HoFer George Brett, Jeopardy James, NBA Playoffs, And GoT Preview

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.
As we progress through the season, every fan knows that big wins are hard to come by and tough losses are even harder to accept. But you know what isn't hard to accept? Discover.
Believe it or not, Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide you heard that right 99 so make a good call for your wallet and get discover based on the february 2024 nielsen report learn more at discover.com credit card on today's part of my take we have recurring guest hall of famer and also a hall of famer ge George Brett. We went to KC.
We got some great stories out of our friend George Brett. We also have Jeopardy James, the guy who's taking the Jeopardy world by storm, America by storm.
We talked to him about how the fuck he does it. How is he so smart? When is he going to get his cash? Does he think he's better than us? Does he think he's better than us? Is he humble? Can he give us some free baseball picks? So, packed Friday show.
We also have KD's injury. We have some NBA playoffs, maybe a little hockey talk.
Some Game of Thrones previews and some FAQs. You're going to want to listen because we have a major announcement at the FAQs as well.
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Now in the street there is violence

And then a lot of work to be done

No place to hang alone washing

And then I can't blame all on the sun

Oh no

We're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue

And then we'll take it higher

Oh we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue

Thank you. to electric avenue and then we'll take it higher oh we're gonna rock down to electric caravan my take presented by barstool sports welcome to part of my take presented by the cash app go download it right now use code barstool you get five dollars and five dollars to aspca Today is friday may 10th and we are blazing our way into the weekend pft i am very excited about this weekend um we've got all potential game sevens coming on sunday yep probably just stay on my couch from what 1 p.m until 2 30 a.m whenever the late games yeah um so yeah i'm excited about the weekend coming up we've had a packed week a packed week we were on the road we just got back from kansas city kansas city there's some fun stuff coming we're gonna get to george brett in a second but we got to talk about kevin durant kevin durant's achilles slash calf slash reggie miller why'd you pretend to be a doctor and get us all up in our feels?

It was a story of Wednesday night.

The Warriors survived.

But let me ask you guys this.

Let's start here.

Do I get any credit for accurately predicting that it wasn't an Achilles injury?

No, because then you said, looks like I'm wrong. No, I was right.

Here's the thing.

So whenever something like this happens, you send all your fieriest takes to the group text.

Correct.

You don't put it out on Twitter for people to know.

You got to test it out.

You test it out a little bit, but I didn't think that it was an Achilles.

It turns out I was right, but for 100% all the wrong reasons.

Right.

And you missed off of it.

I completely misdiagnosed him, but I diagnosed him correctly.

I said, look, he's bending his toes.

I still think he might have Achilles.

I think they're just lying to us. But they say that he's going to be back after this series if the Warriors survive.
But it did suck because it was like Kevin Durant is having an all-time playoffs. He is ascending.
And then he looks like he gets shot in the back of the leg, which was very weird. He just walked around like someone had kicked him.
Yeah, it was like, give him a flat tire. I was seeing Forrest Gump when he was like, something bit me.
Yeah. Oh, shit.
I got shot directly in my buttocks. Did you just call Kevin Durant? Forrest Gump? Yep.
No, I didn't. Okay.
That's actually a compliment. Yes.
So, Kevin Durant gets hurt. Only one ball.
Steph Curry finally gets to have his team be his team again. And we get the spiciest of takes.
If the Warriors win this series, it will be an indictment on Kevin Durant by everyone else. Are the Warriors better without Kevin Durant? People are going to ask that.
I'm already asking it. People are going to ask that.
I also, so Kevin Durant's definitely going to come back if the Warriors win, right? We're going to say that? Seven to ten days? It depends on who they play in the next round. So they might just be blazing a trail through the entire next week, week and a half.
Right. In which case, I think he'd probably sit out and save himself for the finals against the Bucs.
Yep. So I'm going to be on the lookout for it.
But it depends on what it is. They said it might be like a tendon strain or like a minor.
His calves are so small. He doesn't have that much muscle fiber to strain.
I actually said, I knew that it wasn't an Achilles tear because snakes don't have heels. That's true.
And I have reached out to someone close to Kevin Durant in the Kevin Durant camp, a warrior's source of mine, and I said, hey, man, sorry about your calf. And that source replied, stop being a bitch.
I ain't on my deathbed. I love you can just figure out who that source might be.
I we are. We have.
This is the craziest part about Kevin Durant. He didn't even have to come on the podcast for us to become a Kevin Durant podcast.
Yeah, we just had to like swear at me on Instagram DMs and be awesome at basketball. I like Kevin Durant because he is the exact same person as everybody else.
He is. If you're a listener out there and you were given his talent overnight and became the best player in the NBA, maybe second best of all time behind MJ, people are asking the question.
True. It is a debate.
If you were given that talent and people were talking shit about you, no matter how good, how talented, how rich you became, you would have the exact same emotions that Kevin has. You would hear the haters coming you, and you'd be like, fuck these guys.
The only difference between Kevin Durant and every other NBA player is he kind of acknowledges it, and he's like, yeah, it pisses me off. I hate these guys.
Yeah. I'm pretty sure he was liking Instagram's perfect booties and stuff almost 10 minutes after he got injured.
So he's very relatable in that respect. Now we have the Steph-led Warriors also had a little nugget get slipped out there in the newswire where it was like Steph's finger is actually more hurt than we let on.
So, hey, the Kevin Durant shine of this injury? Nuh-uh. Uh-uh.
Don't even try it because Steph is actually playing more injured. Is that his poking finger? That is his poking finger.
Yeah, so that could be an issue. All signs point to Jimmy Harden stepping it up.
That's an awesome series. Yes.
Can we talk about James Harden for a second? Well, I made one note while watching the game last night that I wanted to address. Please.
We have not talked about James Harden's lack of defense. So you're about to say I'm jumping in front of you and you're about to say he didn't show up for the entire last 10 minutes of the game.
I got more than that. You can only ask Jimmy Harden to play on one end of the floor at a time.
And he's been playing decent defense, which means he's going to have to take third and fourth quarters off and just completely shit the bed. Yes.
Okay, so here it is, because i actually have more than just this last game i

have a nugget that goes the last two games okay okay so james harden on uh wednesday night with 10 47 left he hits a bucket he did not he shot one more shot until there's 18 seconds left in the game and the game was basically over he shot one shot in that entire fourth quarter after 10 47 he is the the MVP. He is your offensive weapon.
He's the guy who no one can guard, all this stuff. Where did he go? Where did he go? Was he blazed? No, listen, you can't expect the same guy to blaze up the score sheet every single night for his team.
You've got Chris Paul, who has to get his touches in, has to get his shots up. Harden's being a good teammate by stepping aside and saying, okay, Chris is going to be all up in his feelings if I take over another game, and I'm the storyline.
By the way, this series has the most per capita chance of MVP for different players of perhaps any playoff series of all time. Yes, I'd agree.
They were chanting MVP for Iggy at one point. He's got Draymond.
Draymond. Draymond.

Draymond.

Draymond.

Well, that was just his mom.

He's the heart and soul MVP.

That was just his mom, and she was just tweeting out M.

Tweet.

V.

Tweet.

Period.

Tweet.

Clay was blazing hot.

He was MVP for the first quarter.

Yeah.

All right.

So here's nugget number two, PFT.

The Rockets win game four.

James Harden scores 38 points.

Everyone says, holy shit, he's unbelievable.

Well, here's a little something for you, right?

All right. the Rockets win game four.
James Harden scores 38 points. Everyone says, holy shit, he's unbelievable.
Well, here's a little something for you, right? Okay, 10 minutes left in the game. He hits a bucket to go up 99-86.
He scores three points after that. Three points, the Warriors come all the way back.
That's two straight fourth quarters where James Harden, Jimmy Harden, has kind of been nowhere to be seen. Look, maybe he gets the nice thing about James Harden and what he has left in front of him.
He can still write the history of these playoffs for himself and have everything in front of him being like, hey, this is not me. I'm not the guy that goes away in the fourth quarter.
But the last two games have been iffy. Right.
I would make an analogy to Oregon Trail, the computer game that we all played and loved. He's pretty close to the finish line.
Right now, he is in danger of drowning in the Dales again for like the seventh time in a row. He's going to cock that wagon.
He has to, or he has to at least make one of his teammates die dysentery along the way. He thinks the oxen can walk through the river, and he's like, uh, oh, it was actually six feet deep.
He would stop at the general store to load up on provisions if they had like live new girls on the outside. And he goes in hunting and he just kills a bunch of rabbits for like six pounds of meat.
Yep. And that was Oregon Trail Talk.
Yes. So this series, obviously, Friday night is going to be awesome.
I actually am excited to see the Warriors without Kevin Durant for a minute just because, who knows, maybe Steph just goes off and goes for 40. Maybe Klay goes for 40.
And Skip Bayless, King State Kings, was all over it last night. He was saying along the lines of the Warriors versus Warriors takes, he goes, this is the Golden State Warriors, all caps.
Yes. The team we were seeing in the past was the golden state warriors regular punctuation truly warriors so it really is warriors versus warriors and then he was the first person to say wow it's really great to see steph curry out there on the floor without the ball having to touch kevin durant he had the big i think he said with uh he could take shots without the big seven foot monster clapping for the ball behind behind him.
He basically creates this alternate universe where Kevin Durant is the worst human being ever and just standing there asking for the ball. Don't put in the fact that he's scoring 40 a game and incredibly efficient.
This is the first page in the Skip Bayless playbook. When a superstar gets hurt, they're immediately vilified so that you can root for the team to play well in his absence yes so you can beat everybody to the are they better without KD take yes um let's talk about the big game that was tonight James Butler showed up yeah Ben Simmons showed up I spent all day basically trading Ben Simmons from the Sixers as I put my Sixers GM hat on and I traded him.
I love nothing more than having a take be proven wrong in the shortest amount of time because it's like it's actually kind of it's it's almost satisfying to have.

And obviously Ben Simmons has a lot to go and he's still got to get a shot.

But he was that might have been his best game playoff game as a pro.

It's the universe telling you get off this take immediately.

Yeah, you're an idiot.

Yeah.

So I always give a big shout out to God when that happens. But sometimes you kind of screw yourself a little bit.
So I got off my take of nobody's beating the Bucs in the East too fast after game one. So the Lord tried to intervene and be like, PFT, you're a little over your skis on this when you're placing a path down the hill and you're about to hit an avalanche? And so what I had to do at that point was make a quick switch back

so that everybody just forgot that it even got off that take.

Right, right.

Just be prepared.

Next game, when Simmons goes like one for 12 with two assists

and seven turnovers in Toronto, just get back on that train immediately.

Oh, absolutely.

I want you to make sure that you don't leave that behind.

No, absolutely.

But you do agree.

There is something beautiful about being proven wrong within a matter of hours. Oh, I love it.
It's awesome. You're just like, yeah, hand up, guys.
That was pretty stupid of me, but I still would do the trade. So James Butler was awesome.
James. Ben Simmons was awesome.
Embiid was like plus 40, which I still can't understand how the plus minus works when he hits five shots and he's plus 40. But whatever.
You know what it means? It means they won by 20. Yeah.
No, they only won by 11. Oh, really? He was plus 40.
The next guy next to him was, the next starter next to him was plus 15. Now, did they pull him out at the end of the game? They did.
So there you go. So they were already up big.
Right. But he was plus 47 before.
It's crazy. I don't know how that's that.
This is the ultimate.

It seems crazy.

This is the ultimate box score series where like if you're an old dude that doesn't watch

the games, shout out Tony Kornheiser, Mike Greenberg, all the above.

Yes.

You're fast asleep.

This is the perfect series for you because you just wake up in the morning, get some

ink under your fingernails, fold open the paper and you're like, oh, it's a doobie.

Oh, Greeny.

No, Greeny doesn't blaze.

No, he never blazed.

Wingo.

Has Mike Greenberg ever blazed a J?

Well, no.

I'll put it this way.

Hank is ferociously shaking his head no.

