like, the people will respect me a little more. But you don't want to look older when you're 23.
Well, yeah, when you want to be respected by like older people in a business setting.

Speaker 1 It was really stupid logic. No, it works.
Trust me. I do look older.
You look really older. Look at me.
I look 34. You look old as shit.
Or older.

Speaker 1 Hey, PMT boys. PFT, if Natto winning the World Series meant Dance Snyder would continue to be the owner of the R-Words for the next 15 years, would you take that deal? Yes, because he's going to

Speaker 1 Dan Snyder's got

Speaker 1 a deal with the devil or he's got like a blood-sucking operation where he gets rejuvenated with the blood of 13-year-olds every two weeks. So he's going to live.

Speaker 1 Dan Snyder, I've accepted it, is going to outlive me.

Speaker 1 So my only real mental recourse that I have that makes me feel okay sometimes is maybe somebody will blackmail him. Yes.
To sell the team. That's what I'm really hoping for.

Speaker 1 Hey, PMT boys, especially car accident survivor Bubba. Death is a real thing that affects all families.
In your tight-knit PMT family, are you guys included in each other's wills? I don't.

Speaker 1 I don't have a will. Yeah, where do you cop a will? Verbal will.
I actually need to get a will. Yeah, you don't.
You have a will? I feel like. I don't need to get one.

Speaker 1 I always thought you just wrote it down and then just find it. All right, Bubba, you get my Xbox.
Hank, you get my son.

Speaker 1 PFT, you get Stella. That's fair.
Big Cat, you get Leroy. Okay.

Speaker 1 Hank, you get one of my guitars. Bubba, you get my hair products.
Hank? PFT, you can have my TVs. What? You already have.
PFT needs to set up.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Jackpot. I'm going to kill Hank.
What else do I have?

Speaker 1 Yeah, what the fuck? Yeah, no. I get Rhea.
You can have Rhea.

Speaker 1 I gave you my son. And then you got to go down to Atlantic City every day.
Yeah, that's true. Fuck that.
That's my firefighter. And only for two nights.

Speaker 1 Did you notice how Hank slipped that in at the end? He's like, and I have to come back on Saturday. Yeah, only one night.
He's only spending two nights there. One night.
One night.

Speaker 1 You said you're coming back Saturday. Right, tomorrow's Friday.
Oh,

Speaker 1 you were speaking in the future. Okay.
Whoa.

Speaker 1 So, what does Bubba get?

Speaker 1 You can have my gear. You can have

Speaker 1 my good clothes, my non-barcelled clothes. Damn.
Which consist of a couple pairs of underwear? Yeah. Okay.
Pretty much. Liam, you have anything to give us?

Speaker 1 I'll take your bad attitude.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't really have a lot. Can I get just like clothes and shoes? Yeah, can I hear your clothes? Yeah, Hank can have the shoes and then

Speaker 1 I have a signed Migos poster. You can have a shoes.
Fuck yes, I love the Migos. I like how Bubba has a cap.
Bubba wouldn't think about giving me his clothes because he was like,

Speaker 1 I've got really cool clothes, and if you wore them, you would really decrease the value. Yeah, they would not be cool anymore.

Speaker 1 PFT, can you do... It's more just like it's kind of actually like a good metric system.
Like, by the time things get around to you, it's like, like all right

Speaker 1 no cap is over yeah oh yeah no i know that i know that what about dry snitching i was saying dry snitching a lot on the live stream last night but i don't fully understand no i i've reached the point now where i i i fully understand how it works when you're like 15 to 22 you have the lingo when you're 22

Speaker 1 yeah when you're 22 to 30 32 you have it ironically 32 on

Speaker 1 everyone just cringes when i say that shit oh i know i cringe myself When I said no cap right there, I did the sour beer face. Like, bitter beer face.
But yeah, Hank, what is dry snitching?

Speaker 1 It slaps. I assume it's.

Speaker 1 I don't know. A dry snitch is different.
So I might be ahead of the old guy thing. No, you just make up things and just.

Speaker 1 Dry snitching is a million percent a thing. What is dry snitching? That's why I'm asking them.
Oh, you don't know? No, I assume it has something to do with snitching. Put it in a dry one.

Speaker 1 With an unlubricated partner. All right, last one.
PFT, can you do abuseism for an attitude? Take us out. Do it.
Never asking

Speaker 1 to include

Speaker 1 throwing

Speaker 1 unusually

Speaker 1 dumb errors. Dumb

Speaker 1 errors. ERA having pitchers like Clayton Kershaw.

Speaker 1 Love you guys.

Speaker 1 And don't kid away

Speaker 1 though, I don't know what

Speaker 1 you say, I'll take it it anyway.

Speaker 1 Today is a Monday

Speaker 1 to find you shiny.

Speaker 1 Oh, I've been coming for your love.