Trey Wingo has blazed more entire nugs in a single hit

than Greeny has smoked Js in his life. Greeny definitely was a kid who maybe once I would say in college was like hey let me blaze with you guys and then was like I'm having a heart attack call the cops it gives me such bad anxiety so game 7 I was going to say because you can unfold the paper and you're like oh the home team won by 15 points again you're not missing out on anything if you're not watching this series.
Correct. So Game 7 Sunday, we're going to get Game 7 Drake, which will be fun to watch.
I don't know what he'll wear. Who knows? We'll see if James Butler shows up.
Kawhi will probably drop 40. It basically just comes down to, this series basically comes down to, does Joel Embiid have the sniffles right before the game? And if he does, then the Raptors win by 20.
And if he doesn't, the Sixers win by 20. The list of Joel Embiid's illnesses before, just in games this series, is getting up there with Ben Roethlisberger's career injury chart.
Yes. Where they point at every part of his body.
This series alone, he had upper respiratory. The shits.
Same as Omaha

Beach. He caught it from the horse.

He had the shits. He had...

One of his illnesses was just got an IV

pregame. Yeah, and also

was seen yawning pregame as well.

But it really is. You want to break

down X's and O's and all this stuff? No.

Just tell me how

Joel Embiid feels. Give me a

thermometer in Joel Embiid's

ass right before the game, and I'll tell you if the

Sixers will win. Yes.
Administered by

Thank you. Just tell me how Joel Embiid feels.
Give me a thermometer in Joel Embiid's ass right before the game, and I'll tell you if the Sixers will win. Yes, administered by Chris Webber.
Yes. So you got Jimmy Butler, James Butler.
James Butler, please. Say his name correctly.
With Joel Embiid, it's either Joel Embiid or it's Joel Embiid. Or JoJo.
Which one shows up? Yep. Is it Joellen? JoJo is the fun guy who also dunks.
So he's got that in him, too. Okay.
JoJo is like, he's feeling it. He's doing it.
He obviously won't be getting the crowd whooped up in Toronto. I'm just excited for Drake, and I'm excited for all the Canadians who stand in that stupid square and lose on livestream.
I'm excited to get my first peek at Serge Ibaka's forehead when they take the band-aid off. It's going to be a major fellas.
Yes. Situation.
Big time. Come on guys.
Big time. The other game we have to talk about, Hank, the SeatGeek question I have for you, put in promo code take, you get $10 off your SeatGeek purchase.
The Boston Celtics, do you want Kyrie Irving back on the Celtics next year? No. No.
Okay. That's a straight up.
No. No.
I feel like I don't care what's going on with the team during the year. Lose that asset.
It's all about the assets. Whatever dissension was going on amongst the ranks.
If you can't get up for the playoffs and go balls to the wall for the last two games, elimination game, home games. He was a little bit.
Not really. It was all the last three games at the end of the game.
Once they went down, there was no like fight back. There was no, you could tell like sometimes the teams that have problems, they get together like whatever, fuck it, let's block it out, come together for this run and then figure it out.
You could tell that the Celtics never had that. They weren't like fighting together for each other.
And that starts with – I mean, Brad Stevens might be partially to blame for that. Brad Stevens definitely – Kyrie – it's Brad Stevens and Kyrie.
And Kyrie, like, is the one that was vocally having leadership problems and all that shit all year. So for him to do what he did in the playoffs, it's like – Brad Stevens, problem – first of all, can you please get yourself a little bit soggy? I know you did a little soggy sorrows last night, but please just add a little water right now.
Just like cough on yourself. Soggy sorrows for Hank.
He is going to pour the water on top of his hat. On the brim of his hat? No, that wasn't even a drop.
There you go. There you go.
He's soggy now. He's soaked.
Brad Stevens' biggest issue is that he was inaugurated a genius too early. He was called a genius basically from winning nothing, from going to the championship game to back-to-back years.
Obviously, they went to Game 7 last year. He's a good coach, but we had him as...
The national media had him as pop. Some people said they wouldn't trade LeBron for Brad Stevens.
Some people said what? They must feel like idiots. So I like how you split us in there.
Some people said that, yeah.

Some people said what?

They must feel like idiots.

They wouldn't trade Brad Stevens for LeBron.

Yeah.

They're two very distinct skill sets when it comes to coaching an NBA team, right?

So it's like you've got the X's and O's,

which I still think Brad Stevens is probably top three coach in the league.

And then there's the whole part of managing egos. The Jimmys and Joes.
I would say it's, yeah, X's and O's, Jimmys and Joes. It's like raising dogs, like show dogs, right? They're two different skill sets.
One is grooming, and then the other is discipline and training them and making them not shit in the house. And Kyrie Irving was just lifting his leg on center court the entire series.
Yes. We need to start having the conversation, who did he lose a poker game to, or whose girlfriend did he get pregnant? Yeah, who slept with whose girlfriend on the team plane for the Celtics this season? Because I don't know how you just stopped being able to make jump shots.
It was bizarre. It was bizarre, and the craziest part is it was four games.
Everyone has a bad game. Everyone has a game where they just don't shoot well.
Everyone could have two games in a row. Four games is crazy.
Gentlemen sweep. It is crazy.
And credit to the Bucs. I know a lot of Bucs fans get upset that don't give enough credit to the Bucs.
They're a fucking awesome team. They won 60 games.
Giannis is the MVP and they will get their shine in the Eastern Conference Finals. I think it's just everyone likes to pick apart the bones of the team that just lost

because it's always more interesting than being like,

oh, yeah, the Bucs are really good, and guess what?

We're going to get to watch them for two more weeks.

I have one nugget here about that game last night.

Lay it on me.

So David Bakhtiari chugged those two beers in about a grand total of maybe three seconds,

three and a half seconds.

I'll have to check the tape on it.

I think that the speed at which offensive linemen pound beers at other teams' sporting events

how to do this. grand total of maybe three seconds, three and a half seconds.
I'll have to check the tape on it. I think that the speed at which offensive linemen pound beers at other teams' sporting events has a direct correlation to how successful that team is.
Remember the Nashville Predators when they had Taylor Luan and then it ended up being the entire offensive line? Yes. So the Sharks were great.
The Sharks had the 49ers. They had McGlinchey, our friend Joe Staley.
I'm officially upgrading McGlinchey to a tackle from a guard. Yep.
I think he showed me something. He waterboarded himself with like Natty Light.
Do you think that this is going to I feel like we're going to get to a point, though, where the offensive linemen have to get like they have to go above and beyond because we've seen like the group that takes off their shirts or drinks out of a fish. You got to do 40s.
But yeah, like they have to. Yep.
Yeah. I like Hank.
Yes, absolutely. Oh, they've got to ass chug.
Like Steve-O. I was going to say, at the next Bruins game, have the entire Patriots offensive line up there playing Edward Fortyhands.
Gronk will show up. He's the best right tackle in the game.
David Andrews, if you're listening. Yes.
Ass chug it, baby. Edward Fortyhands.
You can do it through your boxers. It's fine.
No nudity. No nudity.
No, you can. No nudity.
That would almost be weaker. If you're going to ask Chug, get up in there.
But it seriously is. It's a dangerous game for all the offensive linemen out there.
You keep going to your city's sporting events. One of you is going to have to ask Chug.
It's going to snowball. Hank, do you want to mention Hockey Hank? He's back alive.
You looked at me today. With no sarcasm, you're like, playoff hockey is way more exciting than playoff basketball.
That's not exact. I said, you know, playoff hockey has got the juices going a lot more than basketball has for me lately, which is true.
The last three Bruins games, edge of my seat, exciting, fun stuff. Last three Celtics games, not fun to watch.
But playoff hockey is tough to get into if you don't have a dog in the fight. Correct.
And here's what could make playoff hockey fun for these last four teams. Bring back the puck track.
Bring back the puck track. Carolina needs to come out and say that if they don't go to the Stanley Cup final that everyone's – we're going to eat Hamilton the pig.
The opponent should get to eat Hamilton the pig. Yes, the pig roast.
Yeah. And we're going to root for Logan Couture and the Sharks.
Yep. They are a fun team to watch.
Yeah. I take that back.
I kind of do. I'm rooting for San Jose overall.
But, yeah, it's actually bullshit that the Hurricanes didn't fly up Hamilton the pig for game one. I know.
Jeremy Rodick was there feeding it carrots, which I was shocked that pigs eat carrots. Are they a vegetable? I just thought pigs ate pork.
I don't know why. Have you ever seen Snatch? Yeah, I don't know That's kind of a thing.
Cannibals? Yeah, what about Hannibal? No, wait. Was it Hannibal or was it? Yeah, Hannibal.
The serial killer? No, no, no. Remember, there's like three of them now.
There was Silence of the Lambs. Oh, yeah, that's what I'm saying, babe.
No, there's Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, which was awesome. Both those movies were awesome.
Then there was one in the middle that was like Hannibal or something. And that was after.
Yeah, that sucked. That movie sucked.
There was also Manhunter, which I think was Red Dragon before Red Dragon came out. And they're like, we can redo this one.
Right. Check it out.
That's the movie minute. Pardon my take.
Today was wild. What? Big Cat, we had a corp interview with Martha Stewart, and Big Cat just broke that impression out.

She dated Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Oh, yeah?

Did she like it?

No.

She went right over it.

It was a miscalculation on my part.

You know what?

I'm just going to say it.

If the Hurricanes lose, I'm going to try to track down the pig and kill it.

All right.

I'm with you.

I will drive you. Okay.
You have to kill it. I will drive you I'll kill a pig You'll kill a fucking pig Speaking of some barbecue Some pig, let's do our fire fest of the week That will make sense You know what, I'll start We'll do a fire fest of the week And then we'll get to our interviews We're going to do George Brett and Jeopardy James.
So my Fire Fest of the week, I have two. Actually, no, I have two.
The first is Hank doesn't love love. So this really, really hurt my heart.
Are you in love with love? No, he doesn't love love. So we landed in New York City from Kansas City, and we took separate flights.
So Hank and I were on a flight and you and Bubba were on a flight. And we land and over the speaker, they're like, hey, we'd like to have a round of applause for two very special guests on this plane.
Now, I'm an idiot and I'm like, whew, Hank and I are about to get an applause. This is fucking sick.
They're like, Mike and Michelle are getting married this weekend. Can we get a round of applause? Wait.
Whole crowd, whole plane claps for these people. They didn't stand up or anything.
I didn't even know where they were. I look back.
Hank's not even fucking thinking about clapping. That is kind of sad.
It's fucked up. I'll give this to Hank.
It's Wednesday. No, it's Thursday.
Thursday. Thursday.
It's a little too early to be applauding for a wedding. It's actually Friday.
It is Friday. Yeah, it's Friday.
It's a little early to be clapping it up for a weekend wedding. We sound like we're blazed.
Yeah. I know, but I'm just saying, like, Hank, I'm halfway with you on this one.
Also, if you don't have your person with you, you don't want to give it up for somebody else. What you're doing is you're inviting yourself to join a threesome with them i was just a little upset that hank didn't love love all right my other fire fest is we went to kansas city so this was on the flight back but we went to kansas city you'll hear george brett in a second we ate so much barbecue and i have had 24 hours straight of heartburn i'm at that point in my life where if i eat like too much barbecue, it's basically done so for a week.
We had these spicy nuggets that were so good. The spicy nuggets were very, very good.
Really good. And that's spicy nuggets were my favorite.
Yeah. There were smoked nuggets, which is like, you know what I'm talking about? Yes.
I know you're talking about brisket, burnt ends, beans, everything. I have, I felt like, uh, my, I felt like i'm having a heart attack basically non-stop for the entire day so my fire fest is being so old and out of shape and fat that if i even look at a like a little plate of smoked beans i'm done yeah also all that sodium makes you retain water and in theory would bloat you up i'm not saying you're bloatedated, but I'm not saying you're bloated.
No, I've been on a lot of airports. A lot of people.
Yeah, and the altitude. The altitude.
Yeah, the sodium and the altitude together makes you just wide. Bloated.
Length. Length, not strength.
Yeah. Hank, do you want to go, or should I go? Sure.
Mine's also related to our game. Okay, I'm going to go.
My Fire Fest of the week is I ordered a delicious Chinese dinner tonight.

Ooh.

Right? It was very tasteful, flavorful.

Had a beef Szechuan noodle soup.

Had Szechuan red hot chili blazing dumplings.

This is giving me more heartburn.

Yeah.

It was all set up, ready to go.

I'm hungry as hell.

Didn't really eat all day.

Only thing I had on the plane was these Taco Bell fire chips, Hank.

Ooh.

I thought about you when I saw those. Anyway, so I was so, so hungry.
The food gets here. I put it all together because you got to assemble your own soup.
I don't have any silverware. That is a fucking fire fest right there.
If you have soup and dumplings and no silverware to eat it with and we don't have silverware in the entire office. Is that why that why you're eating so you know what i had to do you know what i had to do what i had to go i had to get two pens off my desk and use them as chopsticks so i was eating so gross well they're new they're brand new oh okay that's not gross yeah not that gross it was it could have been a lot grosser i'll put it that way they're sterile yeah well they're sterile pens they have never touched anything ever but yeah I took them out of my shitty dirty ass desk and then used them as chopsticks and it was nearly impossible to do so now I'm still hungry I'm sorry that feels bad yeah I'm sorry spin zone the pen is mightier than the sword true so it's probably better than a knife and fork yeah absolutely and your hat still looks fine for all that soup you ate out of it.
Thank you. Yeah.
Hank, go ahead. Mine is also Kansas City related.
So we had the night off in Kansas City. We had an early flight the next morning.
And you guys know, you know, it's hard for me to get on flights. I throw up.
I puke if I don't blaze before. So I was trying to score.
Spent the night in Kansas City trying to score some hot leaves, score some nuggets. I couldn't find any.
So when we took

the flight, I had a bad headache.

I was very grumpy and that's why when I landed

I didn't clap. I'm going to throw this out there.

I actually enjoyed Kansas

City very much. The barbecue was great.

Seems like a really nice place.

I think it's probably maybe the worst place to score

some nuggets on the quick.

I don't feel like it's a place

where people are blazing all the time. I feel like Kansas City, Kansasansas you can score some nugs if you want kansas city missouri yeah they're like get out of our town yes i went down i didn't even bother to try to figure that out as far as i know the whole state of missouri is like clint eastwood from gran torino pretty much can i say something real quick i went and looked up kansas city because whenever i go to a city i love to like look up just the Wikipedia and read some facts.
Did you guys ever know about the Tea Party thing where it was at a Hyatt in Kansas City in 1980, and two walkways just fell and like 100 people died? It was crazy. No.
All right. So that was my fun fact about Kansas City.
That's a very fun fact. Yeah.
Google it. It's fucking wild.
When you said Tea Party, I thought it was like a red-wing protest thing. Yeah, I did a little disambiguation.
Okay, nice. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you clicked on the wrong Wikipedia right there, and then next thing you know, you ended up in Detroit jerking off with Josh McCown.
It happens, man. Okay, let's get to our interviews.
We're going to do George Brett first, and then we're going to have Jey james up after that before we get to george brett when your home system or appliance breaks down american home shield will help fix or replace the covered item no matter its age visit ahs.com slash listen for 20 off any plan see ahs.com slash contracts for coverage details limitations and exclusions there's making a sandwich and then there's crafting a sandwich. And when I want something perfectly crafted, I go straight to Boar's Head.
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Okay, here he is, Hall of Famer, George Brett. Okay, we are here with recurring guest, our good friend, George Brett, Hall of Famer.
We're at Char Bar in Kansas City. We're eating some meat Mitch, which I assume is still killing it, right? You guys killing it? Yeah, well, not you guys.
I don't own it. That's a great logo.
Can I make one one suggestion i like it when the pig's got a chef's hat on and oh yeah they look a little cute the pig's holding like a knife and a fork he's about to cut into his belly yeah something to play with for round two i don't know how many mitch is on his way okay so how many so mitch is the one who owns char bar which we with some other people yeah we're gonna order basically everything on the menu but how many days a week do you eat barbecue? I eat barbecue probably four times a year. That's it? Yeah.
Why? I live here. Okay, I guess that makes sense.
I live here. You know, it's here all the time.
But I'll come here three or four times a year, and I have a smoker at my house that Mitch made me buy because when he goes to Memphis in May do the big barbecue contest down there he needed another smoker yeah so he made me buy one because he didn't want to buy another one right so then when he goes to Memphis in May he comes by my house so I have cooked enough with Mitch and I'm kind of on his team so I've cooked enough with him that I can do ribs. That's all I do is ribs.
I don't do the pork butt. I don't do bird ends.
I don't do that stuff. But I do ribs, and I do them really well.
Then I do them at home sometimes. I'll do them for friends that go to KU football games.
It's really exciting. How many? Will you do it for the whole stand? You could.
I probably could. Yeah, I know.
But if my friends are going there and tailgating, and since I go to the tailgate once in a while and I drink his beer and eat his chicken and stuff, I'll say, let me know when you want ribs, and I'll do 12 slabs for you. Now, is that what you like to eat? Are you a brisket guy? I'm more of a rib guy and a burn-in guy.
I'm really a burn-in guy. Burn-in is delicious.
And pulled pork. I like pulled pork.
Yeah, absolutely. All right, so we're in Kansas City.
We were talking beforehand, a little baseball. I wanted to bring up something that we actually talked about about a month ago on the show.
The Yankees keep getting hurt. Aaron Judge, someone wrote an article that said it's because they lift too many weights, and I immediately thought of you.
Because when you first was on the show, no no but when you were first on the show I said I never lifted away never I lift weights now I lift weights now all I do is curls yeah for the girls I'm starting to get some guns yeah you said you said that you would like go for a run like a couple jogs to get in shape before the year well that was it that was what spring training was for back then to get in shape you got to remember back when I came up, the minimum salary was $14,000. I had a home in Kansas City and I bought a home in Kansas City.
And one day a teammate of mine was working for UPS delivered a package to me. So that's what spring training was for, you know? And then all of a sudden somebody got this idea, hey, let's get bigger and stronger.
When we were told all you have to do is run and swim. So would you do that every day in the offseason? No, that's what spring training was for.
So you wouldn't do anything in the offseason? I would play a little basketball. I'd play a little tennis.
I'd play a little golf. You know, I would get a workout in once in a while.
But never like these guys do now. These guys have strength conditioning coaches.
They go home and they're on a program. Right.
And the Royals give them a book and they said, okay, this is what you do. How many DL stints did you have? I had a bunch, but they were all from knee injuries.
I tore my ligaments in my knee five times, broke my shoulder twice. So that kind of goes to the argument that it's the obliques that people are hurting and those kind of muscles.
They look like football players. Baseball players look like linebackers.
So do you think that there is something to the argument? They used to look like third basemen and shortstops. Third basemen and left fielders and right fielders and first basemen.
That's what players used to look like. But now they look like football players.
You think that does have something to do with higher injury? I personally do, yeah, with all the obliques and stuff like that. Yeah.
I definitely do. It's so crazy to me, though, that like in the offseason.
So you were, let's say like 1978, offseason. 1978.
What are you doing in the offseason? I was coming down here every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night. Drinking, hanging out.
Hanging out, single, having a good time. And you don't wake up.
don't wake up, sleep at noon, until noon, figure out what to do the rest of the day. Ended up moving to Palm Springs about 1981 or 82.
And then I would play a little golf. I got there for like a month, month and a half, play a little golf, and then go to spring training.
And very seldom did I ever work out. Besides the pay, I would say that being an athlete back then was far, far better than it is now.
Because now it's like every move is covered. Besides the pay.
Well, besides the pay. The pay is obviously a huge deciding factor.
You could get away with a lot more. There was no cell phones with cameras on them.
There's Twitter. There's Instagram.
There's Facebook. There's iMessenger.
There's all that crap that you can get yourself in trouble. You can get yourself in serious trouble.
You would have had to really screw up that. And the roles were a little bit more relaxed back then.
Back in the 70s, the 80s, roles were a little bit more relaxed. You could be out late.
What was the latest you ever stayed out before a game? Probably 5 in the morning. I thought you were going to say you didn't go to sleep.
Well, I didn't go to sleep, but I got home at 5. What time did you have to be at the stadium? 9.30, 10.
Yeah. I remember that game, too.
I remember that game. No, I was on first base in the first inning, and it was a hot day in Kansas City.
And a guy behind me, I was probably hitting third or sitting second or third, and Hal McCray was up behind me.

I think he hit a double.

I ran from first, second, third to home, scored on a double,

ran right into the bathroom and threw up.

Right there.

You also had the greenie coffee back then, which was like a nice little pick-me-up.

That's true.

You don't have that special spiked coffee.

No, no, no, the spiked coffee.

But that's hilarious because that's like, I mean, I'm sure a lot of the other guys were similar they show up maybe a little hungover very similar i remember one night one night we were playing i was it was probably the end of april and the yankees were in town and paglia rulo was a good friend and so was don mattingly and we were all hitting all three of us were hitting about 210 and it's the end of april and the yankees so i was talking to mattingly at first and you guys doing tonight? And he said, oh, we're going down to the plaza. I said, I'm going to go down there with you guys.
And so sure enough, we stayed out till like two in the morning and got home, got to the ballpark the next day, saw each other before batting practice, during batting practice. And we were kind of rolling our eyes at one another going, like, what are we doing? Sure enough, they were hitting first because the game was in Kansas City.
Maddenley gets a base hit. And then we go up and hit.
I get a base hit. So now I'm on first talking to him and I'm going, man, I tell you, I'm pretty relaxed today.
I don't have a lot of energy. All of a sudden, Pags gets up and he gets a base hit.
And we're all, I'm laughing. I'm playing third base, and Pags is on first, and I'm going, how are we doing this? We've got to do this more often, boys.
But I've got a feeling, once in a while, it's not bad. But if you do it all the time, it's going to really kill you.
It'll catch up to you. Yeah.
So, I mean, it is that time of year. But we were young.
We were young. I mean, God, if I go out, stay out late now, and have some martini and some wine or something, I'm done.
Yeah. I mean, I'm done.
Yeah. I'll be 66 in a week.
Damn, with those guns? Shit. That's crazy.
But it does speak to, like, it's that time of year where, at least to me, I would have trouble focusing on playing baseball day in, day out, you know, mid-May, start of June. You need something like that once in a while because you fail seven out of ten times and you can't get down.
Yeah. You know, people always say, well, you got 3,000 hits.
You know what I tell them? I made 7,000 outs. Yeah.
Yeah. That's a good term.
You know what I mean? Yeah. That is how baseball works.
So I actually wanted – the other thing I wanted to bring up was 400. I think you are the latest to be at, you were right below 400 in the season since Ted Williams.
It was September in 1980. You were 3996 or something.
I was over, with two weeks to go in the season, I was 400 on the nose. Which is nuts.
Yeah. We went to Seattle.
I went one for 11. My only hit was a home run.
And they had a shortstop named Mario Mendoza, I think.

The Mendoza line guy, you know.

He robbed me of about three hits.

They had a guy in center field rob me of a couple hits.

Diving catches.

Seattle's 20 games out of first place.

We're 20 games in first place.

And these guys are playing like it's the seventh game of the frickin' World Series.

And I ended up going one for 11. And that was it.
And that was it. The average went to like 391.
Terrible. And then it got down to like 385.
They almost sent you back to the minors. They're going to designate this guy.
The good thing is Omaha's only a two-and-a-half-hour drive. That's true.
But you don't think that's ever going to happen again, right? No, I don't think it is. I think there's too much specialty in pitching and the pitching quantity of the game now.
You got a guy, a lot of the three, four, five starters, you get five innings, them with the lead, they're out. Then they bring in a guy that's making probably $6 million a year to pitch the sixth, maybe the seventh.
Then they bring in a guy that pitches the eighth inning. You remember the Royals when they won the World Series? The Royals in 2015 were great at that.
They started it. We had four closers.
Wade Davis. Wade Davis, then Holland.
Wade Davis. Kelvin Herrera.
All you had to do was get to five or six. Five-inning game.
It was a five-inning game. The game was over.
And I'm not taking anything away from Ted Williams and all those guys that did it because they're all great, great players. But, you know, back then you would have these guys that throw 12, 13-inning complete games.
That's all they did. Every game was a complete game.
And Ted Williams, if he was playing today, he might hit .400. That's how good a hitter he was.
But it's a lot tougher now than it was back then, I think. What about batting practice? When you go out there and start your day, would you focus on, like, spraying the ball in different directions would you pick targets or would you just go up there and swing? No no no I would always I would always uh go up there and I was really the first four or five swings I just wanted to hit everything to left field I was the left hand to hit her yeah so I'd stay inside the ball and try to swing through it and then after about seven swings you know you have seven round swing and then all of a sudden it's like then I would just go okay gap to gap gap to gap I'm going to hit it from 385 sign to the 385 sign and just try to hit everything up there and drive it and then my last seven or ten swings just hit it where it was pitched so they you took the shift out of play completely nobody would have dreamed about the shift on me I'm not bullshitting you I'd hit 450 because i could hit a ground ball to the shortstop or third baseman whenever i wanted yeah whenever i wanted do you think that you could i stood far enough off the plate that it didn't matter a ball inside i could still hit there you think you could teach a modern player like i tried i tried in 2013 when i was the hitting coach for two months i tried to convince a lot of the royals that've got to start hitting the ball that way.
Here's how you do it, and they didn't listen. All right, so that actually brings up a good point that I think is in the news right now about baseball and how it's become a strikeout, walk, home run game.
And it's taken all the action out. And I think there's a lot of different reasons why baseball might not be the most popular sport that it was 50 years ago.
But I think the action being taken out of the game is definitely part of it. When was the last time you saw a hit and run? Right.
When was the last time you saw a hit and run? I like back-to-back doubles. Mike Sosa was really big on that.
Yeah. Me and Hal McCray could put the hit and run on whenever we wanted because he would always hit in front of me or behind me.
So if I was up and he was on first base, we had a sign. Hey, this guy's giving me trouble.
I'm just going to hit a ground ball to shortstop. Right.
When I was coaching, this is the honest to God true story, I was throwing batting practice in Cleveland and a left-handed hitter was up. Last name was Lowe.
He played for us and then he ended up going off.

Forget his first name.

And I throw him a pitch and it was a hit and run round.

You know, okay, two bunts, hit and run, get him over, five swings.

So hit and run, I threw a ball and he hooks it to the second baseman.

Hooks it.

And I go, what the fuck are you doing?

Let's go, hit and run.

And he hooked it again.

So after the round's over, I go up to him, because I only threw one group.

I go up and I go, what are you doing?

Who's covering second base if you're up?

Second baseman.

He didn't even know that the shortstop would be covering the base.

Right.

I had to go around and walk him around.

Okay, Escobar.

Alcides Escobar, your right-handed hitter, right? Who's going to cover second if the guy steals? Right. And you're up.
Second baseman. And this guy didn't even know that.
And he's a major league player. And it's a lost art.
It's a lost art. And it's the easiest way to get a base hit.
So you get a guy that's struggling that can hit the ball the other way, just put a hit run on him. Yeah.
And what's interesting, too, is that it actually, back to the 2015 Royals,

a lot of what they did was that action, you know, the contact, the whole contact.

You know what was funny about that?

When they came back against Oakland, they came back against Houston

and all those things.

You know, the first four or five innings they might be losing.

Then all of a sudden they would get six hits in one inning.

Right.

Probably five of them were the opposite field. Yeah.
All of a sudden they just said, okay, I'm just going to hit the ball over there. Getting balls in play.
But you're starting to see guys do it more and more, a little bit more. I've noticed Alex Gordon this year hitting balls to left field a little bit more.
I think Moustakis is hitting more balls. But if they put three guys on one side of the field for me, I stood so far off the plate that if they threw a ball even inside, I could still manipulate my hands and create that angle.
So why do you think players don't want to listen to that these days? I don't know. Maybe because they're making $10 million a year and they're hitting 230.
Yeah. But if they hit 35 home runs, they'll make $15 million a year.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
So what's the – Do chicks still love the long ball? Oh, yeah. Do they still love the long ball? Chicks dig scars in the long ball.
Scars, yeah. And tattoos? I don't know about tattoos.
Probably not tattoos. Yeah.
Hank's got tattoos. So who was the meat guy and who was the bean guy in our diaper challenge? Oh, man.
That's a good idea. Do you remember that? I blocked that out.
Those are days that we have grown up. You don't do that anymore? We've grown up.
Oh, you've grown up. You actually were kind of like the finale.
Yeah. Of the crazy days? Well, we had the Mark Schlereth like he used to piss.
He was the former offensive lineman for the Broncos in the Redskins. He used to piss his pants while he played in football games.
So we pissed our pants with him in that bathroom. Yeah.
So you were kind of the end of the story arc. You know what it was? Where everyone was like, this there was a there was a conversation that we had when you were coming in and we were like are we gonna shit ourselves yeah you were and just having that conversation with each other of whether or not we're going to actually crap ourselves on camera i think that was a major wake-up call like okay this is the point of no return yeah you were the you were the the the trilogy that no one asked for.
That was a good one. Yeah, people wanted the sequel.
People asked me what I did when I was there at bar school. I actually think they probably started you more than a day.
They had me pouring beans down their diapers, and they guessed if one was chunky and one was young. No, that's true.
I'm not. Hey, let's talk about baseball.
That's what I want to talk about. Did you ever pitch in a game? No.
Do you wish that you had? I would have liked to have pitched in a blowout. You know, like they do now, bringing somebody to pitch.
I would have loved to have done it. That's always fun to see a position player.
It's fun for one team. I had to face those guys, though, sometimes because we had such a big lead.
And they would say, rather than waste an inning of a relief pitcher, we'll just throw the backup infielder in there. And I'll tell you what, there's a lot of pressure facing a guy like that.
It's true. Because you can really be embarrassed if you strike out or hit a jam shot, you know? Yeah, that's true.
That's the point. It probably fucks you up because you're throwing so slow.
And the pitcher's got absolutely no expectations on him. None whatsoever.
If you can get the ball across the plate, that's great. And if you get a hit, you're supposed to.
Right. And if you don't, God, you're an idiot.
Right, right, right. I wanted to, because this is like we always make headlines with this, bringing up the Hall of Fame.
Right. Have you ever made a statement about the guys who were coming up who were in the steroid era? No.
Like whether they should be in or out? No. I've never made one.
Okay, so let's do it right now. Barry Bonds, in or out?

Out.

Ooh.

Alex Rodriguez.

Out.

Ooh.

Well, so Barry Bonds, he never tested positive, right?

Well, but why is the end?

I don't understand.

Yeah.

So do you not fall under the, like, it's part of the history of the game,

whether it's good, bad, whatever it may be?

You know what?

All these guys had already broke my record.

I never had a record.

Right. You know?

But I know the Mike Schmitz and the Reggies and the home run hitters,

the Harmon Killebrews who's gone on and passed away.

They always, because these guys passed them in home runs.

Right.

And they were always saying, if they let these guys in, I'm never coming back. And I respect their opinion.
Okay. To me, it's like Pete Rose.
There's a thing in every major league baseball stadium. It's a two-foot by three-foot placard.
Yep. If you gamble on baseball while in uniform, you are suspended for life.
Well, I think the evidence is, and that's why he's gone. There's no placard in there about steroids now, but it was so rampant there for a while.
What about a wing in the Hall of Fame that has an asterisk, where it's like, these guys are part of the history of the game. Because Barry Bonds is part of the history of the game.
Whether people want it or not, he is. Same with Alex Rodriguez, same with Roger Clemens.
All these guys, would you be okay with that? Probably. Something that's like, hey, these guys should be honored in some way.
Probably. Yeah.
Because that's really what it is, kind of a museum at the end of the day. It's also tough to keep track of which pitchers we're using, too.
It's a lot more eye-popping when you see, oh, Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs this year and then went back to hitting 12, 13. Are you saying he did steroids? Actually, Cal Ripken told us that he didn't.
Cal said no. Cal made change.
I'm saying, when you look at batters, it's very easy to see a spike in the numbers like that. With pitchers, it's a little bit more nebulous.
You don't know, like, okay, this guy had a great year this year. Well, you don't see any pitchers that are just buff like that.
Yeah. You don't see them that are just that buffed.
All I know is baseball got really hard when I was 40, and for some people it's getting easier. Bartolo Colon, he's jacked up.
Yeah, it's true. He's flexible.
Was there a moment where you're like,

holy shit, this game is so much harder than it used to be?

Like an exact moment?

No, I don't think there was an exact moment.

I mean, I used to love to be able to hit a fastball.

I don't care how hard it was, I could hit it.

And all of a sudden, you're starting to foul off fastballs up here.

93, 90, I used to just go, how did I miss that?

And then you did it again, you'd foul it off. And I just go, how did I miss that? Right.

And then you did it again, you fell it off.

And I'm going, how did I miss that one?

You know?

And it's kind of going, God, you know what?

Maybe my bat's too big.

So I went down to a smaller bat.

Went down to 31 ounce rather than 32.

Instead of 34 inches, I went 33 and a half.

So I'm saying, still couldn't catch up with it.

But you just lose that little bit of quickness in your swing, you know? Yeah. And I knew it was time for me to retire, Cat, when I used to pride myself on being the first one in the locker room and one of the last ones to leave.
And all of a sudden, I was one of the last guys in the locker room and one of the first to leave. Right.
And if I got a hit to help the team win a ball game, I mean, I got goosebumps. And if I struck out, I was pissed.
All of a sudden I didn't get goosebumps anymore, and I didn't get mad anymore. So I'm saying, okay, I think the game got me.
Yeah. I think the game got me.
By the way, you just did something that I love when our guests do. It's only a few guests calling me just Cat.
Cat. Fucking love it.
Okay. I mean, it's the best.
Mr. Cat.
Every time someone's like, it's only a few people. No, no, it's only a few people.
And you are the perfect person to say, Cat, you know what? Right. It's always like my favorite thing that happens.
So there you go. I had.
There's Mitchie, boy. You made it.
Mitch is here. He is here.
Now, did you hear what he did? What? He answered an ad on Craigslist. Somebody in Paris had a restaurant.
And they wanted to make it a barbecue restaurant. So he went over there for two months and taught them how to do barbecue in Paris.
So it was a Craigslist ad here in Kansas City? And he brought Paul, who's from New Zealand, who's from New Zealand, he brought him back. They're going to Memphis in May to compete in the Memphis in May barbecue contest.
Wait, so did the Paris restaurant do well? Do people like barbecue in Paris? I think he should pull up a chair and tell us. That's crazy.
So we're giving the French our barbecue secrets now. That's esp espionage in my book.
We're screwed. We're screwed.
We're screwed. The one thing we had on the frogs.
I sent him a text the day Notre Dame caught on fire, you know. And I said, Mitch, were you barbecuing? Because he was right down the street.
And I said, Mitch, you don't be barbecuing that close to them. All of a sudden, all of France is going to love barbecue.
You can't take that from us. But he was real close to it.

He said the ashes were – he was outside in the ashes.

He was being hit by ashes.

That had to be devastating.

Have you guys been over there and seen that?

I have.

Unbelievable.

The line was too long, so I didn't go in.

I lit a candle in there, but then I personally watched it go out.

So I can make sure – I know that it wasn't me.

Right.

That did it.

I was very safety conscious.

About the Hall of Fame, real quick. You got in at, what, 98%? Yeah.
Are you a little pissed off at those baseball writers that you weren't unanimous? No. God, no.
That game was hard for me. There were a lot of guys better than I was that got 70%, 80%, you know? They have to have 75%.
When you look at guys like Mike Schmidt and Reggie Jackson's and guys that I consider really good friends, you know, that got maybe 88% or 92%, I was floored when they told me I got 98%. That's really hot.
I was really floored. It was the fourth highest total, I think, of all time when I did it because then it was Tom Seaver, I think, was number one.
Nolan Ryan was number two, and I think I was number three. And now Mariano Rivera got 100.
Yeah. It's kind of mind-blowing.
You'd think he was the first, though. Yeah, that is mind-boggling.
Yeah, like Maddox didn't get 100. Yeah, Nolan Ryan didn't get 100.
No. Like guys like that.
Yeah. It's nuts.
It's mind-boggling. Yeah.
It's mind-boggling. That's baseball writers, too.
And then Cal, I think, got more than me. Yeah.
And I think that was it since. I think there may be one other guy who got more than me.
I might be the fifth highest total now. But I think what writers saw when they saw me play is they said, here's a guy that never dogged it.
Right. You know, it wasn't on my stats.
I think 3,000 hits helps. I think playing for one team your whole career helps.
I think playing your whole career in a small market that had great success helped. World Series.
World Series, All-Star Games helped. I had good high batting averages in the playoffs, World Series, and in All-Star Games hit over 300 in all three of those.
But I think it was the way I played the game that they just remembered. You know, I ran routine ground ball.
I ran hard to first. I stretched singles into doubles, doubles into triples.
You know, I would go from first to third on a base hit to left field, you know, kind of slow down a little bit. And the left fielder kind of dog it a little bit and just take off and slide in.
But I think they, like, wasn't afraid to fight, you know. Why aren't there more fights in baseball? It costs money.
Everyone just runs out there. They bump titties and then they go inside.
Me and Nettles got in a fight. Never even got fined.
Never even got suspended. Never even got kicked out of the game.
It was a playoff game. Nowadays you get in a fight.
We just had a guy, Keller, one of our pitchers, Brad Keller,

playing the White Sox,

and this guy Anderson hits a home run and does the back flip, the double whammy.

Yeah, yeah.

Throws it up, so the next at bat, he hits him.

And, you know,

there were no punches thrown.

Got suspended five days.

Five days without pay. Let's say you're making

$15 million a year. You get suspended five days.
Yeah. Five days without pay.
Let's say you're making $15 million a year. That's a lot of good life for us.
You get suspended five days. How much is that? It's a lot of money.
It's a lot of money. That's why there's no fights anymore.
I was just, you see like, it takes the passion. It takes some of the passion out of the game.
Out of the fights. Yeah, you see one good fight a year, and it reminds you like, it's nice to see some fire out of these guys.
Right. You know, like a little bit of of them.
So, yeah, I'd like to see. Also, I think another reason why you were so well-loved, in addition to all the other things that you said, the Royals baby blue jerseys.
Yeah. They just popped.
You like those? I wish they'd bring those back full-time. Uh-huh.
Anytime you can get baby blue on a major league baseball. Well, they wear them at home on Sundays.
Yeah. They wear them at home.
We need them all the time. I want to see them year-round.
Yeah. We need them all year-round.
Well, it was funny. I don't know who the first team was.
We might have been the first team. I'm not sure.
But the next thing you know, the Phillies had them. The Brewers had them.
The Cardinals had them. Yeah, the Cardinals had them.
It was funny how all these teams went from gray to baby blue on the road. Yep.
And now everybody's pretty much back to the gray. Yeah.
Baby blue looks good in anything. So my last question is, when was the last time you shit yourself? I think Vegas.
No. Yeah.
I do not believe that. I'm not kidding you.
I don't believe that. No, I'm not kidding you.
No. In the last three years of us doing this podcast, I think we each have like two or three.
At least two or three, yeah. I can't remember.
I can't remember. You know what I mean? It's got to be.
I swear I think it's Vegas. I think you're lying.
I'm on a hot streak. I think, yeah, you are.
Hey, congrats. Did you ever watch Seinfeld? You ever watch Seinfeld? Yes.
You remember when he ate a bad cookie or something and he threw up? Yeah. And he said, oh, God, I've had that streak of 18 years without throwing up.

It's been a while.

You're not eating enough barbecue. I mean, I'm saying full-fledged.

Oh, yeah.

So full-fledged, I've only had one in the last three years.

If we're counting little

sharks. Yeah, there's little things.

I'd probably get those.

That was probably this morning.

Oh, man. do you have anything else

PFT? Yeah, are you friends with Lorde?

I met her.

Yeah, what's she like? She was awesome.

Is it true she wrote that song? Yeah.

Because she saw you wearing a roller coaster? Well, she

saw a picture. It was a National Geographic.

They were out doing

a story on Kansas City.

And somebody took

a picture and it was on a fan day where we had to go mingle with the crowd. And so they had us out on the field.
And then we were supposed to stay on this side of the ropes, and I was getting tired of doing that. So I said, screw this.
I'm going to get the Royals pissed at me. Maybe they won't ask me to do this anymore.
That's smart. Because you're standing there, and people are saying, smile, and you're sitting there going...
You know, people are just walking by. So I went inside the ropes and I just started walking and people were taking pictures and stuff.
Next thing you know, I'm autographing some things and this photographer took a picture from up here and it was a pretty neat photo because all these people are putting baseballs in my face. So.
So she must have thought that was a cool picture when she was a kid.

At least she's from New Zealand.

Yeah.

And so she had that on her bulletin board.

And the next thing you know, she's looking at it.

And she started writing a song.

And all you could see was me and Royals.

So it was I Want to Be Royal.

There it is.

And so she came out.

How did you come up with that song?

I had a picture.

Next thing you know, they saw it was me. She was doing a concert in Vegas.
So Major League Baseball set it up where me and my wife flew in to Vegas, and we went to the concert, and we met her before and after. She was really a nice guy.
That's pretty cool. And you know what? She's really talented.
Oh, yeah. Writes all her own music, and I think she's her own manager.
I don't even know she has a manager. That's the way to do it.
Yeah. Yeah.
100% of that money. Yeah.
Yeah. She should ask you to be on one of her next songs, like a sample like Old Town Road, Billy Ray Cyrus.
You could sing. I would have to sing? Yeah.
No. You can rap? That's not going to happen.
We'll do auto show. I don't sing and I don't dance.
What about rap? No, I don't rap. Beatbox? I don't rap.
I don't sing and I don't dance. I dance at weddings.
Yeah. Ooh, that's it wrong wedding.
Don't be humble. Don't be humble.
I'm not a good dancer. I need a lot of cocktails to get out there.
Are you a good dancer? No. Do you dance? I do all the time.
But that doesn't mean you're good at of stuff I'm bad at. Doesn't it make you, don't you feel like when you're out there dancing, you feel like everybody's

staring at you?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I feel like such an asshole.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

That's why I dance in my seat.

Don't get up.

Just kind of move with it.

That's why I don't want to go to another concert.

Yeah.

Everybody's up dancing, you know.

Can't do it.

Can't do it.

Or if you hold two drinks at once, then you don't really have to.

No one expects that much out of you.

You just do the shoulder thing. Yeah, try that next wedding.
I'll try that next wedding. Old trick.
Yes. So what are you going to order tonight? Everything.
Literally everything. We've got the wings, which are delicious.
So yeah, come down to Char Bar. Yeah.
And I'm going to look you guys up when I'm in here. Yes.
Please do. We'll show you the news.
Promise not to make you go in the bathroom with us. I was going to say, we'll have you pour something else down our diapers.
Yeah, yeah. No diapers.
We're beyond that. We've graduated.
Bear ass. Bear ass.
How's this? You know what I did today? What? I'll be 66 in a week. Happy birthday.
May 15th. Well, on the 15th of May, I'll be 66.
I applied for Social Security. Oh, congratulations.
Hey, you paid into that.

You're entitled to that money. Yeah, you are.

It's my money.

Yeah.

Right.

I want it back.

Absolutely.

But you know what I didn't realize?

I didn't realize you got to pay taxes on that.

Do you really?

Yeah.

You pay tax on Social Security money.

What a scam.

And you've already paid it in.

Yeah.

That was smart to say it like that on the podcast because now you don't have to pay the taxes,

but you pretended that you were going to.

I am paying the taxes.

Oh, yeah. You are paying the taxes.
He is going to pay the taxes but you pretended that you're going to everyone i am paying yeah you are paying the time he is gonna pay the taxes everyone right yep yep don't you worry all right george brett hall of famer thank you so much okay buddy good to see you again yeah good to see you all protein bars generally taste the same but not one bars one made protein bars are actually delicious with reese's and hershey's. Only one Reese's Peanut Butter Lover's Protein Bar is made with Reese's Peanut Butter, and only one Hershey's Cookies and Cream Protein Bars is made with Hershey's Cookie Bits while delivering 18 grams of protein and 3 grams of sugar.
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Find all one bars at a retailer near you or on Amazon.com. And now for something completely different okay we, we now welcome on Jeopardy! sensation, James Holzhauer.
He has won 22 games in a row. He has broken the record for most amount of cash won in each game.
And he's taken the world by storm. James, thanks for joining us.
I want to start with just saying, like, is your life just completely insane right now because you're a celebrity? I would not call it completely insane. It's changed, certainly.
A lot of people reaching out to me and some interesting offers in my inbox that I can't really talk about in too much detail. But, you know, I'm still getting by in the day-to-day stuff.
I'm always curious curious when you go on jeopardy um do you do into any sort of like a mental preparation any sort of like a visualization or anything like that or you just show up and you're confident in yourself and you're like i got this so before i started taping i tried practicing in my living room by i would stand in dress shoes and hold a makeshift buzzer that I made with a mechanical pencil. I wrapped some masking tape around and I would turn all the lights and watch a few episodes back to back on my DVR.
You know, they tape five episodes a day. So you kind of got to be able to get used to standing there and facing questions and more questions, things like that.
And I thought they kind of mentally got me in the zone. And then I did practice something where I would try snapping my fingers three times and closing my eyes and picturing myself at a snow festival with my kid, you know, a nice, calm place.
It was kind of the opposite of the stress of Jeopardy. And I think it helped calm me down while I was taping.
So, wait, you practice in your dress shoes? Was that just for, like, to make sure your blisters and stuff and, like, wear them in?

So there are a couple of things. First of all, I realized after I stood around in dress shoes, you know, I never wear that kind of thing for my work.
So I realized I needed some nice gel insoles for the shoes. So Dr.
Schultz could have a sponsorship opportunity for me down the road, maybe. but also yeah I would it was kind of ridiculous I was I never dress up for

work obviously so I'm sitting there like in shorts and maybe a baseball jersey or something and i would have these dress shoes on so it's a very funny picture i think to look at yes i like that people don't talk about the physical aspect of of competing on jeffrey and standing on your feet for you know hours at a time i would say is almost more impressive to maintain that mental state than other games. Yeah, you don't see it on the camera, but every time I took a break during taping, I would stretch and keep my legs limber.
I think that was actually a pretty big part of the success that nobody gets to see about. Nice hamstring.
Yeah, get the hamstrings loose right before you get back into it. Do the Larry Bird where you just lie down on the ground during commercial breaks just get that back stretched out I didn't didn't think of that one so uh the interesting thing with how you play the game and everyone's talked about it is your strategy is very aggressive now is that like how'd you come up with that and was that part of your background in gambling which we'll get to in a second know, how I approach gambling is I don't think about how the typical gambler does anything.

I was just trying to build a strategy from the ground up and think, you know,

if I were trying to win at sports gambling, what would I be doing?

You know, it doesn't matter what the guy next to me in line thinks.

I'm just coming up with my own approach.

So I did the same thing for Jeopardy.

You know, I didn't consider really how anyone else plays the game. I just thought if I were trying to come up with a way to get the most money how would i do it and i thought that's getting the big money questions first trying to build a stack of chips to that and then betting really aggressively once i had it was the way to go do you think you're um you're cocky when you talk to alex trebek because you do the whole thing like you abbreviate the column and then say you'll be like, law for six, if it's like historical law questions or something.
Do you think that you're a little too cocky? I won't comment on the cockiness, but I will say that the producers tell you to abbreviate the categories because they have only a certain number of minutes of airtime and they don't want people to say six words of a category every time. This is a thing they specifically tell you in the briefing is abbreviate the category down as much as you can while still keeping the people at home so they know what the category is.
I feel like people have said something about, I cut off Alex Trebek when he's giving a little, you know, sometimes he'll just say correct pick again and he'll say correct. And then he'll say a little blurb about something.
But I don't know when that blurb is coming. So I'm just trying to talk as soon as I hear the word correct out of his mouth.
There's no intentional cutting him off or anything. It just works out that way sometimes.
Yeah, you're just dialed in. And now we're starting to see like a little bit of the backlash to James occur in the Washington Post.
Therehington post there was an article that essentially said like is james bad for jeopardy because your strategy is is better than everybody else's strategy and you you're quicker on the buzzer and all that stuff um it's like they're taking the uh the old school anti-stabermetrics baseball approach and being like nerds have finally ruined jeopardy you know it's possible that this author really doesn't like me but it's also possible he's just being like i think of uh john crook 10 years ago on baseball tonight they would just force him to take the contrary view on everything i don't think that he actually believed all that stuff but you know somebody had to argue against uh the other guy uh it's interesting to see what people will do to get clicks to their websites, though. Not us.
Has any of that bothered you? People who call you out for being cocky or maybe a little smug, has that bothered you at all? Oh, no. I don't strive to get 100% approval rating.
There's going to be people out there who don't like me. Actually, I think the funniest thing is not the hit pieces.
It's when some completely unrelated thing, like I saw the Weather Channel website had a uh james holtz hour is getting everything right on jeopardy but he didn't get this weather question right and they use it to a link to an article uh so i think forbes uh put something up about what what retirement strategists can learn from james holtz hour it's really funny to see how uh tortuous these things get so so you have you've got of the questions right that you've buzzed in for. How did you get this type of knowledge? Do you have a photographic memory? Explain to people how you went from just a regular person to, boom, you know all this stuff about all these different topics.
So I would not – I don't have a photographic memory, but I would say that I have a better than average memory. You know what the real trick is that they test for a breadth of knowledge, not a depth of knowledge.
So you, a typical person would not have expertise in all the subjects Jeopardy asks about, but you can go learn about them, you know, and you, they don't give you a study guide. This is a common myth of what categories are going to are going to come up but you if you watch jeopardy every day have a pretty good idea that they're going to ask questions about history and geography and literature and not about you know indie rock or thrash metal or things like that right uh so what i did is i went to the children's section of the library and i picked you know a basic book on book on every subject that I had lots of pictures, kept the reader engaged.
And, you know, usually I'd read two or three books on every subject just to make sure I was covering all the basics. But, you know, I thought that that kind of intro level, interesting books really helped me more than like an encyclopedia would have.
That's interesting. So do you find that you retain more knowledge by reading books than you would by trying to absorb the same information from the internet or on a computer or your phone? Well, I mix things up with, you know, especially pop culture learning.
You know, I've watched movie trailers and music videos and things like that on YouTube to get that sort of knowledge. But I don't think that going to look at a website for information on Shakespeare is necessarily going to be helpful.
There are some fun YouTube people who like to create kind of a summary of classic works of literature. I've mixed it up a little by going to that.
But I would say the children's books were more helpful than the Internet overall. Did you get any weird looks just hanging out in the children's section every day? Oh, I would try not to hang out there.
Well, I have my own kid now who I can take to the library, but when I first started this, for which I didn't, and I would just, you know, usually I would put holds on books so I could just pick them up and check them out right away, or I would, you know, quickly get in and out and not bother anyone. Do you ever feel bad when you just beat the pulp out of your opponents like I was watching the other night and there was a woman in between you and the other guy who's he the other guy was keeping pace for like maybe I don't know like four minutes but the woman did not buzz in once she was basically a dead body do you ever feel bad do you ever like apologize like yo I'm sorry I know this was your dream and you didn't even get to buzz in? I would never say I apologize to anyone.
I feel like we were all cordial. We shook hands before and after every match, and it's probably bad luck for these people if they faced me instead of someone who would be easier to beat.
But at the same time, everyone knows the rules of Jeopardy going in. I think it is a fair fight, and I just prepared more than some people did.
Love it. Don't apologize for greatness.
What would you say would be your weakest category that you've seen so far on the show? There was one a little, maybe a week and a half ago, they had a Monty Python phrases category, and I picked any category but that one whenever it was my turn. So your betting strategy, back to that, so for people who don't maybe watch Jeopardy all the time, what James does is he goes to the most expensive clues right away and then builds up the bankroll and then bets a ton of money on the Daily Double.
Now, you've gotten the Daily Double wrong before. Are you, like, I don't want to say that you're going to crash and burn in a spectacular fashion, but you do kind of bet this risky strategy where you're going to have a time where you think you know it, do it, lose all your money, then you're going to have to fight back, and you might run out of time.
You know, I'm not sure this is correct, but the way I look at it is it's actually less risky to make big bets because if you think about it, if you have a big lead, you're pretty safe. If you don't have a big lead, the person who's behind you can hit a daily double, go all in, and suddenly take the lead from you.
And now, because you wouldn't take what looked like a big risk earlier, you're actually at risk. So I think about it like there's some football teams who would rather run a dink and dunk offense than a big play offense because big plays look risky.
But if you never call for a big play you're not going to win the game you know you need those big plays to win sometimes and even though it can appear risky in the short run in the long run you're actually maximizing your chances of winning hmm i like that so so you also the other part of uh your background is you're a sports gambler you're a cubs fan i'm also a cubs fan you want want to own or sorry, be the GM of a team at some point.

Let me test your knowledge on baseball.

Would you have signed Hugh Darvish and Jason Hayward?

You know, I like both those signings at the time, so I can't criticize anyone.

You know, obviously they haven't turned out the way the teams would like.

But I think that it's often better to play at the top of the free agent market than in the middle.

In the middle, you know, the Tyler Chatwoods are the real signings that kind of hamstring the team in the long run. And you can't criticize Udarvish without also saying, oh, John Lester, it's worked out great for the Cubs.
Okay. The more kind of signing at the time.
All right, so I'm going to buy what you're saying with Jason Hayward because I also was like, hey, this is a great deal at the time. You, Darvish, never made sense to me because you could have signed Jake Arrieta for about the same price for less money or less years, and it's Jake Arrieta, and you know that's a guy you can trust in October, whereas Hugh Darvish, I can't trust him in April.
So I think I'm going to fire you as a GM if you think Hugh Darvish is a good signing. Well, okay.
I may be biased because I'm half Japanese and so is Hugh, and he's always been one of my favorite players but uh you know i think that if you look going into 2018 they look like fairly similar pitchers and i think they signed you pretty early in the off season and jake's price didn't come down until towards the end you know looking back of course rather have areata now but you know you don't know that going in. So your sports gambling background, you bet on mostly baseball, right?

No, I started out betting mostly baseball about 13 years ago when I started gambling,

but I branched out into other sports now.

And honestly, the baseball, I think, might be the hardest game to beat now

because it's the one where the bookmakers have really caught up to the stats guys in terms of utilizing numbers to set their odds accurately. They're still making more mistakes.
The big mistakes they're making now are on things like in-game betting and halftime lines where they only have a little bit of time to put up odds. And that's really where I make the bulk of my profits now.
Is that mostly in NBA or do you do NFL as well? I would say it's mostly football uh for the in-game at least i do bet some basketball and a good amount of hockey but college football and nfl are the biggest games in town now do you have a system or something i'm a i'm a degenerate sports gambler i lose all my life i'm i'm a big like when when i bet in game i always just bet whatever just happened expect to keep happening. And that always fucks me over because I'm like, oh, wow, they scored, you know, back-to-back touchdowns.
This game's going to go, this game's going to end up with like 95 points. How do you, like do you have a system, an algorithm? Like what, I'm always fascinated by people who actually win gambling.
There's no simple system or algorithm that'll get the money. But I will say that if I'm betting in-game, I'm often betting directly against the momentum.
I find myself, if a touchdown's just been scored, I'm probably betting the under, not the over, or I'm probably betting on the team that just gave up the touchdown rather than the one that just scored it. I think that sometimes fans overrate the impact of the play that just happened.
We're prisoners of the moment, and we get excited very easily and tend to just bet overs. What's your relationship with Alex Trebek? Is he like – I can never get a read on if he loves people who win back-to-back-to-back-to-back or if he's like, this guy thinks he's so smart, what the hell? After the game, does he give you a little shake of the hand or is he like, James, get out of here? He does shake the hand after the game.
You know, you're encouraged not to have a personal relationship with the host, of course, because it kind of looks improper to the authorities on the game shows. So I would not say I have a good read on his personality.
But I would say that he thinks that it's driving eyes to the product, and that's probably a good thing. You know, he has given some interviews in the media where he talks about how remarkable it is, what I'm doing.
So I think he at least respects it. I don't know if he likes it.
Do you think that Alex knows a lot of the answers to the questions? Because when I watch, he's so quick when people don't get it. And sometimes he's like, oh, you guys should know this.
I always assume that he knows every answer. I think that during the commercial breaks, he'll answer questions from the audience members.
And when they ask him this question, he says he usually knows, I think about three-fourths of the questions, which would make him a solid contestant if he ever got the opportunity. You'd kick his ass.
Even if he weren't such a smart guy to begin with, there's a lot of repeat material on there, and I would think he just learns it by asking it. Yeah.
I did appreciate your answer to Alex's question. I thought he stepped over the line the other week.
I'll defend you a little bit. Alex asked you in the little interview segment, he was like, so have you talked to your relatives and friends about who you're giving money to? And you were like, I don't know because this is my money that I've won.
You stood up for yourself, which was nice to see because Alex was pressuring you into trying to give some money away. But I have noticed you've started to run out of people to give shout-outs to on your final Jeopardy answers.
Do you just not have enough friends? So a couple things here. First of all, before you go on, they ask for five things you can talk about withlex but they warn you alex is going to ask you about whatever he wants and you've got to be prepared uh to fend off anything so i definitely was unprepared for that particular thing uh you know there was a story recently there's a former champion colby bernett on the show who bought his mom a house uh after he won their tournament of champions because she was growing up and I think he had to grow up in kind of a rough neighborhood and she sacrificed everything for him and he was able to buy for this house which I think is amazing but you know my parents don't need a house and I in two the two seconds I had to think of this I didn't have enough time to politely word that so I just I don't know kind of deflected the question I guess you could say i thought it was a good answer i thought it was fair what you said how about for going forward you just shout out uh part of my take and be like i'm gonna give those two guys some money so they can lose more gambling to the second part of your question uh the producers actually uh told everyone in the green room after i think it was after my 17th episode.
So they,

I think they'd always had a thing on the books say that you shouldn't be

using your final jeopardy to write personal messages,

but they decided they were going to actually start enforcing it after that.

So that's,

that's why you don't see him anymore.

Oh,

well,

you're changing.

This is the,

the,

the Jeopardy James rules.

You're changing the game.

They're muzzling you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They are.

They also got upset with me because I was singing out answers to music questions, and apparently they don't like paying royalties on that. That's annoying as hell.
I would definitely tell you to stop doing that. You're starting to get a little loose, though.
I saw there was a streaker question. You pretended to streak across the stage, but you kept all your clothes on.
Well, you know, I blame the producers. They tell you to have fun playing the game.
Who knows if I would have fun if they didn't instruct me to oh you should start buzzer flipping like bat flipping and see if alice puts one in your ear hole do you how much do you do you think that it's uh how quickly you can buzz in like how much of that is is the game so i would say if you pick three random people to play jeopardy their trivia smarts would be the determining factor but the thing is everyone passes uh multiple layers of tests to get on the stage and they all know their stuff so the buzzer becomes the most important factor at that point and i think that i would say the buzzer is maybe like 60 of the game and then there's another 30 that's your trivia knowledge and 10 maybe is the strategies i'm using to bet aggressively and hunt for daily doubles and so everyone's focusing on on that, but really it's a pretty small part of the equation. It's just more boring to write an article about how this guy dominates on the buzzer.
Right. Wait, you say hunt for daily doubles.
Is there actually a strategy of hunting for daily doubles? Yes, they're more likely to pop up in certain parts of the board than others. They're almost never on the top row, the easiest questions, for example, uh, and they tend to be further towards the bottom

than the top.

So you will see me definitely picking certain dollar values that I think are more likely

to have them.

Daily double hunter.

I like it.

My last question is how often do people now just come up to you and ask you random trivia?

Hmm.

Uh, I think it's only happened about once.

Uh, I would say they're more likely to just, you know, say congratulations. doing Vegas proud, or ask for a photo opportunity.
But random trivia, that does not happen very often, at least thus far. I was just going to say, well, have you been approached by anybody that's looking to sponsor you while you're on the show? Like, hey, basically a NASCAR driver, wear our shirt with our logo on it, and we'll get on TV.
Yes, I have gotten some unsolicited offers for that sort of stuff, and it's, you know, I don't think I'd do it anyway, but it is specifically against the contestant agreement in Jeopardy, so. What if you've got a face tattoo? They can't take that off.
That would be interesting. I've never seen anyone with a face tattoo on screen before.
I guess if I'm already on and then got a face tattoo, they would have to just keep me on. Right.
We'll give you $10,000 to face tattoo our logo on your face. Thank you.
No. I was going to say this.
Well, that was the first offer. You haven't heard my second one.
How about this counteroffer? We're Art of the Deal guys over here. We'll give you an introduction to Theo Epstein so you can pitch yourself for a job if you answer like a 200 question what is part of my take and get it wrong on purpose they can't stop you from doing that yeah uh i think they actually can you know they uh so what they're allowed to do there's a rule that you can redo parts of the game show if it doesn't affect the outcome so they they could actually force me to re-record that and just give some other wrong answer to lose the money instead.
In addition to the fact, I think that plugging a company is specifically against the contestant agreement. And, you know, I now got $1.7 million on the line.
They cannot pay me if I make a slip up. Yeah.
So that's the other thing. How does that money come in? Is it like after you're done cash-app?

When you lose, do they just cash-app it to you

or is there an installment series of checks

or how does that work out?

My understanding is after my last episode airs,

they'll wait 120 days and mail me a check after that.

I can tell you I haven't gotten any checks yet.

Oh, so it's actually in your best interest

to lose at some point.

Otherwise, they never have to pay you.

You want that cash.

Actually, it's your best interest to lose. Make sure that Otherwise, they never have to pay.
You want that cash. Actually, it's your best interest to lose.

Make sure that you're in a really good year for your tax deductibles

and then lose right before that so you can get into the next year

or stay in that year.

I don't know how taxes work.

It's hard to hide $1.7 million from the IRS.

Listen, man, if you want to spread it around to us,

our producer doesn't do his taxes, so we could figure out a way to do this i think i think the uh the government's gonna get wind of uh this money coming into me it's just a hunch yeah if you win it on national television it's tougher to squirrel it away they're dumb okay if you need us to break any legs for you, let us know. So what's your winning streak up to

going forward? 22 games.

No, but like the parts that haven't aired,

how many are you up to? Oh, I can't

talk about that. Well, I had to ask.
Come on now.

Yeah, I had to ask. See if I could

slip you up.

Alright, that's all I have. I mean, do you have any other

questions, BFT? No, this is fascinating.

This is awesome. Good luck going forward.

It's always good to see dominance in any sport. Yes.
Actually, ask you this who's going to win the nba finals uh well i have to say the warriors but you know as a fan i'm rooting against it but you know they're obviously the best team so boring answer but there you go let me revise that where is the best value if i'm not betting on the warriors which team should i be looking to my money on? I have not been paying attention to the futures markets. I think, you know, if you have a team you really like in the East, they would be the best shot now that the Rockets seem to be shitting the bet on their opportunity.
Okay. I actually have one last question.
Who's your favorite Cub right now? Ooh, good question. Let's see.
Chris Bryant's got Vegas ties. Hugh Darvish has the japanese factor going for him i think i'd say kb though okay that's i'm shocked javi bias should be the answer that's okay everyone makes oh well you know what i guess yeah elmago is the most fun to watch i guess that's maybe a good tiebreaker hottest team in baseball um all right j All right, James, thank you so much.
Good luck.

Well, actually, you don't need luck because, like you said,

you're already up to 45 in a row.

And good luck, though, after that when they start taping again.

And thanks for joining us and appreciate it.

And don't be afraid to just give some cash to your favorite podcasters.

I don't even know if we're them yet.

No, but hypothetically.

We'll earn it.

We're going to earn it.

Listen to our show.

We'll earn it.

All right. Thank you for having me.
All right. Thanks.
Take care, man. Hockey is on.
And no matter the city, no matter the team, no matter the game, whether it's face-off or penalty shots, regular season or playoffs, win or lose, no matter what happens, no matter where it happens, New Amsterdam Vodka is there. Okay, let's get to some segments.
First up, we have As a White Guy, the circle game slash now co-opted white supremacy uh symbol that was seen at the cubs game on tuesday night big big big drama show on twitter the cubs have banned this person which i don't even think like i don't even know if they followed up with anyone the whole thing is a mess mess. So I did some digging on this, and I know Will Kane talked to somebody at the Cubs and said that they hadn't done any digging on him.

I read something else from somebody who had been in touch with the Cubs saying

they like looked through his social media posts and determined that he was clearly using it

as a white supremacy thing.

By the way, this is part of my take.

Let's get serious.

Yeah, let's do. And if that's the case, then, yeah, by all means, kick him out.
Ban him for life. If they do find that, like, that's what he was doing.
Who knows what he was actually doing? I just remember I got introduced to the circle game, I think, in Malcolm in the Middle. I still play it with Dana, who is.
Can't anymore. Can't anymore.
Can't anymore. But I was up until two days ago.
I knew about I sort of vaguely knew It started as a troll on 4chan They basically made it ambiguous for everyone So they can go and Essentially show like I saw a gif of Benny the Bull The fucking mascot for the Bulls Playing the circle game So everyone can be accused of being a white supremacist And no one is Then, then they write wings. It's all mess.
Well, retroactively, you can't go back. I'm going to declare that if you go back from today and find somebody in the past doing it, you're just being an asshole.
Right. But it's one of those things where it's like, now that we all know.
Right. But here's where it gets a little uneasy for me is knowing that the Cubs, I don't know how much they investigated this.
I'm not going to stake my reputation on a guy who I don't know and be like, oh, he definitely was playing the circle game. I have no fucking idea.
But if the Cubs didn't actually investigate it and they were like, hey, we can get a quick fucking W here before we have Addison Russell, who is a shitty person and who I'd rather not be on the Cubs, who even said he got booed on Monday night. Yeah.
And he said if fans want to boo me, that's their problem. It's like, bro, you're not a good guy.
It's okay for fans to boo you and be like, you're not a good guy. But that's the part where it's like, Cubs, if you didn't actually, if Crane Kenny didn't actually investigate this I fucking hope he did because if he didn't

and he was just like we got to catch a quick

W right here that sucks that's

crazy that's a shitty thing that's really

to get away with negative publicity

for bringing a wife beater but

back up to your right yeah that is very

very shitty but I'm not gonna again I'm not

gonna stake my reputation the fact is we don't know

what happened I don't know what they investigated I

it's Ken Bone I mean Ken Bone

obviously wasn't a white supremacist but Ken Bone's your

hero and then you're like fuck he's just like talking

I'm this to be 100% factual when literally. 2019 story very quickly where people were angry at each other, mad at each other.

Everyone had their, like, I know this to be 100% factual when literally no one has any facts on any of it. For me, it's whatsoever.
And there were, like, big, big stands coming out of the closet on the side of, like, I fucking love the circle game, and now we can't do it anymore. Which, admittedly, the circle game was a lot of fun.
But for me, when you see the guy that shot up that mosque in christ church make it in his trial like in his pre-trial hearing or whatever yeah to be like hey guys i'm doing it too yeah okay also he didn't i'm out he didn't do it below his uh his waist so that was obviously you know what in that case i'm going to make an exception you're allowed to beat the shit out of that guy he for that. Yeah.
Like, play the game correctly if you're going to play the game. Yeah.
I think this means that we have to start nut-tapping each other again. That's a dangerous road to go down, my friend.
I mean, the circle came. You banned the nut-tap.
Well, you punched me in the dick, so yeah. It was pretty good.
You full-on punched me in the dick. As a very gif-able person, you have to admit that that gif was worth it.
I had to have a talk with you. We were going to get Larry, too, and you punched me so hard in the nuts that it took me like 10 minutes to recover.
And we're like, dude, we can't keep doing this podcast if we just punch each other in the nuts every day. I'm completely accurate.
But if the circle game's gone, I'm just saying, is dick flicking back? Dick flicking, yes. No taps.
No, don't. Flicking.
Flicking's back. Taps are out.
No. I agree.
All right. Next up, we have a spin zone for Sean McVay, loser of Super Bowl.
What was Super Bowl? 53. The guy that didn't win Super Bowl.
Yeah, he didn't win Super Bowl 53, and he came out and did an an interview and was like I probably watched too much film. Outthought himself.
Outthought himself. And with him, every single play that he watches takes up space in his memory.
Yep. So he overlaid.
He short-circuited himself. Yes.
So yeah, that's a good spin zone to have. It's like I was over prepared.
I actually believe it too. And you know what else I believe? I believe that Bill Belichick knew that he was going to go and watch too much film.
And that's why Belichick was like, we're going to run the zone. You think Belichick was like week two? Was like Sean McVay, when we get to the Super Bowl, we'll probably watch this.
So let's do something. Well, he's been calling Sean McVay all season long, right? Yeah.
Telling himself and being like, Sean, one thing I really admire about you is your dedication to film stuff. I feel like that's the point where Belichick is.
He knows he has to use a little extra elbow grease to win. It's hard to win six Super Bowls.
Winning seven is going to be even harder, so he's got to figure out who's going to be the next coach, take them under their wing, and then just pull the rug out right at the end. Now, this might be completely pulled out of thin air, but it feels like it's correct.
I feel like the Patriots during the regular season, at least in the last several years, when they get on these tiny losing streaks, the losses come against bad teams for the most part. And that's because it's tough to outthink an insane person.
When you're trying to coach against Marvin Lewis or Matt Patricia or Mark Trestman, all of the above are terrible coaches. It's tough to know.
Matt Patricia's not a terrible coach. He's just an insane person.
Right, just insane. But it's tough to get.
In a good way. It's tough to get tendencies on shitty coaches because they don't even know what they're doing.
That's true. It's like when Chris Moneymaker won the World Series.
Yeah, the new guy. Everyone's like, Doyle Brunson with his big fucking hat and Johnny Chan were like, we don't know what to do with this guy.
Yeah, Phil Ivey's going up against the guy with the dinosaur sunglasses. He's like, how am I supposed to play against him? Fossil man.
And I was talking poker circa 2002. Yep.
Speaking of talking sports that we don't really watch, talking soccer, Tottenham won. And that's talking soccer.
No one wants to coach the Lakers. There you go, Hank.
Okay. Way to you spurs there you go good job i'm proud of you uh that was a good contribution you just you were really proud of you like spurs another addendum to talking soccer steve kerr plagiarized tottenham's head coach or not tottenham's head coach the other team that won ajax no liverpool Liverpool is head coach People get mad when I say Ajax I don't give a fuck He plagiarized the Liverpool head coach I'm a bad boy like that And got up behind the mic and said I don't know if you guys watched the Champions League But Wait was it the Spurs or was it Tottenham? I was talking soccer That was talking soccer Hank just waved us off That's what a producer knows He's like Stop talking soccer guys you know what you know what it was actually it was funnier after hank just said spurs cut it then all right uh no we keep that in because that was we tried we tried uh last up before we get to game of thrones faqs no one wants to coach the lakers that's pretty much the segment tyloo doesn't want to coach the lakers who else uh said they didn't want to coach the lakers i feel like there there's...
Ah, the dude that just... He was...
He signed with the Suns. Yeah, yeah.
As far as I know... Monty Williams.
Monty Williams doesn't want to coach the Lakers. I'm going to assume that you don't want to coach the Lakers until you say otherwise.
Yeah. Even A.
Smith reported that people are telling Jeannie Buss to trade LeBron. Trade LeBron.
You know who's telling her to trade LeBron? Kurt Rambis' wife. So Kurt and Kurt Rambis are calling the shots on this Lakers team right now.
Kurt Rambis gets a lot of clout because he wore those awesome glasses back in the 80s. So people are like, that guy's got his shit together.
And you got taken down in that one by Kevin McHale. Yes.
Here is the perfect this league this summer. The Warriors re-sign Kevin Durant and then trade him to the Lakers for LeBron.
Holy shit. This league, baby.
That would be great. This league.
I have an elegant solution to all this. Yeah? Did you see in the news today that Kim Jong-un says that he— I did, yeah.
Did you see that? So this was from Tara— You hear about that? You hear about that? Did you see this? Tara Palmieri from ABC, I believe, said that Kim Jong-un wanted famous U.S. basketball players as part of a denuclearization deal.
So I have an idea. Let him coach the Lakers.
That would be perfect. He gets to hang out with LeBron all day.
And LeBron might actually respect authority for once. Yep.
That's perfect. Actually, if they really want to inter-trade talks with Kim Jong-un, just get him on the phone with Danny Age.
Yeah. Danny Age would clean his shit.
He would absolutely. He would fucking...
He'd have so many draft picks. I know you're a longtime Stooley award-winning listener.
Don't pick. Stop listening.
Don't pick up the phone when Danny Ainge calls you because next thing you know, you're sending all your missiles to the United States in exchange for like Gordon Hayward's non-existent son. Yes.
And stop listening, you fucking asshole. Yeah.
Prick. Actually, we said we don't want to meet with you.
Imagine if he was listening right now and was like, oh, fuck. They actually can see me? Well, we're going to be dead by the time he said it.
He would kill all his uncles right now if he was listening. Which one of my relatives? Yeah, which one of you has a camera? Who do you think treats his relatives worse, Kim Jong-un or Aaron Rodgers? Good question.
Passive aggressiveness is sometimes worse than just blowing him up with an artillery shell. Yes, full-on aggressive.
All right. You want to do a quick Game of Thrones preview? Hank's brain has been broken by Game of Thrones.
So on Wednesday, we were flying to Kansas City. It was a really early flight, and it's 7.15 in the morning.
I just saw a paragraph of text of Hank, just like the hottest take, just thinking about Game of Thrones 24-7, 365. I'm at the point, though, where I'm like, I am disappointed with the whole season, and I'm at the point where I'm now rooting for them to do whatever will make people the most angry.
Okay, I like that. So Cersei wins.
Yeah. Yeah.
So you're now Team Cersei. Thank you.
I just want them to do whatever. There's a lot of things people are excited for,

and I want them to fuck it all up.

Well, here's my hot take preview.

I think Jon Snow dies on Sunday.

Okay.

For real.

That is a wild take.

Yeah.

I think that there are other dragons out there.

That one.

And Theon's riding them. No, Bran.

Bran's going to come in on a dragon. Theon's back from the dead dead that's a popular theory that's going on around right now is it really? yes because there needs to be there can't just be one dragon it's one of those things though where it's like the theory is so smart it makes so much sense it'd be amazing and there's just no fucking chance so basically remember when Tyrion and Jor were like driving through that forbidden city on the boat yeah that's Valer Valyrian.
They saw the dragon fly over. Yeah.
There's a theory that the dragon was laying eggs in Valyria because that's where dragons are from. So it was laying eggs.
And in the preview, there's a shot of like Euron looking scared. And the theory is that all the dragons come and fuck shit up.
There's no way that's going to happen. Wait, that would also imply that one of the dragons got laid.

No, that's...

If they're laying eggs.

There's a whole thing with the dragons.

No, no, follow me on this.

They're general...

Yeah, they just shit out eggs.

Oh, they're like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.

They're like...

Where they can change sexes and spontaneously...

They don't know if it's a male or female until it has babies.

Yeah, they're like those gross worms at the bottom of the ocean.

They're eunuchs.

All the dragons are eunuchs. Yeah.
Yeah, they're gross worms at the bottom of the ocean. They're eunuchs.
All the dragons are eunuchs. Yeah, they're gross worms at the bottom of the ocean that just reproduce.
That's what dragons are. So, Sunday's supposed to be the biggest episode.
Yeah. And is Wolf going to get pooped? Ghost? No, we established there's going to be a video only on YouTube of Jon Snow returning home from war.
Okay, perfect. But he he's good that'll root for him to die people are very mad uh hank i am what if i'm ready to get my hank back what if wolf kills john snow for not pooping ghost yeah a ghost wolf ghost is his name okay ghost wolf ghost is the wolf's name kills john snow correct he's like you should have snuggied me yeah and it just eats him in the middle of the night.
Yeah, I'm ready for my Hank back. I'm ready, too.
It's consumed your brain. I looked over a few times this week, and you were just balls deep into the message boards.
I like this new revelation, though, that Hank is just like, I'm rooting for things to just get fucked up. Just chaos.
Yes. Cheering for chaos.
I always love that. Yes.
Should we do FAQ? Before we do FAQ, a quick announcement. A big announcement a big announcement grit week 2019 is coming it is a week away we are doing something a little different this year now follow us along part of being uh part of grit week part of doing this podcast is we want to get out to the people to different parts of the country we did the midwest we did last we did the South.
We did the South. We did West Virginia and that whole – where did we go? I don't even know.
We went to Michigan that year. Yeah, we went to West Virginia.
We went to Maryland. We went to the Midwest twice.
Yeah. But, no, we did West Virginia as well.
So we've done all this stuff. This year we're going to L.A.
We're going to Southern California. The grittiest part of the planet.
We're going to hit San Diego, maybe a little Temecula. Grit year.
Grit year. I could be talked into Tijuana.
Tijuana. If you have someone, if you have a connection to anyone that you want us to interview, we're going to be out in SoCal.
We're going to do like Grit Week, SoCal, where we actually might even find the SoDudes guys and do a video with them. We got a shit-ass fan that's awesome, and we're going to be driving around SoCal.
Can you hear the ambulance? No. Okay, we're driving around SoCal.
We've got a ton of great guests lined up, too. Yes.
It's going to be a good time out there. I have a question.
Yeah. Does this mean that we hate the Midwest? No, because PFT, we're going to be going to the Midwest for our training camp tour.

If you remember, last year we went to NorCal for the training camp tour.

And LA.

This year we're flip-flopping.

We're doing Grit Week SoCal.

And then we're going to do probably Lions, Browns, Bears, maybe Chiefs.

Maybe probably go to Kansas City. We're going to do a bunch of teams in the Heartland.
So we're going to do that in August. But Grit Week, SoCal is coming in a week.
May 19th is the start of it. And guess what? We might have a huge guest lined up.
We might have a huge guest lined up for that first day. Two huge guests.
Two huge guests. We might have it.
Okay, so get excited. excited we're gonna drop the video on that sunday you'll you'll uh hopefully know once we get with the person we're gonna have them get in the video and we'll get it going so grit week socal uh 2019 hit us up let us know where we got to go and all that stuff hank faqs are you guys looking for a summer intern this year and where can i apply That's a great question, whoever sent that in.
We are officially looking for an intern. If you want to apply, email PMTintern at barselsports.com.
We're obviously looking for someone younger, like hopefully local. That's not going to like – we're going to have to worry about them moving all their shit to New York for the summer.
But, yeah. Yes, we're looking for an intern.
And also be ready because PFT is going to try to co-opt you to be his personal assistant. I'm way behind on my expense reports, guys.
PFT was like, we need an intern. I'm behind on my expense reports.
He's like, that's a personal assistant. He's like, well, I need the person to also take care of Leroy.
No, I wasn't saying. Managing Leroy is a full-time job at this point now.
I'm telling you.

But yeah, we're looking for somebody for part of my take.

Now, Hank, what type of experience or what type of person should this individual be?

Again, like I said, ideally younger.

We're not looking for, you know, like... Or very old.

Yeah.

Yeah, actually.

No, we would take a 70-year-old.

We discussed this.

Yeah.

I would like to have maybe a 75-year-old woman or a man.

Or a man.

If your dad... That has no experience with the internet.
If your parents, grandparents live in the New York City area and they have nothing going on all summer, we will absolutely take an elderly intern. Video, audio experience.
Don't just send your resume. Send reels.
Send examples of work. We'll probably do interviews.
We need an old intern.

Maybe that's like a two-time-a-week intern,

but we need a young intern to do everything Hank just said.

Yeah, but we'll probably do interviews next week.

PMT intern at parcel sports.com.

Good.

Make it happen.

All right, what else we got on FAQs?

Can you retell the story of how you bullied Nyquist,

the horse off the internet, for the newer listeners?

Yeah, so basically what happened was Nyquist won the Kentucky Derby, and then there were some allegations of it putting on weight right afterwards, like it got fat and happy. Essentially, he had a Twitter, and we just took his ass down.
And then we started tweeting at the horse and threatening it with the glue factory and stuff like that. And then it shut down and made a big announcement of getting off Twitter.
Now, then this will surprise you. There's a big thing out there called horse Twitter, which is people who own horses make Twitter accounts for their horses.
And so all these random horses started tweeting at me. That'd be weird to make a Twitter account for your animal.
Very. Like I said, I don't run that account.
Okay. Anyways, listen, if Nyquist was breaking news about like Cincinnati Bengals new free agent signings, if Nyquist was out there being anything but just a fat ass resting on his laurels after winning one fucking race, then we would have maybe pulled off him a little bit.
But we got him off Twitter. And now he's off Twitter for good.
And he released a statement which was very, very funny being like, people are too mean on social media. Yeah, the horse released a statement about us.
Fuck that bitch. And then, you know what? You know what? We got his Twitter handle, too.
Yeah, that's true. So I own the old Nyquist Twitter handle after he deactivated, so he can never come back online and take that.
Yeah, you're dead, bitch. Fuck you.
Nyquist. We should go visit Nyquist.
Yeah bully him in person give him a horse wedgie

I fucking hate you

flick his ears

hey we're still here

you might be off Twitter

but we're still here

fact or fiction

this is a woe

that someone sent in

the term bucket list

did not exist

until the 2007 movie

bucket list

fiction

somehow that idiom

has inserted itself

into the entire universe

fiction

it comes from

kick the bucket

so a list of stuff

you want to do

before you kick the bucket

that's what I thought

where does kick the bucket

come from

Thank you. How that idiom has inserted itself into the entire universe.
Fiction. It comes from kick the bucket.
So a list of stuff you want to do before you kick the bucket.

That's what I thought.

Where does kick the bucket come from?

Kick the can.

No.

No, kick the bucket.

Like, hey, Paul's about to die.

Better bring in that bucket he's always wanted to kick.

Maybe it's like a suicide thing.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Hanging.

Trying to hang it.

You made it bad, Hank.

That's you.

We didn't.

We were having fun.

You made it bad.

Shame.

I'll be right back. I think.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Hanging. Trying to hang it bad.
You made it bad, Hank. That's you.

We didn't.

We were having fun.

You made it bad.

Shame.

Another woe that's a fact or fiction.

Your foot is the same size as your forearm to your elbow to wrist.

This is one of those situations where someone wrote it in to see how stupid we'd be to do this. Hey, Big Cat, did you know that your hand smells like cherries? Oh, man.
I'm just going to take off my shoe. Yeah.
That's pretty good. That's a way smarter way.
Yeah, way smarter. I just fucking hacked that shit so fast.
I'm not flexible enough. Yeah, I think it's actually true.
Whoa. But what is that even? I guess you can look at people's forearms and be like, I don't have to look at your shoe.
I was going to say that. Yeah.
The other way. And then I'm just going to rattle some of these off.
People sent in some ideas for our new studio. Okay.
Someone said knee hockey nets. Meh.
Scratch and sniff wallpaper. Yes.
Okay. A dry erase board.
Leather wallpaper. That's actually the classiest thing you can do.
That's pretty sweet. A dry erase board of ongoing vets.

Yeah, we need one of those.

One of those popcorn candy things from carnivals.

Hot dog machine.

Funnel cake.

The 7-Eleven.

Dude, imagine we just walk in and there's dogs on deck at all times.

Yeah, that'd be pretty cool.

Also, one of the nacho cheese dispensers.

That'd be so gross.

We would never clean it.

A fold into the wall bed when you need to recharge the batteries on a long day and night. I was thinking about that.
Murphy bed. Yeah.
Very classy. Murphy bench.
That's what Big Cat said. Yeah.
What if we made, though, a Murphy bed, but it was like the Willy Wonka bed where all the grandparents slept in it together. So it was a Murphy bed that all four of us could sleep in together when we need to recharge the battery.
And we get matching PMT nightcaps and gowns. And we go head to toe, so no weird stuff.
That's it. I just realized, though, PFT, someone sent GOT prediction, Ghost comes back to kill John because John didn't pet Ghost.
There we go. I love it.
I hope that's what happens. Yes.
Also, happy 5'10 today. That's for people my height.
Yeah, actually, I saw someone tweet very ugly on 5'7".

They said, happy PFT Day.

I was like, that's very ugly.

Lies don't faze me.

That's very ugly.

Why don't you just chill out, blaze a nug.

It's Friday.

Love you guys.

Except for the person that thought it was 5'7".

I actually love you, too, even though Hank doesn't. I'm just saying I'll stay anyway.
Today's a lot of days to find you.

Shine away.

I'll be coming for your love, pray.

Shine away.

I'll be coming for your love, pray.

Take on me.

Take on me.

Take on me. Take on me I want to say it.
I'll be somewhere to play Take on me. Take care.
Thank you. Ready or not? Take me out.